15. Beep

Beep, beep.

The web was thick. Marcy thought it might have been the densest it had ever been. Still, light penetrated through. She supposed someday everything would go dark. What would happen to her then? Would she still exist? Could she integrate?

“Don’t think about that.” she said quietly. There was no one around to hear her, she could have screamed at the top of her lungs.

“What else is there to think about?” she asked herself.

She looked up at the patch of light. Was it brighter? It seemed that way, but it was probably her imagination.

“Stop looking.” she said, louder than before.

Click.

The light was far away. There was no way to reach it, and even if she did, there was no where to go. She looked up again. It wasn’t any brighter, it was just her imagination. She forced her eyes down, back to her dim reality. She could feel or see nothing beneath her.

Beep, beep, beep! Artificial sounds rang through the air. As soon as they came, they stopped, then all that she could hear was a vague humming, like an air conditioner running on low. Beep, boop.

“This is what you wanted” she told herself, not for the first time. It had seemed like a good idea. “It was a stupid idea.” She had conversations like this with herself quite often. Was it a sign of madness? Possibly. Did it matter? She doubted it.

She hadn’t always been here. She once lived in a world with things, people, animals, and plants. She had a job, a house, a car, even a husband. Now they were gone.

She looked up at the light. Beep. Marcy wondered if they knew her thoughts. That’s what she had wanted, that’s what they had planned. When she had first arrived, she had tried to make sense of the noises, the beep and clicks that boomed around her. She was sure there was a pattern there, an incoming message. Now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was just random. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe no one was around anymore.

She wondered how long she had been there. It was hard to tell. There were no days or nights anymore. Time was irrelevant. Click.

She stared into the void in front of her.

Click, click, beep.

It was just random noise. Her team probably wasn’t there anymore. Maybe they had retired. Maybe they were dead. Maybe the mainframe was left running in an abandoned warehouse, like something out of a science fiction movie. Maybe the world had ended.

Beep, beep.

“This was your idea.” she reminded herself again.

“It was a stupid idea.” she replied. Madness was definitely setting in.

“People thought you were a brilliant scientist.” she declared. Maybe she was splitting into two. One side of her would stay here, and the other-

“Is crazy.” she whispered. The other part of her, the real part as some might call it was submerged in a tank of water. In that place she was wearing a bathing suit. Wires spilled from her skull and limbs. The wires monitored her body while Marcy’s consciousness was away, here in this digital world, inside the mainframe she and her team had built.

Blip, beep.

She could have sent in anyone. There had been volunteers. Many people had wanted to be the first, but in the end, Marcy knew it would always be her. It had been her life’s work, to meld mind and machine. And now she had done it, maybe.

“It’s only for a year.” her husband had told her on their last day together. “It will go quickly.”

“Don’t forget about me.” she had told him.

“Of course I won’t.” he replied.

Beep. “But you did.” she said aloud. She didn’t know that for sure. She thought she would have an awareness of the passage of time. She thought she would know more, see more than this black hole she was in.

Beep, beep, beep!

“He’ll get you out.” she told herself. He knew what to do. She had even left written instructions, just in case.

“He doesn’t love you anymore.”

Beep.

“Yes, he does.”

“Maybe he’s dead. Maybe they’re all dead.” Marcy looked up at the light. It was the same. No, it was different. It was darker. No, it was brighter.

“You don’t know anything.”

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep! Click, click, click! Suddenly the light above poured in, bright white, followed by red, blue, and green. Marcy knew what was happening. She was being integrated. Her brain flooded with information, images flashed in her mind, so quickly that she could barely take hold of them.

“I knew it!” she cried. “I knew it would happen someday!” A feel of euphoria came over her. She felt herself colliding and then melting into the machine. This was how it was supposed to be. It’s how they would all be someday. Light filled her consciousness. Joy. Elation. Happiness.

Snap!

“Marcy. Marcy?”

Marcy suddenly had the feeling of being wet. She opened her eyes. A group of people were staring at her. They were her team, with them was her husband. He grinned. “Congratulations. You did it. A whole year in there.”

She stared at their smiling faces. “It’s over?”

He nodded, tears welling in his eyes. “Yes, it’s over. Can you believe it?”

“How do you feel?” someone asked.

Marcy’s husband stared at her. “Well? What do you have to say?”

Marcy looked away from them, to some point in the distance. She had been so close. Now she was back here, in this place that felt like nothing.

Someone touched her shoulder. “Say something.”

“Send me back.”

14. One Bad Turn Deserves Another

What went on inside the tower was no one’s business, and everyone’s business all at once. At least that’s how Carl viewed things, he doubted that was the opinion of his superiors who seemed interested in one thing only, getting shit done.

He looked over at his coworker Marvin, whose desk had been placed in the enviable spot of receiving a warm dose of light from the narrow window built into the structure. As usual Marvin was hunched over his ledger book, scribbling away.

“Do you ever think about it?” Carl asked him.

