3 Ghosts of Our Fathers (2 page)

“When a shaft appeared,” replied
Steven, “you could see the bed behind him. It was like the shaft had removed
part of him. Then the shaft would disappear, and a new one would appear, in a
different place. Eventually so many appeared his image was gone.”

“OK, I have an idea of what it
is,” Daniel said, “or at least what it partially is. I don’t mean to alarm
you.”

“Trust me, I’m on full alert
already. I’d rather hear the full scoop, don’t hold anything back.”

“All right,” Daniel said. “The
vertical shafts indicate to me that this being you saw is from some place other
than here. Could be the past, could be the future, might be a different
dimension, that kind of thing. The shafts are a common visual appearance when
the shift is happening.”

“And the glass shell?”

“That’s a symbolic thing,” Daniel
said. “He’s trapped. His soul is literally trapped. He either bound himself or
someone bound him. The glass shell limits the ability of his soul to move or to
do things. Some bindings are permanent, others expire after a while.”

Steven let the phone hang at his
ear, unsure where to go next.

“Listen,” Daniel said. “It is
dangerous, no question about it. You’re being threatened by a soul that’s been
bound for who knows how long. The fact that the glass is clear tells me the
binding is about to end. You need to find out who this is and why he wants to
kill you before the binding gives way and he’s free. You saw his limits last night,
but with the binding gone he will find a way to follow through on his threat,
and terrify you in the process.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Steven
said. “I feel like I’ve just been given a terrible prognosis. Why me? I don’t
even know where to start.”

“Listen,” Daniel said, “I have a
device that might help. If you want, I could come over to your place and try to
use it if he appears again tonight.”

“Sure, that’s kind of you to
offer,” Steven said. “What does the device do?”

“It’s called a collector knife,”
Daniel said. “If he appears I can use it to collect a piece of him that I can
analyze after he’s gone. It might tell us who he is and how long the binding
will last.”

“Perfect,” Steven said. “I know
Seattle is a long drive, and I appreciate your offer.”

“Expect me around 9 p.m.,” Daniel
said. “And I wouldn’t fall asleep before then.”

“No, I won’t. See you then, and
thanks.”

Steven hung up and called Eliza to
give her the news.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Eliza
said. “You’re in good hands, Steven.”

“I’m grateful you were able to
refer me to him,” Steven said. “I’m a little jealous of your network of
friends. Claire, Daniel, Joe…I’m sure there’s many more.”

“They do come in handy,” Eliza
said. “But you’re a friend now too, Steven. I may need you to help me or a
friend of mine sometime in the future. We all kind of step in and help each
other out when needed.”

“Just let me know,” Steven said, “and
I’m there.”

They chatted a bit more about Roy
and about Eliza’s son Troy, then they hung up. Steven was warmed by his
conversation with her and he felt a sense of confidence going into the rest of
the day, which passed much more slowly than Steven wanted.

Daniel arrived promptly at 9 p.m.,
just as he said he would.
Of course
, Steven thought,
he’s obsessed
with time. Lateness is probably a cardinal sin.

Steven gave him a quick tour of
the house, pointing out the spots where the figure had appeared the night
before. Then he showed Daniel the guest bedroom next door to his bedroom.
Daniel thanked him, threw his duffel bag on the bed, and began to set up shop.

“Would you like to see the knife?”
Daniel asked.

“Sure,” Steven said, watching him
remove various items from the bag. Daniel pulled out a cloth covered item,
stuck his hand under it, then removed the cloth. Daniel’s hand was in a grip
shape, but what he was holding wasn’t visible.

Steven slipped into the flow. The
knife became visible immediately. It was about nine inches long, had a curved
edge, and tapered from the sharp edge to a thicker top edge that was about a
quarter of an inch thick. Daniel demonstrated by waving the knife in the air.

“I’ll slice into the shell like
this,” he said, “and afterwards, remove what it collected here.”

The thicker top edge of the knife
had a removable cover. Daniel slid the cover back and turned the knife towards
Steven. Looking down into the knife from the top Steven could see that it was
hollow. “The slice picks up all moments in time – that’s what’ll give us the
history of this thing. It’s stored in this chamber until I can sequence them
properly and analyze them.”

“Wow!” Steven said. “Where did you
get this?”

As Daniel continued to unpack, he
told Steven about how he’d gathered time-related instruments over the years.
Some of them were just collector’s items that had some historical value, others
were regular tools he used frequently. As he finished they moved into the
living room.

“Some of the items I’ve found,”
Daniel said, “I’ve never been able to figure out. I know they’re related to
time, I can sense it, or I’ve seen reference to them in a book. But knowing
what they do and how to make them work is a lost art in some cases.”

“You’ve got books on this
subject?” Steven asked. “Where did they come from?”

“A couple of them came from my
uncle. One or two came from friends. They’re hard to come by and quite valuable
on their own.”

“Did your uncle have the gift?”
Steven asked.

