Hitchers

“I just slipped out. I guess I leaned a little, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor.”

The soul eater had gone back to work. Now he lifted his head. “You’re not fooling me for a minute.”

If I could get Lorena to move backward a few feet, Summer might be able to pull herself back up and into her body. That was assuming the soul eater couldn’t hold her back, and that I could regain control of my body soon enough to get to Lorena before this thing consumed Summer.

I racked my brain for some other way to help her. I could pop out of my own body, but I wasn’t close enough to reach her and pull her. Plus I wouldn’t be able to get back into my body.

The soul eater could push her, if he was willing. The problem was he didn’t seem particularly inclined to help us.

“Hey, what’s your name?” I asked.

A bit of light entered his flat, grey eyes. “Andy Kozlowski. You recognize it?”

“Sure I do.” I did, but I couldn’t place it. He’d been some sort of celebrity, years ago.

He seemed pleased. “When were you born?”

“Nineteen eighty.”

“Way too young to have seen my show. So people still remember me?”

That was enough to jog my memory. He’d been the host of a kid’s show back in the dark ages—the sixties or maybe even the fifties. Once in a while you saw a clip on one of those specials about the golden age of television. His name conjured up vague images of marionettes and a cardboard set. “Sure they do. Absolutely.”

He made a satisfied humph. “Sometimes when I find a fresh one who’s still talking, I ask. Most say they never heard of me, but I suspect they’re lying to get back at me.” He looked at Summer. “How about you, when were you born?”

“Nineteen eighty-two.”

“You ever heard of me?”

“Sure.” She mustered a little “Are you kidding me?” laugh. “Of course.” I was betting she’d never heard of the guy. Only a pop culture fiend like me would remember a name as obscure as his.

“Look, help me out, will you?” Summer said. “I’m not dead. Really. My body is waiting for me, alive and well, just a few feet away. You can save my life, and at the same time it’ll prove I’m not dead.”

“Hey, if you’re lying here, you’re dead, and if you’re dead you’re fair game.” He sounded offended. “Look, why don’t the three of us have a nice conversation? Otherwise I’m gonna go ahead and eat your face first so you stop aggravating me.”

If our theory was right, and the hitchers were the ones who didn’t want to be dead, why was this guy still here? He was hanging on tighter than Grandpa, Lorena, Gilly—anyone. This was the type of guy who sawed his own arm off with a butter knife if he got trapped under a fallen tree in the wilderness. Hell, he was eating people to stay together.

One ghost to a customer. Maybe that was it. He wasn’t strictly one person any longer, even if he seemed to be one person and thought he was one person. He clearly had a strong need to be affirmed. Maybe we could use that to our advantage.

“Hey, maybe we can make a deal,” I said.

Andy chuckled. “What, you going to give me a thousand dollars? A new car?”

“How about information? We can catch you up on what’s happening in the world,” Summer said, taking the words right out of my mouth. I marveled at her guts—she was keeping it together remarkably well.

He huffed impatiently. “It’s twenty twelve. Barack Obama is president. He’s Black. Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died three years ago.” He held up a finger. “And I died in nineteen seventy-six, so I never even heard Michael Jackson sing.” He seemed to draw satisfaction from our stunned silence. “I keep up. I could eat the heads first, but I enjoy the company. They make better company if you save the head for last.”

“Why are you bothering her when there’s an entire room of people you could take?” I asked.

He made a face. “They’re no good. You have to get the fighters or it’s just a waste of time.”

The fighters? “Who are the fighters?”

He frowned like he was speaking to a complete idiot. “The fighters . The ones who really, really don’t want to be dead. Like your friend here.” He ran his bottom lip and teeth up Summer’s thigh.

“Don’t do that,” I cried, almost in perfect unison with Summer.

“What?” Andy said, lifting his head. “You’re just gonna blow away anyway. I’m just speeding up the process.”

I didn’t know if that was true, or if being eaten kept you stuck there as well. There were so many things I didn’t understand about this place. At this point it didn’t matter—I didn’t want Summer to be eaten or blow away.

A part of me stepped back then, wondering at how panicked I was. If Summer couldn’t get back, then Lorena would get a second chance at life. It would be unconscionable to purposely strand Summer here, to not do everything I could to help her, but if there was no way to save her, wasn’t that a good thing?

It didn’t feel like a good thing. In fact it felt like a remarkably, unequivocally bad thing. I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to a world that didn’t include Summer.

I tried to set my emotions aside and think. Wasn’t there anything I could offer him that he might want?

I could offer him me, but that wasn’t a particularly appealing solution. What else? It was hard to think while he scraped away at Summer. There was a pronounced divot in her leg now. I shuddered at the thought of seeing her devoured until she was nothing but a head, then nothing at all.

The only difference between me and the (Hundreds? Thousands?) of souls he’d eaten was that I could return to the world of the living. He had all the information he needed, but I could send information both ways.

“Is there anyone you’d like to send a message to on the other side?” I tried. “A son or daughter, maybe?”

Andrew froze. For a long moment we listened to the mutters and cries of the dead. “If you were alive you could do that, couldn’t you?”

“I am, and I can.”

Andrew rose halfway, swung his head from side to side, straining to see me. “How do I know you’re really alive?”

Try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything convincing I could say or do. “Hell, Andrew, what do you want me to do? I am. A couple of days ago I watched the Bears beat the Colts. I had a turkey sandwich for lunch.”

“Mayo or mustard?” Andrew asked.

“What?”

“Did you have mayo or mustard on the turkey?”

“Mayo.”

“Good choice. I miss eating.”

“I can prove we’re alive,” Summer interrupted.

“How?” Andrew asked.

“If you do what we ask, I’m going to disappear back to the other side. If we’re lying, I won’t. You really have nothing to lose.”

Andrew studied her, his hands still gripping her leg in a manner usually reserved for lovers, or for people clutching drumsticks on Thanksgiving.

He looked in my direction. “First you deliver a message to my daughter, and come back and tell me what she said. Then I’ll do it. That’s the deal.”

“No, no, that won’t work,” I said, panicking. “You have to free her first.” There was no telling where this daughter was, if she was still alive thirty-something years later.

“Why is that?”

I stammered, trying to come up with a reason. “You’ll just have to trust me. Look, I can do this, and I promise you, it’s the only chance you’re ever going to get. But it has to be our way.”

He stood, came toward me, again shifting from side to side trying to catch a glimpse of me. “My daughter’s name is Penelope Harbaugh. There shouldn’t be many of those in the phone book. Last I knew she was living in Terre Haute. Here’s what I want you to tell her: Even though I’ve been dead for thirty-five years, I still don’t forgive you, and I never will. You got that? Repeat it back to me.”

I did. I don’t know what I was expecting from a soul eater. Somehow I thought anyone in this place would be