Jackie the Beanstalk
Chapter 10
Ghost Town
“OH, THAT’S SO COOL!” I said. “You did the whole town!” I realized now what I’d been missing on our walk. If I’d paid attention to the animals, I’d have known much more quickly. There were no smells. The coffee shop didn’t smell like coffee. The bakery didn’t smell like anything baking. And there was an entire populated dining room just across the lobby and not a whiff of food or cooking aroma. I wondered for an instant if the desk clerk was part of the display, but she had substance. I could remember her handling Misty’s credit card in the machine.
The look on her face was priceless.
“You like it?”
“Oh, yeah! It’s great! I’ve got to run upstairs and tell Misty and Princess. They’ll love it! Can we, like, actually go into the dining room and participate? Is it interactive?”
“Um… I guess so. We can even serve food, but it will take me a few minutes to change to my cook outfit.”
“Sure, you go ahead. Let’s make a reservation for… Let’s say 9:30. That will give me time to take a shower. See you then!” I always liked haunted houses. The fact they’d built an entire haunted town was just a knock-out. Roadkill, Shasta, and I took the stairs two at a time, all the way to the fifth floor.
I about died laughing when I walked into the room. Princess and Misty were shrunk up into a little ball together beside the bed. They were fixated on the wall across the room. I looked over there and saw a life-size scene playing out of a couple, apparently on their honeymoon. I had a feeling this could get racy.
“Isn’t this cool?” I asked.
“But… They’re… I mean…” Misty stuttered.
“Ghosts!” Princess blurted out. They turned and grinned at her, but didn’t leave their little area on the far side of the room.
“Yeah, neat, huh? It’s a whole ghost town. They’re all over. It’s better than that Haunted Mansion thing at Disney. It’s the whole town. We’ve got a reservation for dinner. I need a shower first.” I headed toward the bathroom.
“But but but… There’s a body in the bathtub!”
“You’re kidding! Just freakin’ awesome!” I went into the bathroom and, just as they said, there was someone there. She wasn’t just a body, though. She was taking a bath. You could see the water dripping off of her as she washed, but the tub was dry. She looked startled when she saw me. “Carry on,” I said joyfully. “I’m just going to get a quick shower and then you can go back to what you were doing.” I turned on the water to get it the right temperature and stripped out of my robe, undies, boots, and socks. The water was perfect, so I stepped in. Sort of stepped on her, but I did say sorry. She scooted toward the end so I’d have room without standing in her. The shower made her flicker a little, which only enhanced the realism in my mind. The door opened and Misty stuck her head in.
“You’re really showering? In there? With her?” Misty croaked.
“Well, it’s not like she takes up any space. Look! I think she’s enjoying the water coming down.” Indeed, the image was lifting her face to the spray and had a look of bliss on her face. Man, the folks who put this together really got it! “I’m getting out. You want me to leave the water running?” I asked.
“I’m good!” Misty squeaked. “No. I mean. Just fine. I’ll just wait out here with Princess.”
I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. The towels were even warm. The girls didn’t know what they were missing by not jumping into this shower. I looked at the tub. The image was sitting back down in it. She was looking mournfully up at the shower head.
“I don’t really think I should just leave the shower on,” I said. “I bet most people just see you in here and freak out like Misty and Princess did. Man, what they were missing! Tell you what. I assume you all disappear at sunrise like you appeared at sunset. I’ll get up early and take another shower before sunrise. I don’t know who the model was for you, but you are gorgeous. Not that I’m into girls, understand, but I can appreciate what my eyes tell me.”
I’m not sure what I was thinking, talking to an image like that, but they were so real looking. It was just amazing. I dried and dressed and went out to join Misty and Princess. They were sitting on the bed with their eyes riveted on the tableau playing out before them.
“Come on, you two. You’ve got to see the dining room. There’s even a band playing. It might be a limited menu, though. I’m not sure if the girl usually cooks real meals,” I said, leading them to the door.
“Did you see what they’re doing over there?” Misty asked. “They’re undressing. I think they’re going to, like, screw or something.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll replay it if you miss anything fun.”
“Why are you so calm about all this?” Princess asked. “There are ghosts everywhere!”
“That’s what’s so neat. Just look at the detail. Head to foot! Disney does a lot of eye direction. You get so caught up in a face that you don’t really notice that there’s nothing there below the shoulders. I tell you, the person who created all this is a genius!”
“You mean it doesn’t bother you?” Princess asked.
“No. As soon as I figured out how to tell the real from the projections, it was all cool.”
“How do you tell?”
“Watch the animals. When we went to the desk, they were sniffing at the clerk all over. They completely ignore the ghosts. I assume there are cast members circulating in the scene to make it more realistic.” We entered the dining room.
