Fiction Friday - Biggs and Wedge Occult Occurrences: This Ain't a Ghost Story, Part 1

Here's the seventh installment in this story series, the first of another two-parter. This is definitely the longest I've stuck with a writing project in probably forever, so you know I'm really enjoying it and I hope you are too. The stories are getting a little longer as I get deeper into the mythology and meat of it all; this two-parter in particular marks a turning point into slightly darker subject matter, although as you can see by the first half the fun is still there. Read it and let me know what you think, please!

Biggs and Wedge Occult Occurrences:

This Ain’t a Ghost Story, Part 1

            “She kissed you? That’s definitely a big deal! Why the hell didn’t you tell me about it before?”

            I sighed and looked at the shot glass full of Jameson in front of my partner Wedge. I knew he was stalling, but he had a point. It had been a week since Lexy kissed me, and this was the first I had mentioned it to him. I guess all the shots drew it out of me. “I don’t know, buddy,” I said, tilting my head back in my desk chair and staring at the ceiling of our office in the basement of our bar, The Haunted Hops. “I guess I was just trying to figure out what it meant.” My gaze drifted back to him. “Now stop stalling. It’s ‘R’ to you. Go.”

            “Oh, right.” He thought for a minute. “The rapist who was killed by one of his victims.” Without waiting to see if I agreed or not, he smiled smugly and said, “Your turn, Biggsy.”

            We were playing our own version of the Alphabet drinking game, the one where normal people went through the alphabet listing cities or state capitols or whatever; we listed spirits we had banished instead. The shots were of Jameson, and we each had bottles of Heineken to use as chasers or drinks between shots.

            Clearly, we aimed to get drunk tonight.

            It was my turn, the letter S. “Skywalker Ranch,” I said without taking time to think about it.

            “Nope!” Wedge laughed and slid the shot glass over to me. “Skywalker Ranch is banned because it’s too easy, remember?”

            “Damn.” He was right. I grabbed the shot glass and downed the shot, feeling the brown liquid burn its way down my throat. I made the same sour face everyone makes when they do a shot of Jameson and swigged some Heineken to wash it down as Wedge refilled the shot glass.

            “Alright, T.” Wedge’s face lit up. “The topography expert!”

            “You mean the guy at the planetary mapmaking company?” He nodded and I laughed. “Dude, he was just a typist temp!”

            “But he worked at a mapmaking company!”

            I kept laughing. “That doesn’t make him a topographer! Drink, bitch!”

            He grumbled another second and then drank, making the same face I had made. As I refilled the shot, I decided to be a bit of a dick and went speed round on him. “Understudy,” I said.

            “Violinist,” he shot back.

            I hadn’t expected him to come back that fast, and I was the one caught flat-footed instead of him with W. “Woman…” I said, trailing off when I realized I had no idea how to finish that thought.

            It was our second time threw the alphabet now, and I might have had a few shots already.

            “Woman? Just woman?” Now he was the one laughing. “The French judge says no on that one, Biggsy. Drink up!”

            I did the shot and looked up at him. “Fine. Let’s see what you got for X, jackass.”

            He leaned back in his chair across the desk from me and grinned. “Xylophonist.”

            I stared, dumbstruck. I wasn’t sure if I had expected him to think it started with a Z and not an X, or if I had gotten drunk enough that I thought it was Z and not X, but either way, I hadn’t expected that one.

            “So what do you think the kiss meant?”

            I blinked at him, not sure what he was talking about, but then I remembered. Lexy. “Shit, I don’t know. I think she was just trying to comfort me after that mess in the church, that’s all. We talked for awhile after that, but nothing else happened, just that one kiss.” My mind drifted back to that moment, to the feel of her soft lips against mine, and how I started to miss that feeling the minute it faded. I shook my head and tried to force my thoughts back to the game. It was my turn. Y. “Oh, I got it!” My face lit up. “The kid who choked on the yellow snow!”

            Wedge looked at me, his face screwed up in confusion, and then he exploded in laughter, the kind of deep belly laugh that shakes your whole body. Once he finally caught his breath he said, “You mean the kid who got mauled to death in the snow by a dog?” I nodded and he laughed again. “Pretty sure that one gets filed under M, buddy.” He reached over and pushed the shot glass toward me again.

            I took the shot, made the face again, and needed a slightly longer swig of Heineken to recover this time.

            “Z’s an easy one,” Wedge said as I put my drink down. “Zoologist.”

            I shook my head instantly. “Nope, that guy was a cryptozoologist.”

            He frowned at me. “The fuck is the difference?  He studied animals.”

            “Man, a guy who tries to prove the Loch Ness Monster is real is not the same thing as the guy studies how pandas mate or something.” It was my turn to slide the shot glass across the desk. “Chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug,” I taunted.

            After grunting something I couldn’t quite make out but that sounded suspiciously like “fuck off,” he downed the shot and wiped his mouth. Foregoing a chaser, he stared straight at me and said, “So, was the kiss good enough to wake you up and make you realize you’re in love with our little Alexa upstairs?”

            “I… wait… but… I… what…” Stammering incoherently was the only response I could come up with that completely out of nowhere yet frightfully near the mark question.

            He shook his head and grinned. “Alright, something easier then. We’re starting over. A. Go.”

            Still flustered, I groped for an answer, eventually saying, “Ape ghost.”

            Wedge laughed again. “One day you’ll get this one right, Biggsy. It was a gorilla, not an ape.”

            “Oh, come on. Same thing!”

            I was then confronted with a pair of very sarcastically arched eyebrows. “You mean like how zoologist and cryptozoologist is the same thing?”

            I sighed, knowing I’d never win this battle, and took the shot. Wedge reached down and opened the back-up bottle we had brought down with us and refilled the shot glass and, without looking up, said, “The boxer.”

            The memory of that case came to me and I couldn’t stifle a grimace. I’d had a black eye for a week after that one. “Church poltergeist,” I answered, thinking of the case from a week ago, the one that had led to that kiss right here in the basement, in the very chair I was sitting in now… a kiss I had been both waiting for and dreading for what seemed like ever. My thoughts, becoming more and more overwhelmed with whiskey, began to wander again to the sweet feeling of Lexy’s lips…

            “Biggs? Biggs!”

            The tone in Wedge’s voice brought my mind slowly, reluctantly back. “Huh?”

            “Drowned boy, I said. It’s your turn. E!”

            “Elegocuted guy,” I said, m mind not quite focused yet.

            “Elegocuted?” Wedge cackled. “You mean electrocuted? Jesus, Biggsy. Maybe you’re done for the night.” Nevertheless, he pushed the shot glass back to me and watched me drink it before he gave his answer for the next letter. “Our first poltergeist.”

            I’d have argued that one, but we long ago decided to let that one stand for F because we had nothing else that fit. I forced my mind to focus a bit more, if only because I really didn’t want any more shots, but I couldn’t say that; the loser of the game had to drink a triple shot, and a quitter had to do a dreaded quadruple. “Gunslinger.”

            “Homeless man.”

            “Icepick poltergeist.”

            “The jumper.”

            I was about to follow with my answer for K, but Wedge kept talking. “Maybe you don’t want to admit how you feel first, but I’m pretty sure Lexy is in love with you,” he said casually.

