Shaking Off the Dust (3 page)

“Go on. Exploring what?”

He seemed to gather his thoughts, then stared at me a long moment. “I think I’ll need to begin at the beginning, at my death. My first great discovery was that your…soul, for want of a better term, does leave your body at brain death. I was suddenly staring down at myself from the end of my own hospital bed. From what I’ve discovered since that time, I’d been in that hospital for two days. So I lived right after the plane crash.”

“I expect that was very strange.”

Tom nodded. “Eric, one of the partners in our neurosurgery practice, was there. He looked worse than I did. And Takeshi was there.”

“Takeshi? You mean Dr. Shimodo?”

“You saw him at the memorial service. Oh yeah, and in your bed last night. That was a neat trick.” He shook his head. “He’s my oldest friend. I’ve known him since we were roommates in college and med school. We still meet every few weeks for dinner and I have no family, so he’s the executor of my will and beneficiary.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“No brothers, sisters or parents. I was raised since I was two in the foster system. I was in a group home until I was seven. After that I managed to average a year or so with each new foster parent.

Anyway, I met Takeshi when we were assigned to the same dorm room our first semester in college. We survived each other that first year and, by the second year of college, we’d even begun to thrive in our new environment.”

“The two of you are very different. He seems kind.”

“Implying that I am not. We are obviously different. But we have things in common. We had both been through some life experiences before we met and were not unfamiliar with making compromises. And you are right, he is one of the kindest people I have ever met. He spent all of his breaks from teaching this last year working in earthquake-relief camps. That’s the kind of man he is, not that he’d ever tell you

about it. He is a brilliant scientist and physician.”

“I like him already,” I muttered.

He glared at me in silence.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Please continue?” I wasn’t usually this mean, but how do you get rid of a pest ghost or, worse, hallucination?

“You don’t know me well enough to be so critical about my life or death.” He didn’t look mad, but his voice was tight.

“You’re right. I don’t know you. So why haunt me?”

“I’m not haunting you,” he declared.

“This is my living room and here you are.” Gotcha.

“Let me resume my tale and that will perhaps help explain what I suspect. Although it still doesn’t account for why you can see and hear me.”

I made a continue motion with my hand, watching his face for any sign of emotion. “Okay, when last we left you were seeing yourself in the hospital bed, Eric and Dr. Shimodo at your bedside.”

“Yes, Takeshi was signing a form for brain-wave studies. They whisked my body off for the test. I discovered that I, in this form, was anchored to my body. I have not been able to do an official measurement, but I can only go a few blocks or so in any direction, before I am either stopped or pulled towards wherever I am. Believe me I tried testing the boundaries in every way I could and in that process I found I could go instantly to wherever my body was, in whatever form.” He looked significantly at me.

“Explain what you mean by whatever form?”

“The brain death was secondary to shrapnel from flying debris. So there was blood and tissue covering a significant area of the plane and ground. I visit the crash site and when they moved all the wreckage to a hangar to reconstruct the plane, I was able to go there also. As they harvested my organs and transplanted them, I was able to be at many new places, but you are the only one who has been aware of me, the only one who can see and hear me. You are the only one who can help me.” He spoke as if he finished a lecture and was summing up the important points. He waited to see how I would react to his final statement.

I decided I’d sidestep it for the time being. “You can be at the plane-wreck site. Over one hundred and forty people died on that plane. Can you see and talk to those people, or their ghost or spirits, whatever you are?”

“I haven’t tried to talk to them. I can see some of them. I believe many did not linger here.” He put his arms up as he said “here”. “The people I saw seemed to be concerned with their own predicament.

Many were crying or angry. I didn’t try to talk to them.”

The first thing I would have done is try to talk to the other dead. To commiserate my fate with others who shared it. How could he not have offered comfort or sympathy to those crying and confused? Of course, I wasn’t dead, so I didn’t really know how I’d deal with it. That stopped me from commenting.

“You’re disappointed by something I’ve told you.” Tom looked angry.

I blinked, shrugging. “I’ve no reason or right to be disappointed with anything you have done or, more to the point, endured. I’m sorry if I’ve made you mad.”