“Warrior Wizard, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the banquet of the spirits. Please accompany me to your table.” We followed him as I continued to lecture Princess and Misty.
“See? Like this guy,” I said as I took hold of his shoulder, “is real and solid.” Roadkill stuck his nose up the guy’s butt and he involuntarily jerked.
“We’re so glad you are enjoying the show. We seldom have any living beings here with us,” the maître d’ said. “We’ve taken the liberty of ordering our house specialty for you.”
“As long as it’s not brains and guts, I’m fine with that. But don’t try to take advantage of us. That just won’t work.”
“Of course, Warrior Wizard.” He turned left, intent on maintaining the illusion of a busy dining room. However, when it came time to serve the food, he was the one who brought the tray and the girl from the desk, dressed as a chef now, set the dishes on the table. I held up my hand to stop Misty and Princess from diving in. Instead, I quickly flipped the gold cord over the maître d’ and pulled him to me.
“Now, kind sir,” I said standing. “I’d ask you to please place your hand on the pommel of my sword.”
“Yes, Warrior Wizard,” he said, obeying my command.
“In this crazy world we live in, we can’t be too careful. You know, I had to fight werewolves last night. So, I just want you to tell me precisely what is being served in our dinner and to affirm that it is safe to eat.”
“Really,” he sniffed. “We don’t poison our guests. This is a rustic lamb fricassee with tender chunks of lamb, greens, artichokes and a delicious Greek avgolemono sauce. It is served over a bed of mixed wild rice. My daughter is exceptionally proud of her cooking ability.”
“And you both have my sincere apologies for the doubt I cast. You just would not believe the week we’ve had. I do hope I’ll have a chance to talk to you again. I just love what you’ve done with the place.”
“Certainly, Warrior Wizard.” I released the cord of submission and he let go of my sword of truth. I sat and we dug into one of the most exquisite dishes I’ve ever eaten. Princess and Misty ate enthusiastically, if a little more distracted by all the characters around us. I was trying to figure out if any of the musicians were actors or if they were all projections. The music certainly seemed to be coming from the stage.
And that’s another thing that was different. We could hear voices from the other tables, but it was difficult to decide which table they came from. It was almost as if the sounds in the room were piped in. That had to be it. The maître d’ brought us a nice baklava and coffee for dessert.
“Please sit with us and tell us more about your whole setup,” I invited. He took a chair and everyone in the room seemed to turn to look at us.
“What can I tell you, Warrior Wizard? The story is long.”
“But this is such a wonderful place, it must be worth the story. Please, indulge us.”
“Very well. It started several years ago. An epidemic swept through the community and in a matter of a few weeks, we’d lost a third of our population to it,” he said. “Another third pulled up stakes and left, abandoning their homes and everything in them. Of the remaining third, nearly half have passed on in the intervening years and there have been no new arrivals.”
“How sad!”
“Yes. There are fewer than a hundred living souls in the town now. We were, frankly, devastated. None of us here have escaped unscathed, but all have lost people near and dear to them.” The desk clerk, still dressed as a chef, pulled a chair to our table, seeming to be as hungry for conversation as the man. “Most of the people in the community were related in some way—if you went back far enough—so, the losses cut deeply, emotionally and physically. This, by the way, is my daughter Joan. I’m Raymond.”
“Happy to meet you, Raymond. I’m Jackie. This is Princess and Misty. Joan, that was absolutely one of the best meals I have ever had. I hope you have enough business to merit your talents.”
“Thank you. There aren’t that many living people here to cook for, but I usually get a good meal in at least once a week,” she said. I automatically transposed what she said to mean ‘that many people living here.’ I was sure that was what she meant.
“Sorrow and loss will drive people to do things we wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. There weren’t enough of us left to support the businesses, and we had to close many of them that no longer had living owners. We were talking—those of us who were left—one Sunday after church, about what a ghost town we were living in. One thing led to another, and what you see is the result.”
It was an amazing story and I kept looking around for the gimmicks. Really hard to spot.
“Your engineer must be brilliant. This is the best I’ve ever seen. I have to ask, where are the projectors?” I said. He got a really puzzled look on his face and then a dawning of something. He reached over and took hold of my sword.
“I tell you this truthfully,” he said. “These are not projections. They are the ghosts of the people we lost.”
Maybe—just maybe—he could have surprised me more. I looked around the room and half a dozen people, obviously those among the living, had scooted their chairs closer to our table. Around them, the ghostly visages stood, grinning and waiting to see if I’d panic. There was a high-pitched whine and I looked first at Roadkill. He was fine. The whine was coming from Misty and Princess. Joan reached out and patted their shoulders. I’m not sure that comforted them.
“So, you’re…?”
“A necromancer,” he said. “Only I don’t do animating dead bodies. There is nothing a sorcerer can do to stop the deterioration of the flesh. But the spirits of our friends are here and lively, happy to have a chance to get together for a party when we have a guest. We try to make it an interesting show.”