            “Killed by…” I started my answer talking over him, but trailed off as what he said penetrated my booze-fogged mind.

            He made a sound like a buzzer. “Sorry, that’s not right.” He thrust another shot towards me. As I drank it, he said, “I meant what I said, though.” I drunkenly couldn’t decide if he was trying to help me with Lexy or just trying to get me drunk off my ass. “Anyway,” he continued as I clumsily put the shot glass down, knocking it over in the process, “L. Leashed prostitute.”

            “It doesn’t matter if she loves me or not,” I slurred as he filled the shot glass again, “or even if I love her. Nothing is going to come out of it.” A thought struck me, and I felt a shit-eating grin spread across my face. “Mauled by dog!”

            Wedge shook his head. “No way, buddy, that one was said out loud already.” He directed my gaze to the shot glass.

            “I hate you,” I mumbled before doing the shot.

            “Why would nothing happen if you both love each other? Nudist colony leader, by the way.”

            “Because getting involved with me will just get her hurt,” I answered, sadness in my voice, “just like in the church; or worse, even killed. So even if I do love her… I stopped talking and ran my hands down my face. “Oh, um… old lady?”

            Wedge shook his head again, and I did another shot. “Biggs, you know I love you,” he said, “but that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. If you’re both crazy about each other, just go for it. I mean, she could get hit by a bus coming to work tomorrow. Me and you know better than anybody, death is always around.”

            “Boy, you get poetic when you drink sometimes, you know that?” I slurred.

            He laughed and said, “Uh huh. P. The penguin fucker.”

            I looked at him. He looked at me. “Freak,” we said simultaneously as we both remembered that guy.

            “At least if she got hit by a bus, it wouldn’t be my fault,” I told him before I remembered it was again my turn. The best I could manage for Q was, “Queer guy.”

            Not even bothering to wait for Wedge to react, I did another shot. “Doesn’t Lexy deserve to make that choice herself?” he asked.

            “Lexy,” I answered, the slur in my voice making it sound more like “Leshy,” “Lexy deserves…” My wandering eyes reached the doorway and I stopped talking.

            “Lexy what?” Wedge prodded.

            “Lexy is right behind you,” I said, trying to sound much more sober than I was. “Hello, beautiful,” I said, surprising myself with that greeting.

            Lexy simultaneously blushed and looked like she smelled something long-dead and rotting. “Having fun, boys?”

            She sounded very uncomfortable, and my stomach grew queasy from more than just all the whiskey as I wondered just how long she had been standing there.

            “You know us, always a party,” Wedge laughed as he turned his chair around so he could see her. “What’s up, Tiny?”

            “There’s a man upstairs who would like to see you,” she answered unsurely. “Should I tell him to come back tomorrow?”

            “Nah,” I said, trying to sound controlled. “We can see him now. What does he want?” I wondered if my voice sounded as strong and clear as I thought it did; from the look on her face, I doubted it.

            “He said him and his wife think their ten-year-old son is haunted.”

            Wedge laughed. “They must be drunker than we are. People don’t get haunted, just places and things. Right, Biggsy?”

            I could feel him looking at me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of Lexy. She looked so beautiful, as always. “Never heard of a haunted person before,” I agreed, “but then again, I had never heard of two spirits haunting the same thing, or a gorilla ghost either, so who knows?”

 I pulled myself up from the desk and walked across the room, concentrating very hard on trying not to stagger too much. “C’mon, man. Let’s go see him.”

            Lexy put her hand on my arm to stop me when I reached the door. “Are you sure about this, Hank? You’re really drunk.”

            “So’s your face,” I answered playfully.

            She screwed her face up. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

            “Think about it and it does,” I said as I started climbing the stairs up to the bar. I could hear Wedge and Lexy talking as I climbed.

            “Don’t worry, Lexy, I’ll keep an eye on him,” I heard him say.

            And then I heard him trip on the first step, quickly righting himself and following me up.

            I vaguely heard Lexy sigh. “Why doesn’t that fill me with confidence?”

* * * * *

            Somehow I made it through talking to the man waiting for us, Mr. Reisling, without convincing him I was a complete drunk lunatic and got the basics of the case. He and his wife had noticed weird things happening to their son, little things at first, like him saying weird things or staring off into space talking to himself. Then he started saying mean things, speaking in a different language, things around him started flying through the air, things like that. A lot of the earmarks of the presence of a spirit in the house. The last straw had come earlier that night when they saw the kid, Dennis, floating in his sleep.

            Wedge and I told Mr. Reisling we could handle this and followed him back to the house. I told him to take his wife and wait outside for us while we took care of the kid. Wedge carried a bucket of chicken blood in from the truck for the double pentagram we’d need for the banishing, his sword strapped to his back and the matching dagger slipped into his belt.

            While he did that, I stood in the living room, drunkenly swaying on my feet while I reached out with my sixth sense to get the feel of the place. At first all I felt was love and happiness, what you’d expect to feel in the home of a happy family. Then I started feeling darkness, a malevolence. I’d been waiting for it; from how Mr. Reisling had described things, I figured it was a poltergeist waiting for us and not Casper the Friendly Ghost or anything.

            I extended my senses, homed in on that darkness to try to track it to its source. My face drifted upwards to the second floor, to where the kid’s bedroom was. I kept reaching out in that direction until I could feel Dennis, and I realized with shock that he could feel me back. The malevolence I felt now felt like someone was staring daggers into my soul, and I was hit with a wave of what I can only describe as giddy evil, a feeling so strong I was almost knocked off of my feet.

            If I wasn’t so dirty stinking drunk, I’d have gotten my ass out of that house and never returned.

            Instead, my inebriated ego shrugged it off, thinking there was no such thing as a poltergeist I couldn’t handle, no matter how angry it was.

            “You really think this kid is haunted?” Wedge asked from behind me as he closed the front door.

            I shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe it’s a haunted object or something just manifesting around him. Whatever it is, it’s definitely coming from his room.”

            “Then let’s go kick its ass and get back to the bar,” Wedge said as he headed for the stairs to the second floor. “You’ve got a triple shot to do for losing the game.”

            “Wait a minute, what do you mean, I lost the game?” I staggered after him. “Lexy interrupted us, but the game wasn’t over. I could still go!”

            He turned to face me as we both walked upstairs, watching the way my knees buckled a little. “Trust me, Biggsy, you were done. Are you sure you can handle this?”

            I sidled past him on the stairs, nearly upending both of us in the process. “Absolutely,” I slurred. I walked to the closed door that had a wooden plaque on it that said “Dennis” and knocked softly before opening.

            The kid was sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring right at me.

            “Hey, Dennis,” I said, more than a little creeped out as I walked into the room, Wedge right behind me, “my name is Biggs, and this is my friend Wedge. Don’t be afraid, your parents brought us here to help you.

            “I don’t need any help, fucktards,” the kid said, smiling wickedly. He spoke with a swarthy Arabic voice that had no business coming out of the mouth of a little white kid.

            Wedge and I both stared for a few seconds. Eventually he nudged me with his elbow and the shock wore off. I motioned towards the kid, indicating Wedge should keep him engaged while I figured this out. Once again, I reached out with my senses.

            “This is a pretty nice room you got here, kid,” I heard Wedge say.

