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= Ghosts and the City #1 =

a dark fantasy short story

by John Argo

(10)

We walked down the stairs, holding on to each other for fear of stumbling. When we reached the staging area ground, we were suddenly not in Nestor's building, but in a clearing in the woods. We could hear the nearby stream babble gently. We could smell mud and vegetation. A night bird chickered, and frogs burruped in the mud.

Up on that other road, narco-gangster cars slowly rolled to a stop and their lights went out.

The tent flap opened, and a sleepy scout staggered out, scratching his head. He started to stretch, saw us, and turned pale in the soft light of the dying campfire nearby.

"Who—?" He couldn't speak. His eyes became wide. "Holy—what the—? Mr. Connolly! Mr. Connolly!" he cried, running into a nearby tent. A minute later, several scared scouts and an alarmed, middle-aged school teacher popped out.

"Are you lost?" scoutmaster asked. They had all been sleeping in their uniforms. The elder hitched up his suspenders and repeated the question in Spanish. He asked if they had entered the country illegally and were lost. These things are a nightly occurrence on the border.

Lolo spoke. "We are the people who died in the air crash."

"Oh my God," several youths exclaimed. "I'm getting the hell out of here." Already, two of them scrambled back up the embankment to their van.

"Hold on a minute," the scoutmaster said. "This can't be for real." He came close and reached out to touch us, but his hand went through us. His terrified face contorted into a silent shriek.

"You are all about to die," I said. "Leave everything behind and drive away as fast as you can."

The last we saw of them was their backs as they went scrambling up the embankment, got into the van, and drove off without lights.

Not a second too soon, either.

On the other road, headlights winked on and off.

Another pair of headlights responded in kind—the Angeleņos.

We walked toward them, and slowly climbed up the embankment. The narco-gangsters were in the middle of a tense confrontation as we stepped out of the foliage and onto the road.

A babble of voices arose. Lights shone on us.

We must have seemed a pale and ghostly line of creatures. Wish I had a video of us.

Two men started shooting at us with Uzis. The bullets went right through us. Several men made signs of the cross. They all ran to their vehicles, and from here, the scene was the same as in the other scenario earlier—screeching tires, fishtailing cars—except the bundled drugs still lay in the brush below.

We waited for instructions from Nestor, but none came, so we started back toward the tents. As we went down the embankment, a sheriff's cruiser pulled up without lights or siren. A man's voice said: "I could swear it came from here. Call for backup. Tell them we think we heard gunshots and saw muzzle flashes."

Seconds later, a Border Patrol SUV pulled up nose to nose. Two migra in jumpsuits climbed out, holding shotguns. "You guys hear anything?"

"Yeah, shooting.'

Someone shone a flashlight down the embankment, and caught the kids' faces. "Hey, there's people down there."

"Must be Mexicans," said the Border Patrol agents. One of them called down: "Ola! Amigos! Que pasa aqui?"

The little girl stood stock-still, with those huge black eyes, and pointed toward the drug cache.

"Holy crap," said one of the men, "those ain't real people. Those are ghosts. Look at how pale they are."

"She's pointing to something."

"I'm about to shit my pants."

"That can wait. Let's go down there and look."

And a moment later: "I think there's a pile of drugs down here."

Having done our duty, we turned and started for the steps. From here, we could just make out part of the lowest step. On it stood Nestor. "Hold on a minute."

Behind us, there was a ruckus as more trucks arrived. A chopper droned overhead and its search beam penetrated the forest. We could hear dogs barking as canine units arrived.

"You did well," Nestor said. "Seven scared scouts and a bunch of excited police. They'll be telling stories about what happened here for years. Of course, nobody will believe them." He chuckled. "That brings me to your destinies. No, I'm not sending you on yet. I need you here. I'll release you, or my successors will, when your time has come." He looked into the distance and waved.

A shadowy figure detached itself from the wrecked plane that had lain there for nearly thirty years. "Sometimes, Louise, we can do a little balancing act. Sometimes, we can grab a loose end here" (he held up one hand) "and a loose end there" (he held up his other hand) "and put the broken pieces together to make a nice whole." He brought his palms together and rubbed them, as if he were washing his hands or making some sort of magical, tychnikal, spell. He said to Lolo: "These are your children. And that is your husband."

Lolo's eyes opened wide in shock. "Henri!" Tears flew from her eyes. She bent over in disbelief, overwhelmed.

A young blond man, dead as a doornail, but handsome and excited, came running toward her. He had blue eyes, a pleasant face, and a compact, powerful physique. The two children ran to him with upraised hands. He took each by one hand and hurried to Lolo.

Lolo was in tears as he hugged her. "My love," she babbled in French, "oh, how I have missed you."

"Sometimes," Nestor said to me, aside, as he stepped down, "we can reach into the parallel worlds of fate, take some yin over here" (he did the hands thing again) "and some yang over there, and put the broken pieces together in one place or the other."

Henri buried his face in her neck as he held her. When he was able to speak, he told her with tears streaming down his face: "We were on our way to get you and bring you home, but our plane got lost and crashed. We have been stuck here ever since, until this man came to get us." He looked at Nestor.

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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.