“Oh, definitely,” I laughed, much to Misty and Princess’s amazement. “The woman in our bathtub was certainly putting on a show, and I think the couple in the reflected room were getting ready to do something pornographic.”
“They do tend to enjoy exhibitionism,” he said. “Nothing they ever would have done in life, but now there is nothing to stop them.”
“How many guests do you get each day?”
“Each day?” Joan huffed. “We’re lucky to see a living human stop in town once in a month.”
“Oh no! How do you keep operating?” I said.
“I’m afraid it is a labor of love,” Raymond said. “This way, at least I get to see my loving Cassandra, Joan’s mother, once in a while.” A woman walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hi, Mom,” Joan said. “Nice guests, aren’t they?”
Raymond turned to see the woman behind him and they smiled at each other. It must be difficult to be able to see each other, but not to feel or hear.
“Is everyone here willingly?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. We called a big town meeting with my first summoning. Some bowed out and indicated they didn’t want to participate. Those who gather are the ones who weren’t ready to leave,” Raymond said.
“We need to get you more guests!” I said with determination. “You just can’t imagine what a demand there is for a good haunted house. And to have an entire haunted town? You could be making a fortune!”
“How?” asked one of the men seated near us. “We’re just people who like to dress up and spend time with our friends and family.”
“A little marketing,” I said. “Now this is all if you’re interested. I don’t want to tell you how to run your lives. Or deaths, as the case may be. If you wanted to really entertain people, you could start by running an ad in some of the big newspapers. Radio and television, too. Don’t limit yourselves to people nearby. You have a nice hotel, great meals, and a unique form of entertainment. How often does a person get to actually walk among the dead?”
“You think people would come here for that?” a woman asked.
“Oh, yeah. No question. Position it as a destination resort. Even invite people to bring their own ghosts. Not that I think there are a lot of necromancers out there who are raising people, but it will give people a big thrill to have dinner with an actual ghost. And if those three in our room keep putting on the show they are, it will be a special that’s worth a premium,” I said. I was getting excited and by the looks of them, the ghosts gathered around were, too.
“Do you really think this would work?” Raymond asked.
“You wouldn’t believe the appetite people have for the macabre. All I’d say is that all of the performers need to be in agreement. You’d get a lot of bad press if they thought you were somehow forcing the dead to perform for you,” I said.
“I think this could work!” Raymond said. “Joan could get more culinary skills in and the guests could have dinner with a ghost!”
“Now you’re thinking. This place is a prime location. You even have a lake near and can have a beach open in the summer. Oh! And get some smells. If you have a hundred living people in town, someone could learn to run the espresso machine. Someone could bake a little something, even if it isn’t much. And put a fan in the kitchen that blows the smell of what Joan is cooking up here. The first thing that clued me in that something was out of kilter was that I couldn’t smell anything.”
“Yes. We could do that.”
“I’ll even give you an endorsement,” I said. “‘Jackie the Warrior Wizard said to eat here, sleep here, and take a look at the other side.’ We can rework that so it makes the most sense.”
The whole town got excited and brainstormed various attractions they could have. It was fun to have everyone vote in an impromptu poll. I watched.
“Abe, you can’t keep voting,” Joan said, chiding a ghost that was in line for the third time. “I can recognize you even when you change hats. Your vote has been recorded. The dead can vote here, but only once.” Two other ghosts approached and escorted Abe out of the line. I saw the babe in the bathtub in line to vote. She’d put on a robe.
“Who is that?” I asked Raymond.
“Oh, that’s Reba. Whenever we put a guest in that room, she rushes up there to get in the tub. Did you see her there?”
“Yeah. We had a nice shower together. I think she was just hoping I’d turn the shower on. She seemed to really like it,” I said. “And she’s damn cute!”
“I’ll make a note of that and ask her about what she wants to do in terms of performing. She was always a bit of an exhibitionist. But she might not want guys perving on her. I can imagine some of them being pretty gross.”
“If they’re guys, that’s a given,” I sighed. “Well, I’m taking my crew and heading for bed. We need to get on the road at a decent hour tomorrow. We do have a quest to attend to.”
“Thank you for all your help, Warrior Wizard. We’ll have breakfast for you before you leave.”
“Are you serious?” Princess asked in shock. “You are going to tell people to come and dine with the ghosts? What if they hurt someone?”
“What would they do? They are apparitions. Intelligent apparitions who love their town and want to help it recover,” I said.
“What if they start eating people?” Misty asked.
“Auntie, they are ghosts, not zombies. Now, it’s close to midnight. We need to get moving in the morning. Let’s go to bed.”
