Spirited City Stories

By Distant Sounds

The sun broke on yet another long and winding day in the city where dreams danced along the very same line as reality. Where the familiar sound of police sirens wailed in the distance chasing the ghosts of a freshly spun crime weaving in and out of traffic ahead. Where the smell of freshly ground coffee could be smelt in the air as it floated through the mist-covered tenements opening sleep-deprived eyes. This is the home of Spirited City, and while you're here, why not take a stroll down the path of one of it's many stories.

The crunch of coffee grounds could be heard as the lone stranger stood at the kitchen table looking downwards. She continued to push down on the device whilst smelling the rising aroma as it lifted solemnly into the air. The shadows of the early morning light begin to raise to reveal Faith Ruiz, a resident of this city where cemeteries are haunted and where nightvision green is the colour for the new spring season. She finishes her work and sits down before a rising cloud of steam emanating from the mug she cuddles with her hands. She raises it slowly to her lips much like a priest would do with the blood of Christ. The liquid hits her taste buds ushering the eyes to shut with pleasure. But this pleasure would never last long in this overly haunted city and Faith knew it all too well. Waking didn't mean you could escape the fear-riddled world of dreams, it just meant the fears would now exist with your eyes wide open.

The phone rings out and Faith slowly lifts to answer it's call. The voice from the other end mentions it's time for their meeting. Faith places the phone back down and ruffles in her pockets for the sound of clinking keys. She plods past a window and spies the skies outside casting an ever-present ominous shade of grey. As she approaches the old creaky front door she reaches out for the warm coat hanging by it's side. She closes the door behind and heads down to the icy streets below without hesitation. She is off to meet with a shadowy figure she had dealt with some time ago when an investigation went badly wrong and three people were slain in the bloodbath. She was told back then, 'I warn you Miss Ruiz, these ghosts will scare the shit out you!', which she dismissed as pure scare tactics and nothing more. Well she was wrong and by the end of the night three fellow investigators were dead. This was when she realised that ghosts don't just haunt old houses and overgrown cemeteries, but can reside in your very own mind. She folded the collar up on the coat and headed out into the cold of the early morning.

The young lady sat in the diner looking out the window at the snow-filled streets outside, the street lights casting an eerie glow in the early morning light. Her gaze was only sporadically shifted by a quick look down to her cell phone but just as quickly would shoot back to the misty streets outside. This was Suzie Cremz, well-known to the local authorities as a serial cemetery invader after dark and a suspect in the recent torching of a bug farm just outside of town. Her cell phone continued to sit silent as she silently studied passers-by outside awaiting her invited guest.

Her patience quickly wears thin and she reaches for the dormant cell phone and plunges it into life. With just a few presses on it's many buttons she falls into the world of Snake, as fellow diner patrons look on in mild anger at this new audio intrusion. Her eyes open wide like a child that has just fallen across a hidden candy store. Her face begins to contort quickly as the game toughens and she slams the phone down when the 'you lose' tone rings out. The fellow patrons sigh with relief as she continues with a loser's scowl. Her frustration at the quick exit from the game lifts as does her eyes and she again peers outside the window continuing her lonely vigil. It remains eerie...

A large sigh could be heard as the shapeless figure emerged from the depth of his bed. An arm, outstretched, reached for the buzzing alarm clock. Silence was regained. The figure stepped from the bed and ambled on over to the door nearby as the room plunged into light from the flick of a switch.

"It's too early!", he moans as he peers into the frosted mirror, "oh my head..."

This is Harley Q, local pickpocket and EMF meter junkie. As his close friend Baldy Jenkins said, "It's lucky for the sake of this grime-infested town that he chose the EMF gun over a real one or else there'd be even more corpses turning up in graveyards around here." Harley stares long and hard at his scarred face in the mirror. He begins to softly stroke the fine layer of stubble on his chin whilst considering the razor sitting nearby on the shelf. He maintains the deep thought for a few moments and then steps away and makes for the shower. His second large sigh of the morning erupts into life, but this is not one of tired misery, but one of wanton relief as the warm water makes contact with his cold aching back.

The large jet soared through the Pennsylvannian airspace aiming toward the slew of lights on the ground far below. It descended in softly with the soft glow of it's tailights pulsing in the early morning twilight. It had set off from Paris many hours before and the shadowed lands of Spirited City were now mere yards below as it's nose pierced the cold air ahead. The mist shrouding the city had now lifted creating a strange sense of ease painted in the skies as different shades of calming blue.

Aboard the landed jet sat many passengers but none more apparant than the young man sitting in seat fifty four. This was his first time in the city that never smiled. He lifted from the seat stretching his neck back to the sound of a small crack. A yawn quickly followed. He quietly ambled down the aisle toward the door and passed the attractive female air steward whom had been so nice to him on the long flight. She passed him a quick smile as he departed the plane supplying him temporarily with a sense of mild sanctity from the city he knew he would soon encounter outside. He basked in the last remnants of the calming glint from her eyes as the dawn of the new day took him in it's arms and whisked him away.

Enshen Mue looked up to spy the rising sun over the railway as he awaited his ride. The airport, the female steward, and his homeland of France were long behind him now and all that lay ahead was this city, a city that was about to rise from a deep slumber into a new day. But this, he knew, was a city that always seemed to wake on the wrong side of the bed.

