Separate, p.4
Separate, page 4
I wanted to be here, right? I wanted to stay in a bland hotel in a mundane town, where everything, including the sandwiches, is boring.
Despite a palpable purpose, discontentment overtook her. She told herself to relax; they had only just arrived. She should reserve judgment. To break the mood, she proclaimed, “It’s not so bad. It could be worse. It’ll have to do.” Her words sank in. This place would have to do. She needed a walk.
It was exceedingly refreshing to retreat down the stairs, through the lobby, and out the main double doors. Transitioning from afternoon to evening, the still-bright sun lit up the world with colors that went unrepresented inside the dreary hotel. Brilliant green grass, azure sky, chromium-silver car details, and chalk-white street paint glowed all around. Best of all, Stuffs remained open.
Chimes jingled as she entered. “Hello!” an obviously energetic young man called from the rear of the efficiently organized store. “What can—”
“Kokomyntz?” Na asked, cutting him off.
“Sure, they’re over here. Those boxes in front are for display,” the man clarified. “It was fun emptying them.”
“You’ve made my day,” Na mumbled.
“Not having a good trip?”
Na paused to scrutinize him.
“Uh, I saw you go into the hotel. What do you think of the place?”
The lean, plainly dressed cashier couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than her, putting his age at twenty-one at most. His short, umber hair hinted he was too busy to be fussy. Relaxing, she approached him at the register. A sizeable array of assorted individual candy bars occupied the area.
“It’s okay.”
“When I graduated last year, we had a big party there. I think that was the loudest it’s been in years. So, how is your trip? Will you be staying long?”
“It’s too soon to tell. I’m not sure how long we’ll be.”
“Well, there’s not much to see. We’re just Milton—just kind of here, doing our thing. What brings you?”
Na stooped to eyeball the “king-size” boxes, which seemed smaller than she remembered. “Checking out the town, its history. I’m helping with a study.”
“Ah, local history. Mills and the decline of the working class and stuff like that?”
“Sort of.”
“Then you should visit the museum. It’s down the main street a ways, on the other side of City Hall. It’s got a little of everything, from the first settlers to local wildlife. However, if you want to hear a story, I’m the man to see. Born and raised here, I know them all.”
Intrigued, Na straightened to meet the cashier’s gaze and challenged, “You know them all?”
“Sure do. I’m Doug, by the way.” He lifted his forearm, and Na thought he was going to go for a handshake, but he made a fist and rapped the counter with his knuckles instead.
“So you know about the family that runs the hotel? Why this street’s named Hansen Road? Who the mayor hates the most?”
“Yep, yep, and yep!” he exclaimed.
Zeb’s plea for patience, still present in her head, couldn’t fend off the temptation. “Alright then. Tell me a ghost story.”
“A ghost story?”
She nodded.
He broke eye contact for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve got one.” He swallowed and lowered his voice. “Ninety years ago, we had a dentist here in Milton who didn’t approve of numbing his patients. No anesthesia, period.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. He was working on a lumberjack who had a huge, black cavity on one of his front teeth. The dentist drilled away, filling the air with that smell of burning bone. In those days, drills were powered by foot pedals, you know. Anyway, big, tough, and fearless, the lumberjack sat like a statue, taking it without a wince. The dentist stopped for a second to make sure the guy was fine. He gave a thumbs-up, so the dentist leaned over and resumed drilling. Suddenly, he hit a nerve dead-on. In reflex, the lumberjack swung his giant hand and smacked the dentist’s head, knocking him off balance. The dentist’s arm slipped, and the sharp drill tore the lumberjack’s throat open like a knife through a sail in a pirate movie.”
“Thanks for the imagery.”
