Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (48 page)

A long, low noise started under the sound of the storm; a
dragging moan lifted from the shore and then cut off as though whisked away on the wind. A female ghost from two rows to the left over started drifting closer, whispering something that I couldn’t quite catch.

“No-no,” I said. “Don’t do that. Don’t go into stampede mode or anything. Settle down there, mist-face.”

The ghosts she passed noted her movement, and drifted with
her, slipping into one another, passing through, stirring like foggy broth. I went to my backpack quickly and grabbed the scrying board.

All motion stopped in my peripheral vision and I glanced up. They had all gone still to stare directly at me, each and every one of them.

“Fuckanut,” I whispered.
They won’t hurt me
, I told myself, but my fat lip begged to differ.
Where the fuck are you, Father Scarrow
?

I was about to take my gloves off to lay fingers on the planchette when my phone vibrated. I dug it out and looked at the text.

From Schenk:
GPS check on Scarrow’s phone shows it in the vicinity of the tunnel. Going there
.
Guard opening gates
.

“Well, double-fuckanut.” I looked across the shallow water to the other side of the pond, where the land took a small rise before it would dip again to the Blue Ghost Tunnel. At least Schenk would be able to drive most of the way there until the unplowed snow bogged him down. I had to decide whether to hoof it back to the car, which
was probably buried, or find my way around or across the pond. I didn’t know which would be the better choice, but rolled off my
glove and texted back:
Ok, on my way
.

Need the good news, Cinderblock,
he texted.
Tell me something reassuring.

I replied:
Isn’t that what hookers are for?
but after a moment's consideration, and because I couldn’t bear the thought of knowing
that Longshanks was heading to a ghost-infested tunnel with his nerves on fire, I added,
I’ve got everything we need. Just find Scarrow. It’s going to be okay. Only enter tunnel without me if you must. Rid yourself of doubt
and fear.
Then, thinking of the Twizzlers, added,
Leave your gun in the
car.

He didn’t reply. I set my jaw tightly, mentally willing him to
agree, feeling my brow furrow with concern. I repeated,
no gun,
adding half a dozen exclamation points after it.

When he replied:
got it,
I set my phone to take video, leaned it against the evidence box, and pressed the button to start recording. Then I took off my other glove.

“All right-y then,” I announced, laying my bare fingers on the planchette. “It’s time to put this congress to work.”

THE INSTANT MY
flesh touched the cool wood of the planchette I had the undivided attention of every spook, specter, and spirit in the
vicinity. Several closest to me began to whisper, their secrets intimate, appealing to me to hear their pleas; it was almost
impossible to ignore the voices of the dead, but I kept my head down, glancing up only to make sure none of them were coming at me too quickly or showing
signs of aggression. For the most part their hollow entreaties sounded nostalgic, aching for the warmth of life or simple
acknowledgment.

As the Blue Sense began to rise, I could sense their collective confusion. They did not, as a congress, understand why they had been called forth, nor did they understand who I was, or by what
mechanism
they were stuck, but they did know, in no uncertain terms, where they were: home, and lingering by their own remains. Some of them were only now coming to grips with the fact that they were dead. Even having been gone for so long, some had never truly processed
crossing
over. They had been in one good place and then another with no sense of loss or change. These were the people who had died
peacefully, surrendered to Death and to Heaven without fight or trauma. Others knew they were dead, but had earned their accession and had been at peace; they were not happy to be back and longed for release.

“Just one favor before you go,” I promised. “Kind of a life-and-death favor, okay?” I had been crouching beside the scrying board.
Now I sat right down in the snow and straightened my back, and addressed them in a loud, clear voice. “Humble spirits, I beseech thee. Draw from the water the strength you require, and having
done so, return beyond the veil to the peace you crave.”

