STAVE TWO - GHOST OF A FATHER

The humanmaid stormed down the halls of her mansion toward her room. It was late and all the lights were off, but there was enough moonlight coming in through the windows to allow her to see her way. She glanced out one window, noticing how the snow magnified the moonlight and—

SNOW!

She did a double take to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Wasn't it cloudy and raining just now? How could the weather have changed so quickly, and leave such a huge imprint so quickly as well?

Or, maybe she thought it was raining earlier. Yes, that could be it.

Continuing her path toward her room in her ridiculously large mansion, she walked down a hallway that had portraits of people she and her father admired. Most were long gone, but all, at one point or another, were, or had been, incredibly rich: John D. Rockefeller, Bill Gates, Lee Iacocca, Henry Ford, Montana's father, and of course: Montana Max himself. All were people she looked up to, admired, and learned from, besides conjuring up plans to seize their fortunes for herself. She continued toward her—

"PHHHLLLBBBTT!"

She whirled and looked back at the hallway, furious that someone had just given her a raspberry. But there was no one there, except herself. For a moment, she thought Uncle Duncan had stayed behind to tease her, but he wasn't there. It had obviously been someone taller than her, because she distinctly heard the raspberry coming from above her and toward her right. But there was no one there, except her and—

"PHHHLLLBBBTT!"

She jumped back with a start. The raspberry had come from the wall! But there was no one there, either! Just the portraits—

"PHHHLLLBBBTT!"

—and one portrait, of the tycoon she admired most, had just stuck his tongue out at her and given her a raspberry, or at least that's what she thought she saw. This set her heart racing with paranoia. Either Tex slipped something in her drink—

"PHHHHHHHHHHHHHLLLLLLLLLLBBBBBBBBBBBTT!"

The figure in the portrait leaned down and gave the raspberry to her face.

Her colour drained out of her feet one instant before she dashed out of the hallway and into her room one second later, locking herself in. Leaning back on the large double doors, gasping with fear, she kept trying to convince herself that she had not seen what she had just seen. Calming down a trifle, she wiped sweat from her face—or was it saliva? No, (CENSORED) it, it was sweat! Looking around her room, she calmed down even more when the familiarity of it slowly sank in.

"Light!"

The chandelier obeyed and illuminated the room: A light brown lush carpet covered the entire floor. Her king size cedar canopy bed, with orange silk covers and curtains, dominated her right. Cedar drawers and closet doors framed the bed, and white silk curtains filtered the moonlight coming in from the balcony doors to the right of the bed. To the left of the balcony were more closets and the entry to her bathroom. On her left was the fireplace, in front of which was another black leather recliner. On the centre of the room was her computer workstation. To the left and right of the entry were more cedar bookcases, filled with books on how to get rich quickly, and others on how to manipulate DNA. A large digital clock was on top of the main doors.

Despite the fact that the room had been designed to help her relax, it did not remove her previous crankiness, fright, or paranoia. The main thing that was out of place, however, was that the fireplace wasn't lit, which explained her shivering. "BEAUREGARD!" she hollered. She changed into her orange silk pyjamas while she waited for the butler to reply. Grovely, her father's butler, had retired several years ago, and a new one came to take his place. Tall, silent, and submissive, he was basically the same as Grovely, only somewhat younger. In charge of the logistics of the mansion, Beauregard should have kept the fireplace going here, the same way he kept it going in her parent's bedroom. And as soon as he got here, she would tell him a thing or two, namely, a demand for an explanation as to why the thermostat didn't kick in at these low temperatures. She was ready for bed now, but no one knocked at her door. "BEAUREGARD! GET YOUR LAZY BUTT OVER HERE!" If he wasn't at her door in thirty seconds, she would have him fired.

Thirty seconds later, the chandelier shut off.

A blackout? But didn't the mansion have its own generator?

Then, bells and chimes began ringing. Odd, didn't Beauregard shut off all the hourly alarms for the night? That lazy bum was slacking off again—

But here, Dakota noticed that the bells weren't coming from her wall clock. Instead, they seemed to be coming from all around her, including the window. What was happening? She ran to shut off the alarm of her digital wall clock and alarm clock, and even her wristwatch, but all of them were off already, and what was more odd was that none of them were set to ring at this hour. The ringing continued all around her, above her, below her, and even through her, seemingly lasting for hours and hours.

