The nightfly
When you feel like you're turning in circles, change lanes.
It was advice given to him by old Marty Danielsen back in Raccoon City. Jesse had passed it to Jiro, then to Dana.
In other words, When you're stuck on a job and feel like throwing a hammer across the garage, stop right there. Sweep the floor. Organize your toolbox. Shit, clean the dirt under your nails. Whatever it takes, just reset. Get traction. Get back to work. Nine-times out of ten, you'll have the problem cracked with that fresh set of eyes.
Jesse dropped the 3/8 ratchet's disassembled guts into the pail of varsol, wiped the grease from his hands and continued to pretend that he was ignoring Stacey.
Well Marty Danielsen turned out to be a crazy old coot who chose to gas himself to death rather than try to escape, and his advice was shit under the current situation as well. Jesse's circle was exactly three names long. Sweeping the shop did nothing to break it.
Stacey.
Dana.
TJ.
Stacey.
Dana.
TJ, eight years old, pale after a night of bad sleep. Said his room was watching him.
Stacey, on her knees in the RPD precinct, waiting for a bullet to end her.
Dana, five years old, screaming for him at three AM. Another bad dream: the lady. Again.
TJ, with his back to Jesse. Hockey stick and a line of plastic pucks on the driveway. Bang, bang, bang, bang against the garage door. Seemed the boy always had his back to Jesse after that summer.
Stacey, that first time afterward, only for a second, by the bedroom door. Blink and you would have missed her. He blinked.
Dana, 5am. Asleep with every light on.
TJ, his little face resolute. "I don't want you or Dad to come to my games anymore. I play better when you aren't there."
Stacey, reflected in the bathroom mirror after that party. She stayed the night, or maybe not.
Dana, arms crossed in the school's guidance office refusing to explain to Susan what the drawings meant.
TJ, staring straight through the counsellor as they discussed pill names with odd vowel-consonant pairings, olanzapine, risperidone, aripiprazole.
Enough. Jesse pushed himself away from the workbench. Wiped at his face and glanced at the garage's vintage clock: Ford Racing. Gift from Dana.
Twelve-forty-seven.
She was out there somewhere. Lord, let her be all right tonight. He owed Jesse that, at least. Let her be with Odie at Clark Creek Falls, with a six-pack of beer for her and a twelve of those gas station powdered donuts for him. Please let it not be her she's seeing as well.
"Who else would it be, Jesse?" she asked from her perch on a stack of studded winter tires.
He shouldn't take the bait. She was baiting him again. Baiting.
He turned back to the workbench, fished the ratchet handle from the solvent and threaded a rag through the gear teeth.
"All these years of wishing and hoping." She leaned-in. "Pretending that I was only yours."
Jesse's hands tightened around the ratchet. He turned, stepped away from her, took two, three long strides.
"You're as blind as you are selfish, Jesse. Your son. Your own son- telling you he hears me at night."
He stopped, smacked the ratchet in his palm, two, three times.
She appeared in front of him, lips curled into a sneer.
"And you drug him. Send him upstate to a school."
"He wanted that. It was hockey academy." Jesse pointed the ratchet at her. The tendons stood tight up his shaking arms. "That's not fair."
"You shipped him off rather than admit that you were infecting hi-"
The ratchet left his hand, spinning in little chrome winks before hitting her square in the forehead. Her skin split, spilled a line of black blood, thick and quiet as old grief. Her head jerked back as her hair twisted alive. The ratchet clattered to her feet, or possibly kept sailing and ricocheted against the wall, or possibly both.
For a second, everything was quiet. No voice. No threat. Just the metallic rattle of the ratchet rolling to a stop.
And he felt, in that moment, such intense satisfaction. Nearly twenty years of torment. Marriage ended. Business failed and sold. At last, he hits back.
As well as profound regret. If he could call that ratchet back... She was dead already. Dead with a bullet to the brain, a memory against which he raged of a girl who deserved to be properly remembered.
And yet, a second after, she was standing straight again, possibly straighter then before. Forehead peeled-back, down the center, smiling that wicked Kelso grin.
"Feel better, now."
Jesse let out a long breath, slumped his shoulders and stared at the ratchet handle at her feet.
"I don't feel anything," he muttered. The world was fluttering at the corners of his vision.
She grinned as that blood the colour of used engine oil ran along the bridge of her nose, like corrupted tears.
"Of course you do. That's the problem. You feel everything."
