The 'Geisters (15 page)

Hirsch reached into his jacket pocket, and removed a small stainless steel hip flask. “Scotch,” he said. “I don’t know if your stomach is up for it—”

Ann took the flask before he’d even properly offered it, and drew a long swallow. It burned down her throat but her belly welcomed it like an old friend.

They sat quietly for a moment. A breeze crossed the room, slow and cool, as though it were coming from a distant place to the north. The fluorescent bar over the bed flickered, ever so slightly. Hirsch started, and looked sharply at his shoulder, as though he had been touched there. Ann offered him the flask back, and he took it, drew a mouthful.

“What’s it doing?” he finally asked.

“It might not be doing anything,” said Ann. “It might not even be here. After a while, your imagination can do almost everything the Insect can. It might be getting ready for something big. It never does the same thing twice. But . . . I don’t think it’s going to be bad.”

Hirsch screwed the cap back onto the flask and slipped it back into his pocket. Ann rubbed her temple; the whiskey was good, but she felt the beginning of a headache, and that was probably partly to blame. Still, she wouldn’t say no to another slug. Or three.

“Ian Rickhardt raped it, I think,” she said. “I think my husband—Michael did too.”

“I think you’re right,” he said softly. “That’s what it’s for, as far as they’re concerned. That’s why they trained it, all those years: to be unable to resist them. I hope it understands that’s not what I’m going to do.”

Ann shivered as the sheets of her bed billowed up her thighs, an icy wind manifesting underneath them.

“I hope so too,” she said, and looked at him. “What
are
you going to do, Mr. Hirsch?”

“Nothing it doesn’t want me to.”

“You’ll understand if I’m skeptical about that.” Ann looked around. The chill seemed to be leaving the room. Nothing that she could see was in motion. “You’ll understand if the Insect might be.”

“Is that meant as a threat?”

Ann shrugged. Inwardly, she tallied it up. They’d never met, she and this lawyer, who said he worked for Ian Rickhardt—who hadn’t so much as telephoned. He knew about the Insect. He wanted to take her somewhere safe.

Where no one else could see her, or find her.

And he knew about the Insect. And the only living people who knew about the Insect besides herself were her brother, who hadn’t spoken in a decade, and Eva, who was down with a stroke.

Even Michael . . .

Well, if he knew anything, he wouldn’t be saying. Not where he was.

“What are you smiling at?”

She hadn’t realized she had been. She blinked.

“Look,” said Hirsch, “I think I’ve got a bit of an idea of what you’re going through. You’re not the first woman that’s been caught in Rickhardt’s mill. It’s like you’re cut off from a piece of yourself. Things don’t connect like they should, isn’t that right? You’re out of joint.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll lay it on the line,” said Hirsch. “You probably have no idea—but you’re well-known in certain circles. The . . . thing that you’ve got following you around, maybe inside of you. It’s a commodity to men like Rickhardt, in those circles. Do you understand?”

Ann thought she did. “That’s how you know about the Insect, isn’t it? Because you’re a part of those circles too.”

Hirsch puffed out his cheeks and exhaled in a silent whistle.

“Lay it all on the line, I guess?” He grimaced. “Yes. I have been.”

“And you’re not now.”

“Something like that.”

“And you want to protect me from your old friends. No. Not me. You want to protect the Insect. Keep it for yourself.”

“That—”

“—is exactly what you want to do.”

Hirsch looked away, and his shoulders hunched a bit—like a preteen boy caught with porno. It was as good as an admission.

Ann went on. “You were never nervous about the prospect of the Insect coming out, were you? You were . . . you were excited. I’ve seen that before. You can’t wait to see how it goes; you can barely hold yourself back—”

“Mrs. Voors,” he said, “you’ve got—”

“Well Mr. Hirsch, let me clue you in. If you were to meet my Insect in the washroom back there, it wouldn’t go well. It would smash your head into the toilet. It would bend your spine to the breaking point. It would bend it
past
that point. It would kill you. If you were lucky.” Ann slid away from Hirsch as she spoke, until finally she was standing, on the opposite side of the bed. “But you might like that. You might just like that,” she said.

“Mrs. Voors,” he began, and she cut in:

“Stop calling me Mrs. Voors.”