She stopped her ears and shut her eyes in a vain effort to stop the noise—

The ringing didn't so much stop as it suddenly faded down to a clanking.

She had seen enough cartoons and movies to identify the sound as being the dragging of a very heavy chain. "B-Beauregard?" she mumbled. The clanking was increasing in volume, and accordingly, so did her heart rate and breathing. Fear and terror gripped her once more when she distinctly identified the noise as coming from below her, near the door, and continuing to approach. "This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening…" she mantra'ed to herself, without much success, for the noise drew nearer still. Suddenly she jumped back, thinking that the carpet was on fire. Not that she had felt heat through her bare feet, but she saw wisps of smoke start to billow up from it. The acrid stench of sulphur hit her olfactory bulb, making her eyes water. Then, a burst of smoke exploded through the floor and her door, causing the fireplace to suddenly blaze.

And at last, she saw him.

Though believing in ghosts was part of the curriculum at the Looniversity, this was her first actual encounter with one. The spirit, glowing a pale white-blue, ascended through the floor and the door, rising higher and higher, making her look up in order to meet the horrifying glare it gave her.

She barely managed not to wet herself.

So frightened she was that she could not move at all. All she could do was look at the apparition as it walked toward the fireplace and sat on the recliner. An eternity later, her vocal chords came back on line, but with a distinct cracking. "J—J—Jacob Marley?" was all she could ask, knowing full well the legends of this time of year.

"Actually, no," replied the ghost nonchalantly, and with a slight Texan accent. "Jacob Marley's spirit left the Earth long ago, and sadly, he's now in the place of eternal torment."

"Th—then—who are—?" Before the ghost could reply, "Ask me who I was," Dakota received a revelation. The ghost was transparent, like most ghosts she heard about, and apparently a male, with long hair, but he was not dressed in a ragged nineteenth century business suit. Instead, he wore a modern, albeit still quite torn and decayed, business suit, including a tie that was visible through the long beard. What was frightening was the fact that the chains Dakota heard earlier were shackled all over the phantasm's back, arms, and legs, and shackled to the chains were huge bags of gold ingots, coins, and bills. The only non-business attire he had was a bandage on his head that went around his jaw. It was then that the revelation slammed into her mind. Despite the ghost having hair and beard down to his thighs, creepily long fingernails, and hypodermic needles poking from his arms, she recognised the face, one that she had seen hundreds of times before.

"HOWARD HUGHES!"

"Ah, good, you admitted it. We can cut the cheesy introductions then. Heh, old Marley had to pull off a production before Scrooge finally admitted that he was looking at him."

"And how do I know I'm actually looking at you?" she asked, suddenly regaining her obnoxiousness. "I know that Scrooge's story has a bazillion versions, and my enemies just might want to pull one on me." She stepped closer to the ghost. "For all I know, Tex could have slipped something in my soda earlier, and right now I could be sound asleep and dreaming all this."

"Oh? So you don't believe this is really happening?"

"The mind is very complex, Mister Hughes, if that's who you really are," her scowl and attitude returned with a vengeance. "How do I know you're real and not a pizza dream?"

The ghost loosened the bandage on his head, and much to Dakota's fright, that caused his jaw to swing down to his chest, allowing a horrifying shriek to explode from the apparition. After it had echoed into silence, he asked, "Well?"

Perhaps it was the fact that Dakota was used to Anni and The J screaming/roaring in her face, but though she shook with fright, she stood her ground. "I've seen movies with scarier screams than that!"

(WHAM!)

The ghost looked at the floor, which now had a flattened teenager under an ethereal mallet he had pulled out of nowhere. Removing it, he asked, "Real enough?"

"…okay…" she replied, muffled.

(POP!")

Education works wonders, she thought, as she popped back to her normal shape. Her scowl and attitude took a slight step back to allow fright and terror to step forward, or at least, just enough to treat the apparition with more respect. "Okay, so you're real," she admitted. "But why are you here? You were never my partner, as Scrooge was with Marley! You died long before I was born!"