His expression fell blank again.

“So will you help me figure this out?” he finally asked.

“Figure out what, exactly?”

“Why I’m still here. Why you’re seeing and talking to me. How I can move on to wherever it is I need to.”

“See, I don’t know what that requires of me. First off, I haven’t heard anything from you that I couldn’t have created from my own imagination. I suspect that helping you find the answers to these questions will put me in the position of enduring an extensive psych evaluation, drugs and group therapy.” I stood up.

“I’m going to lie down and say a little prayer that you’re gone when I wake up, like a good hallucination should be.”

He started to follow me but I held up my hand and pleaded, “Please go, I need sleep and sanity right now.”

He blinked away. One moment he was there and the next he was gone. I stood there surprised, but not relieved.

I woke up and wandered through my empty house, not bothering to pick up when the phone rang. My sister’s voice came through the answering machine, telling me she’d left some chicken gumbo in my fridge this morning for dinner. She also told me she couldn’t get through the media at the hospital to reach my room and she was sorry. I listened to my other messages, deleting the calls from the press for an interview. My parents sounded tired but happy that they’d arrived at their destination.

“I see you’re up. Are you feeling better?” Tom appeared in the living room, sitting on the couch.

I sat in my lounger. “You’re back, which doesn’t bode well for my sanity.”

“I’ve come up with a solution. A way to prove I’m not part of your imagination. A means to get the help we’ll need.” He almost smiled. “Trust me, it should be painless.”

“Please, enlighten me.” His calm attitude reminded me of one of our social workers in the emergency department talking to the psychotic patients.

“You’ve met Takeshi, Dr. Shimodo. He can ask me questions that only he and I would know the answers to. I can prove my existence to both of you.” He looked pleased with himself.

“So, I’m supposed to contact a renowned neurologist. Tell him I’m conversing with the ghost of his dead friend and expect that he’ll just invite me in for dinner?” I shook my head.

“He’s staying at my home, going through my papers and estate business. We can drop by. Once you’re inside, it would be difficult for him to turn you away.” Tom crossed his arms.

“How do you know where he is?”

“It’s my home. My hairs are in the combs and brushes. There are skin cells in the bathrooms and in the carpet fibers. Takeshi says my name often as he sorts through my things. It’s like I can hear it in my head and I go to whoever says it.” He pointed to the door. “Shall we go?”

“Not on your life, oops…death. I’m eating some chicken gumbo, taking a long, hot shower and changing out of scrubs. I don’t want to talk to Dr. Shimodo. It will be a huge embarrassment after being so needy last night. He’ll think I’m chasing him around.” I turned on the television before I left the room.

“So, is that a yes or a no?” he demanded.

“It’s a maybe,” I yelled back to him.

My long, hot shower became a short, cool one. For some reason my skin was very sensitive to hot and cold. The water droplets stung like the heat of a sparkler. I switched off the water and realized my heart was racing, my pulse running in the one-sixties. I tried a vagal maneuver, bearing down for a good twenty seconds before it fell to normal. One more thing to tell my doctor in the morning.

It was time to confront my psychosis, and what’s another embarrassing encounter to me when the week was already going to hell. I had become a lightning rod to more than the weather. I sucked up my courage and stomach as I stepped out on my front porch. “Tom.”

He appeared next to me.

“Damn,” I mumbled.

“You look pale.” He scanned my face.

“I saw a ghost, what do you expect?”

He smiled. “Very funny. Now tell me the truth.”

“I’m tired. Let’s get this over with. My family is on a long-needed vacation, so I have ten days to be declared psychotic and drugged to proper levels.” I locked the front door behind us and got in my car.

“You’ll need to give me directions. I don’t know where you live.”

Tom bled through the car door to sit next to me in the passenger seat.

“Do you feel anything when you go through solid objects?”

“Not when it’s nonliving materials.” His hand slid into my arm.

“It feels like ice. Is it cold for you?” I pulled my arm back from him.