Hirsch opened his mouth to say something else, but the breath caught in his throat. He half-stood—or at least that was how it seemed at first. As Ann watched, the lapels of his suit-jacket rose higher, as though they were tugging him. His arms spread, like wings starting to unfurl—and as the front of the jacket spread, Ann could see the fabric of his shirt creep up his chest, as though pulled by invisible fingers.

Ann stepped away so her back was against the drapes. The room was freezing now; she could see her breath in front of her face. She reached behind the drape—the sunlight through the window was warm on her hand, nourishingly so. She wanted to pull herself behind the curtains, bask in the Florida sunlight. But she couldn’t look away.

Hirsch was bending backwards, his hips thrust outward. His belt snaked through the loops of his trousers, slipping finally to the floor.

“Oh,” he said, in a soft, little-boy voice. “Oh thank you.”

How like Michael he was, then. Not Michael in the aircraft, spinning in the small space . . . No. Ann was struck how similar he was to that first date—lunch, on top of Toronto. Watching the salt and pepper shakers dance across the table.

Michael Voors’ dream come true. How hadn’t she seen it?

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Hmm?” Hirsch spared her a glance through slit eyes. “You can’t imagine,” and he gasped as his trousers shifted a small rotation, making a frosted mist in the air in front of him.

“That’s why I’m asking you,” said Ann. She couldn’t imagine, obviously. Through the whole of her courtship—her marriage . . . she hadn’t imagined. She hadn’t even
seen.
“What do you get out of it?”

His eyes cracked open, just a little wider, and regarded her lecherously. “Do you . . . want to come see?”

The waist of Hirsch’s trousers was stretching out, the button undoing, the fabric sliding down his hips. They were muscular, tan, and glistened with sweat. And he was hard. She did look away, and although she fought it, crept a few inches farther behind the curtain. She looked outside sidelong, squinting in the afternoon sun as it bleached out the air-conditioning units on the rooftop below her window.

“Because you can,” he whispered. “Rickhardt . . . your poor late husband . . . never had any use for their wives. Their vessels. That’s what they call you, you know. A vessel. Because it’s all the ’geist for them. But . . .” he paused, and cried out softly, but Ann didn’t look to see what had caused him to do that “. . . we’re not all like that. Some of us love our women. Some of us . . . see the godly in you.”

Ann’s sun-warm hand clenched into a hard fist. “Thank you, Mr. Hirsch,” she said.

“You should come over here, Ann. You haven’t ever felt your own . . . the Insect’s touch, have you?”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s . . . it’s like death.”

“How genuinely tempting.”

A chuckle. “Not death. But . . . you’re familiar with the term ‘petit mort’? Little death?”

“I know the phrase.” Ann’s fist pressed against the hot glass. “So it’s like an orgasm.”

“Like an orgasm. Yeah. But a genuine little death. When the ’geist touches flesh—in the way it’s been trained . . . it doesn’t just touch flesh. Goes straight . . . straight to the soul, straight to the Infinite. When you come . . . you come—into
being
.”

“Back up,” said Ann. “The way it’s been trained?”

“Well-trained. Yours . . . the Insect . . .” He grunted—low in his throat, almost lower than he should have been able to do. “The best we’ve done.”

Ann shut her eyes and swallowed hard. She thought again about Michael—sweet, unremarkable Michael Voors—and how she had met and married him without question, even as sex with him hardly brought her to orgasm, never mind into
being
; even as Ian Rickhardt came into their home and bullied and belittled her, and Michael did nothing; even through fire on the shores of Tobago and onto an airplane back to Toronto, one she had no business boarding, so her husband could find his
being
a mile in the air. . . .

The Insect wasn’t the only one who’d been well-trained.

“Come on out, Ann,” said Hirsch. “Taste the Infinite.”

Ann clutched the curtain . . . the sun was blessedly hot. She froze in its heat, immobile.

“Get out of here, Mr. Hirsch,” she said.

He didn’t answer this time. Outside, face pressed against the glass, Ann could hear the faint wailing of an ambulance siren. Something in the belly of the hospital’s HVAC shifted, and Ann felt a rumbling vibration through her forehead.

“Get out,” she said again, and when there was still nothing, she pulled herself away from the window, and looked to see what depravity the Insect had inflicted on her new lawyer.

“Oh.” She barely whispered the exclamation, and stumbled over to her bed.

