Call of the Wild Read online

  “Come get them. There are two of you. It’s two against one. Come on, tough guys.”

  Eli tried to reach for the cargo pocket, but Khan blocked his moves easily. Even with a coordinated effort between Eli and Joey, they couldn’t get to the cards.

  Finally, Eli took a step back and said to Joey, “Never mind him. I’ll give you another ten bucks, and you can buy two decks of cards. I’m sorry my boss is such a…”

  Eli looked down at the object in his hand. He’d reached for his wallet, but pulled out a deck of cards. The three of diamonds was visible on top.

  Joey screamed with delight and snatched the deck from Eli’s hands.

  “That’s the best magic trick I’ve ever seen!” Joey yelled.

  “It sure is,” Khan said. “Now scram, kid. I’m sure your mother is wondering where you are.”

  “Nah. My mother is—”

  Joey’s dog started barking wildly.

  “Shut up, Nigel!” Joey yelled.

  The dog refused to shut up, though. Within seconds, other dogs up and down the street joined in, creating an unholy chorus of yelping.

  Eli noticed something big and white moving.

  His van.

  Khan was already pulling away, though at least he’d had the courtesy to push the passenger side door open.

  Eli waved goodbye to Joey and ran down the alley after his ride, his growls of annoyance lost in the sea of barking.

  Chapter Five

  After driving for a while, Khan said, “You probably don’t have any workout clothes with you.”

  “No,” Eli said brightly. “I guess we can’t go to the gym for lunch after all.”

  Khan took his eyes off the road long enough to admire his flexed bicep. “We did move a lot of furniture.”

  “Plus it’s Wednesday.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Are you part of some religion that doesn’t work out on Wednesdays?”

  “You could say that.”

  “You’re being smug again, Eli.”

  “This is just how my face looks.” He pointed to a store up ahead. “Park right there. That’s a good comic shop. And Wednesday’s the day new comics show up.”

  Khan muttered under his breath that if comics were so great, there’d be new ones every day, but he did pull the van over and park.

  Eli patted his pockets. He felt like he was forgetting something.

  “Here.” Khan handed Eli back his wallet, presumably lifted from him during the magic card trick.

  They stepped out of the van and walked up to the comic shop’s glass door. Their reflections showed they were the same height, which surprised Eli.

  Eli paused at the door, savoring the moment. Not only was he about to get his hands on the week’s new comics, but he would get to introduce Khan to people. Eli didn’t have a huge circle of friends, but the social life he did have revolved around comic shops and their scheduled events. If his buddies in the store was half as impressed with Khan as Eli was, they would be very impressed, indeed.

  Eli pulled open the door and waved for his cool, muscular, confident, funky-haired friend to enter first. All the better to make an impression!

  Khan didn’t even glance left or right. He walked in a straight line, directly to the graphic novels, picked one at random, and began reading.

  Eli followed, and waved hello to the store owner. Jason Dean, or JD to all the regulars, sat on a stool behind the counter, eating a brick of uncooked ramen noodles while discussing his favorite comic franchise and a decades-old film option that had yet to result in a movie.

  JD sputtered to another store regular, sending crunchy ramen fragments across the counter, “Yet they keep rebooting the same ones! No imagination! I wish I was eight years old again, because that’s who they’re catering the entire industry to!”

  The customer replied, “But the talking animals are almost enjoyable. The CG these days is almost decent. I went to the theatre three times to see—”

  JD slammed his fist on the counter. “You’re part of the problem! You keep handing them your money—Hey, Eli, can I get you anything? No? You good?—anyway, you keep giving them fistfuls of money for unoriginal dreck, and now you’re feeding the monster, making it bigger…”

  Eli didn’t stick around to hear the rest of the conversation. He’d heard it all before. Normally, he’d jump into the debate, discussing the derivative versus the divine, and all the enjoyable crap in between, but he didn’t want to fly all his geek flags at once in front of Khan.