“No problem.” He winked. “The lumberjack didn’t have any family nearby, so it was called an accident, and they buried him somewhere. That was the dentist’s last patient. He quit. Even though his office was only a few yards behind his house, he never returned to it. The house collapsed long ago, but the rotting office is still there on Taylor Street. You can still get inside, and if you do, you might see the lumberjack. My friends have seen him. They say if you go there at night and step on his dried blood, he’ll appear and come at you, swinging his fists wildly like you’re the one who killed him.
“How’s that for a ghost story?”
“Not bad,” Na admitted. She dropped a handful coins on the counter and opened the candy she’d selected.
“It’s true, too.” Doug winked again. “I’ve got more. Come back whenever you’re ready for another.”
Sucking on Kokomyntz and armed with a lead, Na felt better about Milton and its hotel. Room 315 seemed bright and welcoming when she reentered. The crispy bed felt clean rather than stiff and starchy. Even the sandwich from the front desk smacked of edibility. Finally, Na decompressed. She could eat.
Munchies satiated several minutes later, she fell asleep next to an empty box of candy and a ball of plastic wrap twisted into the shape of a cat’s head.
12
Zeb loved the hotel. The air of the snug room, its enveloping peacefulness, mimicked his office. He definitely belonged here. He used every clean drawer and shelf as he unpacked, placing each item in its predestined location. With a quick phone call, he scheduled Wade’s interview for tomorrow morning. His to-do list still had CONTACT TOWN LEADERS circled. He chose to postpone that one more day. The more he knew about what had happened, he reasoned, the more convincing his rationale would be for garnering access to their reports. Organized and settled, he took a break to eat his deliciously mild horseradish-less sandwich.
Fully satisfied, he got to work. Zeb reread his notes start to finish, tweaked his interview questions, and then turned his attention to Na’s duties. Word by word, he scripted Na’s introduction and queries. The initial information he wanted her to gather about the town’s setting and population wasn’t delicate. Her performance on that first task would determine how quickly he trusted her with more difficult tasks. She was obviously astute, which made Zeb hopeful, but she lacked control. Putting it in X-Files terms, he would play the deliberate, rational Scully to her reckless Mulder.
And now, at 7:10 PM, he needed to be Na’s clock. The phone rang six times before Na answered. “Mmm-nyello?”
“Have a good nap?”
“Wha? Yeah. Oh, Dr. . . . yeah.”
Apparently, it had been a very good nap. “Let’s meet downstairs. They said we can use their ‘business center,’ a locked room with a computer, printer, and a couple tables. You’ll see it in the lobby.”
“I’mcomingdown,” she slurred back.
Mere seconds later, Zeb was set up and waiting in the stuffy, austere business center. A full fifteen minutes after that, he heard Na’s knock and caught the second half of the world’s biggest yawn. She held up a sandwich. “Sorry, I went to get another one. Hungry.”
“You don’t mind eating dinner here? I got the innkeeper’s permission. We don’t want others to overhear our plans.”
“Nope.”
“Great.” Na sauntered inside as Zeb darted out. His mind racing over tomorrow’s schedule, he picked up his dinner tray and returned, barely conscious of the meal’s description: chunky tuna casserole and corn chips.
Zeb handed a glass of water to Na, who had sat at the empty table. He raised his own glass. “Cheers. Let’s get started.”
Na nodded politely and took a bite of her sandwich as he dug into the casserole. “How’s dinner?” she asked.
“Thick.” He drained half his glass, took another large bite, and handed Na the script he had composed. “You’ll need this for tomorrow. It lists the data you’ll collect first.”
“We’re not meeting Wade?”
“We’ll split up to save time. While I interview Wade, you’ll capture the local ambience to supplement its demographics. It will be your first day working officially as a research assistant. I have confidence in you.”
She scanned the pages quietly.
“That’s a script I want you to follow. To compare respondents’ answers, you need to ask the same questions in the same order, using the same wording and intonation each time. Read it out loud tonight to get a feel for it.”
“Okay.” She struggled before speaking again. “I think I have a lead.”
Zeb gulped down a partially chewed mouthful of gooey noodles. “A lead?”
