This is the final part. You'll see by the end that I plan on writing more from this same concept world. Let me know what you think, and thank you to those who make it through the whole thing.
Revelations of a dead man: There are ghosts and I am one of them. There are rules to being a ghost, and I broke one of them; never contact the living. My first breach of this rule led me to my son, and to our Ghost Guide, a towering ancient Viking ghost I dubbed "Blondy". My son is a ghost too, and we are a team.
Ghosts can be Explorers, Ghost Catchers, or Guides. Only Explorers who have lived 500 Earth-years can be Guides, and only then after serving on a Catcher Team for at least another hundred years. Catchers can trade places and be Explorers, but only if there is an Explorer willing to take his or her place on their designated Catcher Team. Guides run the show, and they travel distances through time and space to greet and guide the newly dead, and to direct Catchers and Explorers in their training and work.
Blondy gave us the choice of Catcher or Explorer. I wanted Explorer. Ghosts-gone-wild who are hurting the living and dead sounds like a terrifying way to spend your death. I told Blondy so, and my son just looked at me and said "No way." I thought he was agreeing with me, and wanted to sail around some new stars, maybe find bug-eyed aliens on strange planets. I asked Blondy if this was possible. He said yes, but nothing changed, because Blondy knew my son meant there was no way he would leave Earth.
My son wanted a real life on Earth, any way he could take it. He wasn't some bitter middle-aged man who wanted to hide behind nebulas, as far away from a mostly-wasted life as possible. He was just a bright-eyed ghost kid who wanted to see the wonders of the world - especially the animals and volcanoes. How could I say no?
We are Ghost Catcher team Four-Eighty-One. There are five hundred teams now, but considering the billions of dead, it is a rarity to be a Catcher Team. Most teams don't make it through their first few years, or even through training.
Training is different for each team, because it happens in the field. A Guide will find a minor threat and the Catcher Team responds with the Guide playing Overseer.
Our first training run was with Blondy, who was already tired of us, or seemed to be, before we even got started. This was before anyone knew what my son really is. This was before I knew what I am. This was in a time when I was proud of my son for being a tough little ghost-boy, and nothing more. I was happy for every second of knowing him even then.
Training began in Texas. Waterlogged after being slapped repeatedly by the arms of a low-level hurricane, Corpus Christi stood like a few soggy biscuits of land in a dirty Gulf Soup. Drowned or otherwise dead souls were guided by Blondy while we took in the sights. My son loved swimming with the dolphins, who were frisky despite the recent weather.
When Blondy was done with his roundup, and had set the new ghosts on their paths, he led us to an apartment building on the outskirts of town. It was a squat, dirty brick u-shaped complex, and looked just short of knocked down by the hurricane and general neglect.
Evacuated and somehow dead, this place welcomed no souls to step inside. The windows made each room look like a dirty fish-tank filled with rancid cooking oil.
Blondy had gotten word that this place housed a minor haunt. There had been a few people in apartment 205 that were badly scratched and burned last night in the blackness of an early morning without power. They had reported to hospital staff on their story: At first doors slammed and books were pushed from shelves, while the family all huddled in one dark room with candles. Then the candles started guttering in and out, pushed by what they said felt like cold breath. Then the flames winked out, one-by-one leaving curling smoke. The smoke cut them, they said, it turned into something with teeth that froze and then burned, and it scratched the daughter's face until she was completely hysterical. The hospital concluded wild animals pushed into the building by the storm had attacked and bitten them. Ripples of this news reached Blondy yesterday, and here we were, at the yellowing door to their apartment.
We walked through the door without opening it. Blondy pointed to the hallway, put his finger to his lips in a shush, and motioned for us to go to the room on the right.
I tried to walk through the wall, but it felt like a cold wind pushed me right back into the hallway. I felt an electric chill crawl through me. Thoughts raced in my mind, and I looked down at my son, who had tried and failed to get into the room as well. Blondy gave us a "what are you waiting for" look, then rolled his eyes and stepped over to the wall. He brushed his hand over it, and put his ear against the surface.
A spear shot through the wall and through Blondy's head. His eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp, skewered through the ears by what looked like a javelin of ice. Jets of white light were shooting out where the spear pierced him, and he was being shaken like a rag-doll by something on the other end.
We just stood there, me in pure panic, and my son in pure calm. I looked down at him, and he raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. My son has a good sense of humor in bad situations, it turns out. He walked over to the spear, and touched it. It turned to water and splashed with Blondy to the floor, his head smoking and bleeding light, but by the groans we could tell he was still dead.