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes. Wet sewer, oil, gunsmoke and the copper tang of fresh blood flooded his senses. Behind his eyelids, he could feel the garage lights flare and grow harsh, with a pop, like a fuse.
"You still feel Raccoon City, don't you? Feel it, live it.
He shivered as those cold, stiff fingers stroked the tender spot under his jaw, "Love it."
Jesse opened his eyes. The wooden rafters, piles of car parts and OSB paneling gone. It was the RPD parking garage's concrete beams and bloodstained floors that greeted him.
Stacey's fingers laced into his.
"Why don't you stay where you belong?" Jesse asked her, quiet, as if spoken in sleep.
"Why don't you?"
And so they walked, past the work stands. Past Jesse's old Snap-On toolbox, Kevin's pin-up of Pamela Anderson. Past the RPD paddy wagon with the crushed oil pan and Steve Visser's blood painted along the diamond plate floor. Jesse stopped at his locker, door open- a picture of him and Susan, taken in one of those photo booths they used to have at shopping malls. She looked like Dana, so much like Dana.
Dana.
TJ.
Jesse gave his head a violent shake, blinked at the disassembled 3/8 ratchet components in the pail of varsol. He glanced at the vintage Ford Racing clock on the wall.
Two-thirty-five.
He needed to get out of this garage. Even NASCAR would be better.
Morning wasn't far off when the steady drone of a V8 pulled at his attention. Big block for sure. Not the Firebird's wild crackle, but the low growl of something tamed. Only one engine sounded like that. Jesse sighed as a beige-on-brown K5 Blazer, seemingly driven by an albino Sasquatch, pulled into their driveway, and he once again counted his luck for Dana's friendship with Odin Pedersen. The boy was already at the passenger door helping a boneless and slumped Dana down from the lifted truck by the time Jesse was down the steps.
"Hey Odie," he called. "Need a hand."
Odie jerked as if he'd been caught stealing, froze, nearly dropped her. Dana's head lolled, drool slipped from her mouth onto their cracked patio blocks.
"Oh, hey, uh, Mister Franks." Odie stared-up at him, gigantic and imploring. "I, uh, hope I didn't wake you up."
Jesse waved a hand, almost made it seem casual. "Naw, I was still up." He jerked his chin at Dana. "Let's get her inside, kay?"
Odie gave a furious nod. "Yeah, sorry, uh, good idea."
Jesse stepped to the other side of her, but his help he offered was ornamental. Odie could probably carry Dana as well as the Firebird.
They placed her on the sofa, stared down at her inert form. She twitched, kicked off a sock and rolled onto her stomach.
"Thanks, Odie," Jesse tried to make his voice as kind as possible. It probably still sounded like a death threat to the big kid. "For bringing her home."
Odie turned, looked at him with those worried and pleading eyes, like a big doomed mutt at the pound. "We were at the speedway. Went into the pits after the races and…" His barrel chest rose and fell beneath his slumped shoulders as he gave a big sigh. "She's really messed-up, Mister Franks. Got into a fight with someone who wasn't there."
Jesse felt the pressure on his chest. His mouth got dry. Please Odie, don't say it.
"Kept calling her Stacey."
There it was. Jesse's stomach took a sudden elevator ride to near his heels. And, as if summoned by her name, Stacey swam back into view, leaning in the open doorframe and regarding him with her typical casual disgust.
Jesse nodded, rearranging his face into something he hoped looked like calm reassurance. He reached to pat Odie's shoulder, missed, and ended up fondling one of the boy's prodigious man-titties. "You're a good friend. Thanks Odie."
Odie flinched but didn't comment, as if he was used to being too large for most people's personal space. Instead, he gave a slow nod and glanced over at Dana "You want me to, uh, stay here? Help look after her?"
Jesse shook his head. "It's all right, I got her."
Odie seemed be trying to believe that. "Ok, sir. Thanks, and, um, sorry."
He slumped to the door, past Stacey. The light in the house shifted, flared as Odie swung the Blazer around and courteously idled out of their block.
Stacey didn't wait. She was beside him in a heartbeat. Her cold fingertips brushed his.
"Why didn't you ever fight me, Jesse?"
No answer.
"It's because you like having me here."
She grinned. "I'll get her to like me too. Promise."
Jesse collapsed onto the couch and covered his ears with a pillow. He only stirred a half-hour later when he heard Dana beginning to dry-heave. She would need a bowl, real quick.
