Ghost Gatherer, Chapter 3

*copyrighted material*

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    That morning ice shards poured out from the sunless sky in slow, delicate drizzles. Misty snow flurries were a common sight in the early hours in the region, nevertheless still a spectacle for some. Calvin felt the crystalline flakes melting as they entered contact with his milk-warmed skin. Laboring at the airport’s aviation fields was no job fitted for just everyone, it was no easy task to get there, to begin with. Located far off the skirts of town and beyond the limits of the local woods, the shifts were extensive, back-breaking, and sometimes fatally immobilizing to the verge of amputation.

    “Expect over and above quantities of snow this morning, folks! A fine day to walk your kids through Nooktown’s woods packed with rampant polar bears and wild wolves!” 

    Carol sat on her fluffy bum, coiled her tail forward, and stared at him cluelessly.

    “You never get any of my jokes,” He protested.

    The red vulpine made a halt on their way out of town. She scratched her ear before catching up with her master, who was looking at both sides of the lane to cross the street. He could tell the hidden sun was past the pines now. The streets were a bit narrow and gray, but big enough for horses and cars to march with ease. Carpeted with sullied street lamps here and there, the usual rotten wood fence hanging from oxidized nails, stained by the ceaseless snow. Barns made from iron carapaces clumsily painted and packed with straw. Horses, cows, chickens, sheep, and

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dogs wandered near the intown farmsteads. The cobblestone-paved avenues stretched with all sorts of trading posts near the town hall. The shoemaker’s workshop, a small chophouse serving hot pork stew with beetroots and onions every day of the week, and one of a handful of inns just right around the corner. The local bakery with fresh buttery bread fumes announced the emergence of the hardworking townspeople as they formed a line outside. Getting an early meal for a copper coin or two, as usual, a piece of mustard biscuit? Lemon zest griddle cakes? Sourdough bread loaves, sizable and powdered. 

    Calvin scrambled for coins inside his pockets and waited in line, money shortage regularly kept him away from a proper breakfast but a day and a half without a bite was way too long, even for someone like him. To think he had not been exactly the poorest of all poor, yet poorer now he’d grown accustomed to living day by day without the chance of grocery shopping. Nature was the graceful executioner of Roanoke, no one had control over the passionate weather, he understood. For the same reason, the ruthlessness with which Roanoke’s government worked toward their people was unforgivable.

    The bakery’s vendor was quick enough to look after his customers and Calvin had crunched one-fifth of his loaf before getting his ass out of the store. Carol whined for a piece. But he hushed her quickly, sharing some and wrapping the remaining chunk of sourdough bread in its parchment paper to save it for his thirty-minute break, tucking it inside his jacket. He resumed their trip resting the shovel’s shaft at the side of his neck and heading down the street.

    A cart pulled by a sextet of horses outraced him at the town square. Connected at its back was a large steel wagon burdened with a heavyset of logs, restrained with bulky chains and padlocks. The wagon was escorted by a group of men on foot, those were the woodcutters of town, usually working all night to bring the wood by dawn from the neighboring forests. Tall and stinky feet men with less than a few teeth, clear eyes, gray-haired and parched skin. Most of them, of a

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mature complex. Calvin recognized their unremitting labor working for them for a couple of seasons when he was twelve. Feeding the horses, strapping them to the carts. He had been too small and undernourished to cut trees, carry logs, too clumsy to use a rifle if need be—the woodcutters had known right away. So he oversaw the barn, the feeding, and the pooping of their mixed breed stallions. It was Wyatt who’d gained some muscle plowing snow, yet still undernourished as well at twenty-three years old. His real custodian, cautious and proper but quick to anger. Wyatt had left that same year, heading South to Yorkwich, the capital of Roanoke. 