John Hirsch was back in his chair. His trousers were buckled around his waist; his belt through every loop. His hands, strong and lean, were on the armrests. His eyelids were slack again; his mouth pulled down on the right-hand side. Saliva dribbled down his chin.

Ann took a shivering breath, and reached for the button to signal the nurse. Her thumb hesitated over it for just an instant before she pressed. She got back into her bed and pulled up the sheets—and only then, began to scream.

9:55 p.m.

Ann: Hey

Jeanie: Hey grlfrnd! How was the honeymoon?

Ann: Bad. U didnt hear?

Jeanie: Hear what?

Ann: Michael died.

Jeanie: OMG! I didnt!

Ann:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/03/307680604/1-dead-after-727-forced-down-in-freak-storm.html

Jeanie: Oh my God. I saw that on CNN. I didn’t know . . . had no idea it was you.

Ann: It was yes.

Jeanie: You home safe?

Ann: Not exactly. Check these out:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/05/3080609/feds-probe-death-of-canadian-lawyer.html

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/05/3080610/mile-high-club-more-than-a-myth.html

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/06/3080612/mile-high-widow’s-lawyer-succumbs-to-stroke-in-meeting.html

10:05 p.m.

Jeanie: Oh God, grlfrnd. You home safe now?

Ann: On the road. Soon as I could, checked out and rented a car. I’m in

10:07 p.m.

Jeanie: Ann?

Ann: I’m in Alabama. Sorry. Thought I shouldnt say. But doesnt matter. Not like I was being charged with anything. Driving home off highways. Staying in motel.

Jeanie: Driving home? Glfrnd, thats a long haul. Why not fly? Take train?

Ann: No public transit. Just me.

Jeanie: You sure that safe?

Ann: Safer travelling alone. Nothing will happen if I travel alone.

Jeanie: Why would anything happen if you werent? U ok?

Ann: Im ok.

Ann: Im not ok. Obviously.

Jeanie: Im sorry. Michaels gone. Of course ur not ok. Didnt have time to get to know him but he seems like a great guy.

Jeanie:
*Seemed*
.

10:15 p.m.

Ann: Michael was a liar.

Jeanie: Ok.

Ann: He never wanted to be with me.

Jeanie: Did he cheat on u?

Ann: Yes. Not in the way you think.

Jeanie: Was it some internet thing? Did u catch him in a chatroom? I was with a girl who was into RP, some real weird shit. With strange Dudes. Dumped her ass when I found out.

Ann: Good 4 u.

Jeanie: That what he was doing?

10:25 p.m.

Jeanie: Ann? Grlfrnd? U there?

10:29 p.m.

Ann: Sorry. Hard to describe in chat.

Jeanie: But he was cheating.

Ann: Worse. Dont want to get too specific here. Google keeps these things recorded.

Jeanie: Dont buy the Do No Evil mission statement, hmmmm?

Ann: lol

Jeanie: Me neither.

Ann: Grlfrnd, I need u to do me favour.

Jeanie: Ok.

Ann: call up lesley.

Jeanie: BIG FAVOUR!

Ann: dont want to call her myself.

Jeanie: U 2 have a fight?

Ann: i need u to get her to check on philip.

Jeanie: y dont u just have that rickard dude check? Hes helping.

Ann: no.

Jeanie: y not? lesley & I barely spoke at ur wedding. really awkward.

10:44 p.m.

Ann: i really need you to. need u to erase this chat when done. cant call lesley. U need 2. tell her to check on philip. pls.

Jeanie: U arent ok. Where in alabama are u?

Ann: just pls do this.

Jeanie: OK. Where he staying?

Ann: Hang on.

Ann opened another tab and googled the Hollingsworth centre, copied the link into their Gchat, and when Jeanie asked again, once again didn’t say exactly where she was: in the “business centre” of a woodsy little motel complex outside of Mobile. The midsized car she’d rented on her credit card was parked outside her cabin. Her luggage, filled with honeymoon clothes and toiletries and such was still in the trunk. As she evaded another question from Jeanie, it was finally sinking in that although she had left the hospital in Miami with only mild protest from the airline, and the intensity of the FAA investigation suggested by Hirsch had not materialized—she ought to be taking matters more seriously.

The fact was, she was on the run.