“Yes, and he kept a book about the
things he’d run into, as many of us do.”

“My father Roy introduced me to
his book several months ago,” Steven said. “I was having a problem here in this
house with a different set of visitors that were scaring the shit out of me. Roy
stepped in to give me a hand and in the process he shared the book with me.
Goes back five generations.”

“Jesus,” Daniel said. “Do you know
how rare that is? My uncle’s book is just about him, his experiences. I’ve
heard of some that include a grandparent. I’ve never heard of one that goes
back that far within the same family.”

“I didn’t realize that wasn’t
normal,” Steven said. “I’ve only recently met others who have the gift, and the
subject hadn’t come up. I’ll have to ask my father if he realizes how important
that makes his book.”

They talked a while longer about
Steven’s recent exposure to the River and Roy’s tutelage, and about the
haunting that Roy had helped Steven eradicate. Then Steven quizzed Daniel more
about his past. They talked for an hour, Steven absorbing the new information
Daniel offered. Steven had never thought of specializing in a specific area of
the gift like Daniel had, and hearing him talk so passionately about his
interests fascinated him. He began to wonder how many different aspects of the
gift there were to specialize in.

Eventually the discussion drifted
back to the matter at hand.

“Did it wake you?” Daniel asked.
“When it appeared?”

“I had a sense that something was
in the house,” Steven said. “That’s what got me out of bed.”

“What worries me is that it was
able to grab you while still in the cage,” Daniel said. “If you hadn’t been
awake first, it might have strangled you in your sleep.”

“Well, thanks for that thought,”
Steven said. “Maybe I shouldn’t even go to sleep. If he’s going to appear, why
does it have to be at 3 a.m.?”

As if on cue, a figure began to
materialize next to Steven on the couch. Steven kept on talking, but Daniel
interrupted him.

“Steven,” he said, “to your right.
Look.”

Steven turned his head and saw the
vertical shafts, slowly thinning. The dark form was back. It was sitting still,
looking forward. Steven stood and walked to the other side of the room, away
from the figure.

“I’ll get the knife,” Daniel said,
running out of the room.

Steven entered the flow and saw
the glass shape with the man inside. He was twisting his head, fighting against
the rigid glass form that restricted his movement. His lips were moving,
spitting out words that Steven couldn’t hear. His eyes were laser focused on
Steven, and he could feel the man’s anger towards him. There was pure hatred in
the man’s eyes, and it scared Steven.
If he ever gets out of there
,
Steven thought,
he definitely has a bone to pick with me.

In a blink, the glass form was now
standing by the sofa. Steven hadn’t seen it rise, it went straight from sitting
to standing with no movement in between.

Daniel!
Steven thought,
You
better hurry!

He saw the man smile at him from
within the glass chamber. Then it disappeared.

He felt the pressure around his
neck, like the night before. But this time the hands were coming from behind
him. He struggled to turn within the grip, raising his hands to tug at the
glass fingers constricting his windpipe. He tried to yell again for Daniel, but
nothing would come out.

Steven raised his foot and tried
kicking behind. His foot met no resistance as he missed, kicking at air.

Daniel entered the room holding
the knife and ran to the glass man behind Steven. He sliced the knife through
the figure; it gave no resistance.

It’s done!
Daniel thought.
They both immediately left the flow.

Steven kicked behind him again,
and this time he connected with the figure, which released its grip and fell
backwards. He turned, gasping for air.

“Are you OK?” Daniel asked,
grabbing his arm.

“Yes,” Steven said, croaking on
the word.

As they both watched, the vertical
bars appeared again inside the form, and within a few seconds the image was
gone.

“I’ll get you some water,” Daniel
said, releasing his grip on Steven and heading into the kitchen. “I have the
sample. The knife worked.”

Steven followed Daniel into the
kitchen and took the glass Daniel offered. He let the water slowly trickle down
his throat, soothing it.

“That was worse than last night,”
Steven said after he had regained his breathing. “For a moment I thought he had
me. I couldn’t see him move. He went from sitting still to standing still, and
then from standing to behind me, and I couldn’t see any movement.”

“He’s jump cutting,” Daniel said.

“Jump cutting?” Steven asked.

“Means he’s got a little more
control over time than you or I have. Very dangerous, you saw why.”

“So now I’m really concerned,”
Steven said. “What’s to stop him from coming back in an hour and surprising me
again? Is there anything I can do to protect myself?”

“Yeah,” Daniel replied, “there’s a
couple of things we can try. The main thing is to get this sample analyzed.
It’ll tell us more about what we’re dealing with. Let me see what else we can
do.”

Daniel walked into the hallway and
Steven heard him rustling in the bedroom. Steven walked into the hallway to
follow him, but decided instead to visit the bathroom.

He stared into the mirror over the
sink, looking at his neck. It seemed normal, but it was extremely painful. He
rubbed at it, trying to feel through the surface skin if anything was broken or
out of place.

He felt the urge to enter the
River, so he slipped into it. He was horrified at what he saw.