    Defenselessness then had been a primitive emotion. Calvin’s chicken heart would not take any chances. His feeble arms were awful at throwing punches. His body would surely endure none either. Less likely with a fox cub under his arm. He took her to work every single day, a bony little creature wrapped in merino blankets. His brain ran dry for weeks, but upon observing just how the woodcutters fed their hunting dogs something had dawned to cook up inside it. Taking notice as these men threw raw duck flesh scraps at the hounds to be wolfed down in seconds. The infant fur ball that slept at the woodcutters’ cowshed while he worked came to his mind, he used to feed her milk and cheese but that wouldn’t be sufficient to obtain a healthfully grown fox. Pheasants, rodents of all sorts, pigeons, and rabbits fell on the spectrum. Hunting was encoded in her, and fairly enough those abilities would come in handy in the future. 

    It started somewhat simple, purposely feeding her off rats from The Lodge House as growth permitted with hopes of stimulating those instincts. Months slipped away fast, but her blind impulses kicked in shortly after the boy had convinced the woodcutters to let her side with the dog herd in their weekly fowl hunt down. At the cost of unpaid housework, cleaning their guns and even helping their wives in the kitchen.

    The next few weeks marked the initiation of a vicious training, somehow catastrophic at first, that left Carol badly injured and crippled for days when the herd repeatedly perceived her as

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prey. Calvin desisted then but the woodcutters suggested giving it another shot later on, so he kept the red fox in observance at the barn while she recovered and continued his employment at the men’s farm. Ten weeks into the new year, the dogs had gotten used to the vulpines’ scent and she could follow them around from a short radius. Gelder, the oldest and wisest of the woodcutters took the boy and the herd to the woods, he intended to show him the most efficient way to train Carol into hunting prey, calling her back with a sharp whistle if she got too far away or if the prey was likely to escape.

    She turned out to be the quickest of the herd, the hungriest, and despite her svelte muscles, these started to resemble the ones of a true hunting dog. A few crows and a chubby rabbit were enlisted in the form of her first acquisitions. And so, she tracked like a hunting dog, snarled like a hunting dog, ran like a hunting dog, and most definitely killed like one. 

    The boy and the fox journeyed into the vast woods, the gloomy sky toned with white nebulous patches. A precarious pathway overruled by rocks overflowing with pastel colorful moss. Uphill, downhill. It took them around half an hour or so to get to the hangars. Shiny steel giants with wide mouths lined up in a straight line. There was a lot of congestion that morning, loaded box trucks came in and out of the installations from and to a secret road that had been assigned to drivers only for safekeeping purposes. Supervising folks shouted codes and scribbled on clipboards going back and forth with hesitation in a fixed state of chaos. One-piece suited engineers smeared with grease tended to every arriving pilot’s technical needs. And at the runways, shovelers made their way to welcome another dozen flying machines ready for revision.

    Calvin passed the initial barricade made of cold steel spears and wires outside, he was trotting down the industrial amalgamation back stairs of the first hangar when something pulled from his jacket.

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    “What do you think you are doing, Elsner?” The woman’s growl was loud and crystal clear. A boorish taunt he knew all too well. Edna Watts—his supervisor and once Wyatt’s supervisor not so long ago—was shooting a dirty look at him. Polished nails still clawed onto him. With her voguish make-up, a jazzy pair of blue heels, and chestnut hair rolled up as always.

    “I said no animals, no beverages, or spoiled food. Now, unless you have rotten cheese in your pockets, you are transgressing one of my rules.”

    “Why would I carry rotten cheese in my pockets?”

    Edna beamed at him with her flawless pearly whites, but the sentiment didn’t reach her eyes. She let go of him. “Take your beast out of here, punch your card, and head to runway J-3.” She wrote something illegible on her clipboard, then took three silver coins from her pocket dress and tossed them at him. “And for God’s sake take a shower at the hot springs tonight, you stench like a dead horse. Put snow or something on your face too, you look awful.”