The last call she made on her mobile phone was to Krenk and Associates. That was outside Tallahassee. After a short, teary conversation with Krenk’s assistant Noah—during which she assured him she’d take as much time as she needed and he told her to see that she did—Ann popped the battery out and tossed it and the phone into a drive-through garbage bin. She was staying off interstates and taking secondary roads as it was, but her knuckles whitened as police cars drove by—and then as she thought about it more, and realized that the police might not be her problem—her breath stopped when she observed the same car behind her for more than a few minutes.

She stopped at an ATM in Gainesville to get a cash advance on her credit card, and then, although it would have made more sense for her to continue north, she cut west through Alabama—and found this motel, this sort-of motel, that was willing to take cash and no credit card as an advance on a room for the night. She was exhausted, she explained, which was true, and then lied: she told them her name was Ann Brunt, and she made up a confused story about a stolen wallet at a diner down the road—a wallet that didn’t contain a bank roll of mad money she kept in her pocket. The place was family run, had the look of being off the grid—she’d been banking it was the kind of place that would let her do these things.

And after a while, Ann established that it was, and they understood, and even let her use the “business centre,” which was really just an adjunct to the front office with a couple of old PCs hooked up to the old router. As Jeanie signed off, Ann cleared the cache and shut the browser. She sat a moment, rubbed her temples and shut her eyes.

“Y’okay in there?”

Ann looked up and made herself smile. “I am,” she said. The owner’s name was Penny. She was middle-aged, a little on the heavy side with short-cropped blonde hair and cheeks rosy like there was a chill, which there wasn’t tonight, particularly. Ann liked her.

When Ann had come in, she was met at the desk by a whip-thin man who wasn’t at all comfortable not seeing a credit card.

But Penny had set him straight with a few questions. “How much we charge a night? She got that much there on the counter? Okay, then what’s your problem?”

The man turned out to be Roy, her husband and co-owner of the place, and as it turned out, not the final word on payment policy. Also, not the one who took the overnight desk duty.

“Been a hard time, losin’ your wallet like that,” said Penny as Ann packed up at the computer. “Lucky thing you got your driver’s licence and all.”

“Lucky,” she said. The word felt funny, saying it.

“Okay. Well you need anything else?”

“Think I’m okay,” she said, and Penny nodded.

“You don’t mind if I help you clear the cache,” she said. “You missed a couple steps.”

Ann blinked. “Sure,” she said, and Penny scooted a chair over, and laughed.

“Don’t worry—I wasn’t snooping on your chat. But I got a feeling you don’t want to leave a trail of breadcrumbs right now.”

“I—”

“Shush,” said Penny. “Wasn’t snoopin’, but couldn’t help noticing you sobbing as that chat went on. Brought back memories. I been where you are.”

Ann thought she might not have been there exactly, but she didn’t say that. “Thank you,” she said.

“He do that to you?” Penny motioned to the bandage on Ann’s head. Ann shook her head no.

“An accident,” she said. “But thank you.”

Penny nodded as she clicked through preferences windows on the browser.

“Mine hit me,” she said. “Not this one—he’s husband number two. But husband number one—he had a temper. And he had his views on things.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ann.

“Don’t be. He’s gone now. But it sure wasn’t easy making it that way. I had to run off in the night—took his truck, so he wouldn’t follow me. ’Course he called the cops, like I knew he would. So I ditched it next town over. Hopped on a bus, headin’ to Mobile, which decided where I was going.”

Penny closed the browser and shut off the machine like she was folding a set of towels.

“But oh, I was scared. Thought I might wind up in jail, or worse, back home. With him. And I did at least five stupid things that’d make it easy for him to track me. I was jumpin’ at
shadows.”

“I know about that.”

“I know you do,” said Penny.

Ann looked at Penny, Penny looked right back. Ann wondered for a moment: did they have her picture in the Miami papers? Did they put that picture on CNN, or on the internet on some blog that innkeepers in rural Alabama looked at to while away the day? Had Penny seen her picture—worked out that she was that “mile high” widow from Florida?

“Easy, girl,” said Penny. “I understand, that’s all I’m sayin’. If you like, I know some numbers of folks in Mobile—they can set you up someplace safe, where you can think things through. Y’aren’t alone.”

Or not
, Ann thought. She smiled, weakly and said thank you to Penny.

“Things aren’t like that,” she said. “But thanks. I’ve been on the road for a long time, and it’s better that I just get some rest. You and Roy are a real godsend for that.”