“No, but it has texture. Have you ever been on a plane going through a lot of cloud cover? It’s bumpy and turbulent. That’s how it feels. There’s warmth, like a pulsing electric current.”

“How can you walk through a door, but sit in a chair without falling through?”

“It’s what I believe I can do. As long as I will it, I can sit or lean or walk through walls.” Tom was gesturing with his hands.

I’d never noticed he used his hands to talk. He had the long, flexible fingers that surgeons needed. Now that he sat so close, I could see a lot of gray in his black hair. The car didn’t feel crowded with his six-foot-tall, wiry body. A straight nose and wide mouth were handsome, but the sun-wrinkled skin made him look older than his thirty-seven years.

“How tall are you?”

“Six-two.”

“I know very little about you. I might as well learn a few things. Testing my imagination,” I said airily.

“You already believe I am Tom Mecurio. I’m taking you to Takeshi because I need his help too. He knows me better than any other person.” He pointed ahead. “Turn left at the next light.”

“I may believe you’re Tom Mecurio, but I don’t know if you are the real or my created Tom Mecurio. I can’t imagine why I’d want you haunting me, but a lot of crazy people see things they don’t necessarily want to see.”

“You’re being stubborn.”

I burst out laughing. “Who’s the stubborn one here? You’re already dead, but you won’t lie down. I have to be damn sure of what’s happening to me. I could lose my job if word gets out I’m psychotic. So don’t start pouting because you are not getting your way without an argument.”

“Miss Campbell, you are infuriating. I have never pouted a day in my life.” He glared at me.

“Perhaps you don’t know what it looks like. Check out the rearview mirror. We call that pouting.”

Except for curt directions to his house, he didn’t seem to want to talk to me.

“You better be over your silence before we get there. I will walk away if you don’t turn into chatty Cathy around Dr. Shimodo. And what is my excuse for popping in at eight thirty in the evening? Mind explaining how I’m supposed to ease into Mecurio, the friendly ghost.”

That got a snort out of him. “You don’t need an excuse to talk with Takeshi. Inform him you need to share some information about me, and tell him the truth. It’s the third house on the right.”

We were in one of the older neighborhoods, a well-manicured boulevard lined with large houses. I pulled into the driveway of a three-car garage. My heart started racing again as I opened the door. I leaned forward, bearing down hard until my pulse dropped. If it happened again, I’d call the doctor, and

if all else failed, I’d go to the emergency department. That was my last choice.

Tom had literally burst out of my car and stood waiting at the front door for me. “What’s wrong?

What’s taking you so long?”

“I don’t feel well, that’s all. Thanks for your sympathy, Doctor.”

Okay, I was mad. He could take a little of my anger. It wouldn’t kill him. So, I’m a bitch. Everyone knew that already. I rang the doorbell and heard barking. Surprised, I looked at Tom. “You have dogs?”

“Yes, two English setters.”

“What are their names?”

“They are show dogs. They came with names, Bette Lou and Prizzi.” His voice was back to cold and impersonal.

I started laughing as the door opened. I glanced up into the loveliest face I’d ever seen on a man. Dark eyes with an obvious question in them looked down at me. He searched behind where I stood, expecting to find someone else.

Vicki was right. He was tall, though not quite as tall as Tom. His jet-black hair, soft and thick, was cut short enough to stand on end. He needed a shave and looked as tired as I felt.

“May I help you?”

“I’m really hoping you can.” I blew out a long breath. “May I come inside for a few moments?”

He opened the door wider and stepped aside for me to enter. The dogs came out on to the porch, shinnying at Tom, as if they could see him or feel his presence. Tom followed me in and the dogs danced behind him.

I turned to face the handsome Dr. Shimodo. My heart rate jumped up again. I must have gotten pale, because he came to my side. I leaned into him to help my balance.

“What’s the matter? You really don’t look good.” Tom examined my face.

“I told you I didn’t feel well.”

“I must have missed that.” Shimodo settled me into a chair. “Perhaps another time would be better for your visit, Miss Campbell? When you have recovered from you injuries. You are quite pale and very cool to the touch. May I ask why you would come to this house and why it is so important that you should leave your sickbed?”