Ghost Guard 2: Agents of Injustice (15 page)

Rev squinted at him. “You wouldn’t know a guy named Morris would you? Because you sound a lot like him.”

“Rev, stop screwing around!” Abby fought with her captors. “Get your ass out of here! That’s an order!”

“He can’t,” Ron answered for him, stepping up to the stage where the burly men had Abby restrained. He sauntered close, so close they were chest to chest, his eyes low, staring down at her cleavage. Then, slowly, his sights climbed her neckline to her eyes. She shuddered at the lecherous slime, like a snake had just climbed up her spine. “He’s ours now.”

He gestured toward the man with the soul snare. With a nod, the man angled the snare at Rev and, instantly, a terrifying transformation took place. Rev’s solid body flickered and faded like it was a picture on an old television set. Odd eruptions of distorted light made him fade to black and white, and then to nothing at all as his essence broke into tiny particles and jetted into the soul snare in one, final, sickening gulp.

While Katherine whimpered for Rev, Ron clapped his hands, raising his voice to his public address volume. “Ladies and gentlemen, excellent work. We have them at last!” he spoke to a round of applause, much like the one that Abby and Rev received for their masterful performance, only this one was for a different kind of performance. Bitter and ironic, a desperate drama unfolding in front of everyone’s eyes.

Ron nodded at the hooded man with the soul snare. The man, with an entourage of two others, one in front and one behind, nodded in return. Silently they made their way through the swollen gathering, now all settling back into their seats.

“What have you done to him!” Abby gave the men a good scare with her skills. It took another man, a third, with a firm grip, to subdue her. “Goddammit let him go!”

Ron laughed a rich and privileged laugh, a laugh of someone who was used to getting away with murder.

“Not this one,” he pressed the interface on the soul snare. “This one is going to give us all kinds of power.”

“What are you talking about!” Abby struggled even harder. “What kind of power! For what!”

“I think if you search deep down, you’ll know,” he said. “You see we aren’t backward thinking luddites like most religions. We look forward, and as such we embrace technology. And this is the technology that will enable us to do what all good religions attempt but fail at so miserably.”

He seized the snare, holding it in his own hands, feeling the energy coursing like a low level shock. It was good.

“With these, using the technology developed by your precious Doctor Petrovic,
we’ve discovered the way to harness the power of souls, the most powerful souls, in order to control the forces of darkness. Truly, a new dark age is about to descent upon the world, and The Singulate will be on the forefront.”

“You’re certifiably insane!” Abby shouted to a roomful of low laughter.

“If you only knew how many times we’ve been called that. For decades we’ve been working, perfecting, testing the technology that will enable us to achieve our goals. And now we are closer than ever to the culmination.” He precipitated a hearty response. Applause, shouts, and whistles. “If you knew the amount of time and devotion we’ve put into this moment, and the moments to come. If you knew the meticulous, painstaking, single-minded devotion of our technicians and spiritual practitioners. All I can tell you is His Immanence will be pleased, quite pleased.”

Another outburst of robust enthusiasm. Abby was convinced these people might possibly be the most deluded, yet at the same time most absurdly dangerous people on the planet. An entire organization comprised of some of the richest and most powerful individuals in the world, pooling their vast resources to develop an unnatural technology that would have dreadful ramifications. She didn’t want to think of the possibilities. Demons and djinn and goblins and all manner of devilish creatures running amok under the control of an evil sorcerer. The idea shook her to the core. Total enslavement and persecution of the human race. A scorched earth policy in every corner of the globe. The real possibility of a Hell on Earth.

“Of course by now you might have guessed we haven’t quite worked out all the bugs from our interpretations of Petrovic’s designs. The doctor stubbornly refuses to help, so we’ve managed to reverse engineer much of it. But our machine is not quite complete. We need a young mind, an ingenious thinker who pushes the boundaries of science much the same way Emile Petrovic does.”

“Let me guess,” Abby got a sick feeling in her gut. “You mean Morris.”