  He walked his usual route between the racks, checking his auto-buy series first, and moving down to the maybes. He kept expecting for Khan to come over and say he was bored, but Khan seemed transfixed by the graphic novels, unlike Brenda, whose interest waned after fifteen minutes on a good day.

  After an hour of contented browsing, Eli walked toward the counter with his stack of comics. Khan was already at the counter, making a purchase from JD.

  Eli caught no more than a glimpse of Khan’s books as JD packed them into one of the store’s signature bright orange bags.

  “Getting into some graphic novels?” Eli asked.

  Khan must not have heard the question over the rattle of the cash register, because he grabbed the bag and walked out of the store without even a glance back at Eli.

  JD turned to Eli, a sneer on his lips, and said, “Let’s all pray that guy’s not armed to the teeth, am I right?”

  Eli replayed the last hour in his head. Short of arriving at the same time, there’d been no clue he was with Khan, and now it was too late to say anything.

  JD took Eli’s stack of comics and started ringing them in, pausing to judge each selection, the way he always did.

  Eli leaned over to peer between the posters covering the store’s windows. Khan headed toward the van, got into the passenger side, took a graphic novel out of his orange bag, and started reading.

  The customer who’d been at the comic shop counter when they’d arrived was still there, leaning in the exact same spot. He was also looking out the window at Khan.

  “I think I went to school with that white-haired dude,” the guy said. “He had a crazy dad. I felt sorry for him, but then I met his sister.” He used both hands to mime a representation of Valentine that was reasonably accurate. “That dude used to have brown hair, and then one day, it just turned white. He must have seen something scary. I hear that happens.”

  “Something scary?” JD said, still sneering. “I can tell you it wasn’t in a movie theatre. Those suits in Hollywood haven’t made a movie that’s actually scary since…”

  Eli walked out with his purchases, glad to miss the rest of the conversation. He felt funny about the whole interaction, and hearing about Khan from another person.

  He got into the van. “Khan, the customer at the counter said he went to school with you.”

  “He did.” Khan didn’t look up from his graphic novel.

  “He said your hair just turned white one day.”

  “It did.”

  “Because you saw something scary?”

  “You went to high school, Eli. Did a day ever go by that you didn’t see something scary?”

  Eli thought about it. Khan wasn’t wrong.

  After a minute, Khan tossed the van keys into Eli’s lap. “Time to drive, my man. Val sent us a new job for the afternoon. Brace yourself, because it’s a shocker.” He paused for dramatic effect. “It’s a poltergeist. And it’s two blocks east of this morning’s job.”

  “That is a shock—uh… where’s that D6 from this morning?”

  Khan gasped. “Eli! Are you suggesting I released the poltergeist we caught this morning, just so I could re-experience the thrill of seeing you lose a battle to a doily-covered sofa? I’m deeply offended.”

  “What’s the address?”

  Khan put on a pair of sunglasses, then held up his arm, which had the morning’s address crossed out and a new one written above it in blue pen ink.

  Eli nodd
ed and put on the van’s turn signal.

  Chapter Six

  The second call of the day was to a blue house that looked no different from its neighbors, except for the closed curtains.

  They parked in the back alley, adhering to the neighborhood association’s rules.

  The owner, a middle-aged man who worked from home, let them into the house while apologizing for the mess. According to the man, someone or something had spread a layer of coffee grounds over the living room’s carpet just moments before the ghost hackers’ arrival.

  Khan slowly removed his sunglasses while commenting, “It looks like someone’s laid out the welcome mat.”

  Eli crouched to admire the poltergeist’s handiwork with the coffee grounds. He was impressed by the evenness of the distribution. The poltergeist certainly had focus and imagination.

  The homeowner’s dog, a wee dachshund, walked around the living room, leaving dog footprints and sniffing the coffee grounds. The dog looked up at Eli with coffee grounds stuck adorably to its nose. His big, brown eyes seemed to say, this poltergeist has control issues.