Jesse slept off and on. Mercifully without dreaming. Occasionally, Dana's retching would rouse him. He would empty the bowl then return to his spot on the couch, pillow pressed against both ears and manage another hour of rest.
His mind was technically better for it. By the time the robins started their insistent seesawing morning song, Stacey was once again reduced to a grey blur in the shape of a woman.
And, on the couch, Dana was half tangled in a blanket, pale and flushed and drooling onto the cushions. Occasionally she would stir, mutter something that probably wasn't supposed to sound like Stacey and tangle herself further into the blanket.
Jesse ran his tongue over his teeth. Probably should have brushed them. Probably should brush them.
Coffee first.
The reprieve didn't last long. By the time Jesse finished his second cup of coffee, Stacey had taken shape again: eyes, mouth, split across forehead. Less than an hour after that, she was standing over Dana, mocking him without saying a word simply by her proximity to his daughter.
There were always ways-out before. Crank music, go for a drive and concentrate on not dying. Even a handful of Sleep-Eeze did the trick in a pinch. But there was no chance he would leave Dana alone with Stacey, and Dana was still in no shape to talk.
And so he did the only thing he could. Pace the living room, steal a cigarette from Danas pack, slip into the garage to remember that there was still nothing left to clean or fix, repeat.
An hour later, he shambled back from the garage to find Stacey stroking Dana's face, head tilted, smiling, daring, baiting him. Dont take the bait.
"Don't touch her," his voice was low, flat and uncompromising.
Which was laughable, what could he possibly do to stop her?
Too late, she seemed to mouth, and brushed Dana's hair from her forehead. His daughter twitched, murmured something unintelligible.
Brain off. Jesse lunged and swiped at her –passed through thin air. The stainless-steel bowl clattered to the floor, and Jesse tripped, caught himself before he collapsed onto Dana. He could smell the alcohol come off her in gauzy waves, with an underlying stink of throw-up and sweat.
Which was when she chose to wake-up. First a muttered something, a clumsy wipe at her face, then a single cracked eye. Only a fraction of a second later, she popped bolt-upright. Her eyes, both wide open, flicked to where Stacey had stationed herself, her stance was hard and tight.
Then she looked away. The steel pins in her stance disappeared, and she crumpled back into the cushions. In a cracked voice, she muttered, "she's gone now."
"But she was there, wasn't she?" Jesse replied, quiet. He simultaneously knew and dreaded the answer. "You're seeing a dead girl in a green shirt."
Dana jerked at his voice, only then noticing him. Her face, pale and greasy from sweat and a general disdain for hygiene, grew patches of bright red. She swallowed hard, avoided his gaze and gave a single sad nod.
Jesse sighed through the pressure in his chest. He willed his hands steady, gave them the fabric of his jeans to clutch and twist, and made a point to look at his daughter, rather than his spectre.
"Well then we need to figure out why," he said at last.
A biter little laugh from Dana. "What's there to find out? We both know why," She kept her bleary and bloodshot gaze to the floor. The corners of her mouth twitched. "I'm going crazy."
"Dana, we don't kn-"
"Oh, shut up, you asshole!" Her eyes were up, almost looking at him. The pitiful expression she wore betrayed the angry words. "I'm crazy too. Schizophrenic. Like TJ"
She could barely finish her brother's name before her voice hitched and she buried her face in her hands.
It started gentle. Then, like an old but powerful diesel, her sobs gained momentum, torque, until the house shook under her grief. The grief of an almost-nineteen-year-old girl who only knows half the story.
Only half the story, maybe less than half.
Stacey, eyes on Jesse, smiled wider. That split bottom lip of hers: torn by a bullet fired a quarter of a century ago, a smile etched into his soul. It wouldn't be that way for Dana. Not her. Not TJ.
He took the risk, sat next to Dana and put an arm around her. And Dana, to her credit, did seem to clench every muscle under his embrace for a moment, before resolve cracked, and she allowed herself to be an almost-nineteen-year-old girl who only knows half the story. Before she let Jesse be what he was: the father with too many ghosts to keep just to himself.
Her sobs shifted under his touch, became something messier, something animal, until it was just noise called from the bottom of her. She pushed away from him, hand to her stomach. A moment later, she was on her knees, retching into the bowl. A sour funk filled the house as she expelled everything in her, the booze, the tears, the memory of a girl she shouldn't be seeing.
"This sucks," she eventually muttered to the hardwood.
She wasn't wrong, and she only knew a fraction of how badly it sucked.
