David Nickle - The 'Geisters

He found he had no words. There was nothing to say, as the cool, dry hand wrapped around his own.

And her eyelids flickered.

“I used to dungeon master,” said Ann. From Susan’s blank expression, Ann could guess that the woman had no idea what she was talking about, so Ann explained: “I would be the one who made up the place where the adventures happened. In the game, I’d describe what was happening there, and the players would react.” Susan nodded, slowly, in that nervous-but-encouraging way that people who’d never rolled up a first-level halfling thief did, when Ann tried to explain how a game of Dungeons & Dragons went.

“Basically, it comes down to this,” said Ann. “I’m the one telling the story. If the characters run into… I don’t know, a band of trolls… I’m the trolls. If they meet a dragon—it’s me. If the bridge they’ve just crossed crumbles into dust…”

“You,” said Susan.

“Me.”

Susan got up from her stool, and went around to the other side of the bar. She opened up the refrigerator and got out another bottle of the Sémillon.

“Sounds wicked,” said Susan.

Ann chuckled. “Yeah. I used to play rough . Not everybody’s cup of tea.”

“Not for the faint of heart.”

“Right.”

Susan refilled Ann’s glass nearly to the brim. Ann widened her eyes and laughed. “Sure that’s enough?” she said, and Susan laughed too.

“We got big merlot glasses in here somewhere, if you’d like some more.”

Ann let her smile fade a bit.

“No,” she said. “Thank you.”

Susan came back around the bar and sat down by Ann again. “It’s okay,” she said.

Ann blinked. “What’s okay?”

“You’re all gone now,” she said. “It’s done. You can just relax.”

All gone now.

Ann thought about that. Earlier that morning, in the dark, Susan had predicted just exactly this: that she’d be eaten up soon. So had Lisa. The Insect would devour everything. And now, according to Susan anyway, that had happened. The Insect had devoured everything. Ann was here by herself now, or rather her flesh was… And Susan—or the flesh Susan left behind—was here helping her to adjust. To her new life—as a vessel that largely stood empty.

Of course, that wasn’t precisely what had happened—not to Ann at least.

Ann was, for the first time in decades, entirely whole.

Ann climbed off her stool. She swayed a little bit, what with the wine in her, but steadied herself with the stool. She walked down the bar to the urn that contained Michael’s ashes. She ran a finger up the cool metal.

“Tell me,” she said. “Does Ian have an up-to-date will?”

Susan shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Michael and I made out wills,” said Ann. “Part of the elaborate plans we laid for our wedding. It made sense; we both came into the marriage with considerable assets, after all. Michael owned property, had investments. I… I had my part of my parents’ trust fund. You probably should have done the same thing.”

Susan shifted on her stool. “I’m sure I’m looked after.”

“Hope so,” said Ann. She left her wine glass on the bar and crossed the big room to the bank of windows. It had begun to rain, but the wind was blowing the right way, and not a drop of it touched the glass. The view was perfect.

Susan came over with both glasses—Ann’s dribbling a bit over the rim. “What you looking at, Annie?” she said, and then added, “Oh,” as she came closer, and saw.

Ann took the glasses from Susan, and set them down on a nearby table. “There was a storm,” said Ann. “It was terrible—a tornado. It touched down on the Octagon, and tore it out from the middle. You can see the pieces of it—there—and there—and that thing.” Ann pointed to a twisted helix of metal, sprouting from the edge of the ravine like a broken bedspring. “That’s the staircase, I think.” The trees that must have covered the grounds outside the tasting room were just as mangled. There was a wide swathe where the branches had simply been sucked away, leaving cracked stumps in their place.

“That’s one of your husband’s friends,” said Ann, pointing at a slender figure, clutching a blood-red bathrobe around himself as he staggered away from the ravine. The rain was coming hard and it lashed at him, but he didn’t stop. “We weren’t introduced when I came across him in the Octagon. Do you recognize him?” Susan must have taken the question to be rhetorical, because she didn’t answer. “All right. Well watch carefully. I am going to cause him to trip, and fall forward into mud.” The man did so, arms wheeling comically as he fell to his knees, and then his face. “He may wish to get up,” said Ann, and indeed, the man tried to do so, his narrow elbows emerging over his back, as though he were to begin a push-up. Ann smiled slightly and shook her head. “But I don’t wish it,” said Ann. It was difficult to see precisely, but it seemed as though something—a tree branch, perhaps?—reared up, and fell onto his back. His arms were splayed in the mud, and as he tried to manoeuvre them back under him, more branches seemed to come up from under him. “He won’t be getting up,” said Ann, and sure enough, he showed no more signs of it.

In the course of this work, Susan had dropped her wine glass. The floor here was carpeted, and it prevented the glass from breaking, and also absorbed the wine around Susan’s feet. From the way she wrung her hands together, eyes wide and mouth half-open in terrified dismay, it could have been the result of another kind of accident.

“So here’s the thing about dungeon mastering,” said Ann. “You can play rough—take-no-prisoners, re-roll no stats. But it doesn’t work at all if you’re not giving the players what they want. And it doesn’t work if you’re not giving them what you want them to have.”

“Why did you ask me about a will, now?”

Susan’s formidable brainpower made Ann smile. “Ian’s going to die in a minute,” she said. “I just hope he didn’t go leave all his money to some ’geister spa in Florida. You don’t want those ones looking after your future.”

Susan drew a breath, and held it a moment, behind pursed lips. Ann looked outside. The man in the mud was asphyxiating. Just to look at him, you’d think that he’d already died, but he hadn’t—he was trapped in himself, his mouth and nostrils filled with slick muck, memories flashing like lights behind his blocked-shut eyelids, terror fading to despair, and finally—dull, drowned acceptance.

“Don’t kill him,” said Susan, and Ann said, “I think it’s too late for him,” then thought about it again and said, “Oh. Ian. You mean Ian?”

“I mean Ian.” Susan’s voice took a low turn—like she was putting on the tough, letting Ann know that she also meant business.

Ann let her eyes flutter shut. “I’m not sure there’s much to do for him, either,” she said. “The good news is that the burns from the fire are superficial. He got out before that could take him. His legs are broken, though. And there’s a fracture in his spine, too. Might be paralyzed. Hard to tell at the moment. He’s conscious, but he’s at the bottom of a very deep hole right now. There is a dead man on the ground not far from him, and a little girl—Lisa. Yes, Lisa Dumont. She has quite lost her mind. Or she thinks she has. She hasn’t yet realized the truth. So now she’s singing. Can’t quite make out what the song is. Some lullaby. Sleepy-time, sleepy-time…

She’s giving him a look. She knows what he did. And he knows it.”

“How do you know all that?”

Ann turned around. “I’m there too.” She met Susan’s eyes, and the act of it seemed to drive Susan back. There was that terror, right there, in her eyes.