“Survived?” A deep frown etched itself into Duane’s face, disappearing to his bushy beard.
“What do you remember before you ended up here?”
Duane raised a hand to rub his chin, considering that question. “I’d gone out for one drink at the bar after work, just to unwind. Stayed long enough to shoot the shit with the boys, but I headed out not long after dark since I still needed to get up in the morning. I’d parked my truck at the far end of the gravel lot and it was pretty dark over there.”
“When I got closer, I saw a couple standing out near the trees, talking. Didn’t think much of it until I’d had my keys in the ignition, ready to leave. Their conversation turned heated and the man started yelling something. When I saw him hit her, I was out of my truck and crossing that field. Only, someone else got there first. Two people came out of the woods, armed with bats and began beating the man. The woman backed off, still holding her cheek where he’d hit her but not looking surprised.”
“What the fuck?” Riordan asked, trying to understand.
“I know, right?” Duane laughed. “I stood there, just out in the open in the field, staring at them. Like, I was totally ready to beat the guy myself, but that beatdown looked planned, like he’d been lured out for it. Maybe he deserved it. Hell, if he’d been beating his girl, then yeah, he deserved it. Only, they looked like they might not stop with a beating. Before I could make up my mind, the woman spotted me standing there and told the two attackers. One of them pulled a gun and came after me while the other stuck with the guy they’d been beating.”
“Long story short, the one with the gun chased me and shot me when I didn’t just stop, which put me down enough for the other one to show up and beat me,” Duane continued, lifting his shirt to show a still bleeding gunshot wound in his abdomen, “They got both me and the other guy, who was unconscious by that point, into my truck, blindfolded me, and drove us off into the middle of nowhere. A couple more people met them there and dead bodies hanging from a tree. I tried to fight, but they managed to knock me out and well, I woke up here like this.”
Duane held up his wrapped wrists as evidence and then sighed. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out I’m dead, though let me tell you, I ranted and raved about it enough that first bit after I woke up. It doesn’t explain the rest of this place though. It’s not what I expected from the afterlife.”
“It’s not exactly an afterlife,” Riordan offered, gesturing around them, “More like a magical ghost trap. In my case, me and another drifter were talking outside of a gas station, just north of Cadillac, when we got jumped and drugged. They took us out to the woods, to that tree full of hanging bodies, cut our wrists and strung us up. They underestimated me and I lived. I couldn’t save the other guy though.
Duane took that better than Riordan expected, though he was starting to get the idea that the man wasn’t easily fazed. He seemed to go with the flow until something important made him plant his feet and take a stand, a weird mix of laidback and highly determined. Riordan could definitely respect that, even if it had gotten the man mixed up in this. It sounded like he hadn’t been a target until he became a witness, which made sense because Duane had mentioned having friends and a job and being part of the community where he’d been taken. That sort of target got way more attention than a drifter like Riordan or a runaway like Daniel.
“If this is a ghost trap, how did you end up here?” Duane asked, “Assuming you are not a ghost and all.”
Riordan made a face of displeasure, tugging at the rope tied around his wrist. “I get the pleasure of showing up here whenever I sleep. I still seem better off than the rest of you. For one, I can see all of you.”
That surprised Duane. He looked around and visibly startled. Apparently whatever Riordan had done made the other ghosts visible to the burly man as well. “Well. They’ve been here this whole time?”
Riordan shrugged. “As far as I can tell, all of us end up here after being hung on that tree, but the ones who died can’t see each other. I can see all of you and if I focus, I seem to be able to give the same awareness to others.”
Duane shifted his gaze back to Riordan sharply. “You’ve done this with others?”
“Just one.”
“Which one?” Duane asked, sweeping his eyes over the crowd of ghosts and the dripping tree, his survey obscured by the shifting fog.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“He’s not here,” Riordan tried to explain, “Well, sort of. He’s in the tree, I think. Look, it would be easier if I just tried to show you, if you are willing.”
He held out a hand towards Duane again. He got another one of those long assessing looks as Duane took his measure, thought it through, and made a decision. The big man took his hand firmly.
“Fine, let’s do this. I’m game to try most things at this point.”
That was permission, if not a roaring endorsement. Riordan would take it. He knew he was shady as fuck right now and Duane had no reason to trust him besides lack of options. He closed his eyes, trying to do on purpose what he’d only done by accident before, focusing on the idea of the two of them moving smoothly into the flipside. And hopefully Riordan wouldn’t get immediately kicked out and haunted this time.
Even with his eyes closed, Riordan knew when it worked, the chiming winds and sense of peace washing over him. He opened his eyes in time to see a look of wonder cross Duane’s astonished face.
“Uff da,” the man whispered before shaking himself all over like a dog. Riordan dropped his hold on Duane, waiting a beat to see if reality would shattered into wakefulness. Everything stayed steady for now.
