It's early December and he hopes his car can make the journey. He's barely making the speed limit as he drives up the coast and after a couple of hours, he pulls into one of the scenic overlooks. The sky and sea are the same sapphire blue and all that distinguishes them is the white foam in the water and the marshmallow puffs in the air. The rhythmic slap of the waves against the rocks and occasional bird calls are the only external sounds here, a marked contrast to the continual cacophony that surrounds him in Los Angeles. After a few minutes those noises fade into the background and other sounds surge into prominence. The huff of his breath, the thump of his heart, the creak of his knee, the whoosh of blood in his ears. His body has been silent for so long that he still can't get used to the constant noises it makes. He takes a step closer to the guardrail and looks down at the sheer rock face wall underneath him. A year ago, if he leapt over the railing, he would have walked away, any damage his body sustained healed in a day or two at most. Now if he jumped, his crumpled body would lay there, a feast for the circling gulls. He takes another step so that his feet are directly under the railing and he thinks about all the blood spilled by his hands. He closes his eyes and lifts his head up, the sun warming his skin, Father Nolan is right in front of him, his pinched ferret features, and sharp angular body unchanged from two hundred and seventy years ago, "Suicide is a mortal sin," the priest thunders in that voice that terrified him as a child. He stands there for a long heartbeat and finally pulls back.

Once he arrives on campus, it takes him two days to locate his son. For the next few days, he shadows him everywhere; confident that a quarter century of stalking means that Connor would never know he was there. He watches his son go to class, joke with friends, make out with a girl and toss down Jell-O shots at a party. He is happy and well adjusted, just another college kid doing college kid things. He wonders if Connor mourned him at all when the news from LA hit the airwaves. It doesn't matter. It's the only relationship of any kind that has ever turned out well and that's because he excised himself from the equation.

Satisfied, he sells his car to the scrap heap, buys a plane ticket and doesn't look back.

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He delivers a portfolio of artwork and a card with his name and address to every ad agency in Manhattan. Six call him back. He explains to each that he was a survivor of the recent LA terrorist attack and as a result, doesn't have current references. Three recognize him as the "miracle amnesia person". One offers him a job. That's all he needs.

He leads a quiet existence. He's not a big talker at work and he always declines when his co-workers go out for a drink after work. Several months go by. He is having dinner in his small, overpriced studio apartment when he looks up and sees a young woman sitting across from him. She is pretty although a bit coarse looking, eighteen or nineteen at the most. He remembers paying her and the blowjob he received in return. He remembers telling her that it was only fair to pay her back in kind and then sucking the very lifeblood from her until she crumpled dead at his feet. He remembers that it happened in Rome in 1771.

She doesn't speak and her expression isn't accusatory. It's just mournful, the way you look at a funeral. Or maybe, the way you'd look at your own funeral if you could somehow see yourself being buried.

He jumps up from the table so suddenly that the chair tips over with a crash. No matter where he goes in the small space, the apparition follows. Always a foot away, never closer, never nearer, her expression never changing. As suddenly as it appeared, it disappears into the air.

The next night a different visitor materializes. He is twenty-two and dressed in his wedding frock coat. He had met the boy a year earlier, still with a girlish blush on his cheeks and pretty in the way young men often are. He slowly became his friend over a period of months, talking about art and literature. And then, even more slowly, he let his hand linger a bit too long on a shoulder, stared a bit too intensely when they talked, let his thigh casually brush against his when they played billiards. It was almost too easy when he seduced him three days before his marriage. And wonderfully amusing when he slit his own throat, dressed in his wedding finery on the day he was to marry.

This time he begs forgiveness but as before the ghost is silent. He closes his eyes, tears streaming down. When he opens them, he is alone.

On the third night, he enters his apartment with a bottomless sense of dread. When the ghost appears he is bewildered, it is no one he knows. Then he realizes the middle-aged man is wearing current clothing and he understands the man died in LA because of his hubris. He runs to the bathroom, vomiting over and over again. When he finally staggers out, he is alone.