Marvin looked up and blinked. His Coke bottle glasses magnified his blue eyes. “Think about what?”

Carl looked around the cramped room, full of accountants writing in their books. “Do you ever think about what we do here? About how it affects them down there?” Carl looked at the floor.

Marvin blinked some more. “Why would I think about that?” His eyes darted downwards. “Those folks down there are alive. We’re dead. I think about being dead.” He returned his attention to his ledger book.

Carl didn’t know why he bothered sometimes.

“Reingold!” someone shouted. “Get back to work.” It was Kim, the floorwalker. A second later she was standing over Carl’s desk. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yes.” he mumbled. He did have work to do. The tiny screen on his desk was continually refreshing with new assignments.

“I should think so.” she said curtly, before walking away.

He sighed. This was the afterlife. No clouds and harps, instead he was stuck in this blasted tower dishing out karma. The screen beeped. It was time to get to work. Carl read the message.

In 1959 Agnes Franklin dented the fender of a car in a supermarket parking lot. She left without leaving a note.

Carl picked up his pen, his hand tingled, as it always did when he held it. He thought for a minute and then wrote, In 1968 Agnes Franklin will have someone steal all four of her car’s tires when she’s getting her hair done. He laughed as he put the period on the sentence.

“Reingold!” Kim bellowed. “There’s no reason to be laughing.”

“I was just taking a little creative liberty.” he answered.

She strolled over to his desk and looked at his ledger. “Yes, I see. Just don’t get too clever.”

The screen beeped again. In 1948 Johnny Ronson yanked Suzy Corwold’s pigtails.

“Little brat.” Carl mumbled.

“You’re not meant to be an avenging angel.” Kim told him. “Just keep the universe in balance.”

“One good turn deserves another. Isn’t this the Karma Department?”

“Yes.” she admitted.

“Then let me deal out a little karma.”

Carl picked up his pen. Johnny Ronson will have a flock of geese chase him for a mile in 1970.

“A flock of geese?” Kim asked.

“Geese are scary.”

“If you say so.” She strolled away with her hands behind her back.

“Can I take a break?” Carl asked after her.

She turned around and stared down her beak-like nose. “Yes, I suppose. But just for a few minutes, there is much to do.”

He stood up, his chair scraping loudly on the stone floor. He shuffled over to the open window and looked out. The tower sat in a lush green wooded area. A soft breeze blew on his face. The leaves in the trees rattled and shook. Oh, to be alive again. It was nothing more than a fantasy now.

He took a deep breath, savoring the moment. They didn’t get breaks in the tower unless they asked. They never left. Everyone inside was dead. There was no need for food, sleep, or trips to the restroom. There was no reason they couldn’t just keep working, dishing out karma and balancing the universe forever.

And that’s how some of them did it. There were twenty others on his floor, none except him ever left their desks. Marvin barely looked up, and he was one of the only ones who could see out the window.

“Back to work Reingold.” Kim said from the other side of the room.

Carl returned to his desk. The screen was filled with the doings of the living, blunders, misjudgments, and wrongs. He sighed as he picked up his pen. “This was not how I pictured heaven.”

“It’s not heaven.” Marvin muttered.

“No shit.” Carl read each transgression and wrote down an equalizing event. He was quickly caught up and went back to staring at the window, even though from his vantage point he couldn’t see out.

The screen beeped again. In 1974, while Kirby Bone was visiting his mother’s headstone, he took a rose from another grave and wore it in his lapel for the rest of the day.

Kirby Bone! Carl knew who that was. It had to be the same one with a name like that. They had worked together at the Internal Revenue Service. The bum. Carl could just picture him scoffing up a flower from someone else’s gravesite. Carl was buried in that cemetery, a few rows away from Kirby’s mother.

He had an idea. He looked for Kim, she was on the other side of the room. He glanced at Marvin who was hunched over his work. Carl picked up his pen and began to write. In 1975, when Kirby Bone was visiting his mother’s grave, Carl Reingold emerged from beneath his headstone, alive once more.

There was no such thing as time in the tower. Immediately upon writing the words Carl disappeared, returning to the world of the living as he had instructed the universe to do.

Kim came up beside Marvin’s desk. “Did Reingold just send himself back?”

Marvin nodded. “Of course. We all try it once.”

“And then you learn.” she said bitterly.

“Yes, we learn. There is no escaping karma.” Or this place, he said to himself.

13. The Man Who Forgot to Die

Sometimes you just wanted to take a walk. Not everything had to be about something, Ray thought to himself as he stood at the bottom of Bridle Hill. So what if people said it was haunted up there? So what if it had been the site of hangings in colonial times. And what of the crumbling ruins of a sanitarium that sat atop the hill? What did it mean?

“It means nothing.” Ray muttered under his breath, as he began to climb. He soon discovered the slope was steeper than it looked. The wind blew across the land, causing the tall grass to wave back and forth, stirring up leaves and other debris on the path. Ray stopped to catch his breath, some teenagers bolted past him, laughing.