  Khan talked to the homeowner about their services, using official-sounding terms like “ion-boosts,” “para-electrical elements,” and “secure yet humane six-walled containment mechanisms that come with a one-time environmental levy of an additional fee that’s cash-only.”

  The man agreed to the extra fees and begged them to get started. “I have a programming job to finish,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind the coffee grounds and toothpaste pranks so much, but I can’t work without a reliable internet connection. It’s like someone is sucking up the bandwidth for the whole neighborhood.”

  “We’ll take care of it right away, guaranteed,” Khan said with confidence.

  The man scooped up the wee dachshund and lovingly dusted the coffee grounds off her shiny nose. “We have to take care of my little Nina,” he cooed at the dog. “Yes, yes, we do, my wuvvy dovey, my little surprise visitor.”

  Khan maintained a stony face through the dog-coddling, then said, “For your own safety, I’ll need you both to leave the house, sir.”

  The man gave him a skeptical look, then shrugged and left with the dog.

  Once they were alone and standing in the living room, Khan said, “Eli, what would you say these coffee grounds weigh?”

  “Not very much, Khan.”

  The air in the room dropped in temperature. Eli smiled. Things were about to get interesting.

  Khan taunted the poltergeist, talking about the weights of objects within the room. Eli kept smiling, and fantasizing about money. Maybe these jobs could be easy enough to do two per day.

  Keeping one eye on the room’s leather sofa, which was still grounded, Eli explored the living room. He walked toward what he assumed was a flat-screen television running a screen saver of a fish tank.

  He leaned in to admire the realistic piranhas swimming back and forth on what he still assumed was a recorded video.

  Eli’s limited amount of attention was already partly diverted to keeping a lookout for the sofa that could soon be flying at his head, so he didn’t notice the access panel above the in-wall fish tank open. Nor did he notice the hungry piranhas flying through the air at him.

  The razor-sharp teeth sinking into his buttocks were a complete shock.

  Eli sprung into action and did what he could to fight the piranha attack. His efforts were not helped by his concern for the welfare of the innocent fish, for instead of tossing them to the ground and crushing them under his boots, he kept carefully returning the piranhas to their tank.

  Khan grabbed a decorative bowl from the room’s coffee table, dumped out the balls made of twigs, and tossed the bowl to Eli. “Use this like a shield!” he yelled.

  Eli backed away from the fish tank and held up his makeshift shield, just in time to block a torrent of water, flying out of the tank with the force of a firehose.

  He fought valiantly, but he couldn’t win. He staggered under blasts of water and twirled at dizzying speeds, deflecting air-borne piranhas. The best he could hope for was to tire the ghost out.

  Eventually, the poltergeist did lift up the leather sectional and use it to crush Eli into the wet, dirty carpet. In the darkness, Eli let out a sigh of relief.

  Being under a pyramid of furniture wasn’t so bad.

  Something sank its teeth into Eli’s calf.

  On second thought, being trapped anywhere with a school of riled-up piranhas was pretty bad.

  Once the day’s second poltergeist had been successfully imprisoned, Khan removed the furniture and released Eli.

  They worked quickly to return the surviving piranhas to their quarter-full tank.

  The room was a disaster, but the client was happy and paid them cash for the job. “I’ve been meaning to pull up that carpet anyway,” the man said. “Of course I’ll put down area rugs, so my precious little Nina doesn’t slip around when she’s doing her tricks.”

  The homeowner cradled his dog lovingly as he walked them out the back door.

  Khan said, “Thank you for calling in para-professionals. I’m glad you didn’t attempt to do this on your own. These Disturbances are never DIY problems.” He handed over a stack of business cards.

  They finished saying goodbye, then got to the van. Eli opened the first aid kit, and was pleasantly surprised to find actual first aid supplies.

  “Valentine stocked that,” Khan explained.

  “My piranha bites certainly appreciate her efforts.” Eli took out some bandages and examined the damage. They’d broken his skin in a few spots, but luckily for Eli, the bites weren’t deep.