Some of them got the gist of it right away. I watched as ice formed on the surface of the pond, first as the sheen of frost which cracked and dissipated; I could practically see the change in temperature as the
spirits drew heat from their surroundings. Further out, another crystalline sheet, forming and breaking, drifted and began to solidify under the multitude of spectral shades. Overhead thunder was
muffled by the heavy fall of snow. What had Father Scarrow said about thunder-snow? (
“Ionized air during a lightning storm offers up more energy for the incorporeal human entity to draw upon.”)
The scrying board dusted with mixed ice pellets and flakes as they slanted down around me.

Soon, one crystalline sheet became two, and four, like
multiplying amoebas, and joined each to each, crackling against one another, a bridge of ice across the pond. The wind snatched away the sounds of
their effort, but each spirit had something to say on the matter, a cry of wonder, a moan of exertion, a final whispered secret, told desperately through the fog of spectral mist. I nodded at them, and
reassured them,
“I hear you. Leave your words with me. I will speak for you.” Probably, I should have taken notes. Shorthand. Something. I was a
lousy secretary for the dead.

When the combined whisper of six hundred dead overpowered
the howl of the wind, I began to think that I’d made a mistake in promising I’d deliver their messages. There were so many, and I couldn’t understand a word of it, now. Hopefully, my phone was capturing enough to filter through later. The whispering slowly shifted into a litany, over and over, repeated by rote, softly at first, but growing louder and more insistent. They wanted something. I was wrong: it was
one
message. When I figured out what they were saying, the
words sucker punched me low in the belly.

“We remain,” they said, angrily, sadly, confusedly. “We remain. We remain.” And then, simply, “Don’t leave us.”

My throat clamped up with regret and my eyes stung. They repeated as one, “Don’t leave us.” My vision blurred and I blinked
away tears, forcing myself to focus. They felt betrayed, and alone, and forgotten here, beneath the water. I had to fight hard not to get hypnotized, drawn in by the depth of their melancholy.

I saw that the heat sapped from the pond had made enough ice to form a bridge across the water, hopefully thick enough to bear my weight. Every dead gaze was firmly fixed upon my face, beseeching eyes, despondent looks, the faces of those long passed who should never have had to face the living again, and whose bones should never have been forgotten here.

“I see you,” I said. “I will return, and I
will
speak for you. Go now, and be at peace.”

I slid the planchette to GOODBYE and bid them farewell.

As one body, and with one united sigh, they blew away with the wind.

“OKAY, MOTHER NATURE,
don’t fail me now,” I said, hopping to my feet and stuffing the scrying board away. I stopped the recording on my phone and tucked it away then shoved my gloves back on. “Before I can volunteer as poltergeist bait again, I need to get from here,” I pointed at the little spit of land that jutted into the pond to the land on the other side; now hidden by the dense falling snow, “to there, without going ass over antlers and into the drink, ya feel me?”

Mother Nature was not quiet; she raged all around me with her blowing snow and gusting winds. She didn’t want to play nice. I was fairly certain my eyebrows were frozen.

“And from there,” I told her, “I shall rescue the holy man and commence witching the blessed dogsnot out of that poltergeist. I think. I hope. The congress was nice enough to build me a bridge.” I
stared up at the unfriendly skies. “Please, Dread Lady, if you make me light of foot, I won’t eat another donut hole as long as I live. I swear on the last Timbit on Earth.”

I hoisted the backpack onto my shoulder and took the evidence box in my arms, checked my phone to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and zipped it into the pocket of my parka for safekeeping. Cautiously, I set one foot on the ice bridge.

It creaked and something deep underneath complained with a
snap!
“Now, be nice. I know the water is only a foot deep at the edge, but I don’t know what it’s going to look like halfway across, so, bear with me.” I lifted my left foot off the shore and set it on the ice. After
two tiny
snip-crinkles
, the ice didn’t seem to shift much. “Okay, good. This is good.
Juuuuuuust
like this.” I shuffled a few steps ahead,
shifting the evidence box so it was secure in my arms. A few more steps. The water on either side of the bridge looked fairly shallow. I held my breath, glancing back at the shore as I slid like a kid pretending to
skate, not lifting my feet but skidding forward little by little. The shore got further away. The cold seeped through my ski mask; my ears ached. It seemed like the apparitions had drawn an enormous amount of heat away from this area in particular. The further across
the pond I went,
the colder the fog became, until I was slinking through near-frozen soup. The air puffing from the little nostril holes in my ski mask misted and the fabric of the mask was crusty and hard. For a moment the snow let up and I could see where I was going. She
wasn’t fooling me; I knew that any second Mother Nature would blast me again. This storm was what my Grandpa Matts would have called a humdinger.