He offered Duane an awkward smile. “Yeah, a bit of a change.”
“I can see why you didn’t try explaining. This place feels… Good. It feels good here, natural.”
“Yeah,” Riordan agreed, because as much as the peaceful aura creeped him out, it wasn’t malicious. Just inhuman. He gestured to the base of the tree. “Anyway, Daniel is resting over here.”
The young man was still curled up in the grass. He hadn’t moved much, but Riordan thought he looked a bit more relaxed and less bone-deep exhausted. Duane moved closer to look Daniel over, glancing between Riordan and Daniel a few times.
“I didn’t even know ghosts could sleep,” Duane said carefully. “I haven’t slept in however long I’ve been here.”
Riordan shrugged. “I didn’t know it either. I’m not sure they normally do, but Daniel got… hurt. Drained by something. Sleeping is preferable to dead. Or dissipated or whatever happens to a ghost who gets damaged.”
Duane was silent for a longer time after that, studying Daniel in his sleep and then looking at the tree of light with the same concentration. He wasn’t a man who was uncomfortable with silence while he was thinking. Riordan tried to use that time to think as well, which was more of a challenge for him since Riordan was decidedly more the type to avoid thinking too deeply about the things that mattered.
He could feel that crawling anxiety in the center of his chest, emotional discomfort manifesting physically, or as physically as it got here. Riordan didn’t do people, didn’t share about magic to non-magic types, didn’t try to stand up for anything. He knew he was a garbage person, but that was just why it was fine that he was alone. It was the least of what he deserved.
Telling Daniel about magic had been easier because Riordan felt he owed the young man for not saving him. Talking to Duane, he found himself struggling every time he mentioned magical phenomena, despite the fact that Duane knew he was a ghost now and had spent an indeterminate amount of time dealing with animate ropes and hungry swamps, which was hardly mundane. Riordan could practically feel himself withdrawing from the conversation, even if Duane seemed like a genuinely good person.
Part of it was that Duane was harder to read than Daniel and much more self-assured. He didn’t need Riordan’s help or seek out his company the way Daniel did. Daniel had slipped around Riordan’s social defenses via a combination of the intense circumstances and his personality. Riordan’s walls held more strongly against Duane, though he’d forced himself to say more than he truly wanted to in order to conduct his experiment on helping the ghosts.
His experiment itself had proven successful. Riordan had some capacity to pull the victims out of their isolated suffering and into the nicer version of the space. He wasn’t sure what the consequences of that would be, positive or negative. Obviously, the ghosts he pulled wouldn’t be directly tortured the same way, but it wasn’t like they were free. The ropes still bound the three of them in this space, just dormant. Well, Riordan was reminded of the burning pain from the rope when he’d walked away. Not entirely dormant.
There was no way to know if this space actually protected them from anything aside from emotional suffering. It could be entirely an illusion to placate them and make them pliable for something. It could also be that he made things worse for the ghosts he hadn’t saved when he pulled someone out. Plus, he had no idea what the consequences of being haunted would be for him, much less haunted several times over. Stories usually treated hauntings as negative things, where the ghost was out to kill the person they were haunting, but was that because those were the stories that stuck out or because all hauntings were dangerous?
Duane approached, drawing Riordan out of his contemplations. The two men sized each other up again, still circling like wary wolves. The large lumberjack sighed, running a hand through his hair, and broke the silence.
“I get the feeling that you know more than you are saying,” Duane stated bluntly. “I also get the feeling that you aren’t inclined to tell me what you are hiding.”
Riordan shrugged, not saying anything. It wasn’t like the man was wrong. He waited to see where Duane was going with this.
“What do you get out of this?” Duane asked.
That confused Riordan and something must have shown on his face because some of the tension eased out of Duane even before Riordan responded, “Out of what? Trying to help? Besides a chance to live, information to stop murderers, and not being an asshole who ignores people I could easily help?”
“Yeah, besides all that.”
“Guilt,” Riordan hadn’t expected that to come out of his mouth, but the words kept flowing, “And privilege. Those are my motivations. I survived when the rest didn’t, only because of an inherent trait I was born with. And anyone else without that privilege who tries tackling the people behind this group are going to have a hell of a hard time, with way more loss of life.”
Duane snorted, his tone mildly mocking. “Okay, that sounds much more believable, but I hope you don’t think your ‘privilege’ makes you some sort of savior, that only you can save us and we’re just going to fall to our knees in gratitude.”
“Gods, hardly. I’m a horrible choice for a savior. I’m just trying not to botch this up enough to take information to people actually qualified to handle this shit.”
“Alright. Just wanted to be clear,” Duane paused before adding, “I don’t suppose you want to share who would be qualified to handle this?”
“Not really, no.”
“Right then. Glad we had this talk.”