The Body Departed (2009) Read online

  I frowned. “But if they were monks, then why are they not in heaven?”

  “They made a pact, James. A pact in life that they now carry into death.”

  “A pact?”

  “To protect the painting you see on the wall above me.”

  Yes, the painting. It was a massive portrait of the Mount of Olives, depicting Christ’s betrayal and arrest prior to his crucifixion. The same painting Eli had lusted after—and run in terror from.

  “You see, there had been a fourth brother,” she said.

  I nodded with sudden clarity. “The artist who painted it.”

  “Indeed,” she said, stepping off the stage. “The painting was commissioned by the Catholic Church and was to be brought to the New World. But the fourth brother, the artist, died of the plague upon its completion, and the remaining three brothers took it upon themselves to transport it safely. The painting eventually found its way here, to this church, where both the painting and brothers took up residence.”

  “Until the thieves came,” I said.

  She nodded. “Banditos. They were after the painting, among other things. But the brothers, given advance warning of their arrival, had safely hidden it. The banditos were not happy. Each brother was systematically tortured and killed, but the painting remained safely hidden. Centuries later, it was discovered in the bowels of the church’s basement, and now, as you can see, it hangs prominently.”

  I looked directly up. “And still they watch over it.”

  “Vigilantly,” said the woman. “And forsaking all of heaven to do so.”

  She now stood in the aisle before me. I rose to my feet and stared into those heartbreakingly familiar almond-shaped eyes. I knew those eyes. I knew that face. I knew those lips. Intimately. But I had no memory of her. Nothing.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  She took my hand, and for the first time in a long, long time, I felt warmth. I also felt love. Deep, fathomless love. As she held my gaze, images appeared in my mind. Beautiful, sweet, loving images of the two of us together, throughout time and space, born and reborn throughout many lifetimes, dozens of lifetimes. Hundreds of lifetimes. The images came fast and crazily, until at last they finally slowed and stopped. Now two words appeared in my thoughts, pulsating, alive with meaning: soul mates.

  This was followed by a final image. One of a beautiful college student with long blonde hair, an impish smile, and almond-shaped eyes. A student who had been killed instantly in a car accident that had left me reeling for many, many years, until I eventually met my future wife.

  “You’re her!” I said, thunderstruck, as a wave of dizziness and disorientation threatened to overwhelm me. Had I been alive, I would have needed to sit. Had I been alive, I would, of course, not have been holding her hands.

  She squeezed mine even tighter. “Yes, James.”

  “And we’ve been reincarnated together?” I asked, remembering the images. “Throughout all eternity?”

  “Yes, James.”

  I sensed the truth behind her words, behind her images, but I was troubled. Deeply, deeply troubled. How could I reincarnate if I was given but one chance at life, one chance to make things right? This was how I was raised to believe. This was what the church taught.

  I released her hands. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Your belief is everything, James.”

  “I think you’re the Devil,” I said, “here to tempt me.”

  And even as I spoke those words, I knew them to be untrue. How could anyone love me the way she loved me now and be the Devil? Could the Devil even love?

  She continued watching me; I continued feeling her love.

  Behind her, the three brothers dropped from the ceiling and, as if they had forgotten the use of their legs, crawled along the center aisle on hands and feet as their knees and elbows stuck out at odd angles. As they approached behind her, they could have easily been demons. Her demons. She ignored them and continued staring at me steadily. I found them to be distracting as hell.

  I forced myself to look into her eyes. “I can’t believe you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Someday you will, James.” And with that, she began fading before my eyes. And when she had disappeared altogether, the three red-eyed beings immediately retreated down the center aisle and scuttled up the far wall and disappeared into the darkest shadows of the deepest part of the ceiling.

  But I knew they were up there.

  Watching.

  Days passed, maybe even weeks.

  I haunted the old church, the school of my youth, location of so much death and destruction. Often, I sat in on classroom lectures, learning much about history and science and social studies. All of which I forgot instantly. Just like back when I was in school.

  Some things never change.

  My friends now were the parishioners and the teachers and the students and the workers. Except, they didn’t know I was their friend. Mostly, my companions were Jacob and the three red-eyed beings that watched over the massive painting with unsettling single-mindedness. But not always. Sometimes they watched me, too, doing so with a unique oneness. Sometimes the three wraiths would come down from the ceiling and swarm around me like curious red-eyed demon cats. But they weren’t evil, and if they were, I certainly didn’t sense it.

  Often, I had to remind myself of who I was and why I was here. And sometimes I couldn’t even do that. Whole days would pass until I finally remembered who I was, and then it would all come flooding back to me—all of it, all over again, reliving everything and everyone. Jacob’s death, my murder, Mrs. Randolph’s murder. And I would weep for my dead body, my fatherless girl, and my own lost soul.

  But I would weep hardest for taking the life of the young boy.

  Once or twice, when I had lost all sense of who I was, I found myself creeping along the ceiling with the three entities. They accepted me as one of their own, and I found their presence oddly comforting. I found their communal thoughts a blessing, their collective will attractive. They referred to themselves as The One, and I liked that. We were The One.

