So anyway, here is the first chapter of Living Ghost.
1.
As was his usual habit when he worked late into the night, Tom Graves fell asleep in medias res. He always fell asleep at the computer and would invariably awake several hours later with an impression of the keyboard stamped into his face and 200 Microsoft Word pages containing the letter “g.” He feared that some morning, the impression of the keys wouldn’t rub out and he would end up walking around looking like the Human Keyboard Face. Or even worse, that he’d drool into the keyboard and electrocute himself in his sleep. True, to solve the problem, he could buy a new computer, one that used voice-recognition input technology. After all, keyboards were pretty quaint anachronisms these days. But as a professional writer, Tom Graves found it easier to work through the tactile act of typing rather than speaking.
He awoke with a start. He groggily lifted his head and his hand went automatically to his cheek to begin de-keying his flesh. He was mildly surprised to find that his cheek was perfectly smooth. He felt the other cheek, then his chin, then his forehead. None of the usual bumps. He shrugged, assuming he had somehow broke with tradition.
He looked down at the desk. That was the reason why he didn’t have keyboard marks on his face: there was no keyboard there. Where was his keyboard? There was a small, 10x10x4-inch silver box in the corner of the desk. He recognized the prominently-located holes of the sound input mike on the front of the unit. The flexible roll-up display mounted on the wall above the desk used the wireless monitor connection that Cliff was always going on about. This was a new computer—certainly not his old ungainly tower unit that, at eight years old, was certainly showing its age.
He looked down and realized that this wasn’t even his desk—rather than the old falling-apart balsa-wood desk he had been using for the past decade, this was a gleaming new Hi-Strength Polymer desk—one of those desks that is incredibly light and portable yet can support up to 500 pounds. Even the chair he found himself in was of the latest design he had seen touted in office furniture catalogs, but certainly didn’t own. What the hell was going on?
He cast his gaze around the room. It was later than he thought: the digital alarm clock next to the bed read “10:13.”
Wait: why was there a bed in his office?
He looked around some more: this was not his home office. In fact, it wasn’t his house. It wasn’t even his work office. Where was he? And how did he get there? Tom didn’t drink and he never had any history of somnambulism, so he couldn’t think of any reason why he would mysteriously wake up someplace other than where he remembered falling sleep.
As he took in the décor, he could only conclude that he was in a college dormitory room. A girl’s dormitory room. Why he would be in a girl’s—or really any—college dorm room was a damn good question.
Whatever the explanation, he knew it would have to wait. His first order of business should be to get the hell out of there, and quick.
The scream that came from the door was what gave him the impression that it was too late.
“Who are you?” said the girl, obviously terrified. She stood in the doorway, dressed in an orange sweatshirt and matching sweatpants, carrying a bookbag slung over her shoulder. “What are you doing in my room? Get the hell out of my room!”
“Look, I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Tom Graves—where am I?”
“How did you get in here? What do you want? I’m calling Security.” She removed her cell unit from the holder clipped to the front of her sweatshirt.
“No, wait. Look, I’m not going to hurt you. I just…woke up here. I have no idea how or why. Just tell me where I am and I’ll leave.”
“Mel, is everything all right?” asked a male voice that was approaching from the corridor.
“There’s some weird guy in my room.”
A young male came into view behind her. He looked into the room. He also wore an orange sweatshirt, as well as a pair of baggy jeans.
“Dude, what’s your problem?” he asked.
“My problem is that I have no idea where I am or how I got here.”
“I locked that door when I went to my 8:30,” said the girl, holding up and staring at her keycard. “Unless Kyoko didn’t lock it when she left. If she didn’t, I’ll kill her.”
“Didn’t you just unlock the door?” asked the boy.
“Yeah, but he could have locked it after he got in.”
“I didn’t get in through the door, that I know of,” said Tom, realizing too late that that was probably wasn’t the best thing to say.
“We’re on the fifth floor, man. What—did you just crawl up the outside of the building like Spider Man?”
“That’s a damn good question. Another damn good question, which I’d really like to answer is, Where am I?”