    Calvin scowled but kept the money. He whistled at the fox and Carol retracted from the building as if she had suddenly found it boring. He punched his card at a blue machine at hangar J-3 and ran to his colleagues at the runway. Being a shoveler meant you were likely to clean streets, backyards, and runways for a laughable amount of money, scraps of food, or somewhere to stay. One-fourth of the population sustained their families by plowing snow all around the country due to precarious meteorologic conditions. As if Roanoke still counted as a country. Parliament had abandoned all control in the mid-war crisis, and the government had crashed and folded itself into the breast pocket of unscrupulous men.

    Hours stretched in cold exhaustion and tidiness, not even the tiniest snowflake slowly melting over the pavement could have betrayed the keen eye of the snow maggots. No, not even under the setting sun. Calvin couldn’t stop himself from nibbling at the bread’s delicious crust while he worked. He ate the last few pieces during his break before going back to scraping the pavement

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for another six hours. The shift was done soon by the time the pearly azure vaults had turned into orangish-pink-shaded tints. Disengaged and ready for inactivity the shovelers returned home, another group of a hundred men would take over later that night, and only those re-assigned to work nonstop for the next three days. The stations emptied in an estimated two and a half hours. A moment of soundlessness. The kid had completed his three-day quota now and felt ready to collapse onto a bed for a fifteen-hour recess. The three-day allotment was exclusive to those young, from sixteen to forty-five years old, while oldsters worked a two-day quota, from fifty-two to the oldest shoveler ever known in town. Rodney Baxter, a seventy-eight-year-old ace on the field.

    The boy found Carol sheltered at the outer staircase next to the rear door. He patted her head and she roused gingerly, licking her muzzle cravingly. By the time they were back in town, the dark ocean sky had prevailed against the afternoon colors. The gaslights were glowing with fully crowded streets, the smell of homemade supper drilling through the walls. Lanes covered in car smoke, the distant noise of radio static, and the hearty laughs of children in the middle of a snowball war around the busy block. He made his way shouldering around and fitting through the gaps. It was less of an issue for the fox to follow her master, squeezing around people’s calves yet provoking a few to trip on their shoes.

     Calvin had kept a bath at the hot springs on his wishlist all these years, ever since first arriving at Nooktown. He did get recurrent showers at least two times a month due to the impossibly cold weather and the lack of boiling water systematization. He’d enjoy this unusual chance for once now with a bit of extra cash. But first, he had to get back to his room at The Lodge House to feed Carol some living treats. The building had once thrived with Roanoke’s wealthiest personalities since its grand opening in the 1880s. Exclusive and beyond luxurious with multiple chimneys, entertainment rooms such as its theater, ballrooms, pool-party vaults, and more.

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However, its beauty had withered one boisterous night in October back in 1907, a day of rebellion that had brought the full force of protesters all over the country. The disturbances had begun eighteen months before, somewhere out East. The revolution spread like wildfire, reaching the afflicted, mostly farmers. Their legions grew so heavy and vicious that just a year later they had taken control of the first of many radio stations on their list. The group then formally introduced themselves through national radio broadcasts as Rootstocks, the rebel warhorses of Roanoke.

    The Lodge House establishment was now a forgotten piece of antiquity that had once shined with mellow yellow and extravaganza, now a crumbling labyrinth of bygone times. Marble angels with broken wings, limbs, and noses. Moldy corners, spider webs, and crystal shards spilled on its fancy floors. It kept part of the townsfolk warm in its abandonment as well as the newcomers with no place to stay. With plenty of room to welcome anyone who wanted to stay for a few nights, or perhaps a few months. Inhabitants came and went as they pleased, but some had found shelter in the public building for more than a decade. Strangers had lived and gone their separate ways a dozen times, sometimes never to return. Forgotten objects of those who’d come before had always been held dear amongst the people that occupied them indefinitely.

