The Invisible World

Chapter 20: Xanadu

Mrs. Price waved a beckoning hand towards herself. "Come on! Are you gonna take the stand or not?"

"You never went over this with me," Jack said.

"Oh, we didn't?" Jenny asked. "Well, we are now. Just follow our lead."

The judge raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Schulz?"

"Fine, I'm coming." Jack stood up and walked to the witness stand.

The bailiff approached him with his Bible. "Please place your hand on this Bible and raise your right hand," he instructed Jack.

Jack sighed, put his left hand on the Bible, and raised his right hand.

"Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

"Sure," Jack replied, unsure what God had to do with the execution of justice. He had a point, though. Did everyone have to swear on that same Bible? Did they have a Torah in the back for Jews and a Qu'ran for Muslims so they could swear to Adonai or Allah to tell the truth? What about people who didn't believe in the Jewish God? There were Chinese immigrants on the west coast who had their own religion. What did they swear on? What about atheists? I knew they were out there. What did they have to swear on, their own honor? Or was everyone forced to use that same Bible and swear to a god they weren't beholden to?

I'm getting distracted. The bailiff was leaving with his Bible, and Mrs. Price was approaching the stand. She said, "Mr. Schulz, please tell me everything you know about the ghost that stole Mr. Davis's car."

"I still don't understand why I was called to the stand," Jack replied. "I'm not a paranormal expert. If anything, ask Jenny."

"She comes later," Mrs. Price told him. "You were called upon to investigate the unusual occurrences in Mr. Billingsley's diner, right?"

"Me and Brian, yeah."

"So you must know the most about this ghost."

"I guess so. Jenny was only in that diner for a few minutes, and when we got our hands on the ghost again, she was in my house hiding from the law."

The judge turned a stinky eye to Jenny. "Like you'd willingly turn yourself in to the cops?" Jenny retorted.

"Anyway," Mrs. Price said, "what activity did you detect from this ghost?"

"At first, it seemed like ordinary ghost activity," Jack recounted. "You've seen Poltergeist, haven't you? Making the pans hanging from the wall clang against each other. Writing on mirrors. Also tried to strangle Mr. Billingsley at one point. Then Jenny showed up and knocked Brian out with that door, so we had to take him to the hospital. We left Mr. Billingsley with a pen and paper in hopes that he could communicate with the ghost through writing. When we came back, Brian's car was gone. Four days later, Katie and Misty found the car, but the ghost got away. We went back to Mr. Billingsley to see what information he got. All he knew was that the ghost was named Gloria. Brian and I are both reporters for the Allwine Inquisitor, so we have access to the archives, and we were able to determine that the ghost in question was of Gloria Dunn, a young woman who died in a car accident the day before her wedding. The problem was her fiance..." He sighed. "I know this is going to sound crazy–"

"Don't say this is going to sound crazy," Mrs. Price whispered. "You'll diminish our credibility."

"Fine," Jack said. "It won't sound crazy, but there is a void on a different plane of existence but still in Allwine that is sucking people out of existence and taking any memory of them with it. She was stuck with the grief of not being able to say goodbye to her fiance, but she didn't even remember who her fiance was, leaving her in this limbo that caused her to act out in car-stealy ways. Luckily, our editor, Mr. Bergeron had a list of names of the people who had disappeared and showed it to her–wait a minute, why didn't you get Mr. Bergeron as an expert? He knows more about this stuff than I do."