Simon Berkley

Simon Berkley Chapter 4: Keep Their Nuts

Chapter 4: Keep Their Nuts

Alice was watching the television when we arrived. The news lady spoke grimly to the camera in a monotone that would have put the sandman to sleep.
"And so, wildflowers take time and nourishment and nutrients to grow to their full capacity..."
"Alice," I said.
She turned, her hand reaching inside a greasy bucket of popcorn on her lap.
"What?"
"We are going to need your abilities, sugar," said Phil.
She stared at us with a blank look.
"What exactly is it that you want me to do now?" Alice sat on a stool in the kitchen, her hand snatching handfuls of popcorn from the bucket into her mouth.
"Jesus, woman," I said, picking a kernel from the side of her mouth. "What's wrong with you?"
If anyone knew of Alice's habits after all these years, it would be me. Stuffing her face to no end was one of the signs she was in deep thought—heck, just finding out that ghosts could eat was trippy enough without them messing up your couch in the process. I looked at the butter stains on my couch's pillow and cringed, but counted to ten and flipped it around. Feeling better, I tapped the side of the table three times with my forefinger.
There was something wrong with Alice, but I wanted her to tell me what it was. The last thing I needed was for Alice to go and skin me alive just when I was beginning to see some light in this case. When something was on a ghost's mind, they would replay the subject in their mind again and again—which would drive a human being insane, but for them it was something normal. That one thought became almost their obsession; they breathed it and lived it. They could become fixated with mere objects or concepts easier than any human. It took a great amount of will for them concentrate on what was and not what they thought should be—it was a ghost thing.
This is why poltergeists existed—mere ghosts that would become obsessed with the idea that the home, or cemetery, or wherever they would haunt, was theirs and theirs alone. And that thought and the fear of the inhabitants of the place would ultimately make the ghost stronger—a being unlike a normal, run-of-the-mill ghost.
Alice ate to keep concentrated on what was real, which sometimes made me worry. Binging on food was a hassle for me and my pocket, and cases were scarce these days.
The thought of having to rid myself of Alice because of her losing control—as tempting as that sounds—was not what I wanted. I had wrestled with that thought for years, especially in my high school years when the bullies weren't the only ones giving me wedgies or pushing me down the steps.  I had learned all these things from the ghosts themselves—they were some of the more human, if I may say so, of the paranormal world we live in. Though they suffered the loss of their vital organs, they had more heart than many witches and psychics, or any other supernatural being (though I would never admit it out loud). It was just up to me to learn from them and Alice had been a perfect subject of observation after all these years. There was a whole other world out there, and I almost envied them for having the choice of not living in this one.
"Nothing's wrong with me," she grunted over a mouthful of the buttery stuff. Phil mumbled something and she glared straight over my shoulder at him.
"Okay, fine. Touchy," I said and I told her my plan.
Thankfully, over the years Francesca and I spent together, I had met a few of her very wealthy and powerful friends, including her matriarchs and patriarchs (witches who had survived for over a thousand years).
Many of them shied away from me at dinner parties those long years ago. I would ask Francesca if my breath smelled funny and she would kiss me and assure me they were just watching out for her. Witches usually didn't mesh with human men (and I know what you are thinking: "you aren't that human". I know.)
But I knew it was more than just the human and witch entanglement that freaked them out—it was me. Even freaks smelled that I was a major freak, a thing they couldn't point out. A ghost is a ghost, a demon a demon—but I, even in the supernatural community, I was considered unnamed, a thing all on my own.  I am nothing; a being stuck in between something or another. Some call me a psychic—heck, that's what the sign on the outside of my office says, too—but I hate psychics.
Psychics are fiendish beings who have nothing in their brain except the linear thought of self-preservation that drives this bunch of cowards with a little hoodoo and the means to keep it to use their gift for personal gain, and I was more than that. I had personality.
When I had decided to open up and help people through my abilities, I knew what I wanted.
Yes, I made a little loose change on the side, but scarcely minded the times when I gained nothing but a hug and a thank you. What can I say? The ladies love me.
It wasn't until one day when I met Felipe Cantor that I found out why witches acted like I was a wheel of over-aged cheese when I would pass them.