            “Not as nice as your mother’s twat, but I guess it’ll do,” the kid answered.

            “What? What the…” Wedge stammered. “Not cool, kid. Not cool.”

            The malevolence I felt downstairs was definitely centered here. In fact, I couldn’t get my attention away from Dennis now. It was all coming from him. I touched him with my senses… and what I felt literally knocked me on my ass. I hit the floor with a loud thud, my head banging against the wall.

            Wedge was at my side in an instant. “You alright, Biggsy?”

            I pulled myself up to my feet with his help. “Yeah. The things coming off of this kid, I’ve never felt such… evil. That’s the only word for it.”

            “You’re too kind,” that Arabic voice said as an eerie smile spread across the kid’s lips.

            “But there’s no anger,” I continued, doing my best to ignore him, “it’s an ecstatic kind of evil. Whatever is haunting this kid is happy about its situation.”

            Wedge shook his head. “But spirits are never happy.”

            The kid started howling with gleeful laughter. “Haunting? Spirit? Wow. I was just guessing before, but you two really are fucktards.”

            We both stared at him again before I snapped myself out of it. “Okay, keep an eye on him while I paint the double pentagram.”

            “Oh, trust me, I’m not going to do anything,” the kid sneered as he lay back on the bed, getting comfortable. “I want to see this shit.”

            Wedge went over and stood by the side of the bed while I began painting. One pentagram was needed to summon the spirit, in this case to literally pull it out of this kid, and the other was needed to bind it inside the pentagrams’ confines so Wedge could banish it was either his sword or dagger anointed with innocent blood.

            “You’re a big fucker,” I heard Dennis say casually to Wedge, “You must have torn the hell out of your mother’s pussy on the way out, huh?”

            “You need to shut the fuck up,” I heard Wedge shoot back.

            I tried to make myself finish the pentagrams faster, to get this over with before Wedge punched this kid in the face, haunted or not, but my drunk hands were being uncooperative.

            “What? I’m being serious,” the kid continued, undaunted. “Did your father hate you for the condition you left his kool-aid in, or what?”

            I heard Wedge take a deep breath. “Done,” I said before he could respond, just finishing the final line.

            “Thank Jesus,” Wedge muttered.

            Dennis hissed angrily, shooting Wedge the nastiest look I had ever seen.

            “Watch him,” I told Wedge as I knelt in the middle of the double pentagram. “This will be over in another minute.”

            “You got that wait, jizzstain,” Dennis sneered.

            Ignoring him, I closed my eyes and reached out for the poltergeist that had to be haunting him, but other than the malevolence and evil I felt before, there was nothing. I reached into that evil, expecting to feel the spirit and opened my eyes.

            Nothing happened. There was no spirit in the double pentagram with me.

            “Biggsy?” Wedge asked, uncertain.

            Dennis laughed a deep, mirthful laugh. “I’m sorry,” he said in that creepy Arabic voice, “were you expecting something to happen? Something like this?”

            Faster than either Wedge or I could track with our eyes, faster than anything human should ever be able to move, Dennis was out of the bed and inside the double pentagram with me, but he didn’t stop there. He grabbed my shoulders with a strength and force like nothing I had ever felt before and rammed be back against the wall. His hands were around my neck before I even felt them move, choking the life out of me.

            Wedge bounded across the room and grabbed the kid by the shoulder, trying with all his might to pull him off me, but he wouldn’t budge. He just kept choking me, grinning wickedly the whole time.

            Wedge pulled the dagger out of his belt and pressed the tip to Dennis’ neck. “Let him go now or I’ll stick you with this. It’s anointed. You know what that means.”

            If there was a spirit haunting Dennis, controlling him, that would have stopped it in its tracks. Getting pricked with an anointed dagger was an instant banishment.

            Dennis just smiled wider. “I do know what that means. That it’s yummy.” He threw his neck sideways, forcing the blade to penetrate his skin.

            Wedge cursed in horror, thinking he had just stabbed a kid in the neck.

            But the blade turned to dust and crumbled, leaving Wedge holding just the hilt. “What the fuck???”

            I watched the hole the dagger had put in the kid’s neck close up instantly, leaving not even a drop of blood behind. “Delicious,” the kid said, his fingers pressing into my neck even harder.

            I looked into his eyes, and saw something that chilled me to my soul. I saw fire and pain and pure evil.

            This kid wasn’t being possessed by a spirit.

            He was death.

            My death.

To Be Continued…

Goodreads Book Review - The Child Thief

The Child Thief by Brom

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


An updated, adult version of Peter Pan with cursing, nudity, demons, goddesses, and graphic violence? Yeah, right up my alley. This is a really fun, engaging book. The action scenes are well-written, and most of the important characters are very well-developed and fleshed out.I also really loved the way other mythologies were weaved into the classic legend of Neverland to flesh it out and make it more logical; I mean, it was even tied into the legend of King Arthur, and that's one of my all-time favorite stories. If there's any complaint I could make about this book, it would be that it felt a little long and some sections... not many, but some... dragged on a bit. I really did love this book though, and definitely recommend it for anyone looking for a dose of somewhat adult fantasy.



View all my reviews

Seven books are behind me in the Recommended Reading Challenge now. This is the first time I've taken a second recommendation from someone; it came from the person who recommended the first book in the challenge, which I absolutely hated, so I had to give her a chance to redeem herself, which she did admirably. If you've got anything to recommend, feel free to post it below and I'll add it to the list!

Choose the New Stormtrooper!

I've been doing this blog for almost exactly two years and four months now, and for the most part, it's looked the same the entire time. I'm not good enough at HTML and whatnot to mess with things too many times, although I have tweaked a few things here and there. One thing that has been constant since the very first day, though, is the stormtrooper up there under the blog's name. I call him Fred.  Fred's done a good job of standing guard at the door... but I think it's time to retire him. I found a few pictures I like that I could replace him with, but the problem is, I can't seem to decide which one of the four I found to use.

So I thought, why not have a little fun and put it to a vote? I'll show you, dear readers, the four choices and let you pick which one replaces Fred.

Before we get to the contestants, though, here's a picture to whet your appetites a bit:

I fucking hate pigeons...

 Now, on to the finalists! First up, we have:

Singing in the Rain Stormtrooper!

Next, there's:

William Tell Stormtroopers!

Then there's my personal favorite:

Detention Stormtrooper!

And lastly:

Just Chillin' Stormtrooper!

Those are the four contestants. Feel free to cast your votes in the comments below, or, if I know most of you people, on the Facebook link you followed to get here because that's what y'all love to do, I think to drive me crazy. I'll count the votes either way (unless you vote for the pigeons; seriously, those rats with wings are not a contender, so don't bother) and hopefully reveal the winner this time tomorrow!

Happy voting!

The 2012 Fall Season

So it's that time of year again when I do possibly the geekiest thing I ever do and make up a spreadsheet of when all the shows I plan on watching when the Fall Season starts will be on. I figured it was especially time to do this since at least one show has started already (really, Grimm? You couldn't wait til September? God, I hate that show.) and I don't want to fall behind. So, here's the chart:

Click to enlarge, bitches.