“Room 503,” said the girl impatiently.
“Of what?”
“Brewster Hall,” said the boy.
“Keep going…”
The boy and girl looked at each other. “Uh…Syracuse University?” said the boy.
Tom sat back in the chair, even more confused.
“Syracuse University? As in Syracuse, New York?”
They looked at each other again. “Uh, yeah. You have to have heard of it. We won the NCAA basketball championship two—”
“Mark, could you please not talk sports with creepy guys who turn up in my dorm room?”
“I know where Syracuse University is,” said Tom. “I spent four years there. Here. Whatever. Anyway, that was more than 20 years ago. As of 1:30 this morning, I was in Redondo Beach, California, which is where, by all rights, I should be right now.” He looked out the window. That was Downtown Syracuse all right. Even after 20 years he could still identify the MONY towers—if they were even called that anymore. “I know it was 1:30 because I made a call to a colleague’s voicemail.” His cellphone was still clipped to his belt. He flipped it open and checked the Dialed Calls log. “Yes. Here it is. ‘Cliff at Work, 1:28 a.m., 10/2.’ It is October 2, right?”
Both Mark and Mel nodded, gradually getting more confused.
“Where’d you get that phone—an antique store?” asked Mark.
He snapped the phone shut. “So if it was 1:28 a.m. California time, it would have been 4:28 a.m. Eastern time. If it’s 10:13 now, even if I had somehow gotten on a plane, it’s at least a six-hour flight from L.A. and I’m assuming there are no flights directly to Syracuse anyway. So how would I even have had time to get here?”
“Wow—that’d be like a great question to put on the SATs,” offered Mark.
Mel slapped his arm. “Could you be serious even for one second?”
“You have to admit that this is pretty fucked up,” said Mark.
“Well, yeah,” said Mel. “But I’d feel a lot better about it if he had turned up in someone else’s room.” She checked her watch. “Look, I have class in 20 minutes, so get out.”
“With pleasure,” said Tom. “Now I just have to figure out how to get back to L.A.”
“Need a ride to the airport?” asked Mark.
Mel slapped his arm again. “What’s the matter with you?”
***
“See? I was right. The quickest flight from Syracuse to L.A. is nine hours and 45 minutes, with two stops.” They had logged onto InstaRez from the computer in Mark’s dorm room just down the hall. He felt self-conscious speaking all the commands, but he had to admit pointing and scrolling on screen using his index finger was a lot more convenient than using a mouse. He could probably get used to this…
“And most flights take more than 10 hours,” he continued. “I would imagine the same would be the case for flights to Syracuse. Wow—it’s cheaper to buy a round trip ticket and just not use the return than to buy one way.”
He made reservations for the 1:45 p.m. flight. A frisson of terror shot down his spine. “Damn!” he instinctively yelled.
“What?” asked Mark.
Tom’s hand went to his back pocket. The fear abated. He sighed contentedly.
“I’ve still got my wallet. I’m glad I fell asleep with it still in my pocket. That’s a relief. I don’t know how I’d get home without it—no money, credit cards, I.D….”
“Credit cards? Why don’t you just get a Flash ID chip for your cell.” He unclipped his cell unit from his shirt and flipped open the top. “See? Picture ID displays on the screen, or I can beam credit account info to the checkout kiosks they have at most stores now. And they finally fixed the interface problem with the Flash ID chip and the USB 4.0 ports on most computers so you can actually use it to buy shit online.”
“Yes, I am aware of Flash IDs,” he said with a touch of irritation. “I’ve just always used credit cards and photo IDs and I haven’t gotten around to upgrading yet.”
Tom finished up his online transaction and logged off.
“You know, Mark, I can’t thank you enough, for your help. I mean, a strange guy turns up in your girlfriend’s dorm room going on about how he doesn’t know how he got there. That’s pretty unusual—and, as she put it, ‘creepy.’ If it was my girlfriend, I’d probably be pissed as hell.”
“Nah, Melinda’s not my girlfriend. My girlfriend lives up in Flint. Mel’s just a friend. You know, completely platonic.”