“Please, Mother Nature, don’t—” Thunder-snow jolted me and I jumped a little, enough to rattle the ice beneath me. I felt it shifting and cracking, and froze in place. “Oh, bitch!” I whispered fiercely.

Terror struck, I couldn’t move. The water still looked fairly shallow; ahead, it got too murky to judge its depth. When my hands
stopped shaking and my knees felt less wobbly, I started to shuffle step again, talking to myself aloud as I went. “Dear Diary: I think I just peed my pants a little.”
Shuffle, shuffle
. “I’d like to say it was the first time since Kindergarten,”
Shuffle, slip, shuffle.
“Buuuut I think we both know that would be a lie. Love, Marnie.”

Humor helped; self-deprecation, a classic Baranuik defense mechanism. I kept my eye on the other side of the pond,
daydreaming that not only was Scarrow fine and dandy, but he had successfully exorcised Mama-Captain without me, said “Shoo!” to the cowardly spirit of John Briggs-Adsit, and Schenk was fine, and they had summoned up an ambulance and were sitting inside it getting warm
and saving me a coffee and a warm blanket. They might even have a brownie, still warm from the oven. Not a donut hole, because I promised I wasn’t going to eat those anymore. Sweets and warmth
and safety. Yes, that’s probably what was happening over there. Of course it was.
Positive thinking. De Cabrera would be so proud, yes he would. I closed my eyes and could almost feel the near-future burn of too-hot coffee on my tongue. All I had to do was keep talking, keep
shuffling, and get to them.

“Dear Diary: I fell in this water yesterday.”
Shuffle, slide
. “Was it only yesterday? No, two days ago. When was it?”
Slip, shuffle
. “Fuck it, whenever. It was cold. And unpleasant. And even though I was
only grabbed by a branch,”
shuffle, whimper,
“I know damn well there
are six hundred skeletons under that mud, all heaved-up and
unboxed. And the mud is really mushy, and I’m sure I’d sink up to my waist.
And then what?”
Shuffle
. My breath hitched in as my throat constricted around my voice box and made my declaration a squeak.
“Then I’d be waist-deep in mushy-gushy mud surrounded by icky, old, brown
skeletons grabbing at me.” I paused to consider this. “Okay,
probably they wouldn’t grab at me. But they’d poke me in the butt and stuff. Don’t you just hate being butt-poked by skeletons? Of course you
do. Everyone does. It’s very un-cool. And then I'd die of
hypothermia. Love, Marnie.”

That conversation was a lot less helpful, and I tried to push the
thought of old bones and a soggy death out of my mind. “Dear
Diary: When I get home, I’m going to retire again, and spend all my time harassing Mark Batten for hot sex, wrestling him out of his pants, biting his shoulder, and digging my fingernails into his beautiful ass. Yes. Now, that is what I call a solid fucking plan. Pun intended. Love, Marnie.”

It wasn’t going to happen, but it sure sounded good. I
wondered, as I shuffled away from the deep middle of the pond toward the opposite shoreline if he had actually broken my vibrator, and if he was actually replacing it, and if he was actually buying the biggest one he could find, which would be, if my memory of the closest sex shop in Boulder served me correctly, the Cockasaurus Rex 3000. I
wouldn’t mind owning one for laughs, but I sincerely doubted
anyone outside the porn industry would get much use out of it for anything but home defense. The thing was the size of a Dachshund.