My Ghost Doctor Cuts Me a Break
Ghost Law | Chapter 14
…And cut my bindings. And while I did appreciate the gesture, a simple heads-up that that was her plan would have kept me from soiling the bedsheets in a large and powerful way.
“You don’t know me,” the ghost explained, stepping back a little. “But I’ve done some bad things — things I’m not proud of. I promised myself recently I wouldn’t fall into those bad habits again — that my brain-slicing business would be totally legitimate this time.”
“I’ve done things I’m not proud of, too,” I said, shifting around in the bed a little. “I’m not judging you, really. But what does Madam Twilge have on you? Can you escape?”
“Escape is such a strange thing,” she said, pinching her nose now. “Many years ago I was a real surgeon. I was happy, but “the end” was on my mind a lot — I saw a lot of it. I guess I wasn’t a really great surgeon, come to think of it. Madam Twilge, she sold me a remedy that she said would keep me and my family from ever fading away. Of course, it cost my soul. But I was impulsive and I didn’t read the fine print. Sometimes you just trust people for no good reason — like agreeing to all those Apple ‘terms of use’ documents. Maybe it’s more hope than trust.
“Long story short, my family are all demons now and they never let me hear the end of it. I didn’t consult them ahead of time about the eternal life deal because I had a coupon for it and it was expiring. I just wanted us all to be happy forever…but now I only talk to them once or twice a year — for holidays and to walk them through using TurboTax. I’m wracked with guilt about the whole business.”
“Sounds to me like you were just doing your best,” I said. “Sometimes families just need time. But they usually come around after a little while. How long’s it been?”
“About 500 years.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s pretty much over. Would have happened by now. Time to move on. Speaking of which, I’d better be scuttling. I need to steal a rocket ship and pick up some snacks if I want to reach the moon in a timely fashion.”
“See, here’s a guy who’s living his life! Going where he wants, doing what he wants…”
“Yeah, would you turn around while I attempt a cleanup on aisle me over here?”
“Meanwhile, what do I have to look forward to,” she continued, turning as I made myself presentable. “Another contractually obligated goblin brain inspection, and later some pastrami on rye and a Joy Behar rerun? Some eternal life this turned out to be.”
“You know, I’m something of a lawyer,” I said, finally standing up on wobbly legs and hiking up my cargo shorts. “Maybe I could take a look at that contract.”
She turned to me and I thought for a moment I saw a glimpse of life in those dead, dead ghost eyeballs of hers that had been firing distain at me only a short time ago. Few people had ever looked at me as having a potential solution to a problem — usually they looked at me as though I was the problem, like whenever I go to the Hong Kong Buffet and they run out of plates. But in this moment, standing before her and a bed soaked with my own urine, she made me feel brave.
I didn’t have time to articulate that, however, because we both turned in horror to see the goblin goon standing with a tray of orange juice glasses in the doorway.
He dropped the tray and turned to run, but I grabbed his ankle and hung on for dear life. To my surprise, the ghost surgeon — whose name I didn’t even catch — had him by the other ankle and together we dragged him into the cell like a sack of rice.
The next chapter is coming soon! Catch up on earlier chapters here:
