Containment:
Chapter One
Life’s different among the dead. It didn’t completely end for them, but it changed things. Most still had movement. Some held on to desire. Some kept sadness or rage. It fascinated me even as I watched them, intent blazing in their eyes.
You’d think their eyes would be empty. But they were vibrant and full of hatred. And revenge.
Swirling patterns of phosphorescence left by wraiths turned into grotesque artwork as they moved about their containment chambers. On rare occasions these ghosts, or spirits, or whatever they were, stopped moving long enough for me to get a good look at their faces as they spiraled toward the glass at astounding speeds. They were hollow-cheeked, wide-eyed, and terrifying as their transparent forms thudded against the glass. The sound danced off the walls and echoed in my ears.
Even after doing this job for over five years, it was still mesmerizing to watch the random movements of their incorporeal bodies as they slammed against the Pseudoglas to no avail. In lab tests, the barrier had held against simulated hurricanes and tsunamis; it wouldn’t be affected by infuriated ghostflesh.
It affected me, though. Each shift in this cramped office alone watching over the spirit room killed my hopes a little. Constant reminders that each person, down to the humblest soul would end up here, as a restless phantom or tormented spirit giving the City the last of its spectral energy.
Row after row of clear reinforced Pseudoglas separated the dead from my mortal flesh and kept them from having any effect outside their boxes. Apparitions. Ribbon ghosts swirled their light trails into crude abstract designs. Spectral vortexes with their roiling, tornadic force slammed against their confines. Their eerie cacophony was the soundtrack of my dreams and nightmares.
Kinda made me question what we bothered living for if your eternity couldn’t be your own. People should have a right to eternal rest. Your only hope was to not want anything and be at peace with the world and hope no one killed you before you could achieve a state of nirvana. Needless to say, we had plenty of reserve power.
I shifted in my chair in the dormitory bedroom-sized office overlooking the spirit room and scratched at my 5 o’clock shadow. When I looked at the digital display over the main spectral energy filter, it glowed green, the “all-systems-functioning-and-you’re-not-about-to-die” color.
Fortunately, there wasn’t much to do and the spirit room was quiet. No drills or random inspections of the containment areas. Unfortunately, the slow night gave me more time to think about what I was going to do about Andy. I couldn’t leave him in my apartment until I figured out what was going on with him. Why did I even care? I knew the reason. It brought back images of myself when I felt lost and abandoned.
I leaned back in the office chair and sighed. Mom would know what to do. But there was no way to ask her. The time on the console showed 4:45, fifteen minutes left in my shift. Not much got done on my shift today, as I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was going to do about Andy. It was too difficult to get a job with the city, so I had no desire to do anything to jeopardize my position. Not to mention that people who ignored the rules and laws tended to disappear quickly.
I got up and went downstairs to do a face-to-face check of the levels in the spirit room. There was an eerie silence in the frigid air as I descended to check on the containment units. This was a one-man job during the evening hours, but I didn’t mind. All maintenance was done during the daylight hours. Working the night shift paid more, so some people signed up for the shift to get the extra hours. But they never lasted more than a week. The silence and the weight of the spectral stares was too much for them, so they had to employ two people in order to keep them sane. When I came on board, management was ecstatic that I was able to handle the shift without assistance. They saved an entire salary and didn’t have to pay exorbitant phone and computer bills from employees trying to reach out to friends in order to keep their sanity.
The corridors of the spirit room were sparse. The chambers lined the unbroken wall of chrome and beige bathroom-stall sized units, disturbingly similar to the ancient drawings of prison cells from the 21st century. My footsteps echoed in the sterile room, the only ambient sound the soft humming of the chambers themselves. The rumbling reminded me of what a large purring cat would sound like. Most of the chambers were without activity; many of the spirits weren’t capable of speech.
“Did you try it with the onion?”
Fortunately for me, some of them did.
“Hi, Marcus.”
Marcus was a chef, or had been in life. From time to time, he would give me suggestions on elevating my cuisine. So far, he’d never been wrong. “Did you try it, Feast? It was glorious, yes?”
“I did add onions to the bouillabaisse and it was great. Added some mushrooms, too. The brown ones.”
“Cremini, surely. Excellent choice. You are learning, my boy. Getting better.” His pudgy face glowed with ethereal pleasure. “Even now, I can almost smell it. Bring it in, Feast. For lunch. I want to watch you eat it.”
I promised I would, even though it creeped me out a bit. But I’m sure it was hard being kept aware after most of your senses were gone. So I obliged Marcus most time, describing the scents and flavors in intricate detail.
As I moved down the rows, one chamber held a spirit that only ever giggled. “Hi, Cherise.”
Heee heee.
Then there were the ones that only stared. Grey green mist coalesced into a human like form, but with no features. But you could tell it was staring at you by the way the tilt of its head followed your movements as you went through the room.
After checking all of the cells, there was nothing more for me to do until Max came to relieve me at 5:00. He seemed like a good guy, had only been working here a few weeks. The squeak of shoes on tile brought me to attention. If it was Max, he was early. If it wasn’t, I had the steel bar under the console to handle the situation.
“What’s up, man? Feast, right?” Max sauntered in and leaned his lanky body against the doorframe.
“That’s right. All is secure—”
“Nah, I mean, what’s up with you?”
This was new. Max usually got the night’s update as he walked in the door at 5:00 with a minimum of words. I wondered what was going on. “Nothing. Quiet night.” I didn’t tell him about my recipe conversation with Marcus. No need to give anyone any more confirmation that I’m not fully human.
“Good.” He raised his perfect eyebrows as he touched the back of a chair I had my feet on. I moved them and let him have the seat. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what kinda name is Feast, anyway? What’s its origin? I’m curious.”
“It’s a family name.”
“Right. You’re what, half demon or something?” When he saw my hesitation, he explained. “Look man, I was in the break room with a couple of other guys and they were talking about you. How they wouldn’t want to be me, taking over shift from a demon in the middle of the night. Laughing about it and shit. I don’t like that shit, man. Not too many centuries ago when my people were stereotyped like that.” He rubbed a hand over the dark skin of his cheek.
“So, I don’t know anything about you and I’d like to. You cool with that?”
I was so surprised that I nodded. No one in five years had ever expressed an interest in getting to know my background or me. Most times, it felt like I floated through the office like one of the spirits, unseen until someone wanted you for something.
“Sure,” I said. “Feast isn’t a demon name. Humans can’t even pronounce those. It’s a devil name. And I’m only a quarter, not half.”
“Like Lucifer?”
I winced. “Not exactly. But I don’t know that much about that side of the family. My… dad… left when I was little. So there’s not a whole lot that I know.”
Max nodded as if he understood and his next words confirmed it. “I hear you. My old man came back home after the Shade Wars and we were happy to see him. For a while at least.” He stretched his legs out, looking at his reflection in the toe of his highly polished boot.
He was quiet for so long that I asked. “What happened?” Immediately, I regretted it. There was enough on my plate without hearing about someone else’s daddy issues.
“He got paranoid about every thing. And when he got paranoid, he got angry. Accused my mom of cheating on him one night and tried to choke her at my gran’s house.” At his next pause I stayed silent.
“Gran pulled a gun on him. An old one like. The ones with the bullets. He left then.”
We both stared out at the spirit room, realizing at the same time that maybe the contained specters weren’t the only ghosts around.
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