One Ghost Per Serving (35 page)

Eric parked at the I-80 truck stop. He packed up his laptop and headed into a lounge area with Nathan and Rex.

“Gonna do some online shopping?” Rex said, glancing at the laptop.

“Let’s say we’re going to watch a local access show,” Eric said.

“We’re going to do what?” Nathan said, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion.

“You’ll see.”

Eric started a video chat with Taffy.

“I’m still waiting for the spores to fully rehydrate,” she said. “But it could be soon.”

Taffy and Nathan watched Eric with curiosity as he tapped some keys. A grin spread across his face and he turned the laptop so Nathan and Rex could see the screen. They saw two giant semi trucks parked in front of a sprawling house.

“That’s DZ’s house.” Nathan was surprised. “He liked to have people over so he’s not alone. After a few visits, I realized that he didn’t actually like us or enjoy our company.” They kept their eyes focused on the screen as a tall, barrel-chested man with gray hair and the bearing of a military general approached the truck. Three men, whose biceps stretched out their red Nidus Monolithics Transportation polo shirts, followed.

Nathan continued. “The arcade, the gun room, the indoor swimming pool, the movie theater, the helicopter hangar with helipad – none of it was enough to keep him busy by himself, but he didn’t much like people, either.”

DZ came out the front door, his body language defensive. The man with the gray hair yelled and gestured, jabbed his finger at DZ, then the trucks, and sliced the air with his hand. The energy of the earth’s magma seemed to be funneling out through the crust and into this man.

“He’s really working him over,” Nathan said. “Who is that, his father?”

Rex laughed. “Oh, he’s
in
for it.”

Eric smiled. “DZ’s father gave him control over Quantal as a thing to play with, keep him gainfully busy. But DZ resented that, so he’s been using it as his chew toy.”

Nathan put up a hand. “Whoa, back up. You’re saying that DZ is in
charge
of Quantal? Quantal, as in our client, Cynosure’s client?”

“Cynosure was just a way for DZ to do that without anyone at Nidus figuring out what was going on,” Eric said.

Nathan fell back in his chair, stunned. “I can’t believe it. He’s been in charge of Quantal this whole time. Our client! And I didn’t even know!” He clapped his hands on his face like a tentacled creature was attacking him in a fifties horror movie.

DZ’s father gestured to the muscle, who got into the trucks and backed them out. DZ went over to a sedate German sedan and kicked the door panel. His father gave him a last warning, got into the sedan, and drove away.

Eric closed the feed. “DZ was keeping those service trucks on his property for personal use.”

“And you let that information slip to DZ’s father,” Nathan said.

“To the director of transportation for Nidus, who told his boss.” Eric shrugged.

“After you installed a camera on DZ’s property.” The corners of Nathan’s lips curled up. “And he has some heavy security there.”

“Nice, Dad,” Taffy said.

Eric peered out the window to the front of the truck stop, watching for the other Nidus trucks to show up. They weren’t due for a few minutes.

“The spores are rehydrating already.” Taffy leaned in close to the screen.

Eric took in a breath. He didn’t want the spores to rehydrate quite yet. He was depending on the timing to work out just right. A honk drew Eric’s attention back to the window, and he was relieved to see five red Nidus trucks pull into the lot in a caravan.

Eric met the possessed truck drivers, otherwise known as the spirits from group, out by the restaurant.

“Driving a truck is
so awesome
,” one of the drivers said.

“Which one are you?’ Eric said.

“He Who Eats Mucous,” the driver said.

“You know you can’t stay in there,” Eric said, giving him a look.

He Who Eats Mucous phased out and back into his usual form as the other drivers gathered around Eric. The driver was dazed and held his head.

“Everyone else.” Eric made a winding motion. “Let them go. Remember group? Remember the badges? You work hard for those. Why? Because you want to stop possessing people.”

“Maybe we don’t,” one of the possessed drivers said, then held up a hand. “Uh, He Who is Delicious.”

“You do.” Eric was stern. “You don’t need to take over someone’s life to have one of your own.”

“Look,
Snackerge-human
, I’m a jar of pickles in a crabby old lady’s house. My reward for sitting there on a shelf, unopened, for a hundred years, was becoming a spirit. Yay,” he said with sarcasm. “Don’t you think I want to get out once in a while?”

A second driver growled. Eric presumed that was He Who Digs In.

“Yeah,” a third driver said.

“And you are?” Eric asked.

“He Who Reclines. These truckers get to go all over the place. They’re always on the move. The only thing I get to do is go to group.”

One of the drivers made a whistling sound.

“He Who Cleans?” Eric said.

“I’m here,” one of the five truckers said with a resigned tone.

“You’re the group facilitator.” Eric stretched out a hand. “Anything you want to say?”

The sprite-as-three-hundred-pound-trucker sighed and hitched up his pants. “I do so much for the Dixons. I have stopped three home invasions. I have foiled at least a dozen Halloween-related attacks, some involving eggs. My household protection and management skills would hold up against an English butler’s in a pre-WWI country estate.”