“Very perceptive of you,” Ron nodded at the men holding Abby in their custody. She resisted, but they were too strong. And when she felt the pinprick on her neck, she knew she’d been drugged. It took only seconds before she was out cold.

Chapter 18

Morris, for all intents and purposes, looked the part of a Pacific Northwest nature enthusiast. Boots from Danner. A pair of crisply ironed Patagonia khaki pants. A wool-lined vest over a flannel red and black plaid long sleeve button-down. An orange stocking cap balanced on his head. A Garmin GPS firmly in his right palm. A sack of trail mix in his cargo pocket and purified spring water in his bota bag. Bushnell's Legend Ultra-HD binoculars dangling from his neck, which he stopped and held to his eyes on a regular basis.

He was the quintessential pocketbook outdoorsman, with all the essential gear for yuppie trailsmanship. Of course there was one small, conspicuous detail. One minor flaw in the otherwise perfect mountain man ensemble that made him stick out like a sore thumb.

The baby backpack.

Perched high over his shoulders and extending the length of his back to his rear, the pack had straps and buttons and pockets galore. It had one main section with a rounded canvas hood covering, but not shutting out completely, a pouch area where baby sat coolly and contentedly watching the rear view. Any normal baby probably would have been fine with it. A normal baby probably would have babbled or cooed or maybe even giggled a little along the journey. Not Ruby. Ruby hated being cooped up, hated the tight confines, and, most of all, hated what Morris was asking her to do. She hated it so much the normally vociferous and bubbly ghost uttered a total of two words on this improvised phase of their mission.

And they weren’t kind words.

“Ruby?” Morris tried to coax her out of the brooding silence. “Ruby, come on. It’s going to be a long walk if you won’t talk to me.”

Silence.

“Ruby, please. You know this is the best plan of action. I don’t like using the baby in the backpack routine, but you know how well it works. People think you’re adorable.”

Silence.

“Ruby, come now. You can’t possibly be this angry with me. After all, I’m the one who gave you the John Wayne Blu-ray box set for Christmas, remember?”

Silence.

He gave up. Ruby was angry, and when she was angry, like when she was in a good mood, she tended to take it to extremes. She was upset for many reasons, least of which the humiliation of riding in that godforsaken baby carrier. She wasn’t a baby
DAMN IT!
despite her outwardly appearance, which vaguely resembled an infant. And despite her occasional bout of bawling when she didn’t get what she wanted, she felt disrespected because she happened to be the oldest. Morris was fully aware of the irony. However, he had no time for ego massaging. Abby’s radio had been on during last night’s dinner party. Morris had heard everything.

“I don’t care if you’re angry with
me
, but at least you can take this mission seriously for the sake of the rest of the team. Our friends are in there,” he pointed through sparse evergreens. The lodge’s uppermost gables hovered over the treetops. “And we’re the only ones who can get them out. But we have no chance without you.”

She knew he was placating her. It did wonders for her ego. But it wasn’t doing a thing for her overriding and debilitating fear. Terror so preeminent it shut her down completely, forcing her into a catatonic silence Morris could only see as a scream for help.

“Ruby, let me ask you a question,” he decided to attack it from a different angle. “You’re a John Wayne fan, right?”

She didn’t utter a sound, though he didn’t need an answer. It was common knowledge around Gasworks that whenever a screen was idle for more than a few minutes, one of the Duke’s films would show up spontaneously. In fact there was never a time when, somewhere in the building, a John Wayne movie wasn’t playing.

“Tell me, Ruby. I’m curious. What do you think the Duke would do if he was confronted with a situation where three of his friends were being held captive? I think we both know the answer.”

It didn’t take another word. Ruby erupted from her silence like a supernatural volcano, shouting a battle cry that would have inspired the legendary actor to wake from the dead. All of a sudden she took it as a challenge. What would the Duke do? He would charge in guns a blazing…no, he’d sneak in all cool and smooth. Maybe even—

“At the very least he wouldn’t turn tail and run, would he?”

Her low and humble squeak said ‘no.’

“He wouldn’t be afraid, would he?”

Another meek groan, another ‘no.’

