Stave 3: The Second of Three Spirits
Caleb looked around for a second, to see where he was, to see there was no spirit near him, no saloon, no shoddily built town. Just his bed, his room, and Ophelia sleeping next to him. "Damn, this is getting annoying," he commented to no one in particular. Caleb checked the clock by his bed. It still said one o'clock precisely, the same time as when he supposedly left for his little journey into the past. He held the pocket watch up to his ear to make sure if it was still ticking. It was. He shook it lightly to hear if anything was rattling around inside. There wasn't.
Suddenly he heard a rapping at the door at the other end of his bed.
"For Christ's sake," Caleb muttered to himself as he got up again. Someone was gonna pay tonight for making him get up like this. He grabbed his trench coat hung on a poster of the bed and his brimmed hat under it. "When's the hurting stop?" he muttered as he went to answer the door. He knew full well it was going to be the next spirit and he was certainly going to give him a piece of his mind. Shuffling to the wall, he saw pure yellow light seeping through the seams of the door.
As he touched the doorknob he heard a deep guttural voice groaning or moaning. Caleb grumbled to himself, wondering why he was putting up with this, and opened the door.
The room looked bright and vibrant, almost festive. Green plants were hung around the space, crisp and lively. A hearth burned with a fire healthy and strong. The room had no space to walk through for it was filled with all blends of food -basted turkeys, broiled chicken, roast goose, beef brisket, suckling pig, hot sausage links, steaming pies, sweet cakes, sapid pastries, glistening apples, savory oranges, juicy green grapes, flavorful pears, fresh vegetables, cool cream, real churned butter, barrels of beer, wine, and ale. All the foods a starving man would dream of were laid out here on tables and where tables ran out of space, on chairs, and when chairs ran out, on the floor. The vapors clung to Caleb's nose, inviting him in warmly and generously. Butlers wandered around, wherever they could step, scurrying like ants, replacing any available space with more helpings.
At the back was a sort of throne. And on that throne sat, or laid rather, it was hard to tell, a familiar face to Caleb - one of the beasts from the crypt's workshop, an undead soldier of the Cabal in the form of a bloated butcher. Only this zombie was ten times as big and fat as the rotting corpses underground. Hideous rolls of blubbery putrid purple fat fell down his body like a waterfall. Whatever he could get his chubby hands around he ate, like he hadn't eaten for weeks. With one bite he ripped every scrap of meat from a turkey bone. His other hand glommed onto an entire cherry pie, which took two chews and a swallow to completely eliminate it.
"Come in," he exclaimed through a full mouth as he took up a bowl of pudding. "Come in, and know me better, man." He turned to the side and vomited up a bucketful of acidic green goo. The bile ran down his already multi-stained undershirt.
"Eugh," Caleb said.
"I am the spirit of garumph galag," he burbled with a mouthful of angel food cake. "Look upon me."
"It's hard not to."
"You have never seen the like of me before," it said between bites.
"Do whales count?"
A butler dressed to nines came by the zombie to deliver more food. He offered to him a silver tray with a steaming glazed ham garnished with vegetables upon it. The zombie butcher grabbed the old man's hand and pulled it towards him. The tray spilled out and clanged on the floor. He peeled the top of his bald head back like a cook pot lid and dipped his hand in to eat his brains like they were pudding.
"Hmm," Caleb groaned, "Part of a complete breakfast."
The butcher licked the red and gray jelly off his fingers. "Come in, come in and know me better."
"I like my brains where they are, thanks."
"Have you never seen the like of me before?"
"Only when I want to induce vomiting."
"You have never walked with the other members of my family?"
"There's more of you? Great."
"Over 1800 of us."
"Is that people or tons?"
"Touch me, that we may be off and start this journey."
"Plenty of places to touch," Caleb commented and grabbed hold of one of the flabby rolls on his left.
Like a flash of lightning they were gone from that place. Everything vanished in an instant and was replaced with the living room of a house. Judging by the decor, it came from the middle or upper-middle class, the best evidence from the rug with a woven rose pattern and the sofa to match. A young man lay on that couch. A woman of about his age was treating his swollen eye with a pack of ice.
"I don't even know what his name was," the man said to the woman. "How're you going to report him to the sheriff?"
"I don't know. I just will," she responded irately. "Someone needs to stop that man. Someone should."
"Spirit, why are we here?" Caleb queried.
"Do you not remember events of even last night?" the bloated butcher said, plopped on the floor beside Caleb like the great lump of fat he was.
"This is the guy I punched out?"
The woman continued dabbing at her fiancée's eye. "People like that shouldn't be allowed to roam free in the street."
"Don't blame him. He was probably just having a bad day."
"A bad day doesn't mean he has the right to punch you in the eye. How can I go down the aisle with the man I love when he has a patch over his eye? I can't marry Blackbeard the pirate," she smiled.
"Some people are just bad-tempered, I guess. It's just human nature."