As you can see, it is both time-coded and color-coded according to channel and also lists when the first episode airs, because I am just that much of an OCD-having geek. A couple of weird little facts jump out at me when I look at this. For one thing, I'm only giving three new shows a shot: Revolution, 666 Park Avenue, and Arrow, and I don't expect all three of them to last. For another thing, as much as I absolutely hate the FOX network, I'm watching more of their shows, with five, than any other channel. And it's weird that there's nothing on Tuesday.

And damn it all to hell, I just realized I left American Horror Story: Asylum off, but I'm not fixing it right now, because they haven't set a date or time for it yet, and I change my mind about that every other day...

Anyway, what about y'all? What are you looking forward to watching this season?

Fiction Friday - Biggs and Wedge Occult Occurrences: Like a Whore in Church

Another Friday, another short story. It's the sixth in this series, which means I'm thirty percent done with that I have planned for this. It's also the longest to date and, in my opinion, the best. But that's for you to decide, so read it and let me know what you think!

Biggs and Wedge Occult Occurrences:

Like a Whore in Church

            “Now there’s definitely something you don’t see every day.”

            I turned my head in the direction Alexa had nodded. There, seated down at the other end of the bar nursing a Corona was a priest with his collar open, the white part at the end sticking up. It almost reminded me of someone waving a white flag, and I had to grin.

            “You’re right about that, Lexy,” I answered. “Maybe you should go see if he needs any help.

            Alexa Fogel, manager of the bar me and my partner owned, called the Haunted Hops, flashed a dazzling smile at me from behind the bar. “I don’t think so, Hank. I’m just guessing, but I think a priest in here is probably more interested in your other services.”

            Between her smile and the way she said my name, I had to stifle a sigh. She was the only one in my life who called me anything other than “Biggs” or “Biggsy.” Of course, since she was the only person in my life other than my partner Wedge, it wasn’t that impressive a distinction. The fact that I was secretly in love with her, on the other hand…

            “You’re probably right.” A small groan escaped my lips. The occult business had been quiet since that nonsense with the double-haunted grandfather clock, and I was happy about it. But, like Robert Frost said, nothing gold can stay.

            I picked up my Heineken and walked to where the priest was seated, trying to see what I could notice about him. One thing was clear right off the bat: this man had not been sleeping well. He looked tired and on edge. I slid onto the stool next to him. “Help you with something, padre?”

            He looked up at me, startled. He must not have noticed my approach. “Well, yes,” he finally said, composing himself, “I’m looking for either Mr. Biggs or Mr. Wedge.”

            “You found Mr. Biggs,” I answered. “What can I do for you?”

            “My name is Fr. Rube Elliot,” he said, “and I’m the pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows, and, well, I believe the church is haunted.”

            I took a long drink from my beer to buy myself time, and still couldn’t stifle a dickish response. “Are you sure it isn’t a miracle?”

            He frowned. “I’d hardly call the ghost of a women who looks like she’s from the nineteenth century materializing out of nowhere in the middle of Sunday Mass and killing a man a miracle, Mr. Biggs.”

            “Depends on the man,” I said without thinking. Once I realized I might be pushing this clearly frazzled priest a little too far, I held my hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry, Father. I don’t have the best relationship with the Church, but I shouldn’t take it out on you.” I noticed his beer was almost empty. “Let me buy you another drink and you can tell me all about it.”

            It took him a moment, but he nodded. Maybe he was weighing the size of his problem against the risk of getting any more verbal abuse from an asshole in a bar. In any event, I signaled to Lexy and when she came over to us I asked for another beer for myself and the padre. “Thanks, Lexy,” I said as she handed them to us. “And if you can find Wedge and send him over to us, I’d appreciate it.”

            “You got it, boss,” she said playfully before she spun on her heels and walked off.

            “Beautiful young woman,” Fr. Rube remarked.

            “Yes, she is,” I said softly, watching her across the bar. I shook my head and then turned to face him before my mind wandered to dangerous places. “Okay, Father. Take it from the top.”

            He took a long drink, obviously steadying himself before he began. “It was during the ten a.m. Mass Sunday morning. I was at the lectern, giving my homily, when a baby started crying. I ignored it, of course; there are always crying babies, and I can outshout them when I have to. It’s part of the job. It went n for a few minutes, and then I heard a man’s voice, I assumed the father’s, telling the child’s mother to shut the baby up. He was very loud and insistent, and he eventually started cursing. I was about to step in, to tell him to calm down, when it happened.” He paused for another drink. After he finished sipping, he stayed quiet, staring across the bar. Finally, just as I was about to prompt him to speak, he continued. “The ghost appeared, right in front of the altar. It looked like a woman, as I said, dressed like she was from the nineteenth century, with rips and tears in the dress she was wearing. She… I don’t want to say ran, but floated doesn’t feel right either… down the aisle to where the baby was crying. People started yelling and scrambling to get away, but over all the noise there were two sounds I could hear clearly that I’ll never forget. The first was a scream of anger so loud and intense it couldn’t be from this world, and the second was a scream of pain that ended suddenly as she ripped the man’s head from his shoulders.”

            “Jesus,” I said softly, then caught myself. “Sorry, Father.”

            He smiled weakly. “Given the circumstances, I don’t think I can blame you.”

            “I know I don’t,” a voice said from behind me. I turned to see my partner standing there.

            “Fr. Rube Elliot,” I said, “this is my partner, Aldredge Thompson.”

            “Call me Wedge, Father,” he said as he shook the priest’s hand. “Everyone else does. That’s a hell of a story you’ve got there.”

            “It sure is,” I said, turning from Wedge to Fr. Rube, “but I’m not sure why you need us. Doesn’t the Church have something set up for things like this? An exorcist or something?” I felt Wedge’s elbow lightly nudge my ribs, a reminder to be nice; he hadn’t quite given up on his faith like I had.

            “Yes, well,” the priest responded, clearing his throat nervously, “the Church does have an official exorcist, but he’s versed in demonic possession, something nobody really believes exists as far as I know, and not… well, ghosts. And as I’m sure you know, the Church has never really reached an opinion yet on all this spiritual phenomena since it came to light.”

            “I had thought maybe you people had someone or something on hand for this stuff that you were keeping to yourselves.” Another elbow from Wedge.

            “If we do, it’s so secret none of the other priests I’ve spoken to have ever heard of it.” He sounded a little perturbed at my questions, but he took another drink and then looked at both of us, a pleading look on his face. “But I’ve heard you are the best at this, and I need my parishioners to be safe. Can you help me?”

            I sighed. I knew Wedge wouldn’t let me turn this one down. “Yes, padre, we can probably help you. But a couple of things first. It isn’t going to be free. The Church is going to have to open up the coffers for this one.” I heard Wedge gasp in horror, but I plunged ahead. “And second, just to be clear, you don’t have a ghost problem. Ghosts are nice, friendly spirits that stay out of people’s way. Something that decapitates a person in the middle of Mass? That’s a poltergeist, and a nasty one at that. So you’re going to call ahead, clear the church out completely, give us the keys, and wait here until the job is done.” I looked at how fast he had finished his Corona and grinned. “I’ll make sure Lexy knows your drinks are on the house.”

            “I’ll clear the church out, but I’m coming with you. I can’t let you go there without me. You might get hurt. And it’s my church, my parish that needs protecting. I have to be there.”