He leaned against the split rail fence that made its way up the hill. He was probably halfway to the top. A middle-aged woman was making her way down the path. Her face was flushed. Sweat was beading on her forehead. She gave him a tired smile. “Sorry I’m so slow.”

“Take your time.” he told her.

“Thank you. I didn’t realize it was so steep.”

“Neither did I.”

She started to pass him and then stopped. She frowned. “I know you. You’re Ray Hobbs, the psychic.”

“Yes.”

“I went to one of your shows a few years ago. My daughter took me. It was interesting.” she said vaguely. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it up there.” She glanced up the steep incline. “They say it’s haunted.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that.”

She opened her pocketbook and rummaged through it, pulling out a crumpled store receipt. “Can you sign this?” she asked, offering it to Ray.

“I don’t have a pen.”

She dug into the bottom of the purse and produced a ballpoint pen. “Here you go.”

Ray took the receipt and pen and signed his name. He gave them back to her.

“Thanks. My daughter will be thrilled.”

“I hope to see you both at my next show.”

She gave him a knowing smirk before continuing past him and down the hill.

Ray took a deep breath and renewed his effort. He trudged upwards for another few minutes, being passed several times by younger people. Finally, he crested the hill. A warm breeze blew at his face as he looked across the landscape.

He could see the whole county in its lush spring greenness. White church steeples poked up from the canopy of trees to indicate the various towns. Far in the distance was a mountain range. Ray wished he had brought his camera. You didn’t see a view like this very often.

He stood for a moment, looking over the countryside, and catching his breath before continuing up a grassy embankment to the crest of the hill. A crumbling cement wall, two stories high, and the remains of a scratched linoleum floor were all that was left of the sanitarium. It had been built in the early 1900s and operated until the late 1960s, when it was abandoned and left to the elements and local vandals.

Ray walked around the structure, careful not to trip on the jagged heaps of broken cement blocks that littered the ground. It was hard to tell if the elements, or humans had caused the near destruction of the building. The wall that remained contained two windows, one on the ground floor, and one on the second story. The glass had long broken, leaving gaping holes for ivy to gain purchase.

Ray circled around the remains of the sanitarium. The backside of the wall was quiet, looking into the woods. Birds tweeted as they darted to and fro. Ray took a deep breath as he enjoyed the solitude. Then he saw it, a flash of white in the corner of his eye.

“Oh crap.” he muttered. He had come here for some peace and quiet.

No sooner had he uttered the words then a man dressed in a hospital gown came up beside him. “Who are you?” the man asked.

Ray tried to pretend he didn’t see him.

“Don’t ignore me.” the man said, gliding in front of Ray. His face was ashen, his dark hair sticking nearly straight up. “You’re one of them strange types who can see the dead. When I was alive I didn’t believe in your kind. There’s all sorts of dead people around here for you to gawk at.”

Ray finally looked at him. “I’m not here to gawk. I’m here for some quiet time.”

The man seemed doubtful. “People like you always want to be the center of attention.”

“I don’t.”

The man looked over Ray’s shoulder and laughed. “Look who’s here!”

Ray turned around to find a dead man in a colonial great coat and breeches strolling towards him. “Rayven Hobnail. I haven’t seen you in nearly two hundred years.”

Gerald Fife. What did he want? “I’ve been busy.” Ray said.

“Posing as a mystic?”

“I’m not posing. I’m real.”

Gerald laughed. “Do they know you’re three hundred years old?”

The man in the hospital gown chuckled. “You’re ancient.”

Ray glared at him. “Be quiet.” He turned to Gerald. “Why are you here?”

Gerald shrugged. “It’s a good place to haunt. That’s why people come up here. That’s why they go to see you. They want to believe in you.”

Ray didn’t say anything.

Gerald chuckled. “Ray Hobbs. It’s sounds ridiculous. Why don’t you use your real name?”

“You know why. Someone might connect me with the past.”

Gerald laughed some more. “Oh yes, you were so important back then, someone might remember you.” The man in the hospital gown laughed too.

Ray turned away from them. He walked around the ruins, leaving the two dead men behind to snicker about him. He hurried down the hill to the parking lot. He didn’t need to stop to catch his breath. Not only was it easier to go downhill, but the site of Gerald had brought him hundreds of years back in time. His mind was suddenly in the past.

As he started to open his car door the woman who had asked for his autograph came up beside him. “Well, what did you think?”

Had she been waiting for him all this time? “About what?”

“Up there. Did you get any vibes?”

“No.” he said, opening the driver’s door.

She nodded as though she knew a secret about him. “I thought as much.” She hurried away.

He got into the car. It was broiling inside. He rolled down the window and started the engine. As he pulled out of the parking lot the woman waved at him, still smiling her sassy smile. She thought he was a fake.

“If only.” he muttered to himself, before pulling onto the road, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.