Then my son wrinkled his nose, seeming like he smelled something awful, and ran right at the wall. He disappeared through, and the screaming started. It sounded like a pig-barn burning down. Screams of human children that would have deafened living ears roiled out into the humid evening air.
I lost my shock with the screams. That was my boy in there. I couldn't let him die again. I'd just met him. I charged through the wall, and felt something change in me as I did. I came through on all fours, swiping at the air and growling. I hit something with my right arm, and it flew across the room, skittered up the wall, and across the ceiling, swooping right back at me. It looked like an antique hand-painted doll, but it's eyes were black, bleeding holes, and it's mouth a socket of screaming with layer upon layer of tiny shark-teeth. I crouched and lunged as it came closer, but it wasn't headed for me. My son was on the ceiling too, hovering calmly. It met him and ate him whole, crunching and gnashing while it scurried back to the corner farthest from me, staring and chewing thoughtfully.
Still on all fours, I let out a growl that had built in me, and the force of it shook the thing down to the floor, where it sat, blinked it's bruised eyeless holes, and cocked it's head. "Dada?" It said, in a sound like a pull-string toy.
I growled again until the world focused into nothing but this horrifying lost soul. It's sodden garments shook with the force and I advanced on all fours. It kept saying "Dada" louder and louder, with more distortion each time. I rushed the last few feet and bit down on a rubbery unforgiving surface, like a car tire, while pulling at the thing's legs to try to disconnect head from body. It laughed like an old blues singer, pulled my head upward, and kissed me right on the lips with a sagging hole of a mouth that stung like jellyfish. Rotating teeth started to kick out pieces of my face, right down it's throat, while rubbery arms held me tightly. I growled into the thing's gullet, knocking some of the stabbing teeth down into the same mess that my son was now a part of - the belly of a true horror.
A smile bloomed on the broken doll lips and it snaked a bladed tongue down my throat. It searched my throat, cutting everything it could find, and then danced the short journey to my heart.
Blondy burst through the wall and drew a sword from off his back. It was black, like a missing piece of the universe in the shape of a sword. He yelled something gutteral and teleported himself straight into the haunting. It felt like a car-crash. Airbags and everything. I was blown back across the room, and Blondy was too. My sight seemed to flicker, but my heart hadn't been cut by the tongue, which I felt instinctually would be a very bad thing.
Blondy and his sword were a heap, and the toy ghost was screaming again, this time it sounded like pleading. It began to bulge, like a rotted animal corpse filling with gas. Arcs of blue and yellow lightning shot from every orifice the thing possessed. It popped with a sickening tearing sound, and a smell like burning trash filled the air.
The now quiet bedroom was a slushy mess of blood and bile. There were burn marks on everything and I could barely move. Blondy sat upright with a gasp, and scrabbled for his sword, sheathing it on his back again. I looked at him, and all I could say in my sadness and defeat was "nice sword."
"I didn't do that." He said, and pointed. My son unfurled himself from the remains of the sticky insides. He crackled lightning up his arms and giggled. His eyes were glowing with an inner light that faded as he walked up to me, holding glowing chunks in his hands. "Here's your face!" He said with a snicker, and smashed it against my chin with clawed hands. I thought it would hurt again, but it just felt like missing pieces of me being restored. His hands smoothed from claws back to the hands of a ghost-boy, and I picked him up in a tight hug. I didn't know what to say. Blondy was muttering about the highly unusual nature of the encounter. "Not supposed to be a major spirit here. This is unusual. It blocked my senses somehow. We should go."
Finally I knew what to say. "Son," I drawled "you got style." I laughed, and he growled and stomped around the room like a T-Rex.
"I was a dragon! You were a wolf!" He yelled excitedly, and ran over to the smoking remains of the ghost, growling in an imitation of me. "Your growls made it even crazier, I could feel it go nuts, so I turned into a dragon and blew it up."
"Yes you did, or we wouldn't be here." I looked over to Blondy, who looked tired and nodded at me. "I've never had a training run go so bad yet turn out so well. Your son is special." He said with awe in his voice, and heaved himself upright. "It was a blessing we found out instead of putting him through minor tests. It could have stunted his power."
"And me?" I asked, a little petulantly, though I was beaming with pride inside.
"You showed some talent too. I'm not sure what kind, but I think you could develop into a strong team, if you survive."
"Cool!" My son, the Dragon, said and "whooshed" his way around the room, completely unhurt and energetic.
Well that's how it began. Our first catch was a kill. My son, at least, is a legend now, among ghosts, and this is only the first of many stories. Ghost Catcher Team Four-Eighty-One has gone by a different name ever since training day one: Dragon-Wolf.
Picture credit for the photos in this post goes to Alcove
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