            Wedge and I both shook our heads immediately. “Did you miss the part where I said this is a nasty poltergeist we’re dealing with here?” I looked at him, starting to suspect he might be two beers over his limit. “This is going to be dangerous.”

            “Then I’ll pray for us all,” he answered.

            I exhaled loudly. “Yeah. Because that always helps.”

* * * * *

            Fr. Elliot let us into Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow and locked the door behind us. I have to admit, it had been a long time since I had stepped foot inside a church, but it looked exactly like I remember it. Statues of happy saints, stained-glass windows showing saints and children and animals frolicking together happily, every scene more annoyingly upbeat than the last, all of them completely ignorant of the realities of the world we lived in. I had to remind myself not to take all my resentment out on the priest. He had certainly been through enough already.

            “Alright. Wedge, stay back here with Fr. Rube, keep him safe just in case,” I said. “I’m going to see what I can feel.” Without waiting for a response, I took a few steps down the main aisle into the church, reaching out with the sixth sense I had that made me a medium. Immediately, I could tell this church had seen a lot; there was a lot of psychic residue left over from decades and decades of weddings, funerals, and any other event that had gone on there. Emotions, both good and bad, were everywhere. Finding what I was looking for, some trace of the poltergeist haunting the place, was going to be tough.

            In the meantime, I could overhear Wedge and Fr. Rube deep in conversation. “He doesn’t like me very much, does he,” the priest was asking.

            “Ah, it’s not you,” Wedge answered, “so much as it’s what you represent. Biggsy has seen a lot in his life, a lot of weird, horrible things that fly in the face of the things we were taught to believe in as we grew up. We both have.”

            “And what about you? You seem to be much finer with the Church than he is.”

            “Me?” I could hear Wedge laughed. “I served in the Marines, Father. In a unit so secret I’ll never be allowed to talk about it, not even on the day I die. A unit so secret we had to have our own chaplain because the base chaplain wasn’t one of us. That priest and I, we went through a lot together. So no matter what else I go through, me and the Church will always be okay. Biggsy doesn’t have that kind of link that I have, and the weird shi… I mean, stuff, we deal with hits him a lot harder than me because he’s the medium. I’m just the muscle.”

            “I can hear you, you know,” I called back over my shoulder irritably. “There are definitely better things to talk about right now than me. Is there anything else you can tell us, Padre?”

            “No, I told you the whole story,” he responded, sounding chastened enough that it brought a smile to my face. I quickly turned away so he wouldn’t see it.

            “What about after the attack?” It sounded like Wedge had an idea. “Did you talk to the woman who had been with the victim at all?”

            “I did,” Fr. Rube said, sighing. “I did my best to console her after her loss.”

            I turned to face him. “Did she say anything about what happened?”

            “She said her boyfriend, who wasn’t the baby’s father, by the way, was yelling at her to quiet the baby, and when she couldn’t, he grabbed her arm roughly, and the next thing she knew, the… poltergeist, as you said… was on top of him, and…”

            “That was it,” I cut him off as it hit me, “the violence against a woman is what brought her out. You said it yourself, her dress looked like it was torn and had holes in it. “

            “So she was probably attacked herself, most likely in the church itself,” Wedge said, picking up on what I was thinking, “and she’s been stuck here ever since, but no one noticed because a woman was never attacked before, so she never had a reason to manifest, until now, to keep whatever happened to her from happening to someone else.” He looked at me and grinned. “Good work, Biggsy.”

            The priest looked at us hopefully. “Now that you know that, can you get rid of her?”

            I shook my head. “There’s way too many emotions wrapped up in this place. Even if we painted up a double pentagram, I can’t get a solid enough fix on her feelings to summon her.”

            Wedge cursed under his breath, and then looked up at me as a thought struck him. “We do know a woman we could bring here to try to draw her out.”

            I was already vehemently shaking my head before he finished. “No way. Absolutely not. We are not bringing Lexy into this. It’s too dangerous.”

            “Not for her,” Wedge argued. “The ‘geist was protecting that woman when the guy grabbed her. So if we make it look like I’m going to hurt Lexy, it’ll come after me, not her. She’ll be completely safe. As soon as the ‘geist manifests, Fr. Rube can get Lexy out of the way.”

            “And what happens when it realizes we tricked it,” I shot back before the priest could respond, “and flies into a rage and attacks whoever it can get to before we banish it? What if it gets away from us and goes after her?”

            “So, what? We do nothing? And if some other guy gets a little rough with a woman at a wedding in here because he was drinking… maybe he doesn’t even hurt her, he just gets loud, and he gets his head ripped off too. Could you live with that? Do you think Lexy could, if she knew she could have helped stop it?”

            I stared daggers at him for a moment, but I knew he was right. “Damn you Wedge,” I finally said. “If anything happens to her…”

            “I know, buddy, I know,” he said as he pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll protect her with my life if I have to, just like I would for you.”

            That makes two of us, I thought to myself.

* * * * *

            As soon as she got the call, Lexy left the other nighttime bartender in charge and drove to the church to meet us. She was there in twenty minutes.

            “I’m sorry to ask you to do this,” were the first words out of my mouth as soon as Fr. Rube unlocked the front door to let her in.

            “Don’t worry about it,” she said with a smile. “I’m happy to help. So, what’s the plan?”

            “Well the ridiculous plan we’ve come up with since we can’t do the sane, safe plan…”

            “Oh, leave it alone, Biggsy,” Wedge broke in, annoyance in his voice. We’d been having this argument the entire time we were waiting for Lexy to arrive.

            “No, Wedge. This is nuts. We should do this the safe way, paint the double pentagram, let me and Lexy stand in the middle of it so the poltergeist is bound when it reaches us, then we jump to safety while you banish it with the sword.”

            “I’m sorry, Mr. Biggs.” Fr. Rube heaved an exasperated sigh. “I can’t let you paint pagan symbols on the floor of the church. I just can’t.”

            “Fine,” I snapped, turning on him angrily. “Let’s paint a Catholic symbol instead, see how useful that is!”

            “Biggs!” Wedge was horrified.

            I didn’t care.

            “Hey,” Lexy said calmly, coming to stand in front of me and looking up at me, staring until I looked back down at her. “It’s okay. I trust you guys. I’ll be fine. What’s the plan?”

            I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “The plan,” I finally said as softly as possible, “is for us to walk to the middle of the aisle, and then I’m going to hurt you, which should bring the poltergeist down on top of me, and then Wedge will take care of it.”

            “That sounds easy enough,” she said bravely. “You’re going to hurt me, huh? I guess we’d better get on with it then,” she added, a teasing twinkle in her eye. Without another word, she started walking down the aisle.

            I shook my head and turned to follow her when Wedge grabbed my arm. “Biggsy, I know you don’t want to do this,” he said. “I’ll go with her instead, take care of it.”

            “No, you need to be ready with the sword in case this shit happens faster than we’d like.” Besides, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to hurt Lexy, but I damn sure wasn’t going to watch someone else do it. I looked over at Fr. Rube. “Stay back here, Padre, and if things go wrong, get out as fast as you can.” Looking at Wedge again, I said, “Let’s go.” I saw him heft his sword and dagger, both anointed in innocent blood to banish spirits, and turned to follow Lexy.