The woman rose up and grabbed a sheet from a basket nearby and began to fold it. It was the day's laundry fresh from the line.
"If that man was here right now I'd give him a piece of my mind, I would."
"But dear-"
"Don't 'but dear' me. If he was here right now, I would make both of his eyes black."
"I'd like to see you try it, sister," Caleb commented in the background.
"But, dear, I can't go to work if I have a bad eye." He grinned devilishly. obviously trying to hint at something.
His fiancée looked at him puzzled for a moment. "True. What..." Then smiled back. "Oh." She threw away the sheet and bent down to the couch and began to passionately kiss him.
The butcher began to waddle off. "Come, there is more to show," he said just as she put her leg on top of his body. Caleb stayed.
"Let's move on," the zombie reiterated.
"Aw, damn, it was just starting to get good."
Without a word of warning they passed through a pair of large steel double doors. It was the entrance to the Cult's communal dining room, where all the followers of Tchernobog sat to sup. The Cult's meals were all taken this way, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All were at tables long enough to accommodate everyone. The tables divided by ranking, brown robes sat away from gray robes, gray robes sat away from green who sat away from blue and so on. But though they were divided at the dinner table they all ate at the same level. Those who did not eat at the same level were the Chosen who supped on top of a balcony in the wall overlooking the dining room. Right now there were only three of them eating though, the absent being Caleb. Of course, if this were truly the present, he would not be here.
"Ah, my people," Caleb commented.
The grotesquely fat zombie and Caleb found themselves walking up to the balcony. Although the zombie did not exactly walk, rather he slithered like a slug.
Caleb nodded his head and smiled as they approached the table. "Ah, finally, someone who will speak well of me."
"Caleb is such a bastard," Gabriel said.
"On the other hand, what do I know," Caleb shrugged.
"He's a stupid idiot," Gabriel continued. "He never listens to us. He jus' goes off on his own and then yells at us for not doin' what he did."
"Here, here," Ishmael agreed, sipping his wine.
"I don' know why we jus' don' cut him right now. We should hang him by his thumbs. Teach him a lesson."
"I can't believe you," Ophelia hissed. "How dare you talk about Caleb like that. He is our leader. He is the general of the Cabal."
Gabriel said, "He's your boyfriend."
"Be that as it may-"
"Boy-toy, more like." Gabriel and Ishmael laughed to themselves.
Ophelia hissed, "Caleb was right, you are idiots." Caleb looked pleased as Ophelia defended him. "I mean, even I know he's a stubborn, arrogant, psychotic lunkhead. But don't say things like that out loud. The Cabal has ears everywhere, even where we sit. Do you want to unhinge our bonds and factionize the Cult? Then where would we be? Where would our power be? He may be an idiot, but we need him on our side."
"You talk too much, Brit."
"Bayou street trash."
"You go back and thump your precious leader all you want, cause you know he'll protect you. Has he gotten 'roll over' down yet?"
Ophelia grimaced, took her plate and slammed it on Gabriel's head. Gravy and potatoes dribbled down his dreadlocks. She left the dining room in a huff. Ishmael put a hand to his mouth to stifle his giggling while Gabriel licked the dripping gravy off his face.
"Attagirl, baby," Caleb commented.
Ishmael brushed the dripping gravy from Gabriel's eyes. "Bit off more than you could chew?"
"Let's go," the zombie spirit said.
"Hah hah hah," Caleb laughed brusquely to himself as he followed the butcher out.
As soon as he turned, he followed the butcher into a graveyard, a small one. A few gray tombstones grew like a garden enclosed in a gray brick wall and a gothic-spired fence. A small mausoleum was between the wall and the fence with a plaque that said 'In Loving Memoriam'. All of this plot was in front of a funeral chapel.
"What've you got to show me here?"
Caleb looked to the butcher and saw that, beyond his rolls of fat, wrinkles and age lines had appeared in his face, making him look quite old.
"My time grows short."
"Yeah, that's what the last one said. You guys don't last too long."
"My time upon this globe is very brief."
"Maybe you should cut down on those butlers. High in cholesterol."
The chimes upon the chapel began to ring the hour.
"In fact," the zombie said again, "My life ends tonight at midnight."
It chimed twice and thrice.
"No one lives forever," Caleb said.
"Aye, no one, but you, as it were," he said suggestively as the clock rang four, referring to Tchernobog's blessing upon him
"Yeah, no one but me. Why?" Five.
"Soon you'll see," he guffawed. Six.
"Screw that! Tell me now! If all this is supposed to change me." Seven.
The butcher remained speechless. Eight.
"Oh, I see, I still gotta wait for the ghost of my future?"
Nine.
"You know, I'm getting tired of all this spirit shit."
Ten.
"I'm sick of all this revisiting my past and everyone dumping on me and not getting a wink of sleep because my own damn weapons are talking to me."
Eleven.
"And I have had enough." Caleb pulled the gun out of his pocket and aimed-
Twelve.
The butcher was no longer there. Instead there was a man with no face.