"You stink," he'd simply said. "Not like human stink. Like something weird and ripe." And we had been friends since. I liked the way Felipe was different from the witch crowd. The way he would carry himself was almost human, painstakingly honest and all, but there was a warmth behind his eyes.
But see, Felipe, being one of the founding fathers, was harder to find than a pin inside a stack of hay inside another stack of hay. But if Francesca was reluctant to help, then he would; he always did when I needed him and I was grateful for him. He was a head witch, but he was nice, and he laughed with me when he would visit Francesca from time to time. Sometimes I wondered, by the way he looked at me, if he was laughing more at me than with me. But I never took anything personally and I knew having him as a friend would help me out sooner or later. Unlike the line of female witches, he had a sense of humor, and I knew he would find my stealing from under Francesca's nose hilarious.
I scroll down the contacts list until I found his name.
Alice, among many of her tricks, was capable of imitating voices. A scary thing when she would do Mumra from the Thundercats in the still of the night when I was eight.
Not funny.
Alice picked up the phone and dialed the number, her eyes full of disagreement and the sides of her mouth dripping with butter. I resisted a hurl and swallowed hard.
"What happened to her?" Phil was eating a microwaveable bean burrito.
"I think she may be a little agitated," I said and Alice glared at us, one hand still clutching the bucket of popcorn.
She dialed the number and waited about three seconds, coughing politely before she said, "Hello," in her perfect impression of Francesca (she even had the little southern twist down pat).
The conversation went back and forth, a few laughs and I crossed my fingers hoping Felipe wouldn't notice the difference. Alice jotted down an address on a piece of paper and handed it to me. I let myself breathe again when Alice hung up and gave me thumbs up.
"He said he can't wait and to meet Fran at this address tomorrow at this time," said Alice and floated back to the living room. I could hear a clicking sound and the news woman continuing her droning.
That afternoon, having nothing else to do, I drove my car up to Saint's Crossing, my hometown a few miles down the highway south. I was craving a little piece of the place that watched yours truly grow up and, most of all, craving a little normality. After a few days of ghosts and monsters, I always turned back and visited the one lady who never let me down: my mom, Bertha Berkley.
Just off the Freeman highway, the brown sign led me away from the highway road and connected to a road that needed paving. The road wound around from a dented entrance into the private section where all the trailers lined up on each side. The streets were narrow and rocky and sometimes clogged with bicycles and kids running about. Some of the older folk in Saint's Crossing, recognizing me, waved at me from their porches, I could smell the spicy scent of barbecue chicken somewhere, reminding me of the many cookouts we shared in our tiny backyard; my stomach growled with nostalgia. It was like taking a trip back in time to a mobile home paradise of the '80s—the home of colorful pottery and smiling gnomes and odd-looking chimes that would clink in the wind.
I slowed down and parked on the side of the ample trailer. My father Edward Berkley (may he rest in peace) had been a door-to-door sales man back when that was big.
My father, in his quest to become the most prolific salesman ever, went from selling encyclopedias to selling home insurance to selling trailers. Thankfully, before he died, he left his legacy: one of the best trailers he could afford. It was just a shabby one bedroom, which in later years was cut and constructed over to widen the space, as a gift to my mother from my earnings. So what you had now was an immovable trail-house (as I like to call it) with a front porch, but quite a spacious living room and kitchen.
My mother had the biggest trailer in Saint's and was quite the envy of the other neighbors. There was a chime in the porch that stood out from the rest, a silver Elvis with legs that would swing in the wind, shooting thumbs up as I parked the car.
The trailer's door swung open and my mother—a stout lady with shortly cropped red hair and a healthy obsession with the King as much as with penny loafers—waved at me ferociously, a huge smile on her ample, freckled face.
I had begged her to come live with me a million times. She was the only family I had (other than a cousin or two who had never called or visited) but she refused belligerently.
"Kid, if I wanted to move in, you would know it," she said one day, and when my mother placed her mind on something she was very bull-headed about it—but I think even a bull would be concerned about my mother's stubborn ways.
"Hey there, love!" she shouted and I waved back, parking the car between the trailer and a fence she had wound around the property. My mother's trailer was a fierce pink and, back in the days when my father had tried to convince my mother that Hawaiian Pink Flower wasn't the best color for a house, my mother had laughed and said, "Pink is the color of life. Do you want me to live, Edward? Or do you want me to die, Edward? Because I will—if you want me to, I will!"
