“Marty,” Alex said, clucking his tongue, “it stinks in here. Hygiene doesn’t seem to be your strong point right now. How come? Something wrong?”
Marty pushed himself into a sitting position, suddenly conscious of his own body odor.
“No,” Marty lied. “There’s nothing wrong.”
Alex smirked, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Marty remembered the last time the boy had been in the room.
It wasn’t a pleasant memory.
“Did you come alone?” Marty asked.
“Me? Alone?” Alex let out a high-pitched laugh that set Marty’s teeth on edge. “Come on. You’re not stupid. I’m never alone. Ever. I’m always with someone, either living or dead. Well, always with someone dead, that’s for sure.” Alex leaned toward him. “But you’re not asking about the dead. You’re asking about the living.”
Marty nodded.
“Yeah,” Alex told him. “I’ve got a couple of people in the hallway. Another out front.”
“And one more with the vehicle,” Timmy chimed in.
“And one more with the vehicle,” Alex laughed. “Pretty great, huh?”
“Fantastic,” Marty grumbled. He started to rise, and the look of pleasantness vanished from the boy’s face.
“Get off that seat without permission, and I will have you killed.” Alex’s face was absent of emotion, his tone flat.
Marty lowered himself back down. His mouth twitched as he bit back an angry reply.
Alex peered at him. “Is there something you want to say?”
“Nothing that’s worth my life,” Marty replied through clenched teeth.
“Good.”
The boy winced, closed his eyes, and lowered his head for a moment. Marty watched, curious as Alex shook. The dead man waited, his hands in his pockets.
The boy shuddered, then lifted his head. His face was pale, his eyes seemed darker. “Can you hear it?”
Marty frowned. “Hear what?”
“The buzzing,” Alex answered with a conspiratorial smile. “I hear it all the time. Ever since the accident. It doesn’t go away. Not really. Sometimes it’s loud. Sometimes, I think everyone can hear it. But I guess not.”
Alex leaned back in the chair and slapped both hands against his thighs as he grinned at Marty. “Now. Where were we? Oh, yeah. I want to know what you’ve got planned. You owe me quite a few items, Marty. So, let’s hear how you’re going to get them.”
Marty took a deep breath. “I’m having some trouble right now. The last two guys I took with me, two guys who knew what they were doing, were killed.”
Alex blew a raspberry at him. “I don’t care. That’s a problem for you to solve, because, if you don’t, you’re going to have another problem: me.”
Marty lost his temper and jumped to his feet. “I don’t care!”
Timmy launched himself at Marty, wrapping his cold hands around Marty’s throat and pulling him off the floor.
Gasping for breath and trying to claw at the incorporeal hands, Marty realized he had made a mistake.
The boy hadn’t been kidding.
The dead man continued to squeeze, his hands bitterly cold against Marty’s flesh. Darkness swept across Marty’s vision while stars burst along the edges. His blood thundered in his ears as he tried to stay conscious.
Then Marty was thrown through the air, striking the floor and coughing as he dragged in great gulps of air. He tried to get up, but something hard and solid landed on his back. His head bounced off the floor, scrambling his thoughts. Small fingers took hold of his hair, pulled his head back, and then slammed it against the floor.
Pain radiated through his skull, and Marty found he couldn’t push himself up.
He lost track of time, and only slowly became aware that he was lying on the floor. The taste of blood was strong in his mouth, and every heartbeat rushed a message of pain through his consciousness.
With a whimper, Marty rolled onto his back. He let out a cry of pain as a pair of women hooked their arms under his and hauled him to the couch, dropping him unceremoniously onto it.
Alex still sat in the same chair, but there were splatters of blood on his fair skin.
My blood, Marty realized.
“I’m surprised you’re alive,” Alex informed him. “I was really trying to smash your skull open. Oh, well.”
Marty couldn’t think of a response.
Alex leaned forward, frowning. “I think this is an injury that might take a while to recover from.” The boy glanced at the dead man.
Timmy nodded. “Without a doubt, kid. The frostbite on his neck is going to draw attention. As is that massive egg you left on his forehead.”
Alex snickered.
“You may need to revisit this discussion at a later time,” Timmy concluded.
Alex pouted. “That’s lame. I want it taken care of now.”
“You can try, but it’ll be like swimming upriver,” Timmy shrugged. “I’ll be surprised if he remembers half of this. That’s a hell of a concussion he’s suffering from.”
Marty wanted to say something, to interject a point, but he couldn’t quite identify what that point was.
“Fine,” Alex muttered. “When?”
“Give him a week,” Timmy suggested. “Keep an eye on him. Not inside, though. Guy’s slick. Pretty sure he’d be able to kill whoever you left in the building.”
Marty closed his eyes and listened as the boy and dead colleague continued speaking.
“He should probably go to the hospital,” Timmy said.
“No. No hospital. It’s not a big deal if he dies in here,” Alex countered.
“Who will get the items then, kid?” Timmy asked, and by the tone of his voice, Marty thought it might be a regular conversation the two had.
“I don’t know,” Alex grumbled. “Someone would. There’s always someone else.”
“Sure there is,” Timmy agreed. “The problem is finding that someone. All the others are dead. Because of the ghosts. Finders are in short supply.”
“I could pull one or two of the proctors,” Alex stated happily.
“Are you kidding?” Timmy asked. “Kid, half of them are becoming alcoholics because of what they’re seeing, and the other half are seriously considering suicide as a viable choice. No, kid, you need guys like Marty. Right now, the only one you have is Marty, so, in my own humble opinion, send this guy to the hospital. If you don’t, we’re just going to be spinning our wheels with this little plan of yours.”
“Fine,” Alex sighed. “Fine. He can’t call them from here, though.”
“Nope,” Timmy said. “But we can have him taken out to one of the parks or something. Somewhere a mugging won’t seem out of place.”
“Even in the morning?” Alex asked.
Timmy laughed. “Kid, a mugging is never out of place.”
As Marty faded into unconsciousness, he had to agree with the dead man.
Chapter 16: Research
Thursday, 9:00 AM
Tom Daniels sat at the table, his laptop set up, and a cup of coffee beside him. He stirred the cream and sugar into the mug before he took a cautious sip. Finding the coffee to be to his liking, Tom smiled and logged in. As the various windows popped up on the screen, the door to their home opened, and his adopted father, Victor Daniels, walked in. The man had several newspapers tucked beneath one arm, his prematurely gray hair wild and unkempt. His black, horn-rimmed glasses were perched on the tip of his nose as if Victor couldn’t quite get used to needing bifocals.