An Apple for the Creature

A group of my buddies from earlier hailed me on the way back, so I ended up at a table with them. It wasn’t quite as relaxed as it had been before, but they were trying. And Shannon caught me up on Project Runway, which I appreciated. When I suggested some of them might want to make a trip to the Adventure Cove the next summer, they looked enthusiastic even before I promised free passes.

The group in turn invited me to join them in the bar, but I decided to stick close to David. So I was enjoying a final dessert and checking email on my iPad when Captain Bob floated over. At least he looked normal, and not like an extra from The Walking Dead.

“I guess I should apologize,” he said.

“Don’t bother. You wouldn’t mean it, and I wouldn’t believe it.”

“Fair enough.” He looked toward where David was still schmoozing with the Council. “I can’t believe they’re allowing a vampire around civilized people.”

I wasn’t sure if either werewolves or ghosts really counted as civilized, but since my cheesecake was really good, I could be magnanimous. “It was Angie’s idea, not mine.”

“I know—if anybody but the doc had asked me to stop bothering you, I’d still be at it.”

I owed Angie a drink. To distract him from haunting, I asked, “How did you two meet anyway?”

“She and Carl were the first people to spot me after my death. They were in the cemetery looking for ghosts when I rose.”

“And you were the new ghost on the block?”

“I was the only ghost on the block. We’re rare—we have to have the arcane gene and either suffer a traumatic death or die with some sort of unfinished business. Weren’t you listening during the doc’s talk today?”

“Yeah, not so much.”

“Wasting time playing games,” he said in disgust.

“Hey, you were the one telling me which cards to put where.”

“Is it my fault that you couldn’t see moves that were right in front of you?”

“Did you ever consider playing your own game?”

“I would have if I could have.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” I didn’t want to feel bad for the old so-and-so, but I sort of did. How sad was it when a guy couldn’t even play solitaire? The other werewolves weren’t exactly eager to hang with him, so Angie and I seemed to be the only ones who talked to him. “Hey, how does Angie see you anyway? I thought you needed the arcane gene to see a ghost.”

“If that were true, why would there would be so many ghost stories? Any human can see me if in a receptive frame of mind.”

“Like at a séance?”

“Or in a house believed to be haunted, or late at night.”

“Or in a cemetery.”

“Exactly. Plus the doc got a witch to make her an amulet to help her see ghosts.”

I wondered if I could get an amulet to keep me from seeing ghosts. Then I had a thought. “Hey, Bob—”

“Captain Bob!”

“Captain Bob. You said you can appear in any of the forms you had in life, but how do you know what you looked like when you were dying? Were you attacked in front of a mirror or what?”

He squirmed a bit. “No, it was dark and I didn’t see anything. I don’t know how I can take that form without actually having seen it. The doc can’t figure it out, either.”

“I guess it’s no weirder than me being able to Change into any breed of dog. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“My name isn’t Horatio!” he said, but I was fairly sure he was kidding.

“So why do you look so old?” I asked.

“What do you mean? This is how I looked before I was killed.”

“I get that, and you look pretty good for a man your age. What were you, seventy-something?”

“Sixty-six,” he said, glaring.

“And you didn’t look a day over sixty,” I lied. “It’s just that if I could control my appearance, I’d go for something younger.”

I saw the wheels turning, and he started shifting outlines. The result was a lot more scenic. He was still tall, but no longer stooped. The potbelly was gone, and his barely-there gray fuzz had become a full head of dark brown hair. Without the wrinkles, I could tell that he had cheekbones to die for.

“Is that better?” he asked.

“Whoa! Captain Handsome!”

He looked absurdly pleased, but when he saw David and Angie coming toward us, switched back.

Angie was chattering away, and I could tell David was just managing to stay polite.

He said, “I will try to make time to answer more of your questions, but it’s time for Joyce and me to retire for the night.” He gave me a look that I had no trouble interpreting.

All thoughts of cheesecake fled, replaced by anticipation of beefcake, and we beat a hasty retreat to our cabin. It turned out that David had missed me as much as I’d missed him.

Afterward, we got David safely ensconced in the cabin’s closet. It was a good-sized one, and after I took my stuff out and found him a pillow and blanket, he said it was perfectly acceptable. He used a bit of rope I’d had in my car to tie the door shut from inside, just in case somebody got the bright idea to open it in the middle of the day.