The Ghost in You

Herewith Chapter 4 of Living Ghost. Chapter 1 is here. Chapter 2 is here. Chapter 3 is here.

4.

Tom spotted Cliff just past the security checkpoint.

“Only 15 minutes late,” said Cliff. “That’s not too bad.”

“This is one of those days where every second late is complete, eternal agony.”

“Well, let’s get you home and back to your nice, warm computer.” They headed across the terminal toward the exit.

“Oh, do you have any baggage to get?” asked Cliff.

Tom looked at him humorlessly.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

They took the elevator to the parking garage and climbed into Cliff’s SUV. They pulled out and after only 10 minutes they were on the 105 freeway. He shifted up and the SUV rose to the third vertical lane.

“Tom, are you in any condition to finish up Section 3 tonight?”

“Sure,” he said, following a pronounced yawn. “I slept on the plane…s. Planes.”

“How many times did you have to transfer?”

“Twice. La Guardia and Denver.”

“What time did you leave Syracuse?”

“Quarter of two this afternoon, Eastern time.”

“So that’s what, 10 hours?”

“Just about, yeah.”

Cliff thought. “So it would take you about that long to get from L.A. to Syracuse.”

“Yes, roughly. Why— Oh, I see where you’re going with this. You don’t think…”

“I’m just curious as to why you would fly 10 hours or whatever cross-country only to turn back around again. I mean, you can’t have spent that much time there. Unless you weren’t at home all night like you had said you were.”

“Cliff, at this point I really don’t feel like arguing about it. Until I can explain it, let’s just pretend it never happened. I lost some time on the project, but I can make it up. I promise.”

They sat in awkward silence for a while. “Is everything OK?”

“Aside from this current little misadventure, yes, as far as I know, everything is fine.”

“What’s wrong? You can talk to me, Tom. We’ve been friends for almost 10 years now and you never tell me anything. It’s like…” He thought for a moment, “It’s like you’ve barricaded yourself in your own brain—”

“Right, and the FBI are laying siege to the place and are about to lob in tear gas. Yes, Marv, used that one on me already.”

“Well, it’s true, man.”

“I don’t know that Marv meant by it, and I don’t know what you mean by it.”

“You never…talk about yourself.”

“Well, I’m trying to and you don’t believe me.”

“Well, you know, it’s a hell of a story.”

“Tell me about it!”

“You know what Ally thinks.”

“I’m sure I don’t want to know.”

Cliff frowned. “Now why do you do that? She cares a lot about you, man. She just expresses herself differently than I do.”

“Right, with hatred, bile, and bitterness.”

Cliff shrugged. “It’s her way. Anyway, she said you’re having a mid-life crisis.”

“If I were having a mid-life crisis, wouldn’t I be having a lot more fun? Wouldn’t I being driving a Porsche and dating nymphets rather than beaming myself 3,000 miles away to a college dorm in Syracuse, of all godforsaken places?”

“With you, who the hell knows?”

“Cliff, I’m not from another planet.”

“You sure seem like it sometimes.”

“Well, I’m not.” Tom said. Cliff pulled into Tom’s driveway. The house was dark and Tom was suddenly scared to go inside. He shook it off.

“Look, I’m tired, my brain is fried right now, and I have a long night ahead of me. We’ve got one more milestone on this project this week, and then we can breathe for a little while. Why don’t we go out Friday night and I’ll set your mind at ease about a few things, OK?”

“OK.”

Tom opened the car door. “I’ll see you at 9 at the office. Thanks again for the ride.”
He closed the door. Cliff watched his friend stop, slap both his pants pockets, then turn back to Cliff’s SUV. Cliff rolled down his window.

“What the matter? You lost your keys?”

“No, they’re in the house. I didn’t have them in my pocket when I was whisked away.”

“I’ve still got the spare you gave me when you went on vacation last year.” He leaned over and opened the glove compartment. He rummaged through it and retrieved the key. He handed it to Tom.

“Thanks.”

He watched Tom walk up to the front door, unlock the door, and disappear inside. As he started to back out of the driveway, he had to admit, he still didn’t know what to make of Tom’s story, but you’d figure, if he was deliberately going somewhere, he’d remember to take his house keys.


The first thing Tom did when he got in the house was turn on every single light. The second thing he did was set a pot of coffee going—no doubt the first of many he would make over the course of the next 12 hours.

He slowly inched down the hallway to his home office. He admitted that he felt a
little ridiculous as he clung to the wall and slowly poked his head in the doorway. The room was exactly as it had been when he dropped off to sleep the previous evening. The overhead and desk lights were on, as was the computer. He could see his fractal geometry screen saver swirling away. A side table to the right of his computer desk still held reams and reams of printouts of data tables and other materials.

As he slowly walked over to the computer he kept spinning around and wildly rotating his gaze. He didn’t know what he was expecting to find—maybe some big glowing wormhole, or perhaps the set from The Time Tunnel (In Color), or maybe even the transporter pads from Star Trek or something. Yes, he felt silly, but he wasn’t sure how else he should feel.

He approached the computer and jiggled the mouse. The screen saver shut itself off and Microsoft Word came back up. As usual, there was a long block of random garble at the end of the document he had been working on. He anal-retentively hit Ctrl-S (Save) every two minutes or so, so he knew that he could find out what time he fell asleep—probably within one or two minutes. In Word, he went to File > Properties, and clicked the General tab. In the center of the Properties palette, it said “Modified: Tuesday, October 2, 1:41:23.” So, he thought, I fell asleep probably around 1:42 to 1:45. The same time as the earthquake.

He snapped his fingers. “I can figure out how long I was asleep before I disappeared,” he said to the empty room. He closed the Properties palette and returned to the document. He scrolled up. There was what looked like a page and a quarter of the letter “h.” He opened up a blank document and looked at his watch. When the second hand hit the 12, he pressed down the “h” key and held it for exactly one minute. He then went to Tools > Word Count. The Word Count palette read:

Pages: 1
Words: 1
Characters (no spaces): 1,701.

So in one minute, assuming no interruption, 1,701 “h”s will be produced. He returned back to his original document. With the mouse, he selected the block of “h”s he had typed in his sleep and again selected Word Count. It said, Characters (no spaces): 3,062. He grabbed a small calculator from his desk and determined how any minutes he was asleep before he disappeared: 3,062÷1,701=1.8001175. So he has been asleep for 1.8 minutes when he vanished.

1.8. That number—or at least those digits—seemed familiar. He thought back to the pointless numerological calculations he had done on the plane. 18. He had been 18 when he lived in Brewster Hall. Coincidence, he figured—before another wave of terror hit him. He went back to the Properties palette.

“Modified: Tuesday, October 2, 1:41:23.”

There they were: 41 (his age now) and 23 (the number of years since he lived in Brewster Hall.

“Now wait a minute,” he said out loud. This had to be a coincidence. It had to be. And even if it wasn’t, what on Earth could it possibly mean?

He opened his screen capture application and took a snapshot of the screen with both the Word Count and the Properties palettes open. He then printed them.
He checked his watch. 11:32. He had to get to work. Whatever this mystery was, it would have to wait until morning. He grabbed a mug of coffee from the kitchen, returned to the computer, deleted all the “h”s, and went back to work.