“Sure,” said Penny. “I apologize for intruding. It’s just that when you been through something, you start seein’ it in everyone else.”

“You’re a good person,” said Ann.

“I am,” she said. “And in that spirit, here’s a word of advice.”

“Yes?”

“Park that rental car you got around the side of your cabin.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “It’s harder to see from the road. Just move it, or I can get Roy to if you like. Then you’ll have done one less stupid thing than I did.”

The motel was called the Rosedale Arms, and it, like the sign that advertised it on the road, was ticky-tacky cute.

The sign was lettered in sweeping cursive script, all meticulously cut out of a wooden board with a mitre saw, and painted rose red on the whitewashed background. The cabins had the same colour scheme, brilliant red on the eaves and white on the side. They were tiny, but well enough appointed—and they were set reasonably far apart from one another.

That was another reason that Ann had picked this place. She didn’t want to be too close to any other travellers as she tried to hold it together through the night.

There wouldn’t be many in harm’s way this evening. As she crossed the grounds from the office, she saw only one car: an old-model station wagon, parked by a cabin three away from hers. Ann hoped that might be safe enough. Of course if she did things right, it’d be safe enough next door to her.

She popped open her trunk and moved her bags to the front door to the cabin. Then, she did as Penny’d told her, started the car, backed it up, turned it to the side and tucked it around the side, nudging it up to the front of the propane tank.

As she shut the ignition and the lights off, the little girl standing there waved at her.

Ann sat frozen in the dark. There was a moon out, not full, but casting just enough light to see her.

The girl was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans cut off at the knee. She was black-haired. She was standing by the propane tank. Not smiling.

Ann opened the driver-side door.

“Hello?”

There was no answer; really, Ann hadn’t expected one. The Insect had been quiet since she’d left the hospital. It had let her drive, let her do her business, given her the time she needed to deal with things.

If it manifested now—well, no apology necessary.

Ann stepped out of the car. The air was warm and rich with the sweet smell of the trees, a faint tang of vegetable rot.

Nothing moved outside; not even the cicadas sang.

Ann drew her fingers together in fists and held them at her side.

“Fine,” said Ann finally. “I’m going to bed.”

She shut the car door and locked it, and went around to the front of the cabin. She didn’t check the back seat of the car to see if the girl had gotten in there now; she didn’t look over her shoulder as she opened the door. She didn’t bother to check corners in her room, or make a note to see if anything had moved, seemingly of its own devices, while she was outside.

Almost a day ago, the Insect had nearly killed a lawyer from Miami, just a day after it had killed Ann’s husband.

But Ann was starting to work it out. As far as her own safety was concerned, the Insect wasn’t a problem. It was the people around her who were at risk—who so often came to harm.

The cabin had two rooms; a bedroom-kitchen, and a bathroom off to the side. There was a TV, old CRT-style, and a little kitchen with a microwave and a small fridge. Three lights, two on either side of the queen-sized bed. One in the middle of the ceiling. In the middle of the fan. There was an air-conditioner built into the wall. There were a couple of chairs and a little table. But aside from those, there was little that wasn’t nailed down.

Ann lay down on the bed. She shut her eyes, and descended the ladder of colours that put her in the place where she had thought things were safe, without realizing . . .

For her, everywhere was safe but there.

“I’m here to talk to you, if you want to,” said Ann into the unformed dark.

That was how it was, now; since the hospital, since the airplane, she hadn’t been able to properly imagine the tower, the place where the Insect might be held at bay. It was an imaginative exercise from the get-go. And now, Ann’s imagination felt used up; or at least, the images she’d used to hold things together, drawn from her fantasy Dungeons & Dragons world, were just too childish to do the work.

Maybe that was it.

Perhaps the darkness was empty, perhaps not. When she tried entering it, during little rest stops on the way, she certainly imagined her share of ghosts. Her mother visited her once, clad in a fleece vest and a pair of blue jeans, her eyes difficult to discern. She asked Ann if she were happy, over and over, so much so that Ann found herself speaking the question aloud to the empty car. “Are you happy? Are you happy? Really happy?”

The ghost of Michael sometimes made his presence known. Ann saw him in the shadows, balancing a saltshaker on the tip of his finger, whistling tunelessly with his back to her, once looking at her directly, idly masturbating as he rocked back and forth. He didn’t say anything, and Ann didn’t prompt him.