“I know where a ghost might be.”
“Do tell.”
She leaned forward, putting an elbow on the table and gesturing with her hands. “There’s an abandoned dentist office. A man died there years ago. At night, you can make him appear.”
Zeb steadied himself. “Who told you this?”
“Doug, next door at Stuffs. He’s talkative and offered to tell a story.”
“What do you think we should do with this information?”
“We should investigate. If the ghosts came from there, we can warn people and get them to tear it down.”
Zeb sighed loudly. “Like I’ve said, Na, there are rules we need to follow. Let me be explicit. The undead do not come up in everyday conversation. People don’t say, ‘Hey, how are you doing? I think my cat’s a vampire.’ Do not mention the afterlife or the undead to anyone at all unless I specifically ask you to.”
“Well, we were talking, and—”
“And if someone tries to talk to you about anything undead related, avoid it. End the conversation if you have to. We don’t want others’ biases coloring our views any more than we want our own biases to color the witnesses’ views. Either way, my study, the reason we’re here, could be put in jeopardy.”
“Got it. No ghosts, no undead anything. I’ll wall it out.” She exaggeratedly mimed in the air.
Zeb ignored the physical sarcasm. “As for the dentist office, yes, it might be worth investigating sometime to get the context of the story, but it’s clearly not factual. It’s a tall tale, told to make somewhere that’s already spooky seem spookier, a place where teenagers take dates. In other words, it is part of the town’s culture, but it’s not directly tied to the event at the plant.”
“It might be real. There’s a museum; they might have records,” she pleaded. “Shouldn’t we see?”
“Yes, and we will, but first things first. Every town has its own tales, and I’ve heard lots of them. Lots. In many ways, they’re all the same. There’s a tragic death, some form of injustice or abandonment, and then some way of compelling the ‘ghost’ to appear, as if spirits care what the weather is like or who’s touching their stuff. Does your story have a tragic death?”
He waited.
“Yes . . .”
“An injustice or abandonment, a rejection of some sort?”
“Kind of.”
“So, there you go. It’s a tall tale. Going to an old dentist’s office when it’s dark— It is at night when this ‘ghost’ appears?”
“Yes, like I just said.”
“It would be dangerous, at best. It’s the epitome of what I said a minute ago. We can’t have tall tales mixing with legitimate data.”
“Aren’t tall tales based in reality, like Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed?”
“That’s not the point.”
Na wrapped up the remaining three-fourths of her sandwich. “I’ve got the point. Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t investigate. Thanks for the script. I’ll follow it letter by letter. I’m full and tired, so I’ll see you tomorrow at dinner, if that’s okay.” Without missing a beat, she sang, “Have a peaceful evening!” and left the business center, closing the door firmly.
Zeb plopped down his plate, indifferent to his fork sliding sideways into the casserole, and ran his hand through his hair. Which is worse, her story or her temper? he wondered rhetorically. She hadn’t listened to him, and when he called her on it, she grew mad. He had planned what to say at every opportunity and precisely reminded her of previous conversations, emphasizing points that Na herself had already acknowledged. Nevertheless, she had stormed out. Would this gamble on hiring a sophomore work? Perhaps Na couldn’t separate herself from her family’s involvement, despite knowing the necessity of doing so.
He didn’t quite understand her obsession. It was a cousin in another country who had been hurt, not a parent or sibling; but perhaps her family truly was that close—so much closer than his that he had underestimated her emotions.
It didn’t matter. There was plenty to do, much of it tiresome. She could still be useful. This might even be better. He could wall her out completely—as she had mimed—to limit the damage she could cause, while dangling the promise of learning secrets in her face. Tomorrow he could say, “Fascinating chat with Wade today. I can’t tell you about it yet. How did things go for you?” If she was bent on being directly involved, her yearning to know more might help contain her emotions, might force her to behave. Meanwhile, he could jump straight into the good stuff. It was a manipulative trick used by kindergarten teachers, but it was necessary, he told himself. After all, he had high expectations for this once-in-a-lifetime study.
