The Ghost in Love (21 page)

“Pilot? Pilot, where
are
you?”

Maybe he won't find me, Pilot thought as he lay there. Maybe he's in such a tizzy now that he'll forget about me and go by himself. He knew Ben needed his help to save Danielle.

The bedroom door swung open and behind it a blast of hall light swept in and over the animal. “There you are. Let's go.”

“I old too am.”

Already half turning to go back out the door, Ben stopped. “What?”

Pilot said something completely unintelligible this time. The two stared at each other.

“I don't understand you.” Ben could feel his brain trying to un-twist the dog's words into recognizable order. Now he understood he was not entirely back here yet, caught somewhere between his past in Crane's View and home now.

“He says that he's too old to go with you,” Ling translated from out in the hall.

Ben walked across the room, grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck, and hauled it out of bed.

Ling didn't think this was a good tactic but she remained silent.

When the mutt was standing, Ben got down on all fours so that they were eye to eye.

Ling was prepared to hear him rebuke Pilot. When he spoke, though, she didn't understand a word he said. But the dog apparently did because it stiffened and began wagging its tail furiously. When Ben stopped speaking, the dog ran out of the room and down the hall to the front door.

“What did you say? What language were you speaking?”

Ben stood and walked past her. “Wolf.”

A man, a dog
, and two understandably disgruntled women were walking down a sidewalk. One woman was a ghost, the man should have been dead, the dog was the reincarnation of the should-have-been-dead's girlfriend, and the last, the tall woman, was an innocent bystander who had the bad fortune of loving two of the others.

Three of them were asking the man how he did that.

“How did you know where we were?”

“How did you get back here without my knowing it?”

“How did you know the wolf language?”

Ben ignored them all and kept walking. He did not know the answers to any of these questions, so he thought it best to remain silent but look resolute. Hopefully his demeanor would make them think at least for a while that he knew what he was doing.

When they realized he wasn't going to talk to them, the women began a conversation. Naturally, German didn't know that this short woman walking alongside had been observing her for months. She didn't know that Ling could have made impressively detailed lists of what German Landis liked and didn't like. Or that Ling was in love
with her and, as a result, had studied her the way ardent church scholars study obscure religious texts.

Now that Ling could actually talk to German, she was bursting to tell her a whole slew of things. And to ask a million questions that she had been storing up since that unforgettable moment months ago when she looked at the tall woman sitting in a chair reading and realized with a woozy thump that she loved her.

“You really don't know what's happened to Danielle?” the object of Ling's affection now asked, walking fast.

“No. I'm limited to Ben.” Ling hurried to keep up because her legs were so much shorter.

“What do you mean by ‘limited'?”

“I only know what's happening to him. I can see what he's thinking but no one else.” Ling failed to mention that she could see into other peoples' future, as she had the day she saw German for the first time and checked to see how much longer the woman would live.

“Then what
is
he thinking? Why won't he answer our questions?”

“He's trying to figure out how to save Danielle,” Ling lied. She didn't want to upset German any more than she already had. The distressing truth was that, since returning here this time, Ling could no longer read Ben's mind at all.

Yes, it was a dream come true that she could communicate with German now, but that wasn't her job. How was the ghost supposed to help Ben when she didn't know any more about what was going on in his head now than his ex-girlfriend did?

“If you're a ghost, why can I see you now? And why can I understand what Pilot is saying?”

Hearing his name spoken out loud, the dog turned to see if German needed anything.

Ling did not know the answers to those questions, either. But she
could guess and try to make it sound convincing. “Ever since Ben refused to die, more and more strange things have been happening to him and around him. And they keep changing. Nothing in his world is fixed anymore; nothing's stable. The fact you can see me now and understand what your dog says may change tomorrow. It's like we're all in his force field but it's unstable. We're affected by whatever changes happen to him.”

A few feet in front of the women, Ben said to Pilot, “You know what you have to do when we get there?”

The dog said nothing.

“Pilot?”

“I assumed that was a statement and not a question,” the mutt muttered mutinously.

Understanding the animal's discontent, Ben said more softly, “I'd do it myself and let you stay at home, but I don't know how to talk to verzes.”

The dog remained silent. Then Pilot decided he did want to say something. “There could be monsters over there, you know.”

Ben could only agree.

“There could be monsters and killers and other deadly things. But you're still making me go. I don't care what your reasons are—it's not fair. I'm way too old. I thought we were friends.”

“Come on, Pilot, you are the only one here who can speak to verzes.”

“And she can't?” Both of them knew Pilot was referring to Ling.

Leaning over, the man lowered his voice so only the dog could hear him. “She can't do anything anymore. But she doesn't know that yet.”

“Well, thanks for sharing
that
reassuring piece of information. It makes me feel much more secure now.”

Ben had no response. What do you say to a sardonic dog?

“So, Master, let's review: you've got a useless ghost, an old dog, and a girlfriend who's doesn't have a clue. Hey, but you don't have a clue, either, so you're useless too.

“Still, us four losers are supposed to go and rescue this Danielle woman from monsters and killers.”

“Maybe there won't be any when we get there.”

Pilot wasn't having it. “Fine. Do you want to go first?”

Because Ben was avoiding the dog's eyes by looking down and to his right, he was the first to see the pink fog a hundred feet away moving toward them. It was a remarkable sight: absolutely candy-pink fog roiling and floating down the sidewalk at ankle height.

“Jeez, what's
that
?”

Pilot saw the fog and stopped, his right front leg still up in the air. The women did not see anything, although both turned to look in that direction after hearing Ben exclaim.

“What is it? What do you see?” Ling asked.

Pilot didn't know what to say. Should he tell the truth: that this fog coming toward them was cancer? That if it stopped and enfolded any of them, they were doomed.