Large blue and green patches
appeared under his jaw and over his throat. They looked like bruises, but he
knew they were more than that. He moved his face closer to the mirror to
inspect the discoloration. The surface flesh was moving, shifting places with
other flesh around it. At first he thought it was the colors shifting, but as
he watched he saw hairs and freckles physically moving. He swallowed and saw
his Adam’s apple rise and fall, and was disturbed to see the skin over it
rearrange itself.

“Daniel?” Steven called.

After a moment Daniel entered the
bathroom and looked at Steven examining himself in the mirror.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Enter the River, if you would,”
Steven said.

Daniel entered the flow and
drifted over to Steven.

Jesus Christ!
Daniel
thought.

Check closer,
Steven thought,
in the mirror.
Daniel moved closer to the mirror and examined Steven’s
skin. He saw it shift and twist, as though something underneath was rearranging
the surface.

My god, it’s moving,
Daniel
thought.
What the fuck did he do to you?

Steven exited the flow and Daniel
followed.

“I don’t mean to scare you,”
Daniel said, “but I’ve never seen anything like that. Did it happen the night before?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t check.”

“I didn’t notice anything like it
on your neck when you entered the River earlier, when I first showed you the
knife,” Daniel said. “Your neck looked fine.”

“Maybe it heals up,” Steven said.

“Maybe,” Daniel agreed, though not
enthusiastically.

“Any luck with the analysis?”
Steven asked, wanting to change the subject to something more optimistic.

“No, in fact I’m afraid I’ve got
some bad news,” Daniel said. “Come, let me show you.”

Steven followed Daniel into the
bedroom next door, where he produced a small box that had a slit about the size
of the knife.

“I transferred the sample into
this box,” Daniel said. “It both holds and analyzes it.”

“What’s the bad news?” Steven
asked.

“When you enter the flow, you can
see the symbols here,” Daniel said, pointing to the top of the box. “You can
then interpret the symbols to discover the make-up of the sample inside. The
problem is I’m only getting half the symbols I’d expect. It’s confirming that
it’s a soul cage, and that it’s about three days from being completely
dissolved, but it’s not sequencing the history properly. The symbols that would
tell me more, like who it is, why it was bound, they’re not showing up. The
cage is more complex than this box can decipher. I can’t even tell how long it
was bound.”

“Three days?” Steven said. “And
it’s dissolving? That means the next time it appears it’ll be stronger?”

“I expect so,” Daniel said. “But
until it’s completely free of the cage it doesn’t have a lot of energy. It’s
only able to appear to you now because of the anger of the man inside and the
deterioration of the cage. It’s better off waiting until the cage is gone, then
it’ll be free to attack you without restraint.”

“Oh great,” Steven sighed. “Given
how my throat feels now, I’d hate to see what it’s like without restraint.”

“To get the rest of the
information we need on this guy,” Daniel said, “I need to take this sample back
to Spokane. I have a device there that is more sophisticated. I’m sorry Steven,
but it was far too large to bring with me tonight. I’ll start back now.”

“It’s a five hour drive and it’s
after midnight now. You’ll go in the morning, after you sleep some. It won’t
help me to have you wrecked at the side of the road.”

“Well, let me at least give you
this,” Daniel said, handing Steven a small object.

Steven looked at what Daniel had
given him. It was a smooth rectangle, about three inches long and half an inch
thick. It was pure black and felt like stone. Light didn’t reflect off its
surface, and it reminded Steven of a miniature version of the monolith from
2001:
A Space Odyssey
.

“That’ll stop the jump cutting,”
Daniel said. “Keep it on you all the time from now on and don’t let him steal
it while you’re sleeping. He won’t be able to fuck with time if he’s within ten
feet of it. Let’s go back to the mirror, I want to try something.”

They both went back to the mirror
in the bathroom and entered the flow. Steven noticed the rectangle looked the
same in the flow as outside of it.

Place it on the skin of your
neck at the bruises,
Daniel thought.

Steven did as Daniel instructed.
When he removed the object the discoloration was still there but the shifting
of the skin had stopped. He repositioned the rectangle over other patches of
skin, achieving the same effect. After he had covered all of his neck they both
exited the flow.

“Well, that’s a relief, thank
you,” Steven said.

“I’m still not sure what your skin
was doing,” Daniel said.

“Well, I’ll take no shifting over
shifting any day. Doesn’t seem to help with the bruising though.”

“And the bruising is only visible
in the River,” Daniel noted. “You look fine normally, at least right now.”

They walked out of the bathroom
and Daniel returned to his bedroom.

“There is one more thing I want
you to have,” Daniel said. He handed Steven a quart size jar of clear liquid.

“Protection?” Steven asked.

“Yes,” Daniel replied, “but not
ordinary protection. This is special stuff, designed to resist time-based
attacks.”

“I’ve had my father’s protection,”
Steven said, “but it hadn’t occurred to me that there might be
different…flavors.”