He stays at the office as late as possible on the fourth night, finishing up some mock-ups for a new ad campaign. When he finally walks in, he is alone. He is alone during dinner. As he is washing the dishes, the back of his neck prickles. It is Wesley. He barely has time to grab his keys before he is racing out the door. He doesn't stop running until he is out of breath. When he looks up, he is in front of a bar and gratefully goes in.

He drinks shot after shot of whiskey, everything fading from view until he's back drinking pint after pint in Galway, his only sins that he likes to drink and he likes to gamble and he likes to fuck and he doesn't like to work. He stumbles home only after he's firmly told that the bar is closing. The alarm in the morning manages to rouse him. His head seems to be three sizes too small for his brain; his mouth feels like he's chomped on a roll of toilet paper and his stomach wants to have an out-of-body experience. It's been a quarter century but he hasn't forgotten what a hangover feels like. Much later in the day the knowledge that being drunk in an alley cost him everything once before sobers him up almost instantly.

He has dinner, cleans up, and now quietly reads a book, all with no visitors. He begins to relax, for the first time in days. Scrooge only had four ghostly guests, he tells himself. He feels it before he sees it.

She's four years old, blue eyes too big for her face. Darla and he had drunk down her family one hundred sixty seven years ago. Darla was already dragging him out the door, ready for more amorous pursuits, when he heard the rapid flutter of her heart coming from an armoire. He left her on the floor, neck snapped.

He ignores her and continues with his reading. He rereads the same page over and over. When he goes to bed, she stands at the head of it, never blinking, just looking at him. He doesn't fall asleep until 4:30. At the office he looks so drawn and pale that everyone assumes he's still ill. It takes all of his willpower not to yell at their solicitous concern. I don't deserve it, don't you see?

After work, instead of going home, he goes back to the bar. He doesn't order whiskey this time, just Guinness. He drinks just enough to get a buzz on, make everything just a little bit less real. Not drunk he tells himself. Not drunk. The ghost doesn't affect him this time. He goes about his business and he goes to sleep.

This becomes his routine for the next three and a half weeks. He goes to the bar and downs eight or ten or twelve bottles. With reality blurring around the edges just a little, he goes home and lives his life. On the twenty-fifth day, Doyle is waiting for him and reality snaps back into focus. He heads back to the bar. He's nursing a single bottle of beer, trying to make it last. He doesn't want to get drunk but he also can't face going back and seeing his dead friend. He turns a little and that's when he notices he's being watched.

She's got long dark hair, a nice ass, medium sized tits and pouty lips. Forty-five minutes later they're in her apartment and his hands are under her shirt. When he finally gets home, it's three in the morning and he's alone. He falls asleep, body sated.

Surprisingly, even as his personal life falls apart, his business life keeps improving. It turns out that having almost no knowledge of pop culture guarantees that the ads he's assigned to wind up being fresh and innovative instead of falling back on tired cliché. Within a year, he's promoted and manages a small group in the art department. He's friendly but reserved, never engaging in small talk. No one knows anything about friends or family, even after months pass he remains a cipher.

He discovers that the past never shows up until at least 7:30 PM. He never stays late at the office but instead rushes home and has a quick meal. He hits one of the bars and drinks enough to forget. He goes off with a different woman every night. He doesn't feel guilty about the one-night stands; he assumes they know what they're signing up for. And since he knows he could make the world's most jaded whore think she's seen the Holy Ghost, he figures they're getting a good deal.

One night, when an especially comely girl gives him the eye, he forgoes the liquor and makes an early beeline to her door. She's half undressed and under him, when he looks into the eyes of a pregnant twenty-eight year old. He kept her alive for hours after giving her an impromptu cesarean. He rolls off his conquest claiming a sudden stomach virus. After that, he's never completely sober at night.