"Listen, Dana. It's about the girl you're seeing."
She shot her head up, gave him a red look, daring him to keep talking.
Well, he was in a daring mood. He swallowed, took as deep a breath as he could.
"You're not the only one who's seeing h-"
"Yeah, no shit, detective. I know TJ saw a lady too." She chuckled, but her voice cracked. "Great. Congrats, old man. Two crazy kids now. When's the party?"
He closed his eyes, blocked Stacey from his vision. Dana deserved this moment. Not her. "It's not TJ I'm talking about here."
Her eyebrows knit together as she fit the pieces together. "You?" asked low, incredulous.
Jesse gave a resigned nod and shot his tormentor a hateful glare. "Her name is Stacey."
Dana stood as if electrocuted and fixed him with her black and red gaze. When Dana Jane Franks made direct eye contact with a person, it generally meant that it was time to walk away. Her bottom lip drew tight, fists too.
She sucked breath through her teeth. "You've known about this the whole time? And you let me think I was insane?"
It seemed like she was going to throw something else, the remote control, her laptop, maybe that terrible lamp he picked-up at the Sally-Ann, but the colour drained from her face, skin went almost green as she gave a heavy swallow. Belched. She dropped back into the couch and ran her hands through her hair.
"God, I'm too fucked-up to kill you right now," she muttered between her hands.
Lucky him.
"So what is it then?" she asked, head between knees. "You're schitzo too or something? Pass it to me and TJ?"
Jesse chucked. If only it was that easy. "I've been diagnosed with everything from PTSD to paranoid delusion. Nothing stuck. And nothing helped."
She drew her head up, frowned at the tone of his voice. "So what then, ghosts?" Her eyes went wide. "It's ghosts right? We're haunted? Ohgod, we're haunted!"
A slow shake of the head as Jesse thought back to all the mediums, tealeaf readers and paranormal experts he had met over the years. Susan called them a name, harlequins, or something like that- seemed like a fancy-as-hell way to call a con artist a con artist.
"Not sure about that either. Your mom never saw anything. Still not sure how ghosts work, but I think it would be weird for only one person to see them."
"Unless the ghost is a gaslighting bitch."
He cast another glare at Stacey. "Well, she certainly is that."
Dana sniffled, rifled through her pockets for her lighter. "So who is she? The dead woman, I mean. How did you know her?"
Jesse took a deep breath and drummed his fingers on his thigh. The last person he told the truth to promptly sent him up the psychologist food chain, straight to that prescription for antipsychotics.
"She was your mom's sister. Stacey. She was with me in Raccoon City, got bit. We shot her before she could turn."
What he didnt say was that they shot her in the back of the head. She had been holding a Saint Christopher medallion, made a little grunt when the round hit, kicked and kicked and kicked.
"Been dreaming of her ever since."
"That Stacey?" Dana paused, then shook her head. "Doesn't make sense. Sta- Mom's sister was younger then her, right?"
Jesse needed to think about it for a moment, then nodded. His heartbeat ratcheted-up slightly. "Yup, definitely younger. Why?"
Dana looked dubious. So Mom would have been what, like, twenty-five when Raccoon City blew up?"
"Twenty-three."
"Well then that makes no sense, 'cause the woman I'm seeing sure isn't in her twenties. She looks old, like you." She paused. "Ok, maybe not that old, but old."
Jesse's heart thudded against his chest. His breath felt short again. He glanced over at Stacey, studied her despite the urge not to. Looking at Stacey was like staring at the sun. Fleeting glances only. Stare too long, and she would burn your retinas.
But there was no doubting it. Stacey, even in this state of dry decay, seemed to be in her mid-to-late thirties, at youngest.
Jesse stood, feeling lightheaded as he tried to put meaning to this, and went to grab his inhaler.
"Naw, you're right Danno." Jesse took a drag off the puffer. "She's no twenty year-old."
"So what does that mean? She's ageing after she's dead?"
Jesse shrugged, sat back down and tried to catch his breath. "How the hell should I know what that means?"
Dana sniffled, "Helpful. Thanks." Then, after a few slow flicks of her lighter, added, "So what did she look like before she died then. Not like an old lady, I guess?"
He chewed on that one, sifted through his memory. It was strange. He could picture so many others clearly. Jim Hildebrand, Marv Branagh, even old Marty and that kid, Sherry.
Stacey, however, no matter how he tried, only came-up as she did now. Dead, middle-aged, and dead.
