I was completely out of nicotine gum, and my inexplicable desire for a cigarette was now reaching unnatural proportions. What was worse, I still had no idea why the cravings had come upon me. I hadn’t even been this bad when I was actually addicted to them. It was becoming increasingly harder for me to keep the outward manifestations at bay. At the moment I was only slightly to one side of irritable, and I was traveling directly toward it at high speed.
The impending collision wasn’t going to be good at all.
“You ain’t plannin’ on doin’ any of that hocus-pocus stuff where you become one with the corpse, are you?” Ben asked me as he levered the gearshift into park and switched off the van’s ignition.
“That’s not something I actually plan, Ben,” I answered with an impatient edge to my voice. “It just has a tendency to happen.”
My wife expressed her feelings on the subject in a single terse sentence. “It might not if you kept yourself grounded.”
“I do.”
“Yeah, right.” Her voice held more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Don’t even go there.”
Felicity paused for a moment, obviously taken aback by the sudden bite of my words. “Excuse me?”
“Forget it,” I answered, shaking my head. “Just forget it.”
Emotionally, I was poised to bite her head off. Logically, I knew she was correct and that I had no valid reason to do so. But, that bit of reality didn’t make the urge any easier to quell.
I simply couldn’t afford to take it any further. If I let the comment bait me, it would only serve to re-kindle the argument we’d just barely settled less than thirty minutes ago. With all of us on edge as we were, such an altercation could turn ugly fast.
Given my current state, very ugly, very fast.
“Look,” Ben interjected. “I’ve had enough arguin’ for one night. Now, the last time we were here I seem to remember ya’ havin’ ta’ come outside to get away from all the ghosts or whatever ya’ see in there.”
“Lost souls,” I offered flatly.
“Fine. Lost souls, ghosts, ooga-boogas, whatever…it’s all the same ta’ me ‘cause I can’t see ‘em. I just wanna know if all that shit is gonna send ya’ over the edge or somethin’ like last time.”
“They weren’t the real problem last time,” I explained, fighting to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “It was the fact that I was channeling the actual death of a victim that…”
“Don’t split hairs with me, Row,” he interrupted. “I need ta’ know whether ta’ take ya’ in there or start the fuckin’ van and get outta here right now.”
“We already talked about this back at the house, Ben,” I shot back a harsh rebuke.
“Yeah, well B.F.D. Is it gonna be a problem or not?”
I gave up and told him what he wanted to hear. “They won’t be a problem.”
Apparently, he was a little short on trust at the moment.
“Is he yankin’ my chain?” He directed his question to Felicity.
“Aye, he is. But if we take some precautions, I think it will be okay.”
“You think it’ll be okay?”
“What do you want? It’s not like I do this every day, you know.” A mild spark of anger flashed in her voice. She was tired; we all were. Her own irritability was showing just as Ben’s was, and I’m certain my uncharacteristic moodiness wasn’t helping in the least. As I had suspected it would, the night was getting longer by the moment.
“Okay, okay,” Ben returned, a slight defensive note in his voice. “I’m not exactly an expert on this Twilight Zone crap myself y’know.”
“Are we going to sit here and fog up the windows, or are we going to go in?” I asked impatiently.
“When I’m ready,” Ben said. “Why don’t ya’ tell me again just what it is that you’re expectin’ ta’ find out?”
“We’ve already discussed this too.”
“Yeah, and we’re discussin’ it again.”
Truth was, I didn’t really have a good answer for the question. All I knew was that someone was communicating with me from the other side, and all indicators now pointed to that someone being Debbie Schaeffer. Coming here was the only way I knew to “complete the call,” so to speak.
“I don’t know.” I gave him the only answer I could. “A clue or something. You know, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve ever done this.”
“Yeah, I know,” he affirmed, “but in the times I’ve seen ya’ do this I’ve also seen it go south. Way south. You’ve almost died on me twice. Three’s a charm, white man. That’s ‘zactly what we’re tryin’ ta’ avoid in case ya’ missed that earlier.”
“Think positive,” I grumbled.
“I am thinkin’ positive. I’m positive I ain’t willin’ ta’ trade your life for a handful of flaky clues in a murder investigation.”
“Look,” I sighed, desperate to at least get out of the confines of the van. “It took me half the night to convince you two that we should come down here, so can we just dispense with this never ending committee meeting or whatever the hell you want to call it?”
“I just wanna make sure we’re doin’ the right thing here,” my friend expressed. “’Cause somethin’ in my gut tells me I should put some distance between you and this place and not look back. I tend ta’ trust my gut.”
“That’s just you being overprotective, again,” I countered.
“There’s no such thing as bein’ overprotective when dyin’ is one of the possibilities.”
“Well, that’s why you wanted Felicity here, right?”
“Don’t be trying to use me as a pawn, then,” my wife declared. “I want to hear you rationalize this too.”
I hadn’t been backed completely into a corner yet, but it was getting very close. I’d had my fill of the ping- pong oration I’d had to repeatedly deliver just to get this far, and it didn’t seem there would ever be an end.
I was exhausted.
I was ready to kill for a cigarette.
But the worst of it was that I was getting very tired of being treated like a child. My resolve was set in concrete, and I wasn’t about to let them make me turn back now.
I knew that exploding wasn’t going to get me anywhere even though it was what my knee jerk impulse was telling me to do. I drew in a deep breath and held it for a moment before exhaling heavily. In my head I’d made a connection that they apparently had not. Thus far, I’d managed to hold it back as my one trump card, and it appeared that now would be a good time to toss it onto the table.
“Look,” I verbally threatened, “we can either do it this way, right now, or we can just wait until I go out sleepwalking again and see where that takes us.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” My wife shook her head slightly as confusion contorted her brow.
“Yeah, white man,” Ben added, “ya’ wanna expand on that?”
“Debbie Schaeffer went missing two months ago, right?”
“Yeah, so?” he returned.
“So, I started sleepwalking two months ago. You do the math.”
My friend puffed out his cheeks and expelled a deep breath as he sent one large hand up to massage the back of his neck.
“Shit. There’s just no winnin’ with you” was all he said.
Luck seemed to be on our side for a change, as Ben knew the security guard on duty for this shift, so there were no prying questions or even odd looks. The two simply exchanged pleasantries, including what I’m certain was a tired joke about cadavers escaping, and then we were in. The watchman seemed perfectly content to return to