    Calvin pulled out his keys and opened a finely etched door to a dusky single-room bedchamber covered in sallow dust and silvery cobwebs. There was a rotten wood dresser left upside down, supposedly from a lady who used to live there before all thirty-three hundred guests that had once used that space. No one had ever minded putting it away or flipping it over. Included were old-world frames hanging from the walls with people he did not know. A tiddly little table with a broken foot and no chairs, a half-used candle for somber nights, and a rusty radiator. A metallic framed window with a view to the backyard, a smoke-stained chimney, and just beside it, a pile of wood log pieces for the fire. He used to have a lying mattress where to

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sleep but someone had broken in and peed all over it four months ago. The fox and he had already gotten used to their new resting place, a nest of pillows and blankets for a bed. Despite never tidying up the room, the boy kept a pile of fresh laundry in a corner.

    He proceeded to lock the room from the inside. Cautiously, he lifted the table and forced it against the classic, polished brass latch door handle. He stood there silently, vigilant for a couple of minutes. Anticipating the sound of footsteps or the sluggish breath of someone against his door. He had developed paranoia, permanently conscious of his every act. Once sure no one would show up he approached the old dresser, softly drummed his fingers on it, and then pressed his earlobe against its wooden surface. He could hear something moving in the furniture’s belly, the sound of wee-sized claws scratching the interior.

    “It’s full.” He concluded, reaching for the pile of logs against the wall to examine them very closely. He placed a gloved finger atop one piece at the bottom of the pyramid. The third log to the left. He gave Carol an approving look and she awaited with appetite in her eyes. He carefully removed the chunk of wood from the pile, letting the other pieces fall into place and leaving the top of the pyramid empty. Calvin stood up and fixed his eyes on the backside of the seemingly, regular log. The surface of the natural cylinder had been carved out, revealing two holes. The first perforation was the size of an Old Ronnie's Cola cap, a favorite amongst soft drinks. Whilst the second one had larger dimensions. Perhaps, the width of a wine bottle butt, yet poorly carved into a squarish sort of hole. He was no carving expert, but the woodcutters had shaped him with an atypical kind of schooling, one not easy to grasp yet.

       He shook the log against his palm and two objects came out, each one from each hole. A pair of surgical tweezers from the smallest cavity and from the largest, a wooden cube toy with the letter ‘D’ printed on one of its faces, the adorning carrot-colored paint falling off to simple, fading traces. The kid had stolen the tweezers from the airport’s adjacent nursing station some

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time ago. As for the cube toy, he’d found it in that same room being a snooping toddler, just a trinket with a disregarded past.

     He tossed the surgical tweezers on the table, thinking he would use them later on. He knelt for a second time just behind the old dresser, pushing it a few inches away from the wall for a better view of its back end. The effort tended to stir up the rodents trapped within the furniture. He had carved another square-shaped hole at the lowest part of the traditional home decor, he went ahead and placed the cube toy, fitting nicely and perfectly in the molded space. The baited trap was locked and sealed.

    The rudimentary instrument worked as follows: The rodents came into his room through a hole above the chimney. Calvin had disposed of the needed cavities with some fishwife’s ice pick and fishing knife to set the trap. One hole at the back of the dresser, and several more inside, turning each drawer into three separate levels they could access. He had placed enough newspaper overlays, food scraps, and water in the top drawer to turn it into the ideal vermin nest. He’d usually leave the trap wide open for long sessions making sure the rats would come and go, dauntless and satisfied with their surroundings.

    Now bolted, Carol could finally have a bite to eat. Calvin fed her two rats out of the five he found in his contraption, setting free the remaining three. He was no tormentor to keep them caged, awaiting a vile fate.

    “Edna has such a good nose.” He belittled his wits, pulling out the piece of putrid cheese he had saved in his pants weeks ago to replace the lure of the elaborated contraption before him. Once neaten and installed, he came back to the awkwardly-footed table for the pair of tweezers. This time he chose a new log from the pile. He had mindfully marked this log with the same looted fishing knife, nothing remarkable, just a well-defined cut here and there. The rest of the logs were completely characterless.