His pulse thudded against his temples, breath still came short and fast. "I don't remember what she looked like back then."
She raised an eyebrow. "You sure it's Mom's sister then?"
Jesse nodded. It was undoubtledly Susan's sister, Stacey Kelso, who had haunted him ever since that morning he crawled up the Arklay's west bank. It was Susans dead sister who ruined his marriage, drove TJ away, pushed him away and pulled him in.
He glanced over at the apparition.
Stacey Kelso died in 1998. Bullet drilled through the brain, out the mouth. And she kept ageing along with him. Richer or poorer, sickness and in health.
"You've been dreaming about her since you were a kid, huh?" he finally spoke.
Dana shuddered for a moment, sniffled. "Yeah, since always."
"Did she look younger then?"
Dana paused, closed her eyes, and gave her head a small shake. "I don't remember."
So Jesse chose to keep quiet, unsure what to say next, what to make of this timeless dead woman who may or may not have looked like Susan's sister.
Well, what was she like? Was she this much of a bitch when she was alive too? Like Mom?"
Jesse chewed on that one as well, dug deep and came up with nothing but dirt "I can't remember."
"Well, you mentioned that she and Mom didn't get along. "Know why?"
He shook his head. "I don't remember."
Dana rolled her eyes, sighed. "Okay, so what did she do? Work? Go to school? Whore herself-out? What?"
He had his head down, hand at his temples, heart somewhere in his throat. "University."
"The old man gets one." Dana threw her hands up in mock celebration. "Which one? What did she ta-"
"Fuck! Enough!" He was standing, shaking and gasping for breath. "I don't know, okay? I don't know what she looked like, I don't know her fucking personality. I DON'T KNOW!"
In a weird reversal of roles, it was Dana who had the hand up in an attempt to deescalate. It didn't take much. Jesse's anger came in violent little sprints, always had. It was Susan and Dana who were the marathoners of the family.
"I just don't know, Okay?" he pleaded.
Dana, head down, muttered an okay.
For a moment there seemed to be nothing else to do but sit across from each other. Silently making the effort to avoid the corner of the room where the dead girl-woman, divorced-from-time, regarded them with the casual indifference of a family counsellor who has a distinct dislike for their clients.
"So what do we do then?" Dana finally asked. Her bleary gaze met his. "I don't want to see her." She sniffled "Don't want you or TJ to see her either."
Jesse ran a hand down his face. "I don't know what to tell you. I've been fighting her for over twenty years. Nothing seems to help except staying away from booze and getting lots of sleep."
Dana raised an eyebrow. "You've been at it for twenty years?"
It was Jesse's turn to direct his answers to the floorboards. "Almost every day. Dreams first, then flashes of her, then she started talking to me."
"Jesus," Dana flicked her lighter. "Why do you keep going?"
Jesse smiled. He would have loved to say that he woke up every day, after having dreamt of her and knowing that she could be waiting for him at any moment, for his kids. That he loved TJ and Dana too much to give up. But, that wasn't it. A selfless father wouldn't also have to fight the urge to outrun Death on some insane high-speed drive five nights a week.
Besides, he couldn't even rest on the lofty idea that he was needed. Dana would be fine without him. TJ was a stranger anyhow. Susan has shown to have no use for him. Sure, his old Uncle Tyler would need someone else to change the oil in his Econoline, and Jiro would need a new mechanic if he were gone, but that seemed to be it.
So Jesse decided on honesty, because honestly he was too exhausted to be dishonest.
"I hold on because I still can take it. Simple as that." He directed that as much to Stacey as to Dana.
She scoffed, hawked and spat into the puke bowl. "Seems like a shit reason."
"It's what I got."
She shot him a look. "You think that's good enough for me then? Just hold the fuck on until I'm all used-up like you. Sleeping half the day, wrapping cars around minivans?"
Jesse blinked at her. No response needed.
Dana nodded at that, satisfied.
"We need to figure this out Dad, like you said earlier. You think this is something that happened to other people from Raccoon City? Seeing dead people, I mean."
Jesse shrugged, still uncomfortable speaking so openly about this. "Some people talk about bad dreams online. Figured it was pretty normal, given what happened."
"Forums…" She tasted the word with a slow roll of her lighter's wheel.
Her eyes brightened. "Hand me my laptop. Let's see what we can find online,"
As Jesse rose to fetch it, she added, "Grab by cell too. Time to talk to TJ."