With his new heightened awareness, Ben could see the fog but did not know what it was. How could such a thing exist?
Pink
fog? How come he had never seen it before in his life?

“What is it? What are you looking at, Ben?” German asked.

“
That!
Don't you see it?”

“See what?” Ling asked.

“The fog: the pink fog there.”

German looked at Ling. The ghost's face was troubled, because of course she knew about this fog but could not see it herself now.

And then it was upon them. Pilot thought about trying to run
away, but that did no good. You could run all day, but if you were fated to be touched, the fog would find you anywhere. He remembered the last time he had seen it when the Rottweiler accompanied him that night. The other dog had said it wished it were human so it would never have to see this fatal stuff when it appeared.

It drifted along the sidewalk and then slid across the tops of Ben's sneakers. He felt nothing. The man and the dog watched the fog move. Ben thought it looked like pink cigarette smoke. Nothing happened until it rose slightly off his shoes and a tendril of fog glided up beneath his jeans. When it touched the bare skin of his leg, Ben immediately said a very tough
“No.”

Taken aback both by the force of the word and the man's nerve to even say it, Pilot was impressed. He could only watch to see what came next while hoping against hope that the fog had not come for him.

Reaching down, Ben grabbed the pink smoke with one hand as if it were a living thing—an eel or some sort of a snake. Holding tight, he yanked it hard. The piece that had drifted up his leg came right out of his pants.

“No. No. No,” he kept repeating calmly. As he spoke, Ben began pulling the fog with one clenched hand through the other. By doing that, he squeezed the formless stuff into a kind of translucent rope. Once it had passed through his hands, it lay unmoving on the sidewalk beside them.

“Ben, what are you
doing
?” German demanded to know, because she could see only the peculiar actions of his hands but not what they held. Ling did not see it, either, but the ghost knew something significant was happening. She remained silent but fully attentive.

Ignoring German's question, Ben snapped his hands apart. The pink fog broke in two. The part that was still only fog—what he had
not yet touched with either hand—evaporated instantly. What he had touched lay whole and formed at his feet.

Amazed, Pilot looked at Ben with new eyes. All his life the dog had seen cancer fog floating through the air on its way to finish something off. It was the final boss of every living thing, the sheriff that took no prisoners. But now this average man had stopped it and then broken the fog in pieces. How was that possible?

“It came for me, Pilot. You don't have to worry because it wasn't after you,” Ben said to the dog, and picked the motionless pink rope up off the ground. Working gracefully with both hands, he curled it round and round his arm. “It came for me. It'll keep coming, too, but it's nothing to worry about. Really. At least not now.” He formed a half smile that withered quickly.

German approached and started to speak, but Ben shook his head at her. “Don't ask questions now. I'm trying to figure this out and it's hard if I'm distracted.”

She went ballistic. “Don't say that! Don't dismiss me like that, Ben Gould. Why did we stop? And what just happened? What are you doing there?” She looked at his empty hands doing their mysterious winding and looping.

Without another word, he took the section of pink rope he was holding and slid it down the side of her face.

Although it looked as though nothing was in his hand when he touched her, German felt something warm and liquid on her cheek. Then whatever it was entered her face, her neck, and sped throughout her body. It moved as fast and powerfully as lightning.

While Ling and Pilot watched, the tall woman relaxed. Not only her body but her entire demeanor calmed. To all appearances she gave the impression of someone who had been injected with a powerful sedative. Her body swayed, wobbled, and only just righted itself
before collapsing. Later, on reflection, German recognized the feeling was akin to the joyous helplessness of her body during orgasm: no control, but no desire for control either; the joy of falling because there was no fear of hitting. While it happened, her vision blurred and her body felt weightless. Her body was gone, really, but she didn't understand that until much later when things had been explained.

By touching her with the pink rope, Ben had touched German with death. But because it was not her own death, she was immune and could experience it purely for what it was. What she felt was what every single being feels in the first moments after it has died: unimaginable peace, weightlessness, and the jubilant freedom of the soul leaving a body that has been its burden for so long.

The elation she felt did not show on her face. It went far, far beyond the facility of facial expression. She looked stunned, yes, but only that.

“You touched her with the fog, Ben! How's she supposed to understand that? Really, how is she supposed to understand?” Ling demanded.

“She has a right to know some of this, Ling. I've forced her into the middle of it now, and you know that.”

Putting his arm around German's shoulders, he held her until he felt some strength return to her body. She looked at him vacantly but not with any ill feeling. She looked at her ex-boyfriend as if he were a light pole.

There was a car parked nearby. He led her over, thinking it was better for her to rest against something solid awhile before they continued.

Pilot came over and asked the ghost, “What's wrong with what he did, Ling? Why are you angry at him?”

“He showed her something she should never have seen.”

“By touching her with the pink fog?” Pilot assumed she could see it too.

Ling nodded. “Yes. It was his death, so that couldn't hurt her, but still, he should never have done it.”

“What happens when you touch fog meant for someone else?”

Ling said, “Do it to Pilot, Ben. Let him know. He's as involved in this as she is.”

After making sure German was okay, Ben left her leaning against the car. He picked up the rope on the ground nearby. Bringing it over, he glanced at Ling once more to make sure she meant what she'd said.

“Yes, do it.”

He touched Pilot on top of the head with the rope and stepped back. The dog whimpered and collapsed.

“Now me. Touch me with it too.”

“Why?”

“Do what I tell you!” Ling put out her arm. He touched it with the pink rope. She felt nothing. She had no reaction. Looking straight at him, she didn't even blink. “Nothing. I knew that would happen. I can't feel anything and I can't see anything, either. I can't see the rope. Why, Ben? Do you know? If you do, tell me. I need to know.”