The street was throwing up reflections as the last of the soft blue patches of sky were swept away by oncoming clouds. The snow still made the sidewalk it's home as cars carefully made their slippery journey along the icy roads. The driver seen making a left turn onto Mansfield Avenue was known to locals as only CookiePuss. How she got this moniker is unknown, but myth says that she could be heard purring when devouring one. The guy who got close enough to apparantly hear it is still recovering in hospital, ears chewed off. The police grilled her for several hours when a local nark supplied them with her name but she wasn't going to be broken down. She was as tough as the city was big. No way was she going to be locked behind iron bars for a simple two-bit hustler who who got a little too nosy and paid for it with some skin.

The street she was now traversing passed under the rail bridge sighted just ahead. She stood upon that one night awaiting the presence of a young female ghost that was meant to haunt there, but all she got was a cold behind to show for it. As she continued to gaze forward from the warmth of her car she began to see the city for what it was, old and weary. The city was relatively new in the scheme of things but what she saw through her eyes was something totally different.

The early morning sun had become drowned out by even more sheets of clouds seemingly pulled into place by a band of angels way on high. If there was anywhere those angels were needed in this wretched city, it wasn't circling high above out of reach, it was right down on these streets where souls could be turned black in the mere flash of a moment. Sometimes there was no way around it, it was as if the city itself sucked you up and spat you back out. The sidewalks were harsh enough without having to be thrown down on one by invisible hands.

The car wheeled around another corner letting out a small squeal as the tyres played the road like a violin. Just on the left stood the old theatre house. Her eyes meet the old creature with a small hint of a smile, memories flooding within her inner mindscape of her last visit to watch the season finale of Spirited Investigation Unit. If there was one ray of light to soak the shadowed paths of this old creaky city it was that show. If only she could meet the director she would muse over and over when the nights were at their darkest. She was sure he was someone that she would open her cookie jar for and end up leaving with both ears intact.

Just moments later the car comes to a stop and CookiePuss steps out. A blast of chilled air made her wince but she wasn't one to let that stop her now. She spies the large residence before her, trees bereft of any green. But she likes it this way, the bareness holding within it a beauty even more great than if it's branches were laden with the coat of spring. She takes careful steps on the snowed-over path and approaches the door. The old front vernadah lets out creaks with every step. She stops. Coming from within she begins to hear a noise... what sounds like footsteps begin to approach the door.

She reaches into her coat pocket...

'The Ghost' sat on the old park bench awaiting the sun to reappear. But he knew deep down that It wouldn't be making another show today. As he would say to invisible ears, "I don't blame the sun for hiding behind the clouds when it's over this city. I wish I could do that myself but down here on terra firma you only have rocks to hide under, and rocks have sharp edges." When strangers would hear him say stuff like this they would mock the melancholic shadow that followed him with every step. But his friends knew not to mock, for they saw the city through the very same eyes, and they saw the very same ghosts that flitted in and out of the rooms and hallways of this joint. As an old friend long gone told him one day, "Coalinga, If this city held all it's people in warm arms, there would be no ghosts."

A large grumble erupted from his empty stomach as he patted it with sympathy. It needed to be filled and there was only one way to do that. It would mean he would have to get up from off the bench and that would take effort he didn't know he had. Waking up in this place would sometimes feel like an anchor had been fused to your body and if you stayed still for too long it would snag on something below and you would be stuck. He gritted his teeth and rose from the depths below, pulling forth the anchor from it's resting place. The world spun for a moment before coming back to rest, as the welcoming diner across the park flashed a big smile his way. It was time to silence the grumbling within. He moved away silently leaving the lonely bench behind as the spied a silhoutted figure walking past the tall trees in the distance. He wondered for a short time who this spectre could be but the hunger was becoming too much to resist any longer. He turned his gaze and headed away...

The silhouetted figure continued it's march through the cold morning headed toward a tryst somewhere ahead. There was to be no romance in this secret meeting though, a crime was going to be planned. No bank was going to be hit, no house was going to be invaded, no drug deal was going down. No, this was not some large criminal organisation sending out their minions to plan a major hit on some major building downtown. The ghosts of the city were the target, and a small cemetery outside of town was the venue. It's 6pm closing time was about to be flouted.

The path ahead was still lined with the woods either side but it would soon turn toward the city, and the small diner where the path would end. Two black tracks down below lead the way for Tinka Belle as she trudged further along living off the thought of a warm seat and warm drink to frost off the ice within. Just then she began to hear a voice ahead. It was rambling with a hint of the crazy to it. Maybe an escaped patient from the local asylum was making this trail it's audience, but then again it could easily be mistaken for a member of the Republican Party. But in this grimey city, there were no babies to kiss.

She passed the vagrant rambler as he spouted something about a second moon in the sky. She peered up and saw not a single sight except a sheer cover of dull clouds. If there was one up there right now there was no way of viewing one as it was. And why would a second moon want to sit over this city? She herself began to talk out loudy whilst looking upwards, in aural range of some passing travellers who looked at her with quizzical eyes, "You just have to look at the moon we already have, look at all the scars on it's surface, that's just from sitting too close to this city. There's no way a second one would want to come that close."

Her eyes set back to the ground ahead as the path neared an end ushering in a field of snowed-over grass. The diner was just off yonder as she set sail...

The Ghost headed into the diner approaching the attractive young lady behind the counter.

"Give us a beer toots."

To Be Continued.....

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