Lowrie was a bit lost at this stage. Blue-skinned idiots and in-betweeners. What was the girl blathering on about? Who knew with young people? Between rap music and sticking earrings in their bellies, Lowrie could never fathom normal kids, never mind phantom ones. But something she said registered.
“So, there is a heaven?”
Meg shrugged. “Apparently. Depending on your spectral trail. Red or blue. Or, in my case, purple.”
Another riddle. Or the ramblings of a lunatic. Who knew? Maybe his mind had conjured up this whole event. So he wouldn’t feel so bad about . . . things.
“Then you have to help me?”
Meg squinted suspiciously. “S’pose.”
Lowrie struggled up on one elbow. “Well, you’re too bloody late! You can’t help me now! No one can.”
“You only got bitten on the leg. No big deal.”
The old man flapped around for his cane. “Not that, you moron. That was two years ago!”
If Meg had had any red corpuscles they would have drained from her face in shock. Two years! She’d been gone that long? She’d be forgotten by now, with nothing to show she’d ever been here. Not even fond memories in the minds of those who’d known her.
“A delinquent ghost.” Lowrie’s voice broke into her thoughts. “That’s all I need. Well, do something useful for once in your life, or afterlife, and help me up.”
Lowrie stretched out his hand. It was brown and twisted, with knuckles like chestnuts. Meg stared at the fingers reaching for her. She had to help. That was why she was here.
“Well, come on. It’s your fault I can’t get up on my own in the first place.”
Meg leaned over to help the old man. Their fingers touched, or rather didn’t. Their hands slid into each other with a flurry of translucent sparks. Before she knew what was going on, Lowrie’s life force had sucked her in up to the elbow, then the waist.
“Let me go!” she screamed.
Lowrie’s eyes were stretched in confusion. “I’m not—it’s not—” he stuttered.
The two beings flowed together, snapping into the same space. Meg was in Lowrie McCall, and he was wrapped around her.
It was eerie, disgusting, terrifying. Meg’s spirit flowed to fill the available space. Her hands were gnarled, her neck wobbled, and her eyes were glazed and gritty.
“Let me out!” she screamed in her old man’s voice, jumping to her feet—old-man feet with chronic fallen arches. But the body had her like a wetsuit, invading every ghostly nerve ending. Meg could see the liver spots on her hands, and the yellowed Aran sweater drooping in folds from her arms, and wiry hair from bushy eyebrows drooping into her line of vision.
“Help!” she wheezed, the shock gripping Lowrie’s windpipe like a clamp. “Help me!”
So Meg Finn ran. She sprinted through the apartment, bouncing herself off walls in an attempt to escape the decrepit body. But it was no use. They were locked together like spliced rope.
Lowrie McCall was in there too, not in control anymore, but aware, watching the walls fly past, as though there wasn’t a hunk of scar tissue in his calf. Feeling his heart thumping in his chest. Thumping, but not racing! He was young again, with the energy and enthusiasm of youth. Lowrie wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t. His mouth wasn’t his anymore, not to control. It was as though he were sitting in a one-seat movie theater, watching his life flash by on the silver screen.
Lowrie may have liked being rejuvenated, but Meg certainly did not appreciate having her spirit encased in the sagging flesh of an old man. She burst through the front door and onto the cracked and graffiti covered path. The cold rain bounced off her now balding scalp. The water saturated the Aran sweater, stretching it down around her knees like a woolly dress. The Lowrie-Meg thing skidded around corners, checked slippers flapping against his—her—its heels. Then suddenly both entities decided to stop. Nothing extraordinary confronted them. It was just a gas tank. A shiny new gas tank. All orange and brass. Not a single paint bubble or rust ring.
Meg sank to the wet ground, tugging Lowrie with her. Life and death were repeating themselves like some sort of cosmic joke.
“I don’t want to be old,” she croaked, tears dropping off the tip of her crooked nose. “I don’t want to be dead.”
Lowrie didn’t speak. There wasn’t much you could add to that. It pretty much covered the way he was feeling too.