            I caught up to Lexy and stopped her when we were roughly halfway down the aisle between the door and the altar. “Here’s good. The priest said the poltergeist manifested right in front of the altar first, we don’t want to get closer than this because we don’t know how fast it’ll get to us.”

            “Alright, you’re the boss.” She looked around, and then at me. “So, now you have to hurt me, right?”

            “Right,” I said, having no desire to do anything of the sort.

            She shrugged and grinned at me. “Have at it then.”

            I reached out and pinched her arm.

            She looked at her arm, and then shook her head at me before looking at the altar. I could hear Wedge laughing from where he stood a few feet behind us. “I think you’re going to have to do better than that, boss,” Lexy said. “C’mon, let me have it!”

            I pressed my palms against my face. I really didn’t want to be doing this. But needs must when the devil drives, or whatever the hell that saying is, even when he’s driving in a church. So I reached out and slapped her across the face as lightly as I could while still looking like I meant it.

            She fell back a few steps, her hand instinctively going to her face. I hated myself immediately, afraid that maybe I had struck her too hard. I reached out for her, but was interrupted by an awful keening coming from the altar.

            The poltergeist was here, and she was pissed. She covered the distance from the altar to where we were in the blink of an eye, faster than Wedge could react behind me, and before I knew it she had grabbed my arm tight in a grip that burned.

            And with contact, my medium senses kicked in, and I could see what she saw, feel what she felt, read her memories…

            I saw a beautiful young woman, long red hair, deep green eyes, running in terror at night. She had been at a party celebrating the end of the Civil War and left early after a fight with the man she had gone with, and now three men were chasing her, yelling horrible things.

            She saw the church up ahead and felt a glimmer of hope. Surely these men wouldn’t follow her into a house of God. She ran to the door and threw it open; pushing it closed behind her, she ran towards the well-lit altar. To her horror, though, she heard the door fly open behind her as the men charged in. They caught up to her as she reached the steps leading up to the altar and grabbed her roughly throwing her down to the floor.

            There were hands all over her, grabbing and ripping. She cried, but they didn’t care. One of the men held her down while the other pulled her legs apart, and the third…

            Her memories became disjointed after that, but two things were sure: she had been a virgin until that night, and the three men had their way with her until they were done, and then they killed her. A slew of emotions came over me at that point… pity and sorrow for her, anger over what had happened… but I didn’t have any time to process them. Communing with her like that happened in an instant, but it went both ways.

            She knew it was a trap.

            The poltergeist, angrier now, threw her arms out, knocking Lexy back from where she was trying to pry the ‘geist’s hand off me. She fell backwards her back slamming against a pew loudly. I was thrown across the aisle onto the opposite pew, my head painfully banging against the wood.

            That momentary distraction was all Wedge needed, though. As she was throwing both of us, he lunged forward and impaled her through the chest with his sword. With a scream that sounded like it was ripped from the depths of hell itself echoing behind her, she vanished.

            Once she was gone, Fr. Rube came running up to us. “Is it over?”

            “It’s over,” I confirmed as I pulled myself up and immediately went to Lexy’s side.

            The priest leaned over us. “Is everyone alright?”

            I grunted an affirmative as I helped Lexy to a seat on the pew. “I’m okay,” she answered, rubbing her back with one hand. “Just a little sore.”

            “Thank God,” the priest said, sounding relieved as he made the sign of the cross.

            “Yes, let’s thank God,” I snapped bitterly, “because he did so much.”

            “Whether you see it or not,” he responded, “God had a hand in all this.”

            “You’re right, He absolutely did.” I stood up and rounded on the priest, feeling myself almost bubbling over with anger. “Let’s go through the checklist of what God’s hand in all this was. He let a young woman get brutally raped and murdered in front of His altar and didn’t lift a finger of that mighty hand to help her. He left her spirit stranded here for over a century, stuck in her pain and rage. He let her murder someone. God certainly had a busy hand in this mess!”

            Wedge laid his hand on my shoulder. “Easy, Biggsy. It’s not Fr. Rube’s fault. Back off.”

            “No.” I shoved Wedge away from me, no easy feat considering he was built like a solid wall. “He wants to talk about the hand of God, right? The role God plays in everything? God, who wants all the praise for the good things that happen, and wants to move in mysterious ways according to his plan when the world goes to shit, right? Let’s run through what this God does, if he even exists. He makes a little boy have to talk to the spirit of his dead grandmother, and then send her away, only to come back and banish her years later. He gives another boy’s baby sister fatal cancer, and then lets her haunt and almost destroy that family until the first little boy has to come and tell her to go away, too, only to eventually banish her as well? What kind of God is okay with shit like that? Or what about a God who lets a baby boy got drowned by his parents so they can save money? Or lets people make clocks out of bones, clocks that are then haunted and kill people for revenge?” I turned towards the altar and started marching towards it. I was really raging now. “What kind of God lets that happen? Or lets a couple get dismembered by a poltergeist because a fuck-up like me couldn’t do his job right? This God of yours, Padre, if he exists, is a fucking con-man who…”

            I stopped when I felt a small hand slip into my own and hold it tightly. Turned to my left, where Lexy had taken my left hand in her right, her own left hand holding her back. “Stop, Hank,” she said softly, looking up into my eyes, sympathy in her own. “It’s over. Let’s go home.”

            Faced with those eyes and her words, my anger deflated a bit. I let her turn me around and lead me out of the church, Wedge falling into step behind us. As we passed Fr. Rube, I couldn’t resist one last jab. “The check will be in the mail, Padre. Maybe God’s hand will reimburse you.”

            Behind me, I heard Wedge apologize for me, and Fr. Rube say that it was okay, he understood.

            I didn’t care.

* * * * *

             When we got back to the Haunted Hops, Wedge went upstairs to his apartment without a word to me. Lexy said she was going to check with the bartender, make sure everything was okay. I went down to the office and grabbed the expensive bottle of Glenfiddich 1937 I had stashed in my desk. I drank deeply. I knew I should have savored it, but after the night I had, I didn’t care.

            I slumped into my desk chair miserably. I felt like an ass about so many things. The way I had acted, the things I had said, especially in front of Lexy. I had never wanted her to see that side of me. And I had hit her, too. It didn’t matter if it was necessary…

            I was interrupted by a brief knock on the door before Lexy walked in. “So, that was some night, huh?” She walked around to my side of the desk and sat on the edge.

            “Yeah. Listen, about what I did, what I said back there…”

            Before I could finish, she leaned over and kissed me on the lips very softly. Caught completely by surprise, all I could do was look at her.

            “Hank,” she said softly, sitting up on the desk now, “I’m here if you want to talk."

            And I did.

The Avengers vs. The Dark Knight Rises

Having seen both The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises at least twice each, I think I'm ready to tackle the question of which of these comic book movie juggernauts was the better movie.

I've thought about this a lot. I looked at it from all the angles... plot, cast, effects, action... and finally found the answer, at least for me, when I thought about my gut reactions at the end of each film. With The Avengers, after the last post-credit scene ended, I was overjoyed. I was full of happy, bouncy energy, like I had just witnessed a great victory and wanted to celebrate. When the credits rolled on TDKR, I was literally dumbstruck. It took me a few minutes to process my thoughts enough to be able to actually talk about what I had just seen. Looking at those two reactions is what eventually gave me the answer to the question of which one is better. The answer is...