Eric considered this. “Can’t you be a household sprite in some other household, for some other family? Maybe the Dixons are just ungrateful jerks.”

The sprite-as-trucker blinked baggy, heavy-lidded eyes. “Well. Perhaps they are.”

“Let the truckers go.” Eric crossed his arms. “You all gave me your word.”

The spirits pouted, but phased slowly out of the truck drivers. With the spirits gone, the drivers all looked a little sheepish, as though coming to from a blackout period was not that unusual. The drivers wandered over to a picnic table where Eric had conveniently left a twelve-pack of beer, and drank in silence.

Eric held a finger up to the spirits indicating that he’d be back, but they followed him into the truck stop. He Who Eats Grapes, He Who Dances for Ladies, and even She Who Floats, the floating jellyfish head, joined the others in the group and trailed behind.

“What are we doing – is it a surprise party?” He Who Dances for Ladies asked.

Eric returned to his laptop. “Okay, my process neutralized those spirits in the spores,” Taffy told Eric on video chat. “I can repeat the process for the yogurts in the truck.”

“What about the yogurts we can’t get to?” Eric said.

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Rex said.

“Taffy, just to let you know, we have some company.” Eric gave her a look which basically said, ‘I know that sounds crazy but since you’re neutralizing spirits in spores anyway, maybe you’ll go with it.’

She shrugged and raised her eyebrows, which said, ‘Yeah, so?’

“There’s a spirit here,” Eric clarified. “A ghost. An insubstantial entity.”

“Oh,
I’m
insubstantial?” Rex said, then narrowed his eyes and leaned toward Eric. “Who was watching
Camel Toe Intervention
on TV the other day? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t me.”

Eric gave Rex a withering look. “Can you work with her to figure out a way to get the spirits out of people or not?”

“Well, she could be my daughter, so, yes,” Rex said.

“She is
not
your daughter,” Eric said.

“WHAT?” Taffy said.

“Nothing, honey.” Eric squeezed her shoulder.

Eric noticed something peculiar on the TV at the corner of the room. He found a remote and raised the volume.

“This is Larson Hark reporting from Jamesville Regional Airport.”

A blur of people passed around Hark, who wore a blue raincoat with a hood, like a weatherman reporting from a beach during a hurricane. Even though he was buffeted and elbowed and occasionally punched, not to mention barfed on, he resolutely held his ground in the very middle of the airport terminal.

“Wow, he’s an idiot,” Taffy said.

Hark raised his voice over the din. “All of the airport’s concession stands have closed, and hordes of weary travelers are exhibiting –” A man took Hark’s raincoat in his fists and tore the sleeve off, causing Hark to drop his microphone, fall to the ground, then scramble to stand back up with his mic and a semblance of dignity, “– extreme behavior.”

“Yes, but he could be a useful idiot,” Eric went back to the video chat. “Taffy, when you and Rex find a way to get the commerce spirits out of the people who are infected with them, I’ll give Hark a call. The stadium was a decoy, but –”

“The airports weren’t,” Nathan said, his mouth set in a firm line.

“You knew?” Taffy said to Nathan. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

Nathan sighed. “I’ll give myself enough of a hard time about it, I promise you.”

Eric took his laptop to a corner of the truck stop’s lounge area and set it down on a tiny desk. He checked the time then invited Willa to a video chat, thinking – hoping – that she was doing office hours. She wasn’t available. He thumbed through a copy of
Love in the Time of Cholera
that was left behind on the wide arm of a chair for five minutes. He tried again and she responded.

“Are you familiar with the HVAC system at the Jamesville Regional Airport?” Eric said.

“Hello to you, too,” Willa said, in a dry tone.

“Hi.”

There was a small pause.

“Where’s Taffy?”

“At school,” Eric said.

“Is there a problem?”

“Just a bug that’s been going around. So, how familiar are you with that system?”

“I’m familiar,” she said.

Eric knew that probably meant she was the lead engineer on the project. “Can you disperse an agent through the vents so it reaches everyone inside the airport?”

She laced her fingers on the video chat and he knew she was going to lay into him for something.

“I know that you’ve had a rough time of it lately,” she said, with measured diction. “You’ve had to live in the Princess –”

“It’s not the Princess anymore.”

She lowered her eyes and rubbed her forehead, then looked back up. “I hear you lost a job. And I know that Mark stepping in to help us has –”

“Hold on.” Eric grabbed the laptop and brought it in closer. “Mark didn’t
step in to help you
. He stepped in to
move in
on you. And what help did you need that I couldn’t give you? You make enough on your own to support Taffy –”

She laughed. “Just barely.”

“Taffy is probably making more than both of us. I saw her money clip.”

“Her money clip?” Willa’s eyes narrowed.

“She’s been selling her own candy in school.”

Willa smiled, then refocused, and spoke in a measured tone. “Look, we can discuss this later. Right now I’d like to talk about your … plan. Remember, you have a daughter who looks up to you. And we may be having some problems, but taking it out on innocent people in an airport is not –”