After a speech like that, my father had consented and she had even let him have a say on the rest of the things, like furniture and what went in the backyard. It was their way of compromising. My father loved her until the day the cancer had taken him and I bet he still does, wherever he is.
My mother clamped my waist with her arms and squeezed.
"How's my boy?"
I chuckled. "I'm good, ma. I'm here."
"You'd better be," she said and gave me a look. "Have you been eating?"
"Mom..."
"How's that Alice?" she said and licked her finger, fixing my hair.
"Dead," I said.
Yep, she knew. I have a feeling my mother always knew her son was different. So when I told her about Alice, she had simply welcomed the thought. It was later, when Alice decided to reveal herself to my mother, that she truly understood I wasn't indeed going crazy. Ever since then, they had been the best of friends. Alice came around sometimes and they had tea together.
"Well, you'd better tell her she should visit more often. She can call if she wants to," she said and grappled my arm with a firm hand, steering me away, storming me with the latest gossip. She opened the screen door and I ducked my head at the threshold.
The house looked intact. Elvis memorabilia hung from walls and smiled back at me from posters; from clocks that swung their legs back and forth in true King style, blankets, posters and LPs—Elvis was in the building.
I sat with my mother and she turned on a small fan and served me some chicken waffles with white gravy and extra-sweet–and-sour lemonade. Bliss.
I remembered the days when I had nothing else to do but watch cartoons and learn all the lines to the Silver Hawks cartoon episodes, when my mother patted my leg.
"Lemme sit with you," she said. "How are you coping?"
I tried to think of the right words, anything to let my mother know I was completely okay, that her son was keeping his sanity.
"Business is going well," I said and took a sip off the lemonade. "Phil is helping me on a case we have yet to figure out."
"How is he?"
"As wizardly as ever," I beamed up at her with a mouth full of waffle.
My mother placed her hands down on her lap, the Elvis watch around her wrist winked at me. I knew this was a sign of trouble. There were things I never wanted to talk about—some others that I barely wanted to think about. But my mother would always find a way to talk about them, even if I was too stubborn to acknowledge them.
"She was so beautiful," my mother's eyes stared down at her lap as if she was watching some picture. I placed the plate down on the table and tried to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. Being here brought her back to me. Amelia had loved my mother and her "crazy King obsession."
Amelia had found it to be a quirk, and not at all weird, when my mother spoke to her about dreams she had with the King and his great return to the stage. "Your mother is such a doll," she'd said the first day they had met. I knew from that very moment that she was the one. Amelia. I had barely thought about her name and, yet saying it in my mind brought back the pain and anger I had felt those three and a half years ago when she had passed away.
It seemed like such a long time since I had seen her—the last time she had looked so pale. "I love you, Simon," she had said to me.
Her last words.
And I knew she had meant them.
"And the babe," my mother was sniffling into a smiling Elvis handkerchief.
I rubbed her back with my palm and mother waved a hand signaling she was okay.
"Simon," she said and looked up, her eyes struggling with something. "I had a dream. Amelia was here. She came to visit me and she tried to tell me something—and I tried to listen. She looked so worried, Simon, and... it felt so real."
I listened and felt her heart beating heavily at her chest, her fear brushing my skin, and I held her hand as she spoke. My mother breathed in and wiped at her eyes again.
"But I can only remember her face, and the shadow. It was behind her...and she was powerless against it. Amelia, she tried to escape and I felt my body paralyzed and then I had woken up and I swear, Simon, I could smell her perfume. It was like she had been here."  She began to cry and I held on to her and pressed her up against my chest.
"It's okay, ma," I said and we held each other and cried a while before I helped her out with the dishes while we listened to "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Trouble", which cheered us both up. Soon we were both laughing and talking about the times I was a kid and about my father, the man I barely remember. Mom went to her Elvis trunk and we both looked at pictures of me in the park riding my first bicycle—my father, with his dark hair and grey eyes, pushing me along, a smile on his face. 
Later, we said our goodbyes and she threatened me to not forget my weekly visit and I assured her I would never forget to visit my favorite lady. I kissed the top of her head.
As I drove away, my mind raced back to all those years and all the time I had spent with the love of my life, Amelia, before she had been murdered.
The next day...
Phil had decided to stay away from this meeting, and I have to admit, I was kind of bummed. I enjoyed spending time with Phil and besides, having a wizard watching your ass was kinda neat.
I saluted the air with a hand and tapped the Desert Eagle I named Delilah inside my breast pocket three and a half times for good luck and again for more good luck. While on my way to the car, I thought I should probably look for up doctors for my OCD issue, then I decided how stupid that sounded and fixed the rearview mirror a few times. 
I drove my convertible with the hood covered and hoped if Felipe magically expelled me, that I would land somewhere near the car. Last time, after Fran had expelled us, it took me and Phil more than a half an hour to find our way to it again, and I wasn't up for it today. It wasn't my fault I always forgot where I parked!
The place was called "Little Bistro". It had tinted glass windows and doors, so you could barely see any kind of activity happening inside. It was one of those places with too much air conditioning, light jazz playing overhead in hidden speakers, and at $26 a plate, you would think they served clams with black pearls inside of them.
The place smelled pungently of mixed herbs. There were candles placed in the center of the white tablecloths that draped over each table. Silk mantles clung down like swollen shells from the ceiling in different pastel hues.
I thanked God for the blazer, blue jeans, and cowboy boots I had decided to wear when I walked in and felt the chilly breeze hit my face. I was greeted by a small woman, all hooked nose and deep set eyes over olive skin and full cheeks, she wore a colorful veil around her head with some hanging gold coins on the hem.
I said I needed a table for two and gave her the name of the man I was supposed to meet, which she jotted on the flat guest book morosely.
The table was far from the exit, I noticed. So far into the restaurant, in fact, that I could hear the sizzling frying pan behind double doors that lead to the kitchen. There were only three other people there: a solitary man with dark rings under his eyes and a couple that giggled silently together in a booth, leaning onto one another secretly. At times they'd raise a hand to summon the male waiter whose name, Daniel, was scrawled in cursive over a pin on his chest.
This place was normally packed with the usual lawyer or Wall Street shark, but now it seemed dull and too quiet in the early afternoon. I had been there before, had a few too many drinks during happy hour, and had caused a few fights, which led to my ass getting kicked to the curb. A young woman approached.
She said her name was Julia and that Daniel would be right with me, then she handed me a menu. I looked the menu over and waited only a moment before Daniel sauntered over. He smiled at me and I returned the gesture and ordered a random appetizer with a name I could barely pronounce.
I waited for Felipe until all the water I drank during my wait pressured my side. I took my fork and began poking at the thing in my plate—what looked like a mangled, badly burned duck in some kind of green sauce with some leaves poking out of a small hole in the middle. Very appetizing.
Just when I was about to tell the girl upfront that I would be in the bathroom in case Felipe came, I saw a dark figure step into the doorway, covered in a long trench coat—all wrong for the nice weather outside.
He was an early-Bond-years-Shawn-Connery kind of handsome, except his hair was thicker and longer, just coming short off his shoulders in salt and pepper layers.
I stood from my chair to greet him, uncomfortable with my aching side and regretting the three empty cups of water in front of me.
"Simon—you're here?" asked Felipe, looking around.
A moment of awkwardness passed and then I said, "Yes. I tricked you. I had to see you, I need your help."
"Where is Francesca?"
"Well, see... the one that contacted you was me."
I noticed he hadn't taken off his coat and he started to look around the restaurant nervously.
"You have to listen to me, Simon," he said.
When I saw the sense of urgency I began to ask if he was okay, but he waved a hand to stop me.
"Simon. You and... and everyone...we're in danger."
"Danger...?"
"You have to get Francesca on your side before they take her, too."
My brain short fused. "Who...? Felipe, relax. What's wrong?"
For the first time, I noticed his eyes were veiny and puffy, his hands shaking as he spoke. He looked older than I had remembered and acted as though every move was strained.  He wasn't the smooth-talking Felipe I had known—this was a nervous, perspiring Felipe.
My heart began to speed up.
This was a scared witch if I ever saw one—and I hadn't. Ever. Witches weren't prone to scare easily. The man hunched over the table to whisper and grabbed my collard. Daniel came but I shooed him off with a hand.
"This whole thing is a big mistake. They have come and now...now..."
"Talk to me Felipe."
"I...I can't even be here right now. I risked it all....thinking it was her," he reached into his pocket and fished a manila envelope.
"Give this to her," he whispered with urgency.
"Go to her. They are coming."
"Who's coming?"
"There's no time, Simon."
Suddenly I noticed an odd thing. The people, including the giggling couple, were gone.
We were left alone, a shadow had fallen over the restaurant, and I could feel something was terribly wrong. There was a noise and we turned to look.
Daniel the waiter and the man with the dark rims under his eyes stood nearby, holding long knives to their sides, the candlelight glinting off of the metal. Their eyes were like dots of blood deep in pale skulls.  The chime of the jazz stopped playing and the sizzle of the frying pans ceased.
Soon they were joined by two men, cooks with white uniforms and bloody cleavers in their long, contorted hands, their wicked smiles were too thin and vicariously long.
I grabbed my Delilah from my pocket and pointed the gun at Daniel's groin.
"Everyone who calms down," I said, "will keep their nuts."
Usually this would have worked on a human, but these things weren't human, I could see it now—their darkness was palpable and breathed a chill down my spine. They were nothing I had seen before. I was used to meeting new critters every once in a while—so it was no surprise, though I have to admit, these were especially ugly. Daniel laughed, a deep throaty laugh, and licked his knife, blood smearing all over his long tongue, the knife cutting a slit down the middle, blood dripped on the carpet.
Where was Alice when I needed her?
Before I could say, "shoot the groin," the waiter pounced away and I was pushed back by some invisible force with the density of a brick wall. The force smacked the gun out of my hand and I fell to the ground and rolled on my stomach under a table. Around me, the flashes of light were stinging my sight and when my vision cleared, I saw that Daniel and two of the cooks were on top of Felipe. He threw them all back. The waiter jumped backward, landing swiftly on his legs like a cat, while the other two crashed hard on the tables and the wall.
I was searching for Delilah when a woman kicked a leg up, that met with my jaw. I fell back and she reached up for my hair, her nails digging deep into my neck as she shrieked maniacally and hooked her arm around my neck. I managed to stand and she rode on my back, her clawed hand swiping away as she rode me like a horse. I ran up against a wall and turned rapidly, slamming my back against it with all my might three times until she lost her grip.  I flipped her over onto the floor, tossing her flat on her back. I saw my chance with a steak knife, but she rolled out of the way before I could stab. The woman's skin was now grey; she had the same crimson eyes and thin smile as the others. She stood up, looking at me as she licked her bloodied fingers.
"You taste good," she said. I didn't know if I should hurl or take the compliment. I pointed the knife at her and her claws elongated into sword-like pincers.
"So you wanna play?" she said.
"No fair," I sighed.
She came for me, her long pincers swiping and crashing as I twisted and ducked, evading her, but she was fast and caught me on my side. I felt the sharp pain dig into my rib and I cried out. Suddenly, one of the cooks crashed into her, pinning them both to the wall was a spear the size of a full grown man. I fell once again, my side aching, but I saw Delilah on the ground. I reached my hand out to her when a foot crushed down hard on my fingers. I screamed as the cook added pressure and I heard something snap under my finger—oh wait that was my finger.
I screamed again, but deciding teeth were better than nothing, I bit down hard on his ankle until I tasted blood. The man shrieked and released my fingers, two of them bent into small "V"s backward to my knuckles. With my other arm I swiped behind his knee and he fell on his back, I grabbed my two fingers and snapped them back into place, the surge of pain almost too much to bear.
I fell on him and punched his face in and pressed my knee against his demonic neck, releasing all my body weight on it. His eyes glared at me as I held him down to the ground, his face flushing with pressure. Soon he stopped moving. Just when I thought I was in the clear the other cook grabbed me from behind, tangling my arms with his own. He yelled something unintelligible into my ear and I slammed my head against his jaw, but he wouldn't let go.
There was a bang that silenced the place. Another bang and I felt something warm fall on my shoulder before I saw the blood.
The man weakened his grip and fell back. My head was buzzing with adrenaline, the ringing of the bang still reverberating through my head. I turned, and behind me Felipe held my gun out, barrel still smoking.
"Ah. These human weapons work better than I expected," he said, as if amused.
I nodded and decided that at this point sitting on the floor was my best bet.