  “It’s a real shame we can’t record video of these jobs,” Khan said.

  “For a documentary? Sure. We should do that. The world should know that ghosts are real, especially if people are in danger.”

  Khan laughed. “Too bad we can’t. I wish I could see the look on your face again, when you turned around and saw a piranha nibbling on your butt. That was priceless.”

  “It was memorable.”

  He held the client’s wad of cash toward Eli. “Here, you keep this. I already got paid in entertainment value.”

  Eli kept dabbing antibacterial ointment on his lacerations, not accepting the cash. “Don’t you have to take off payroll taxes and stuff?”

  Khan took back the money and tucked it in his pocket. “Sure, we’ll go the official way. Is that you talking, or your smugness chip?”

  “I don’t know,” Eli said, which was the truth. He didn’t know, and likely never would.

  They were back on the topic of his chip again, which he didn’t like.

  He couldn’t lie, but he could change the topic. “I couldn’t see this time. What did the second poltergeist hide inside of? Where’d you catch it?”

  “Second poltergeist? So, you don’t think I released the first one to double our earnings.”

  “This one was different. I could tell. It had a different sort of energy. It’s hard to explain, but it was more of a jerk than the first one.”

  “Very good, Eli.” Khan sorted through the first aid kit, sorting the bandages by size. “After you wore this one out with the piranhas and furniture, it went to rest inside a set of Russian nesting dolls. Super creepy.”

  “Oh, nesting dolls. All of the little ones inside the big one. That’s really obvious. So creepy.”

  Someone tapped on the murky plastic covering the van’s passenger side window, making them both jump in alarm. It was the kid, Joey, still in the dirty clothes he’d been wearing that morning.

  Eli pulled at the tape holding up the plastic and opened the window for conversation. “Hey, Joey. We just finished up another job. How’s your day going, little dude?”

  Joey’s small fingers curled around the bottom edge of the window opening. He stood on his toes to peer into the van. Eli quickly finished applying the bandage to his arm to hide the blood.

  “You got comics?” Joey asked excitedly, having spotted the
orange bags.

  Eli looked over at Khan, who simply shrugged, as if to say, you worked hard today. Now go ahead and show the kid your new comics, you big geek.

  Chapter Seven

  On Thursday, there were more poltergeists on the agenda.

  Khan and Eli returned to the same quiet suburban neighborhood for the first of two jobs, both on the same street.

  Eli’s muscles ached from the previous day’s activities, but the anticipation of more supernatural battles invigorated him. It helped that he thought of them as supernatural battles and not getting hit with things.

  They walked into the home of that morning’s client, where Eli gave the living room a stern glancing-over for sharp objects.

  Khan prepared the elderly homeowner by talking up their services plus the new environmental fee surcharge, then sent her and her little dog out of the house for safety.

  Eli stood in front of the room’s heavy-looking bookshelves, watching as the poltergeist playfully nudged books out of alignment at the edges of his vision.

  He took out his phone to take a video for Brenda’s benefit, but as soon as the phone was out, the ghostly rearranging stopped.

  “Now you’re shy?” Eli asked the ghost. “That’s not very impressive. I was hoping to get some footage to show my girlfriend.”

  Khan walked toward the door to the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “That won’t work, my man. They have their rules.”

  Eli followed him to the kitchen, which looked the same as the suburban kitchens they’d seen in the previous day’s houses, except for an unfortunate pink-and-red spattered wallpaper, which gave the otherwise charming suburban kitchen the appearance of a slaughterhouse.

  “Gah,” Eli said. “That wallpaper scared me.”

  Khan went to the cookie jar on the counter and began investigating some chocolate chip cookies with his mouth. Eli felt a tickle at the back of his neck. The poltergeist was in the room with them.

  Khan munched cookies and frowned at the wallpaper. “You’re right. That is the worst wallpaper I’ve ever seen. It would be an impossible job to remove it, though. Impossible.”