I got in bed and went to sleep pretty quickly. Misty snuggled up and I felt her breathing change as she dropped off to sleep. I think Princess might have watched the late show with the couple in the mirror. She looked pretty exhausted in the morning.
I kept my word and got up before sunrise to take a shower. Reba was waiting for me. When I started the water, she slipped out of her robe and joined me in the shower. It was a strange thing to look at her as the water sprayed through her. She faced it, shook her head in it, raised her hands to dance in it.
“Hey, don’t slip and fall,” I laughed. She just shrugged and raised up an inch or two off the tub surface. I guess the idea of slipping and falling didn’t affect a ghost. “You love the shower, don’t you?” I asked. She nodded emphatically. “But you can’t really feel it, can you?” She sadly shook her head. Here she was, standing in the shower, loving every minute of it, but unable to actually feel it. It was really sad. “If I could make you materialize, for just a minute, do you think you could feel the water? I think I could do it, if you want me to. Nothing without your permission.”
Reba was nodding her head so emphatically, I thought it would fall off. That would be unpleasant. I held up my hands and she held still. I placed my hands on either side of her head and visualized her becoming physically present. Then I muttered the words. “Se concrétiser.”
I had my eyes closed, so the first clue I had was a gasp. I opened my eyes to see Reba with her face upturned to the warm water, arms held out, and a smile on her face. She opened her eyes and rushed to embrace me. I just held her in my arms for the few moments left before sunrise. I could feel her body losing its solidity as she slipped back into the nothingness of daytime.
“Thank you,” I heard her whisper as the last vestige of her physical body evaporated.
I’d had my doubts about the whole process. I hoped the dissolving physical body didn’t cause pain for her. And I really hoped that the moments of feeling the water on her body didn’t make not having it more difficult for her.
“Blessings on you, Reba. Blessings,” I whispered. I turned the water off and got out of the shower. It was time to face another day.
Mile 1308
“Watch for a turn off to the left,” Misty said. “It should be coming up in just… right now!”
I saw the turnoff as we sped by it. I wished the damn TripTik would give us a little more warning on things. We’d almost missed the café half an hour ago. I screeched to a stop and we got the animals out for a walk. Also managed to get a fresh cup of pretty good coffee. Now the TripTik wants me to turn immediately. I slowed to a stop after checking the mirrors to make sure there was nothing behind us. We hadn’t had much traffic, but the road wasn’t deserted either. I put the car in reverse and backed up until I’d reached the side road and turned.
For most of this journey, we’d been traveling on a good quality blacktop, two-lane road with a wide shoulder on either side. The road we turned onto was a narrow two-lane byway that could use some repairs. In some places, there was a ditch that dropped off beside the road. A little nudge to the right and the tire would drop down into the ditch and we’d break an axle, among other things. We started gaining elevation at once.
And the road got worse.
“Are you sure this is the way?” I asked. I’d never really looked at the TripTik and simply trusted that Misty was giving me good directions. The road turned to gravel.
“The route is clearly marked, but there are some pretty tight curves coming up,” she said.
“Look over there!” Princess said pointing out the passenger side window. I couldn’t see. Misty looked out her window.
“Better slow down and take a look at this,” she said.
I slowed to a stop again, but I couldn’t see what they were fascinated by, so I got out and walked around to the back. “Misty, bring the binoculars, please,” I said. She brought the glasses from the glovebox and I looked down the mountain to the road we’d left behind. What Princess had spotted was a roadblock of the highway we’d been following. Lots of heavy machinery was blocking the way. What she couldn’t see, however, was the number of men running around in black suits. One of them was identifiable: Valentine Caesar. How the heck did he get ahead of us?
It would be helpful to have a larger detailed map so we could tell where we were going and how far it would be. All we had was the not-to-scale map of the Land that showed general relationships of major landmarks, and the TripTik that showed what was immediately in front of us. It had just saved us from running smack into the enemy.
We all piled back into the car and kept going, though I went at a bit slower pace so as not to raise much dust that might be visible from the highway. Before long, I didn’t need to worry about that either. The gravel road changed to a track barely wide enough for the car to get through. I kept driving around the curves and finally realized we were headed back downhill instead of heading for the summit.
We’d shifted and it looked like we’d crossed a shoulder of the mountain and were headed down the other side. As the track became wider and then became dirt and gravel, I managed to gradually accelerate. It was still a long haul and we made several rest stops along the way to relieve bladders and grab food and drinks from the unending supply in the back of the hatch. Eventually, we hit a main road again. I had no idea if it was the same main road. It’s not like any of the routes were marked with names or anything. It was just ‘go this way’ or ‘turn here.’
When the TripTik pointed us to another campground, I was suspicious, but this was a small place with just a couple other campers in it. We didn’t have a typically reserved spot, but found a space sort of secluded. We were all so tired that we set up camp, ate, and slept.
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