“That’s right. He’d go in there, show The Singulate just what he was made of, and save his friends. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Ruby agreed via more pops and squeaks. Then she added one more thing, something Morris failed to mention. The Duke would have done all those things, yes. However, never, at any time, would he have dressed like a baby. Then she reminded him how serious this situation was, that The Singulate was nothing to trifle with. The bottom line was she had concerns. What, exactly, was his plan? Just waltz right in there and get our friends back?

“Well, Ruby. In a manner of speaking, yes.” Morris had every confidence in his technology and in his skills. “I’m certain if I can get within a one hundred meter radius of their soul snare technology I can disable it remotely. I don’t have time to explain, but suffice to say that they won’t be snaring any souls any time soon after.”

Ruby was dubious, and spouted it out like a little child, which was perfect for Morris. After all, she was supposed to be a baby.

The road took them past a large rocky butte, ensconced between the cliff face and the clear, cool blue waters of The Singulate reservoir. The Singulate compound was a meandering Panchaea of million dollar homes arraigned loosely in quaint, wooded settings. Its tidily paved streets were fortified by speed bumps and lined with healthy pines, spruces, and cedars. A neighborhood of upscale residences—vacation homes, full-time domiciles, and snow bird destinations—nestled in the foothills with the snowcapped peaks of the Three Sisters glowing happily in the distance. The idyllic and majestic place seemed a picture from a postcard. It should have been a place of natural splendor rich with history and heritage and clean living. Instead, as Ruby could attest, it had the taint of a negative supernatural impression, like the way the air smells after a massacre. The stench of unspeakable tragedy lingered.

Morris hadn’t understood or felt what Ruby was talking about fully. To the non-sensitive person it looked like a playground for the opulent. Clear mountain streams. Calm, wide lakes. Tall alpine summits. Skiing and fishing and hunting and hiking and all manner of other outdoor experiences. And if that didn’t float their boats, Morris spotted a world-class golf course, tennis and basketball courts, and a sports field. It was a self-contained community tucked away in the semi-arid high desert.

Birds were chirping and the soft, flowing sound of the wind through the evergreens brought with them a stoic and picturesqueness unparalleled in most places. The whole scene would have been a paradise if not for the ever-present sense of foreboding.

Finally they spotted their first vehicle. A black Chevy Suburban with ominously tinted windows and the large, imposing word SECURITY on the side.

The Suburban pulled to Morris’s side quickly and jerked to a stop as the driver put it into park a little too hastily. The door flew open and out popped a giant of a man in uniform, twice the size of Morris.

Okay, Ruby
…Morris thought to her. It was the only way to communicate and not be heard by the burly security guard. Late twenties, cropped bright blonde hair with clean shaven eyebrows, almost too clean shaven.
It’s showtime!

“I’m going to have to ask that you stop right there, sir.” The guard, Thaddeus Paulson was his name (but everyone called him TP), placed his palm on his Glock in the holster. Just in case. This hiker looked suspicious, and there was a heightened alert lately. Something about a group of government spooks trying to infiltrate the place. TP hated the thought of government spooks, and laughed at the irony of the word. Most people, when they used the word ‘spook,’ were talking about spies. The Singulate was talking about spies, yes, but they were actual spooks also. Ghosts. Spectral trash for all TP cared. He just wanted to do his job, and do it well enough so his benefactors would notice and maybe, just maybe, he’d get out of this nowhere security bullshit.

Morris went to the script immediately, giving TP no time for a countermove. Quick and bold, Morris hugged him tightly, shaking and giggling to the point of hysterics. All part of the act. The hapless, lost, and panic-stricken hiker who, out of city-folk naivety, found himself, and his eighteen month old daughter, “Stranded like Robinson Crusoe.”

TP merely stood with his arms extended awkwardly and his brow furrowed to the most wrinkled it could possibly get. He was genuinely stupefied at this discovery, and, at least for a minute or two, was fooled by what he saw and heard.

“Thank God!” Morris kept saying. “Thank God, thank God, thank God!”