Neither.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: cop out. But hear me out on this. These two movies exemplify the two ends of the spectrum that make up the comic book genre. The Avengers is just like the comic book that embraces all the characteristics of a comic book we've come to expect: deliciously evil villains, a sinister mastermind in the shadows, snarky but noble heroes who fight first and then put aside their differences to save the world, big comedy and even bigger action. It's the kind of comic that is the reason every kid first picks up a comic book and wants more as soon as it's done... and The Avengers was that kind of comic book brought to life.

But there's another kind of comic book. There are comic books like Watchmen or like the original Dark Knight Rises, comic books that try to do so much more than embrace the genre and entertain. They try to be about something, try to make you feel, try to make you think, long after you've read the last page and put the comic book down. That, to me, is the kind of comic book TDKR is. Sure, it's about Batman... but not really. That's why we see so much of other characters like Commissioner Gordan, and Blake, and even Selina Kyle. It's about what Batman represents. It's about sacrifice, symbolism, and hope.

That's why neither movie is better than the other. They're entirely too different to compare. They strive to do two different things, to be two different things... and they each succeed beautifully.

To use a less geeky explanation, TDKR rises is like an excellent steak, and The Avengers is like the ice cream sundae you have for dessert afterwards. You'd never say, "This steak is better than that ice cream." You just enjoy them both for what they are.

Especially when what they both are is awesome.

Fiction Friday - Biggs and Wedge Occult Occurrences: The First Case Part 2: A Good Friend

Here I am, back with the fifth installment in this short story series, this one the conclusion to the two-parter that started last week. Last night I plotted the "meta-arc" of the story out to a full twenty short stories. I'm pretty excited about the stories I have planned, as well as what I have planned to do with them after they're done. If you want to read the previous installments in case you've missed them... well, I'm too tired to make up any links for you; just click the "Fiction Fridays" tag and scroll down, the newest one is on top, the oldest one is on bottom. And remember, feedback is not just appreciated, it's desired!

Biggs and Wedge Occult Occurrences:

The First Case Part 2:

A Good Friend

            “They’ve definitely been down there a long time.”

            I couldn’t help but smile at the hint of concern in Lexy’s voice, holding a bottle of beer to my lips to hide the smile from her. Alexa Fogel, manager of the Haunted Hops, had set up an interview with a reporter from Weekly World Now Magazine for me and my partner, Henry Biggs. She thought it would be a good way to bring more business to both the bar me and Biggsy owned, as well as to our occult business. Biggs’ interview had been first, and had been going on for over a half hour now.

            She looked back at me from behind the bar as I shifted on my barstool. “What do you think is taking so long, Wedge?”

            Wedge was my nickname; Aldredge Thompson was my full name. And yes, I know Aldredge is a ridiculous name. That’s why I had the nickname. “I don’t know, Lexy. Knowing Biggs, he probably took a few swigs of that fancy scotch he has down there and it getting as honest as he possibly can, whether he thinks it’s a good idea or not.”

            “Why would he do that? He didn’t even want to do the interview in the first place.”

            I looked at her meaningfully as I took a long drink of my beer. “Because you asked him to.”

            “Like that matters to him,” she said, laughing and shaking her head.

            I shrugged. Whatever; if they both wanted to keep pretending they were too stupid to see what was happening right in front of them, it was none of my business.

            We heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs from the basement where Biggs and I had the office for the occult business. It sounded like heels, so it had to be the reporter.

            “Here she comes,” Lexy whispered to me. “I wish you’d have worn a tie like I asked you to!”

            “Yeah, I bet you also wish I wasn’t on my fourth beer already,” I teased. I knew from the look on her face she had a response for me, but the reporter had just come upstairs and was walking over to us, so Lexy stifled herself.

            “Hello, I’m Melissa Adaire,” she announced with a big smile as she held her hand out to me. “You must be Mr. Thompson.”

            “Wedge,” I said as I took her hand.

            “Do you have an office you’d like to go to for the interview?”

            I reached over and pushed out the neighboring barstool for her. “This is my office.”

            As Adaire sat down, Lexy said, “I should probably leave you two alone to get to it.”

            “Stay,” I told her. “I’m going to need a few more of these before this is all over.” I gestured to the nearly empty beer in front of me.

            The reporter took all this in stride as she placed her tape recorder in front of me on the bar. “Well, to start off, I don’t suppose I could get you to tell me the story behind that, could I?” Her eyes went to the large replica of the Millennium Falcon hanging from the center of the bar’s ceiling.

            “The Skywalker Ranch case? Nice try, lady,” I laughed, “but Biggsy would have my ass if I told you about that.”

            She smirked. “But I’ve heard that you’ve told that story to dozens of women in the bar before.”

            “Sure, but there’s a difference between telling a drunk girl in the bar you’re trying to score with, and telling a reporter.” I finished my beer and grinned at her. “Unless, that is, you’d like to go somewhere more private and let me tell you off the record once this is over?” I ignored Lexy’s disapproving scowl as she put another beer on the bar in front of me.

            “Well, if we can’t talk about that,” she said, sidestepping my pass completely, “let’s talk about you. You were in the Marines, right? What can you tell me about that?”

            “I was in the Marines, served a bunch of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can’t tell you much more than that; some things stay classified long after they’re over.”

            “And in my research I saw you were dishonorably discharged. What led to that?”

            I tipped my beer back, drinking deep before answering. “Like I said, some things stayed classified. I served my country and did what I was told, up until I didn’t, and I got tossed. Anything more than that is up to someone way, way above my pay grade to reveal. Call the Pentagon if you want, but I don’t think you’ll get anywhere.” I didn’t like talking about my time in that pretty little corner of Hell. “Besides, this is supposed to be about what me and Biggsy do for a living. Let’s get back on track here, lady.”

            “Fine,” she said, unable to hide a sigh. “How do you know your partner?”

            “We grew up in the same neighborhood. I wouldn’t say we were friends, though; I was part of the crowd that picked on the other kids, and he was definitely one of the kids that got picked on. At least, he was, until that thing with my sister. Then no one picked on him anymore, at least not while I was around.”

            She looked at me curiously. “What thing with your sister?”

            “Biggs didn’t mention anything about my sister?” I shrugged, but the truth was that was just like him; he’d never spill someone else’s stories. “When I was thirteen, my younger sister died. She had been sick since birth. Cancer. She fought it off until she was nine, and then she passed away peacefully in her bed. Except, the death might have been peaceful, but the aftermath wasn’t. Her spirit stuck around for awhile, not really hurting anyone, but, like, appearing in front of us, crying. It was killing my parents, and it wasn’t too pleasant for me either.” I took another long drink to wash the memory away.

            Adaire didn’t say anything, she just watched, waiting for me to continue. I could feel Lexy waiting, too. She had never heard this story before.