Me neither, he thought.
And somehow Meg heard him. Like a voice in the back of her mind. A gremlin in her head. And that wasn’t all, a lifetime of vague feelings were invading her own. There were weddings and funerals, and pain in her leg, and terrible loneliness. She didn’t want it. Any of it. She was only fourteen, for God’s sake. She’d be only fourteen forever.
I want to leave this body, she thought. Just float out the same way I came in. And that’s what she did, detached herself like a wet Band-Aid, flopping to the ground beside a suddenly exhausted Lowrie McCall. The old man’s lungs were pumped to bursting, and his legs shook like reeds.
“For a second there . . .” he puffed. “For a second there, I was . . .”
“What? You were what?” asked Meg, just for something to say. She didn’t care about the old man’s troubles, she had worries of her own.
Lowrie swatted a sheet of rain from his forehead. “I was alive again.”
And for some reason, this made the old man cry like a baby. Meg thought she knew why. There was something wrong with Lowrie McCall. Something besides arthritis and bandy legs. A feeling had soaked through her—whatever it was that she had now instead of skin—while she’d been inside the old man. A feeling that reminded her of the tunnel.
That probably wasn’t a good sign.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go inside. You’ll catch your death.”
The tears blended with the rain dribbling over Lowrie’s chin.
“Good one,” he nodded, a wry smile flickering around the corners of his mouth. “Catch my death. You’re a hoot, you are. Here, give me a hand up.”
Meg stretched out her fingers, but caught herself in time.
“Oh no, old timer,” she said. “No more body snatching for me tonight.”
* * *
Lowrie took himself off to bed, convinced he was experiencing some sort of prolonged hallucination. Meg meanwhile tried to familiarize herself with her new abilities.
There was body snatching and firing heavy objects around, for a start. So, whether or not she made contact with something was apparently up to her. A mental sort of a thing. Very kung fu. If you wish it, it shall be.
After a few experiments, she discovered that everything had a bit of life in it. Even the old armchair had a few memories floating around inside its timber and foam. Most of them involved various bottoms and the functions thereof. Meg hurriedly decided against occupying any more furniture.
The stint inside Lowrie had cost her, though. Her aura was fainter now, she could feel a pull on her body. Not in any particular direction. Just somewhere else. Time was ticking by.
Spirits also didn’t sleep, Meg discovered. What a waste of time. Here she was, her ghostly clock winding down, and Lowry was upstairs snoring his head off. Typical grown-up. Nobody’s time was worth anything besides his own.
She tried watching TV. But it was no good. Her supernatural eyesight picked out every electron on the screen. Focusing on the pictures took real concentration.
Food, then, was the only option left to her. Not that she was hungry or anything, it was just for something to do. She pilfered a chocolate mousse from Lowrie’s fridge and scooped it out with her fingers. Disgusting, certainly, but absolutely delicious.
And that was fine, just as long as Meg was actually concentrating on the mousse. But the second she stopped thinking about it, the sloppy goo began to float out through the walls of her stomach. Once they’d cleared her aura, gravity took hold and the dessert splatted onto the checkerboard linoleum.
Meg grimaced. Looked like she’d never be hu
ngry again. But she’d never be stuffed either. Sighing mightily, the in-betweener lay on a threadbare sofa, being very careful not to think hole. Even so, memories of lost Smarties cried out to her from behind the cushions. There was a diamond ring down there too. Or there had been. It had belonged to Nora. Someone called Nora.
Lowrie inched down the stairs, eyes squinted for focus.
“Hello?” he called hesitantly. A stranger in his own house.
Meg sat up on the sofa. “Who’s Nora?”
Lowrie froze, one foot halfway between steps. “Nora? Who told you about Nora?”
“The sofa,” said Meg simply.
Lowrie scanned her face for sarcasm, but found none. Why should there be? Apparently anything was possible. He limped heavily to the foot of the stairs, lowering himself, grimacing, into his easy chair. Meg could almost hear his bones creaking.
“Nora was my wife. We shared twenty-seven years of our lives.”