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    Behind this wood piece, he had punctured a series of minuscule holes in which he had stored thinly rolled pieces of the newspaper containing critical editorials, politically persuasive cartoons, descriptive figures, and official proclamations from the government, stuff he had ripped off and kept for a few years along with his notes. All bunched together with scarce articles about economic negative growth, the crescent waves of emigrants, all areas devoid of employment, etc. The government was strict with its publication rules and thought it best not to alarm the population. Yet, the most important part of the community’s daily reads was called the Red List. An obligatory publication for every newspaper and an executory court sentence to those listed in it, accused of disloyalty to the current government administration. Anyone deeply associated with these conspirators would be chased too in a hunt for a torturous resolution, to say the least.

    Calvin had picked the newspaper Sunday morning, exactly two days ago but he never got the chance to read through the list. He pulled out the rolled piece of translucent paper from the wood chunk container with the help of the surgical tweezers. His eyes soon wandered all over the crimson ink-lettered columns made from a hundred names in alphabetical order. Names he did not recognize in the slightest—as usual—or so at the beginning. His eyes came to a sudden halt in section ‘E’. But someone came knocking at his door and the instant fear found its way into the pit of his stomach.

     “Y-yes? Hello?” He faltered, hastily crumbling the list between his palms and tucking it into a concealed pocket inside his roaringly weathered jacket. Briefly pondering whether or not to reassemble his wood pyramid again. The paranoia.

    “Coffee or tea?” A feminine voice questioned him from the other side of the frame. “It’s free, courtesy of the Mayor. A cup per townsfolk!” She tweedled. Calvin had frozen near the door as

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he was trying to lift the table he had pushed against it. Jesse Mcallister giving out hot beverages for free to the poor? Has the world gone mad?

    “Uh . . . tea, please.” He placed the table, logs, and tweezers in their habitual spot and greeted the woman with a welcoming smile. She was older than he had imagined, with gray hair fitted into a webbed and messy bun. The woman took a brass cup from her tray and filled it with hot water, lemongrass herbs, and a couple of toasted-toned candy cubes. Brownish sugar.

    “Sorry that I ask you ma’am, but what’s the occasion?” He stared at the bottom of his cup, wondering as the sweetener cubes perished beneath the steam.

     “Oh, my boy, have you not heard?” The cluelessness in his heathered gray peepers was enough for an answer. “They are talking about a special radio broadcast for Nooktown on the News. Good stuff for the townsfolk, they say. I think Mr. Mcallister is just being optimistic.”

   “Oh, well . . . cheers!” He pretended. Optimistic? Optimistic my arse, he thought and drank the entire tea with a gulp. Leaving an unpalatable taste and blaze in his mouth. He grabbed a pair of clean undershorts lying on the floor and thanked the woman again, heading out to the hot springs with Carol after him.

    He decided to play the role of a mere watcher outdoors to find some fun in it, decrypting what he saw on the streets. Savourless steaming cups for everyone, none missing one in their hands. Lots of hot beverage trays on their way downtown. Celebrations wherever you looked, hugs, and cheers just like New Year all over again. Drivers honking with ecstasy, booze involved, and the overwhelming sensation everyone acted as if they had won the lottery. Folks took out their radios, listening to the News on their porches accompanied by total strangers. All just predictions of what would lie ahead for Nooktown and its people if so. Many suggested the war was coming to an end and that the town’s forced labor status would be removed shortly after.

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He bought none of it. Where did the idea of it being anything good come from? Probably miscommunication.

     Calvin took the slope to the hot springs and an aged carriage house with a sign that read ‘Falling Star’ on top of a hill besieged by volcanic rocks. He entered the cottage, and the frontal hall showed a well-furnished home with beautifully hand-painted wallcoverings and lustrous woodwork. 