            “After a couple weeks of that,” I continued, “I was out on my stoop crying my eyes out, and Biggs walked by. Even after how mean me and my friends had been to him for years, he came over to ask what was wrong. That’s just the kind of guy he’s always been. And I told him. I didn’t mean to at first, but none of my friends had believed me so I had shut up about it with them, but I had to talk to somebody. So I told him all about it. He told me he believed me and he understood, and then he asked if he could come inside because he thought he could help. I laughed at him, I thought he was crazy. But I let him in anyway; what did I have to lose? So he walked in, walked right up to where the ghost of my sister was standing there in tears like he could see her… which, of course, he could… and talked to her for a few minutes quietly. Then she waved at all of us sadly and we never saw her again.”

            “He told me his grandmother was the only ghost he had ever talked to,” she said, almost whiningly.

            “Yeah, well, he would have said that. Telling other people’s stories isn’t his style. But after that, we were inseparable, and you can bet your ass no one ever picked on him again. At the time I had no idea what he had done, but I knew it was the best thing anyone had ever done for my family. Biggsy told me later all he did was ask her to stop upsetting us, so she did; once we got full-swing into the banishing game we went back and sent her to her rest just like we did his grandmother.”

            “Today is just full of surprises,” I heard Lexy say from behind the bar. I turned to look at her and saw surprise mixed with understanding on her face, and I realized she had never heard anything about Biggs’ grandmother before. Fuck.

            “Alright, we’re going to do this a little differently now.” I didn’t want to get my ass in any more trouble than it already was. “Before I let out another state secret, why don’t you just tell me what you and Biggsy were talking about?”

            Melissa Adaire smiled, knowing she had caught a scoop already. “He was telling me about the first banishing he attempted for a rich family and how wrong it went; how it was the first time he came across a poltergeist and how the weapon he had was a fraud and he had to ran away, and he said you were what happened next.”

            “He didn’t run away,” I snapped defensively, some of my old military resentment of that word creeping up, “it was a tactical retreat.” From behind the bar, I heard Lexy giggle, but I ignored her. “Anyway, I had gotten my discharge a few weeks before that happened. I had been kicking around at home, working an odd job here and there, but shit wasn’t coming together the way I wanted. I had talked to Biggs a few days before that night and he offered to give me a job on his security team.” I stopped to laugh and take another drink. “He told me it was a cushy, well-paying job, so I jumped on it. Truth is, I’d have said yes either way, because it was Biggs asking. I had flown in to meet him the night before and was drinking in the hotel bar when he came and found me after the banishing went pear-shaped.”

            “So he came to you and told you what happened?”

            “Yeah.” I finished my beer and signaled Lexy to pass me another. “I could have killed him for doing something like that without me to watch his back in the first place, but Biggsy can be a little bull-headed sometimes. I had no idea how banishings worked at the time. He explained to me about needed a blade that had been anointed in innocent blood to do the job and how the axe was a fraud. Luckily for us, I had an answer. I took him upstairs to my hotel room, pulled out my duffel bag, and grabbed a bowie knife from my time in the desert that I had hidden in a secret pouch that I knew would do the job.”

            Lexy and Adaire were both staring at me; it was the reporter who spoke. “You had a knife from the army that was already anointed in innocent blood?”

            “Some things stay classified.”

            The look on my face must have gotten the message across, because she quickly changed the subject. “So you gave him the knife to take back to the house?”

            “Hell no. I took the knife back to the house with him. There was no way I was letting him go back there without back-up. And it’s a good thing, too, because when we got back there, it really hit the fan.”

            “What happened?”

            “His clients must have gotten tired of waiting to hear from him, or just got curious or something, because they went back to the house. When we got there, the front door was wide open, and the poltergeist was in the middle of the room, juggling an arm and two legs, the rest of the couples’ body parts arranged around him like a star while he splashed around in their blood.” I had to take a drink to chase down the memory, like a foul-tasting shot. “I saw a lot of fucked up things in the war… hell, I did a lot of fucked up things in the war, but this was the worst thing I had ever seen. It still is. I looked at Biggs and told him to stay outside, and I charged in at the poltergeist. It saw me coming and charged me right back, so I stopped, waited, and once it reached me, I jabbed the knife right into it, and boom. It let out the most horrible sound I had ever heard and disappeared. Biggs walked in after me and just stared at the dead bodies. The next day, he canceled his medium tour and told me he was going to start doing banishings full-time, and asked me if I wanted to help.”

            “Did you? Want to help, I mean,” the reporter asked.

            I looked at her like she was crazy. “Are you out of your mind? I never wanted to see something like that again. No one in their right mind would ever want to see that shit again. But I damn sure couldn’t let Biggs do it alone.”

            “If no one in their right mind would want to see that again, why do you think Biggs wanted to start doing banishings professionally?”

            “It’s the Spider-Man Effect: power and responsibility.” That got me a couple of blank stares. “Women,” I sighed. “Long story short, Peter Parker gets superpowers, uses them for personal gain, doesn’t stop a robber when he has the chance… and that robber goes on to kill his Uncle Ben, the man who raised him. He learned about power and responsibility from that; if you have the power to help people, it’s your responsibility to do it. Seeing those dead bodies there was Biggs’ ‘Uncle Ben moment.’ He felt that if he had taken things more seriously then, he might have banished that poltergeist before it killed those people. I don’t think he’s ever stopped feeling guilty about that, and he’s been making up for it since?”

            I heard a muffled sound from Lexy and, when I looked over at her, I saw there were tears in her eyes. I was about to say something, but Adaire had another question. “Is that why you help him, then? Responsibility?”

            “Hell no,” I answered. “If I learned anything in the Marines, it’s that shit happens sometimes. Good people, bad people… shit happens to everybody. But what kind of person would I be if I let my best friend, the person who kept my family together when it might have broken apart, go down that road alone? Listen,” I said, leaning forward, “you want to hear something, off the record?” I waited until she nodded reluctantly. “I’m not the sharpest knife in the tool shed, but I’m not the fool I pretend to be, either. This job? What we do? It’ll kill Biggs without me. Either a banishing will go wrong when I’m not there watching his back, or he’ll sink so far into one of the funks he gets into over the shit we see that he’ll drink himself to death… or worse. So I keep him safe, and I play the fool and try to keep things as light as I can for my friend, the best person I’ve ever known.”

            I chugged the rest of my beer and looked at the two silent faces looking back at me, first Lexy, and then the reporter. “Any other questions, or are we done here?”

            “I think I’ve got everything I need,” she answered quietly as she took out what looked like a business card and scribbled something down on it. She looked up at Lexy as she put her tape recorder in her bag. “Thank you for setting all this up, Ms. Fogel. I’ll be in touch with details about when the magazine will come out.”

            “You’re welcome,” Lexy answered softly, obviously thinking about what she had heard.

            Melissa Adaire walked over to me on her way out and slipped me the card she had written something down on. “In case you want to tell me more, off the record, like you suggested before,” she whispered, her hand lingering on my shoulder a second before it slipped away and she walked out the door.

            I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at the back of the card and saw what he had written there: her home number. I looked back up at Lexy to ask for another beer and saw her watching me. “Oh, don’t judge me,” I said with a laugh.

            Instead of answering, she turned away and walked out from behind the bar to over where I was sitting. She slipped her arms around me and hugged me tight before kissing me on the cheek. “You’re a good friend, Aldredge,” she whispered, giving me another kiss on the cheek before walking away.

            “That’s me,” I muttered as I watched her walk away. “The good friend.”