Meg sighed. Happy family stories always made her go mushy. “You’re lucky. To stay married that long.”
“Lucky?” snorted the old man. “It’s easy to tell you weren’t married to her. She drank like a barrel of fish and smoked sixty cigarettes a day. Why do you think I live in this dump? That old sponge drank everything we had, including the furniture.”
“I suppose it was the drink that killed her in the end?” Meg said, trying to sound mature and sympathetic.
Lowrie nodded. “In a way. She came home plastered one night, and drank a bottle of bleach by accident.”
Now it was Meg’s turn to look for sarcasm. Not a trace.
“And I’m just about getting my life in order, when in come you two and that big wolf of yours.”
Meg thought back to the tunnel. “Oh, we’re paying for our crimes. Believe me.”
“That other chap. Is he in . . . you know. Down below?”
“Yep,” nodded Meg.
“And what’s your punishment?”
“I’m here listening to you, aren’t I?”
“Oh, ha-ha. You’re a riot. Well, I’m glad you’re taking death so casually.”
Meg sighed. “I’m still alive. Only different. My life wasn’t any great shakes, anyway.”
Lowrie nodded glumly. He knew the feeling.
“Can I ask you something?”
Lowrie nodded cautiously. “I suppose so.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
The old man paled. “What sort of question is that?”
“Well, last night, when we were . . . joined . . . I felt something inside you. I dunno, something sort of bad.”
Lowrie snorted. “Sort of bad? Could you give me that in layman’s terms?”
“Bad, dark . . . I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.”
“Go on—aren’t you?”
“Oh, forget it!” scowled Meg. “I’m sorry I asked.”
Lowrie rubbed the scar on his leg. “It’s my heart,” he said. “The old pump is giving out.”
“Are you . . .”
The old man nodded ruefully. “Yes. Couple of months. Six at the most.”
Meg squinted at him. “Don’t worry. Blue aura. Straight up to the Pearlies.”
“It’s not the afterlife I’m worried about. It’s this one.”
“It’s a bit late for that.”
“You don’t understand. Youngsters! Would you shut up and listen for once in your life—or death —or whatever.”
Meg swallowed a retort. Even uncharitable thoughts caused a dozen red shoots to sprout in her aura.
“Okay. I’m listening.”
Lowrie pulled a spiral notepad from his dressing-gown pocket.
“My life’s been a disaster. The whole thing. Not one high point to look back on. From marrying that old fish Nora, to getting my leg chewed by that beast.”
“There must have been something.”
Lowrie shook his head. “Nope. I’ve made a mess of sixty-eight years. Every single decision I ever made was the wrong one.”
Meg allowed a big “I doubt it” look to paste itself across her face.
“Wipe that look off your face. It’s hard enough explaining what a pathetic human being I am, without you sneering at my every word.”
“What do you want me to do? I can’t go back in time or anything.”
“Oh,” said Lowrie, disappointed.
“I’ll just help you around the house for a few days until my aura goes blue, and then poof, I’m off.”
“Will you shut up about yourself, and listen! I’m sure God Almighty didn’t send you down here to do the dishes!”
Meg scowled. Old guys thought they knew everything. Here was this fellow mouthing off about God, and he wasn’t even dead yet.
“If you were sent back, it must be to do something special.”
A nervous feeling growled in Meg’s spiritual stomach. “Like?”
“Like help me sort out my life.”
You had to laugh. So Meg did. “Sort out your life. What life? You’ve only got half a year left.” It was the sort of thing Meg Finn did. Blurted out a mean statement like that, and then felt guilty for months.
“Well, I didn’t mean . . .” she stammered.
“No. You’re right. What life? That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Lowrie’s eyes were lost in past memories. “If only . . .”
He shook himself back to the present. “Too late for if onlys. Time to do something about it.”
He opened the spiral pad. “So, I’ve made a list.”
Ah! Point on the horizon, Captain. “What sort of list?”
“I’ve divided my life into a series of mistakes. Things I didn’t do when I had the chance. It wasn’t easy, I’m telling you. There was a lot to choose from. But I’ve narrowed it down to four.”