  That is, until I would remember who I was. Then I would peel away from the trio. But each time, it was harder and harder to leave them. There is peace in numbers. I needed peace.

  Mostly, I haunted the classrooms and naves and back offices and forgotten rooms. Sometimes I remembered my daughter, but mostly I didn’t. Sometimes I remembered my wife, but that, too, was becoming a rarity. Sometimes I would see a beautiful young woman watching me from the shadows, glowing in her own bright light, and I would wonder who she was.

  I knew the day would come when I would tell the boy my identity. That I was, in fact, his killer.

  I also knew that how I came to be here at this church, at this time, with him, wasn’t a coincidence. Then again, maybe it was. But I doubted it. Something bigger was going on here, some grand reconciliation that I didn’t entirely comprehend. Too much of this seemed preordained. Too much of this seemed to have the touch of something greater going on.

  Or not. We would see.

  Still, the time did not seem right to tell Jacob.

  Soon, I thought. Very soon.

  Pauline checked in on me every now and then.

  On this day, as we sat together in the front pew, she informed me that my memory was disappearing at a much faster rate because I was not naturally grounded to the church, that my memory would keep disappearing until I was nothing more than one of the red-eyed entities watching over the painting. I didn’t tell her that I was, in fact, already becoming like them, but I think she sensed it anyway.

  I asked her again why I was here and what had happened to me, and with great patience, she told me again. I sensed she had told me this dozens and dozens of times before. Perhaps hundreds. I didn’t know.

  As we sat there, Pauline took my hand and told me I needed to leave this place before I lost all sense of who I was. I told her I needed to be here until some resolution came, no matter how difficult t
he road ahead may be. She had nodded and was about to leave when I put a hand on her forearm. Or tried to. Mostly, my hand just passed through her. As sensitive as she was, she was aware of the gesture, and paused.

  “Wait,” I said. “How long have I been here?”

  “Two months.”

  “How’s my daughter?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “I miss her,” I said.

  She smiled at me sadly and told me she would be back. I watched her go, and as she exited, the red-eyed beings crawled down from the ceiling and swarmed around me.

  Just one big happy family.

  I was sitting with Jacob in an empty classroom.

  It was late evening and school was out and the teachers had all long since gone home. Only a handful of spooked maintenance workers remained. I wondered what had gotten them so spooked.

  Jacob and I didn’t talk much these days. I just couldn’t find it within me to ask about his family, especially his brother. He seemed content with silence. I suspected he was very used to silence after so many years haunting the church alone.

  We were sitting in a fifth-grade classroom, surrounded by surprisingly competent student artwork. I spilled out of the small desk I was squeezed in, although Jacob sat comfortably within his. Our sitting, of course, was just an illusion. In reality, we simply contorted our ethereal bodies in a parody of sitting, and if you looked closely enough, we were both rising and falling gently on the ghostly tides of this nether dimension we occupied.

  Jacob was humming a song, a Beatles song, I think—“I Want to Hold Your Hand.” But he was butchering it badly, having forgotten the words and most of the basic tune.

  I thought about my desire to save my own soul. Was I making any progress? I didn’t know. I had found Mrs. Randolph’s killer, sure, but her killer had turned out to be my killer. And now our killer was the twin brother of the boy I had killed so many years ago.

  Coincidence?

  I doubted it. There was too much going on here. What it was, I didn’t know.

  And as Jacob continued butchering the Beatles song and I continued contemplating my eternal fate, a television production crew arrived at the church. And according to all their shirts and equipment and gear, they were here to film something called Ghost Detectives.

  Great.

  The TV crew, making a hell of a racket, set up shop in one of the third-grade classrooms.

  Loud enough to wake the dead.

  Jacob and I were sitting together in the far corner of the classroom, minus our dunce caps, watching as the film crew quickly and efficiently set up their equipment. Most of the workers were wearing black T-shirts with green lettering. The green lettering said, GHOST DETECTIVES.

  I’ve lived in LA most of my adult life. At least, I’m pretty sure I have. I do have a vague memory of living in Phoenix for a brief period, but that memory was elusive at best and I didn’t put a whole lot of stock into it. Hell, lately I didn’t put a whole lot of stock into any of my memories.

  Anyway, growing up here in LA, especially near Hollywood, one gets used to seeing such film crews, and the glamour of it all wears off real quick. But this situation was different, and I was admittedly excited.

  “What are they doing?” Jacob asked next to me.

  “They’re filming a television show,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “Us, I think.”

  He looked up at me, his mouth forming a perfect oval of surprise. “Us? But why?”

  “Because we’re special,” I said. Because we’re ghosts, I didn’t add.

  “But they can’t see us,” said Jacob. “Nobody can see us.”

  I watched the crew scurry about, testing lights and cameras and clip-on microphones. As they did so, another group stepped into the room—three guys and a girl—all wearing the same Ghost Detectives T-shirts. But these four felt different to me. Waves of arrogant self-importance radiated from them.

  Ah, the stars are here, I thought.