He carried his things up to his room and set the alarm for tomorrow morning. Then, Zeb whittled the night away crunching on chips and detailing, reviewing, and revising his notes.
13
Wednesday
Wade lived outside town on a winding, forking road that made tracking directionality impossible. Zeb slowed to read every character of its sparse street signs to ensure he was going the right way. Dense forest lined the road, with driveway after driveway snaking into the foliage. They all cried, “Keep out! Leave us alone!” which was the opposite of what he knew Wade to be feeling. Wade was more than ready to open up.
Zeb hadn’t wasted a moment dwelling on Na before leaving for Wade’s. She would either do her assignment or not, and as he pulled alongside a large, aluminum mailbox hand-painted with Havelock, she was far from his mind.
Wade’s gravel driveway stretched back through the trees, abruptly terminating at a small brown house. The woods surrounded the structure but let enough light through to keep moss off the roof. Zeb parked in front of the small detached garage, got out, and checked the trees above for precarious branches. The weather forecast had not mentioned strong wind; his car should be safe.
A little distracted by his excitement and drifting thoughts, he looked back toward the house and jumped. A large, whiskered man in frayed, loose-fitting clothes was approaching quickly. Countless scenes from crime dramas flashed in Zeb’s mind.
“Doctor Elmir?” At Zeb’s hesitant nod, the man slowed his pace, smiled, and held out his hand. “I’m Wade. Good to see you.” Before Zeb could react, Wade tottered and gripped the car’s fender. “I’d love to take a walk, but these antidepressants have me dizzy as hell. Can we head inside?”
Zeb lifted the satchel with his laptop. “That’s better for me.”
“Good deal.”
Wade didn’t speak again until they reached the porch. “Take your shoes off, if you don’t mind. I like to keep the outdoors outdoors.”
Zeb’s favorite argyles, which he had enthusiastically stretched over his toes that morning, felt embarrassingly out of place against Wade’s sensible socks. Zeb chided himself for forgetting the importance of fitting in during fieldwork. People were more receptive to requests when they could relate to the requester.
Wade led the way inside to a set of wood-framed sofas and chairs surrounding a large glass coffee table. Some loose-leaf papers sat on top. “You asked me for notes. Here they are.”
Zeb didn’t take the papers right away. The home’s interior was beautifully decorated. Natural paneling enclosed an open kitchen, dining, and living area. It was filled with correspondingly stained tables and chairs.
“It’s nice, isn’t it? I kept the house small so I could build it exactly as I wanted.”
Zeb nodded and then got down to work. “I’d like to get your story first, and then we’ll go through these notes to fill in anything that got left out. You have the whole day free?” He arranged his things on the coffee table.
“What else can I do? They won’t let me work like this, and I don’t blame them. The doc says it’ll take a spell to find the perfect dose. Who knows how long that’ll be. Technically, I’m not even supposed to drive.”
Feeling a bit like a therapist, Zeb gestured to Wade’s own couch. “In that case, have a seat, and we’ll take it slow. I’ll ask some basic questions first, and then you can tell me what happened that day. Like I said, after that, we’ll go over your emails and notes to add anything missing. Sound good?”
“Sounds good.” Wade moved gingerly and sat down.
As Zeb had expected, Wade told a tale as impossible as Na’s. According to Wade, ghosts had killed his boss, Jeff, and seriously injured another man. More feasibly, the men panicked and clumsily hurt themselves in the factory’s dangerous environment. Zeb felt for Wade and his obvious pain at losing a friend, but his sympathy was dulled. Once again, the public’s irrational fear of the dead had triggered preventable casualties. Zeb had always figured such fear came from too many horror movies and not enough perspective. Perhaps this study would gain enough attention to allay that fear, if only temporarily.
