Ex-Communication, Peter Clines [ebook reader online free txt] 📗

He glanced at the entertainment center and gave a little nod. His hands did something in front of his chest, a motion lost in the glare of his body. Is he going to make it?

St. George shook his head. “There’s a chance, but probably not. Sorry.”

Zzzap nodded and continued the odd motion with his hands. St. George realized the wraith was tapping his fingers together. He glanced at the television again.

Okay, this is going to sound a little weird but … we need him.

“We need him for what?”

No, not you and me “we.” I mean—yeah, shut up. I’ve got this.

“What?”

His body. When he dies, you can’t destroy his brain. Just strap him to the bed or whatever and let him change.

St. George took in a slow breath. “What the hell are you talking about?”

We just … I need you to trust me on this, okay? Don’t let them put him down.

He looked at Zzzap and tried to inhale the wisp of angry smoke around his nostrils. “How can you even ask something like that?”

Because … The gleaming wraith looked over at the television. Yeah, said Zzzap. I think it’s time we told him.

“Told who what?”

Told you. No, just let me do this my way, okay?

“Okay.”

Zzzap waved a hand at him. Not you, George. Sorry. I’ve wanted to tell you for a while, but we agreed it’d be better to keep it quiet until the opportune moment, so to speak.

St. George felt something twist in his gut. His shoulders slumped. “You’ve been keeping something from me.”

Yeah. I figured you’d notice. Or Stealth.

“She did.”

Zzzap nodded. I really suck at secrets, he admitted. It’s a good thing the world ended or I would’ve blown the whole secret-identity thing inside of a year.

A moment of silence passed.

“So,” said St. George. “Are you talking to … people on the radio again?”

Yeah. No. No, this is me and you.

“You sure?”

What? Yeah, of course.

“Okay. So what’s going on?”

Zzzap stopped tapping his fingers and started pacing in the air again. Okay, he said, you know I don’t really “see” anymore, right? Not when I’m like this, at least. Not the way you do.

“I think so, yeah.”

The wraith nodded. I take in a lot of material from across the spectrum and my mind’s sort of figured out how to process it all as visual information. Visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, radio, television, microwaves, gamma rays … I see all of it.

“Right.”

Okay. Well, see, sometimes, all these things I can see come together in certain ways—certain alignments, you could say—and I can see even more.

St. George crossed his arms. “More how?”

Like a lot more. About a year ago I realized I can see stuff no one else can. Not with any equipment or lenses or anything, because no one’s ever been able to look at the world the way I do.

“Barry, what are you getting at?”

The wraith paced in the air for a few more moments. He made a buzzing noise like a sigh. Then he turned to face St. George.

I see dead people.

I’D BEEN IN the chair for about eight hours when Max came in. I didn’t scream this time, even when he walked through the wall and then through the table my stereo system was on.

I didn’t scream the first time he showed up, either. That time he just walked in through the door and started chatting. It took me a couple minutes to recognize him, and then I just assumed he’d survived somehow and nobody’d ever told me. I mean, it’s what superheroes do, right? We absolutely-for-sure-no-way-out-of-it die and then a few months later we’re back with some miraculous tale of survival. And it had been about four months since George put the demon down, soooo … perfect timing.

I think we’d been talking for fifteen minutes that first time when I realized he wasn’t actually there. And then another minute or two before I realized I was talking to a ghost.

And then I screamed.

People told me I blew out a dozen walkies and five headsets. Stealth was pissed. I told her I’d been watching The Orphanage and gotten freaked out by the old woman who got hit by the bus. One great advantage of the energy form—I’m the only person in the Mount who can lie to Stealth and get away with it. No real body means no real body language.

Anyway, Max.

I’ve got to be honest, I met Max two or three times when he was Cairax, but I always thought all this magic and demons stuff was just some gimmick he had. I mean, there was Nautilus out in Hawaii and a guy over in Iraq who could turn into a dragon, so turning into a big purple, scaly thing wasn’t hard to believe. I figured he had some sort of mass hypnosis or psychokinesis power, made up this sorcerer story, and then was just one of those people who refuse to break character, even on their downtime. Like Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire.

Needless to say, being a ghost gave Max’s sorcerer story a lot more weight in my book.

Anyway, hanging out for the past three months had killed all the thrill of talking to a ghost. Today he showed up and he was bored and chatty. It was a common thing for us. People could see and hear me, but I was trapped in the electric chair all day. He could go anywhere, but nobody could see, hear, or feel him.

He glanced at the racks of DVDs. “Do you have anything new?”

George brought over a couple things the other day.

“Well, let’s start the show.”

One problem, I told him. I’ve still got the third season of Smallville in the player. The new stuff’s not loaded yet. And since neither of us can touch anything …

“Damn it.” He reached up and scratched his head. It was always a little disturbing when he did that, since he didn’t have a head or a hand to scratch it with. I figured it was like how I could see radio messages.

You could just go watch somewhere else, I