"True, I died the year your father was born, though I did have plenty of dealings with your grandfather, that is, your father's father. Nevertheless, you read my biography, and I became your role model. Like your father and grandfather, you admired me and all the work I did, and the fortune I gathered. You wanted to be more than me, your father, and grandfather combined."

Okay, this was getting creepy. "How do you know that?"

The ghost sighed again. "The spiritual world has better communication than this one, Dee. I've been beside you in your office several times, though. How is it that you can see me now, I don't know. But when I learned that you were trying to follow in my footsteps, my torment increased ten-fold."

Eyebrow. "Torment? Why? What do my goals of riches have to do with you? I may have looked up to you, but who wouldn't? You were the best businessman since Rockefeller—"

"'BUSINESS!'" A sudden shriek silenced the girl, making her cower down in front of the screaming phantasm. "'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'" Then, he sat back, calmly. "Wow. Jacob Marley couldn't have put it better. But what he said is true. Humanity was my business, as is yours, besides toonity."

"Huh?"

"And my torment continues, because I see my legacy passing before me."

"Mister Hughes, what are you talking about?"

"Dee, you don't know the torment it is for me to see a young life be corrupted because of my actions, no matter how long ago I did them. And now, you and others suffer because of the example I set." The female just looked at him, seemingly unable to comprehend. "I thought that my punishment would stop accumulating once I died, but I was wrong. The dividends will continue to accumulate until the end of time: reaching returns of 3,000, 6,000, and 10,000 per cent. Not even Marley had it this bad; he had Scrooge, and because Scrooge turned to the Light, one speck of punishment was removed from Marley. I had no one."

"Hold it, hold it," she interrupted. "You speak of Marley and Scrooge as if they were—"

"Real," he leaned toward her. "Yes, Dee, they were real, in every way. Perhaps their original names were different, but they were real, and even more so because they lived in Reality, not Toonity. Ebenezer later talked to Charles Dickens and told him his story, which he then wrote."

Now this was getting very frightening. "So, if all of it was real, then you're here to warn me?"

"Oh yes. As it happened with Scrooge and Marley, and me, three ghosts will come to visit you, and you know when they will come: the first at one a.m. tomorrow night, the next one at two a.m. the next night, and the third at midnight of the third night. I suggest you do as they say, or you will end up worse than me. The chains you see here were custom built by me, for me, but I didn't know that until I died. And right now, the chains you have built are as long as these, which is very frightening, considering you're barely a teenager, and not an old miser as we were. If you continue the path you've chosen, you just might cut yourself off before the prime of life, and you'll end up just like me and Marley: endlessly wandering the Earth, seeing those we could have helped, and cannot help now, in order to make amends. Even I, who travelled the world, didn't do what was required of me. And you know how I ended up: holed up in a room in Las Vegas. It's too late for me to fix what I did, as it was for Marley, and it will be for you, if you don't do as the spirits tell you. And just like Marley, I suffer most during this time of the year, because I see everywhere people giving, even what little they have, and I have all this wealth shackled to me, and I can't give anyone a dime. That is my torture, as it was Marley's, and it will be yours, too, if you don't change your ways." Hughes looked at the wall clock, and concluded, "Well, I must go now. I can't stay in one place for too long. That is part of my punishment as well." With a resigned sigh, he looked toward the balcony. "Until the end of time, I will continue to walk down the path of my father—" He tied the bandage around his head again, and looked at her eyes, "—and your father as well."

At that, the trance was broken, and she blurted, "Huh? What? But my father isn't dead yet!"

He stood. "Oh, I'm not talking about him. You see, we both chose the same father, and it's not Howard Hughes, Sr., nor is it Montana Maximilian."

She stepped closer, "Mister Hughes, what are you talking about?"

He leaned down at her and declared dramatically, "Dee, I'm talking about my father, and your father: JACOB MARLEY."

There were many things that Dakota had been forced to accept in this encounter, but insulting her family was one thing she would NOT take. "MARLEY ISN'T MY FATHER!" she screamed. "If he was real, then he left behind no descendants, and you didn't either! I may not know Scrooge's story by heart, but one thing I DO know is that Marley died unmarried and without children! And even if he did, I'm a toon, and he was real! There's no way I could be his descendant!"