  Immediately, one of them raised a fit. Apparently, someone was supposed to have a coffee ready for him. He was a tall guy with a shiny ponytail, held in place by three evenly spaced rubber bands. An assistant scurried off and returned shortly with a steaming cup of Starbucks. The man received it without a thank-you and promptly sent the assistant, almost in tears now, off to another task. I looked over at the boy.

  “Perhaps we should let them see us,” I said.

  “I don’t understand,” said Jacob.

  I smiled at him. “Do you want to have some fun? Play a game with them?”

  He thought about that. I think the concept of fun and games was almost lost on him. I planted an image of hide-and-seek in his mind, and his eyes lit up.

  “Yes!” he said, clapping. “Yes, let’s have some fun!”

  I recognized the school secretary there, too, conferring with a small group of the Ghost Detectives directors and producers.

  Had she arranged all of this? I suspected so. Ghost sightings, undoubtedly, had been on the rise in the church and school since my arrival. And perhaps my presence here had prompted more activity from Jacob as well.

  Standing next to the secretary was the school principal, a tall, distinguished-looking lady drinking her own Starbucks coffee and looking very concerned—no doubt wondering what the hell she had agreed to.

  I would have been concerned, too.

  Interestingly, there were no mediums in the group. I would have thought ghost detecting involved a good medium, but what the hell did I know? I was just a spook. Anyway, with no medium in the group, I was able to flit among them sight unseen, with Jacob trailing behind like a ghostly duckling.

  I worked my way over to the corner of the room, near the teacher’s desk, where the quartet of stars had isolated themselves away from the rest of the crew. The guy with the ponytail was adamantly arguing his point that he should investigate the nave. Turned out they all wanted to investigate the parish; in particular, they all appeared to want a close-up shot with a bloody Jesus Christ hanging over their shoulder. Ponytail smugly won out in the end by pulling rank. It seemed to me that the show was more about getting close-ups of its stars than about hunting ghosts. Big surprise.

  Well, they were about to get a surprise. Perhaps the surprise of their lives.

  Showtime.

  It was midnight. The witching hour. Or, in this case, the haunting hour.

  With cameras rolling, the secretary gave the crew—along with Jacob and me—a tour of the brightly lit school and cathedral. She gave a rundown of the many unexplainable sights and sounds the parishioners and students and teachers had all seen or heard, and by the end of the tour, I was damn well convinced the place was haunted.

  Once the tour was done, the cast and crew created a sort of storyboard for how they wanted the show to flow. The plan was basic: the teams would split in two, with one group filming primarily in the cathedral and the other in the school and administrative offices. The teams might overlap, depending on what evidence was discovered or whether personal experiences needed to be confirmed or validated. Most of the ghost-hunting equipment would be used in the cathedral, since it was not only the most visually stunning room, but where most of the unexplainable sightings had occurred. The team investigating the administrative offices, where I had been spotted, and adjacent school and classrooms, where Jacob did most of his haunting, would be given limited equipment. Ponytail looked smug. He would be getting most of the camera time this episode, and it obviously pleased him.

  At any rate, I approved of the game plan. Made sense to me. Of course, no one asked me.

  And because I could, as the crew was preparing to split for this evening’s investigation, I leaned over and kissed the female star square on the lips.

  Her eyes widened immediately. “Did someone just turn on the AC?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. Why?” asked the young director.

  “I just got a cold blast of air in my face.
”

  That seemed to get everyone’s attention. The director came over and felt the air around her. I had stepped off to the side and watched the proceedings with some interest, and maybe a little humor. He had some of the others feel the air around her, then proclaimed, rather dramatically, that there was no cold breeze coming from anywhere.

  “But look at my arm,” she said, pushing up her sleeve.

  They all did. So did I. Her forearm, I saw, was covered in gooseflesh. The young director, no dummy, got a camera over to her ASAP. And as they filmed both of her arms, I walked straight through the director himself.

  He convulsed and nearly doubled over. “Sweet Jesus! Something just went right through me.” He shoved up his own sleeve. “Look.”

  We all looked. It, too, was covered in goose bumps. The same cameraman took some footage of the director’s mottled skin as well.

  Ah, TV at its best.

  A ripple of excitement was now spreading through the crew. I heard the murmurings: perhaps they were going to have a good show, after all.

  Little did they know…

  With the whole crew buzzing in anticipation, the investigation began. Cameras began rolling. Ponytail, who appeared to be the Ghost Detectives leader, looked each of his investigators directly in the eye and intoned ominously, “Let’s go black.”

  Apparently, that meant to kill the lights. Which they all did. Last time I checked, ghosts didn’t stop existing or start existing because of the absence, or presence, of light. Hell, we derive much of our energy from lights—especially the light of the sun, which we sort of feed off of. So killing the lights was counterproductive, although it made for better TV. Then again, no one asked me. Typical.

  As one team headed for the administrative office, Ponytail and a good-looking kid split off toward the cathedral, trailed by two cameramen.

  And, of course, two ghosts.

  Ponytail, who had the annoying habit of dramatically flipping his namesake over a shoulder whenever he turned his head, was extremely thin and sinewy and had skin so orange it looked nearly radioactive. The color probably looked good on camera, even if it scared small children in line at Baskin-Robbins.