Anton Strout - Deader Still

“What the hell are those?” I shouted.

Connor slowed a little as he looked, but he didn’t slow much.

“Beats me, kid. Probably one of the million reasons I hate fucking being in the park at night.”

For a short while they brightened, and I swore I could see a city among them, one much different from Manhattan. It looked part Blade Runner, mixed with a dash of Tolkien, both gorgeous and terrifying to see out here in the middle of the night. I was determined not to fall and returned my eyes to the path. The lights faded away and the darkness of the woods returned. The sight of the speck that was Connor receding up ahead urged me to sprint even harder.

I caught up with him as he came to a stop, wrapped his arms around a tree, and shimmied up it.

I had no idea why Connor had opted to climb a tree at this point in our escape. Surely the crabs could wait around the base until he tried to come down. I congratulated myself for keeping moving and staying on the ground.

Until I saw nothing but lake spread out before me.

“Dive in, kid,” Connor shouted from up in the tree.

I dove.

As the ice-cold water nearly sent my body into shock, I propelled myself underwater and out across the lake. When I surfaced, I twisted myself around and looked back to shore. The crabs had left Connor alone up in the tree, having preferred to continue after me as the grounded target. All four charged into the water, clicking their claws as they came. I was thrilled, however, to see that, despite chasing me into the lake, the one thing the vicious little crabs couldn’t do was float. They used their back legs to try to propel themselves as a regular crab would, but the weight of their bronze bodies dragged them to the bottom of the lake. As long I kept myself floating at the surface, I should be fine. I watched as each of them sank into the mud of the lake bed below, their claws frantically clicking toward the surface.

I swam back to shore. When I crawled back onto dry land, Connor was just coming down from his tree. I slowly peeled off my coat. It weighed a ton.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, trying to wring it out as best I could. “What the hell just happened?”

I looked at Connor, but his concentration was mostly focused on the lake behind me.

“Kolb,” he said, “just possessed those things. And here he comes again . . .”

I stood there soaking wet, shivering, and turned myself around. Beneath the water, a faint white light started to form, growing like a searchlight rising to the surface. The water bubbled like it was a giant stew pot of WTF, and out of it rose glowing bubbles full of swirling mist, some as large as basketballs. With an alarming pop, the mist broke free and swirled together until I recognized a distinct shape forming. It was the jogger, gasping for air and clawing his way toward the shore. He still acted like he was human and that breathing was an issue for him.

The jogger pulled himself up onto shore and collapsed. His dark wreath of hair was wet, hanging down on one side at least half a foot from a bad comb-over. Everything else on him was wet, too—running shorts, track shoes, and his “Sherlock Ohms” T-shirt. He lay there, sputtering and catching his breath.

“Why is he wet?” I whispered to Connor. “He’s dead. Doesn’t that mean he’s immaterial?”

Connor shook his head.

“I don’t think he understands that he’s dead,” he said. “Mr. Kolb here thinks he’s alive so his spirit is reacting somewhat accordingly. He expected to get wet being in a lake, therefore he’s wet. Didn’t they teach you anything as a F.O.G.gieyet?”

“I am too alive,” the jogger said, forcing himself up onto his knees, “and it’s Doctor Kolb to you. I didn’t go to MIT just for the parties, I’ll have you know.”

He snickered at what he must have thought was some great private joke, then stood up. With care, he scooped the hanging section of his comb-over back onto the top of his head and arranged it. It was a futile attempt at best, looking nothing more than someone with a wet cat sitting up there, but he looked happy with it.

“Sorry, about that, Dr. Kolb,” I said. Politeness was the cornerstone of the D.E.A.’s training manual Deadside Manner . . . or what I had read of it, anyway.

His initial fear from when we had first seen him tonight seemed to be gone, replaced with fascination. He turned away from us and looked down into the water.

“Astounding,” he said. “Did you catch all that? The way my body broke down on a molecular level, and reconstituted itself by manifesting within those four statues?”

“That doesn’t seem odd to you?” I said.

“Odd, certainly,” Dr. Kolb said, his face a mask of excitement, “but think about the scientific implications of this. This is on par with King Midas or the myth of the philosopher’s stone . . .”

Before I knew what was happening, Connor had reclaimed his bubble gun from the base of the tree and fired it at the jogger, blasting him with the spirit binding. The ghost’s face went slack.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“Sorry,” Connor said, not really looking like he was. “He was rambling. I need him a little more sedate than that—I’m certainly not going to argue with him whether he’s dead or not.”

Connor had a point. Back when we had found the ghost of Irene Blatt in the coffee shop, she had been pretty adamant that she was still alive, too.

“You were attacked yesterday,” Connor said to him. “You died.”

The jogger, although much more sedate now, still shook his head. “I don’t see how that’s possible. I mean, you are talking to me.”

Connor pulled out his cell phone. He flipped it open and called up one of the pictures he had taken at the scene of the crime yesterday.

“Not to be harsh or anything,” Connor said, “but do you recognize that guy lying there half covered in a sheet?”

The jogger squinted at the tiny screen. His eyes widened, and he nodded. His wet hair fell from its perch and hung off the side of his head again like damp seaweed.

“Hate to break it to you like this,” Connor continued, “but the good doctor? He’s out . . . for good. Someone or some thing did this to you. Can you think of anyone who would want you dead?”

Dr. Kolb laughed at that. “Want me dead? You’re kidding, right? I’m a scientist. My specialty is developing polycarbonate thermoplastic resins for communications and buildings. Who’s going to want me dead? Someone from a rival nerd consortium?”

Connor looked agitated, but pointed at the camera phone. “Well, scientifically speaking, something made you dead, Doctor. Personally, I’d like to know who. I would think you’d like to know as well.”

Dr. Kolb looked at the picture on Connor’s phone again. He screwed up his face, struggling to remember. If he could recall who had done this to him, or why, I was fairly certain it would be a huge step toward figuring out our case, not to mention helping Dr. Kolb pass on to the next life.

“Anything you can give us,” Connor continued, his voice less harsh this time. “Anything at all, no matter how insignificant.”

“I can almost see it in my mind,” the dead jogger said, still struggling.

While Dr. Kolb gave it a good think, I watched the water for any signs of the crabs, even though the spirit that had been mechanizing them now stood before us. I shuddered at the thought of them crawling back up to shore.

“It was like . . . like a dog,” he said with conviction.

“A dog?” I repeated, then looked to Connor, raising an eyebrow. “Werewolf?”

“Doubtful,” he said. “We’re not even close to having a full moon right now.”