“I know very well.”
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride to the airport. I just remembered I’ve got a Psych test at noon.”
As they headed down the hallway toward the elevator, Tom looked around. “You know, I think I lived in this dorm my freshman year.”
“Twenty years ago you said, right?” said Mark.
“Yeah.” He paused thoughtfully. “Tempus fugit.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Tom smiles. “Or, as they say in Brooklyn, tempus fuggeddaboutit.”
“Yeah,” said Mark.
“No one ever laughs at that.”
“And for good reason.”
***
“What’s that smell?” asked Tom as he and Mark hurtled up I-81 toward the airport in what appeared to be an ancient sedan. It was still entirely terrestrial and seemed to even date from a time before magnetic lane adjusters were standard auto features. It even had an old gas-hybrid engine. Mark didn’t appear to have the latest and greatest of everything.
“That’s a good question. Cindy asked me the same thing last night. I think it’s under the back seat but I’m not sure. It could be leftover pizza mixed with gym socks.” He shrugged. “Could be anything really.”
Tom grimaced. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“I get that a lot.”
“So you live in L.A., huh? Are you like in the movie or streaming business? I’m thinking of transferring into Newhouse next year and maybe taking streaming video production or something.”
“It may surprise you to learn that not everyone who lives in Los Angeles is in The Industry. No, I’m market researcher. I work for a company that conducts surveys on a variety of consumer technologies. We analyze past and present usage, determine current trends, and project where the market is headed five, seven, sometimes 10 years down the road.”
“Huh.”
Well, Tom had to admit, it doesn’t sound very exciting—certainly not to an 18-year-old who dreams of being in show business.
“It’s really not as dull as it sounds," he lied. "For example, I’m currently working on a big market survey report on the future of holographic cameras. We’ve surveyed several thousand consumers and we don’t see a great future market for them.”
“Dude, I could have told you that. Everyone I know uses the holo chip built into the new cell units.”
“Well, the companies that commissioned the study like to see a tad more quantitative data to back that up.”
“So basically you have to provide evidence to show what everyone already knows.”
“That’s my entire career in a nutshell, but yes.”
They drove in silence for a while.
“So you just woke up in Mel’s room?”
Tom thought for a moment. “Yeah.”
Mark shook his head and smiled. “That is like so totally whacked. It’s like the Twilight Zone or something. What do you think happened?”
“I have absolutely no idea. It defies basic logic.”
“Maybe someone’s playing a joke on you. Trying to freak you out.”
“Playing a joke on me?”
“Yeah, like a few weekends ago, this guy on our floor—Jeff—scored an invite to a Delta Tau Delta party. While he was out, me and his roommate turned everything on his side of the room upside down. He was pretty fucked up when he got back and he freaked. So maybe someone’s doing that to you.”
“How would someone even do this? I mean, we’re talking basic violations of the space-time continuum here.”
“Don’t know, man, but there’s got to be an explanation. Unless you’re just making all this shit up.”
Tom did have to concede that point.
***
Mark dropped him off at the terminal. Tom again thanked him effusively, and watched as Mark sped off. Tom wasn’t entirely certain if Mark was just a kind-hearted kid by nature or if the circumstances surrounding his abrupt appearance in Syracuse appealed to some innate sense of adventure. Tom had to admit, if he were Mark, the most likely conclusion he would draw was that he was in fact “making all this shit up.” But he got the sense that Mark took everything at face value and got wrapped up in the mystery of it all.
Suddenly realizing that, temperature-wise, October was very different in Syracuse than Los Angeles (and he was dressed for the latter), he dashed into the terminal.
After he checked in at the ticket counter, he unclasped his cellphone and called Cliff.
“You’ll never guess where I am,” he said.
“The beach?”
“No, I’m—” he paused a moment. “Why would you immediately say ‘the beach’?”
“Well, the way you asked the question, I assumed it would be the last place I’d expect you to be.”
“And that would be the beach?”
“Well…yeah.”