Hughes just smiled. "Dee, the words 'father', 'mother', 'son', and 'daughter', don't always refer only to those who share similar DNA. They also mean 'role model' and 'successor', and 'he or she who carries on the walk and works of someone else'. Neither Marley nor I may have sired sons and daughters, but those who do our works become our sons and daughters, and you don't know how much we wish that we had left behind no legacy for anyone to follow. But if you walk the path and do the works of Jacob Marley, then you are Jacob Marley's Daughter."

Her rage exploded at that declaration. "I AM THE DAUGHTER OF MONTANA MAX!"

Hughes insisted, "Montana, too, follows the path of his father. He chose me as a father as well, besides having his own biological father, who also chose me and walks my path, just as I unknowingly chose Jacob Marley as my father."

Here, she noticed a discrepancy. "Wait a minute, if my father and grandfather are doing the same thing you and Marley did, then why haven't they got visits like these? Why me now, and not when I'm really old?"

"Their works of evil and greed have not yet reached the critical point that would merit a visit such as this one, and what frightens me is that your father, grandfather, Marley, Scrooge, and me, put together, have not done HALF of all the evil you've done until now. And you're barely a teenager, which means that your cut-off point has been moved to a much earlier date than expected." The look on the humanmaid's face declared that the statement had gone clearly over her head. "Dee, you burned the Words of Warning, but that doesn't make them ineffective against you. The ghosts will try to persuade you to choose another father, for your own good, and for a better eternity than what I will have." He stood and walked toward the balcony, but stopped and turned, "Choose another father, Dee, or the Words you read will become truer than you could ever fathom, and they will become true much earlier than you think. Cutting you off much earlier will actually be a favour toward you, because if you grow old unchanged, the punishment you will get will be infinitely greater than mine or Marley's combined." The balcony doors suddenly flew open, letting in a freezing blast of wind into the room, making Hughes' decayed suit billow eerily. He walked backward, ready to fly away. "Let my eternity, and our father's, be a warning to yo—"

(SHOOF—WHEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…)

Dakota dashed to the rampart, quite shocked at seeing the ghost fall off the balcony like Professor Wile did in his old shorts. As soon as she looked down, though, Hughes' ghost suddenly shot back up to her face and quipped, "Spooky, ain't it?"

(SHOOF—WHEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…thud)

He finally fell on the snow five stories below, with a muffled thud. And though the mansion was surrounded by large tracts of land, and the estate by a large fence, in the distance just outside the fence she distinctly saw even more ghosts of past figures, some of which were on the hall portraits, all shackled, and all trying to help the living needy, without success. She thought she saw a ghost try to give a stray cat a bone or something, but the spirit was bound to an ATM, unable to reach it. Shackled spirits were all around the perimeter of the estate, and since she was on the top floor, she could see them all around, crying, wailing, and shrieking in torment, unable to help those in need. Panic overcame her again, so she dashed back inside, slammed shut the balcony doors, and barricaded them with two-by-fours and padlocks. Leaning back against them, catching her breath, she looked at her room again.

The chair was intact, the floor and main doors were also untouched, and the fireplace was dark. No trace of sulphur remained. Had it all been a dream? Did she have a very strange hallucination?

Suddenly feeling very exhausted, she shuffled to her bed. As she threw the covers back, she glanced at her digital wall clock.

23:58:55

Sheesh, it's nearly midnight. No wonder I'm seeing thi—

Suddenly sitting up and glaring at the clock, she saw that it was nearly midnight.

Of the next day.

The clock declared that exactly twenty-four hours had passed since she entered her bedroom, apparently without her knowing it. Did she sleep for twenty-four hours? And if she did, why didn't Beauregard, her mother, or her father wake her up? If she had indeed slept for an entire day, that meant she missed a crucial day of working! She would have some serious catching up to do—and layoffs to do as well—in the morning. But because of the previous visitation, as much as she tried, she simply couldn't fall asleep. She just lay on her left side contemplating the endless blinking of the wall clock as it paced one second at a time.

She couldn't sleep.

For an entire hour, she glared at the clock with bloodshot eyes, the visitation repeating endlessly in her head, and its implications bringing terror to her, expelling whatever somnolescence had previously attempted to surface.

Finally, the clock struck ONE.