The old man tore a page from the pad and handed it to the reluctant spirit. Page, thought Meg, and took the sheet. The surface was covered with barely legible scribbles. It didn’t matter. The words sang out to Meg before she even attempted to read them. Even the squiggles were bursting with emotion. The pain of compiling this list swirled from the page in ropy, moaning memories.
There were at least twenty items on the list, most of which had been crossed out. That didn’t matter to Meg. Their images leaked out through the inklike ghostly reminders. Lowrie wasn’t exaggerating. His life had been a disaster. Marrying an alcoholic, living with her mother, not getting fire insurance for his first house. Arriving for a holiday in Yugoslavia on the day war broke out. It went on and on. These were things that couldn’t be addressed. There was no helping them. But four items were circled and numbered. Meg read them slowly, not believing what the spectral images told her.
At last, a puzzled soul looked up from the page. “I don’t get it,” she said simply.
“It’s not too late for these,” said Lowrie, his face shining. “They can still be done.”
Meg snorted. “You’re not serious.”
“Oh, but I am, young lady. Regret is a powerful incentive.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I’m only fourteen, you know.”
Lowrie rubbed his scarred calf. “With your help, I can accomplish these things. I never could before. But when you . . . possessed me yesterday, I felt young again. Ready for anything.
“But these! I mean, what’s the point? It’s crazy.”
Lowrie nodded. “To you, maybe. To everyone else on the planet. But these were my greatest failures. Now I have a chance to put them right, even if no one cares but me.”
Meg was running out of arguments. “But what will it change, running around the country like a crazy man?”
“Nothing,” Lowrie admitted. “Except my opinion of myself. And that, young Meg, becomes very important to a person as they grow older.”
Meg felt scowl wrinkles settle across her forehead. She hated that “you’ll understand it when you’re older” chestnut. Especially now, as she wasn’t getting any older. Ever.
She waved the flimsy
sheet at him. “It has to be this? We have to travel the length and breadth of Ireland to complete four idiotic tasks? Nothing else will do you?”
“That’s it,” replied Lowrie. “That’s the deal. That list is the only way to heaven,” he paused pointedly, “for either of us.”
Belch was back. Sort of. Sort of Belch, and sort of back. Confused? He wasn’t. Myishi had downloaded a complete “virtual help tutorial” module into his memory. Now all he had to do was think of a question, and a cyber demon would search the implants for hits. Like having a compu-geek in your head. Just as it should be. Let the real men do the real work, and the nerds play with their toys.
The Devil himself had dropped in to the departure lounge to see Belch off. For the first time since the Mettallica concert, Belch was impressed.
Satan was wearing his Rough Beast form and wasted no time filling the new arrival in on the urgency of this mission. He grabbed Belch by the throat and pinned him to the cave wall.
“Go back. Find the girl. Make her bad. Quickly.”
The Devil’s eyes were round and red. Screaming souls swirled in the irises. You had to admire effects like that.
Grandstander, thought Beelzebub, quietly.
“Make her bad?” inquired Belch respectfully.
Beelzebub winced. The Master didn’t do questions.
Satan’s grip tightened on Belch’s windpipe and the canine in him whimpered involuntarily. Sparks sizzled around the Beast’s sinewy frame, singeing Belch’s matted fur.
“Bad!” Satan growled. “Make her bad.”
“Fine,” gasped Belch. “Make her bad. Got it.”
“Hurrggh,” grunted the Devil doubtfully, dropping Belch to the marble floor.
“If not . . .” Satan left the sentence unfinished, vaporizing a passing spit turner to make his point.
Belch swallowed. That was clear enough.
“Yes, Master,” bobbed Belch. “Consider her baddened.”
“Hurrggh,” grunted the Lord of Darkness again, and you’d be amazed at the amount of expression he could pack into that single syllable. Then, in a flash of crisped flesh and ozone, the Beast was gone.
Beelzebub crossed to an elevator door and pressed B for basement. Belch followed in his strange half-and-half lope.