“Okay…”
“Tom, you’ve lived in Southern California for eight years, and at least as long as I’ve known you—which is, oh, about eight years—you’ve never been to the beach.”
“I see.”
“You’re the only guy I know who can live in L.A. and still keep a fishbelly-white complexion.”
“Cliff…”
“I mean, even I get to the beach once in a while, and I tend to burn like a son-of-a-bitch.”
“Cliff…”
“Even Ally—”
“Cliff! Stop talking now!”
“Right. Sorry. Your original question. Where are you?”
“I’m in Syracuse.”
“Where?”
“Syracuse.”
“As in New York?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you in Syracuse, New York? When I last spoke to you—at 5:30 yesterday—you were at home in Redondo and were planning to get Section 3 of the camera study done by this morning. You said nothing about going to Syracuse. Is it Homecoming Weekend or something?”
“No, it’s not… Well, I don’t know. I don’t think it is. Wait, it’s Tuesday. So, no, it’s not Homecoming Weekend.”
“Which brings me back to my original question.”
Tom paused for a moment. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“I don’t believe half the things you tell me, but go ahead.”
“I appeared here.”
“You what?”
“I appeared here. Mysteriously. I fell asleep at my computer in Redondo last night sometime after 1:30 and when I woke up this morning I was in a college dorm room in Syracuse.”
“Coed dorm?”
It would figure that would be the first thing on Cliff’s mind.
“As it happens, yes. It was.”
Cliff erupted in a kind of fratboy whooping. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. Whatever did you get yourself involved in? This is so unlike you. I’m glad to see you’re finally coming out of your shell—and at age 41. But better late than never, I suppose. Who is she?”
“Stop that. It wasn’t anything like that at all. I have no idea who she was, and she seemed quite horrified by my abrupt presence in her dorm room. And I can’t say that I blame her.”
Tom spent some time carefully describing the situation to Cliff. It took some effort, but eventually Cliff came to accept the mystery of it all.
“Wow, it’s like an adventure,” said Cliff. “It’s kind of cool when you think about it objectively. Don’t these kinds of things happen to other people?”
“Cliff, these kinds of things don’t happen to anybody.”
“That’s a fair point.”
“I mean, I’d like to be caught up in the adventure of it all, but it’s really more of an irritation. Not only is this little brush with the supernatural wasting an entire day, but it’s costing me $700 in airfare!”
“$700 from Syracuse to L.A? Round trip? That’s a pretty good rate.”
“Cliff!”
“Sorry. Anyway, when are you going to be back?”
“The flight gets in at 8:56 p.m.”
“I suppose you’re going to ask…”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“It’s no trouble. I’ll pick you up. And remember we have that meeting with Tony’s people first thing tomorrow morning. Where do we stand with Section 3?”
“I had most of the charts and tables done. When I get back tonight I’ll whip up some commentary so it should be in decent shape by morning.”
“Assuming your flight’s on time, you probably won’t get home til 10, and you’ll probably be jetlagged as hell. That’s cutting it pretty close.”
“Well, that’s the best I can do. Whatever supernatural force hurled me 3,000 miles neglected to transport my computer with me.”
“Well, don’t let The Larva hear about that. Sally says she’s going to want to see a final section, if not at least a preliminary run-through of Section 4. Tell Sally you had computer problems, or a family crisis—or, hey, Duh. Blame it on the earthquake.”
“Earthquake?”
“Yeah. Last night, about quarter of two. Nothing major, but it woke me and Ally up. Didn’t you feel it?”
“No, I—” He paused for a long while.
“Tom? You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you cell lost reception.”
“No, I was just wondering if the earthquake had something to do with my…experience.”
“Tom, I’ve heard of earthquakes moving furniture maybe a few inches or even a few feet, but never moving people 3,000 miles.”
“True.”
“Anyway, I have to go. Marv just walked into my office and he doesn’t look pretty. Not that he ever does, of course.”
“I’ll see you at 8:56 tonight.”
“Thanks, Cliff.”
He clicked the End button slowly and headed toward the gate.
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