The two separated, which was a welcome thing for TP, who was uncomfortable with that whole bromance thing.

“What seems to be the problem, sir?” TP’s stunned response was an autonomic one.

Morris was out of breath, or at least he acted as such. “We were hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Have you heard of it? It’s thought to be the original migration trail for the natives for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Anyway, we were on the trail and got separated from our group. I got into a little argument with the wife…you know how that goes. So she goes one way and I go the other, and wouldn’t you know it…she has the GPS! So I just start walking and walking and…I’m lost! Oh, thank God I found you! I thought we’d be out here for days, and I was so scared for my little Ruby.”

He unstrapped the pack, popping open the buttons as he spoke, sliding the metal frame off his shoulders. A welcome relief. The burden had tightened his lumbar region. He lowered the giant, unwieldy thing to the ground and let it lean against his leg.

TP was confounded. He thought he had taken control of the situation, but right away things had gone south. He didn’t need one of these idiotic Portlanders with their idiotic problems messing up what had started out as a nice and worry-free day. Aside from those spooks. He was on high alert for them, and this was a distraction. A bothersome and unwanted distraction. He simply didn’t have time for this. Of course it was all an internal dialog running through TP’s troubled head, all meant to do one thing—keep from fawning over the baby.

Of course it didn’t work. He loved babies.

“You poor little thing,” TP spotted the tiny pink slippers and his heart melted. He didn’t need to see anything else. Just those miniature feet. They were so cute and tiny and…he reached for them and something cold and sharp and fast slashed at him. He pulled his hand away just in time. “Hey! What the..?”

“Oh, sorry,” Morris was red-faced. Not from embarrassment, but from fury over Ruby’s blatant breach of protocol. Clawing the enemy was a surefire way to blow their cover, so Morris scoured his lightning fast thought processes for a plausible cover story. “She’s teething, and let me tell you, she has a bite. I found that out the hard way. Plus, she hasn’t had anything to eat in a few hours. Her mother takes care of most of this stuff. We were hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, have you ever heard of it?”

TP nodded. “Yeah. I heard of it. The first time you mentioned it. And let me tell you, you’re nowhere near it.” He eyed Morris skeptically, then decided to believe him. He loved babies. “If she’s hungry, then we’d better get her something to eat, shouldn’t we, honey?” he leaned down and peered into the little domed covering, his first real attempt at getting a look at the impudent little child.

It was the shock of his young career.

That face. If you could call it a face. More like fungal growth with strange slits for eyes, one slightly larger and more rounded, one puckered and pus-filled. The nose had an upward crook, with deformed nostrils and oozing black and red splotches like blisters infected with gangrene. The head was altogether too large, and altogether the wrong shape, with a listing hump on the right temple, and a large lump of fleshy folds on the lower left jaw. The net effect was stupefying to TP’s senses, and a train of thought ran through his brain that he just couldn’t stop. He hated to be rude, hated to even think such things. But this kid was the ugliest infant he’d ever seen. The guys in the office were going to get a hell of a laugh out of this one. Only nobody would believe him. So he slowly, furtively, reached for his cellphone.

“Everything okay, Officer?” Morris couldn’t see what TP was doing. TP hurried and clicked the pic.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Fine. Your little girl…she’s uh…she’s cute.”

“Thanks,” Morris knew the man was lying. “She’s a special needs child.”

To that, Ruby grimaced. She’d been trying to get a rise from TP by making herself as ugly as possibly. But that didn’t seem to work, so she decided to make her opposition known with an ear-piercing howl. TP threw his hands over his head, protecting his eardrums from serious damage. Morris was used to it.

“We’d better hurry,” Morris said rather sheepishly. “She’s getting pretty cranky.”

“Sure, sure,” TP spoke into the radio receiver attached to his shoulder. “HQ, this is Patrol One,
over.”

“10-4 Patrol One.”

TP eyed the child carrier more carefully. Something about that kid. “I got a lost hiker—or hikers—a father and his baby. Say they’ve been lost several hours and need assistance. Advise, over.”