    He paid at the modestly adjusted lobby and asked the clerk, suddenly pointing at Carol. “Can she come in?” The man shrugged and sipped on his brass cup of coffee courtesy of mister Mayor. He took that as a yes. The clerk provided him with an ignited farmhouse lantern to navigate the hot springs. 

    Two bright and lemonish electric glass bulbs hanging from the backyard porch welcomed them both to the gardens. Everything was quiet and gently bathed in darkness. Lumpy pastures, snow carpeted on every rock and large pools of steaming hot water fogged the place. The springs were deep enough to rest on your seat bones with a great view of the stars and upon finding it empty the teenager didn’t bother to find the restroom. He ran to the nearest pool, took off all his winter garbs, except his undershorts—not exactly the clean ones—and hopped into the water. For something that he had wanted to do all his life, it felt like he couldn’t miss the chance to run in like a dimwit. The foggy waters cleansed his bruises, eliminating every toxin. Carol’s master signaled with a whistle, but his call did not convince her enough to go in. Calvin waded to her side, pulling her into the thermal waters, although she ended up biting his thumb and part of his palm in refusal instead. He cussed, laundered away the blood, and stared at the veiled night sky full of gleaming luminaries for twenty minutes. The comfortable heat getting to his bones, the bubbles a curious thing, and the waters a clear green that reminded him of emeralds. But peace lasted not enough, for he remembered the Red List violently shoved inside his jacket.

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   He briskly got ahold of the mud-caked jacket lying at the edge of the pool, took out the partly soaked piece of newspaper, and searched on. Then stopped. The name ‘Andrew Elsner’ written in red typewritten letters rang a bell. Carol—unaware of everything and nothing—entered the spring and laid down to one side. Two thoughts crossed his mind. One, his father was well and alive, two, the government and the military would soon be after him and his closest relatives. His brother and him, among them. 

    Suddenly, he felt cold again despite being almost fully immersed in hot, bubbly water. His eyes shifted to the farmhouse oil lantern he’d left at the rocks, the fire was quivering intensely, beating like a living organ. He noticed that the lights on the porch presented the same atypical beat. He perceived the sound of wails that came with the wind. Then all the lights went out, swallowed into perfect blackness. But the distant cries persisted.

     “Ca—Carol?” He choked, blinded by the dark. He heard her howl somewhere close, splashing in the pool. She continued a couple of times, communicating with something amongst the vast surrounding grasslands. Floating flames manifested through the pines, glowing with impeccable gilded halos around them. Figures of the same color formed below the flames and sang with the voices of old men. A bizarre and low-pitched chorus. They had surrounded the hot spring gardens to stare at him, the oil lantern flickering with the same beating rhythm.

    Calvin watched as these specters encircled him with noiseless steps. A dozen of them or more. These gold figures sprouted far-reaching antlers of the same glowing energy as they visibly grew wholesome. Carol kept squalling as if she hadn’t perceived any hazard at all. This sent the boy into a fit of terror, tripping as he tried to move away from them, falling into the steaming waters on his back. He saw and heard zaps of beating radiance from below the waters, but when he came out for air, the figures, the flames, and their voices had vanished. The light bulbs and even his oil lamp had gone back to unexceptional normality. It was just him,

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Carol, and the nighttime crickets in the same uneven terrain. The fox licked the water off his face as he coughed, his pubescent lungs filling themselves with needed oxygen again after the unexpected liquid intake. The Red List he had been carrying around had left no trace either, possibly gone with the wind. The kid skipped out of the pool rapidly and grabbed his clothes running back to the porch and into the small lobby. Still only in his undershorts.

    This time the clerk looked slightly taken aback. “The restrooms are . . . that way . . . ” The man pointed with a thumb, looking at the drenching boy and fox. He made a face at the teenager knowing he would have to clean up that wet trail mess in the hallway.

    “H—hey umm, did you see the ghosts out there?”

    “Ghosts? Put on some pants you little freak, it’s time to leave!” And so, he did.

END OF CHAPTER #3