The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [149]
But the presence himself was even more recognizable and the most dominant and lingering impression Scratch had of him was his first impression, which came to him as soon as the cataclysm of evening news gave way to the perplexity of Max Polito actually being there...of how he’d taken the life of the reverend and championed this other geek who turned out to be some UFO crusader named Max Polito, leaving him mangled and bleeding and behind with dear Alice and his sweet abandoned abode, and the sonofabitch still lived....
Only to impose yet another, solo, visit...
And this time, under tableturned quandary.
The news of Alice’s abortion rendered Scratch vulnerable and defenseless, and the intruder he’d been searching for had chosen this of all times to make himself known. Hell, even the immediate acknowledgment of the presence’s identity was enough for Scratch to regress into a motionless statue of awe.
“Do I have your attention?” The visitor puffed upon his cigarette bent at one side of his mouth in a wince like Burgess Meredith. He raised the manuscript from atop his knee and waved it in the air as if to proclaim an acquired victory. “I now have what you have, as much as the knowledge of this...fragmented...book. It’s extremely interesting, this...book. It aides us in our cause. Pity it misled you. But even though you must be devastated how your efforts to impregnate Alice went to shit just now, I know what’s written beyond the pages of this book, and I can set you free.”
The resurrected Max then outstretched his legs, one after the other, until he found footing upon the carpet and stood fully.
There was something disturbingly familiar and otherworldly about him, Scratch noted next; the hair of this Max-thing was flailed as though slept upon and was of a dyed gothic blueblack. His eyes were as inkpools of equal color and absent of pupils. His skin was bloodlessly pale. The clothes he wore were the same as on the moment of his death, yet their color appeared to blend and become one with the color of his beige leather jacket,his trousers, even the socks on his feet were of a shade of beige.
And there was a subtle transparency begirding him, the suggestion of a distorted aura, as though this presence was a bluescreened impersonation of Polito superimposed upon the realm of physical reality...
...all the post-death attributes of little Nigel, augmented and somehow superior.
Another click of the channel changer and the Headline News commenced. Polito discarded the clicker onto the loveseat, took his cigarette and extinguished it beneath his beige shoe at the coffee table’s corner leg.
“Yes, I’m indeed the same sort of creature Nigel became.” Polito confirmed Scratch’s suspicions, “But only because of the age I died I am far more useful than him. You see, my Beloved One can only create one of us at a time and we can only be conformed to her image when we are freshly killed by you. I am my Beloved One’s eyes and ears. My lips speak her words. One of the many purposes of mine is to keep tabs on you, yes, like Nigel did, but I am here to give assurance to my Magdalene that the coast is clear for her to reveal herself and to prepare you for a brand-spanking new deal, to set you free. Tell me, for my sake, how did you ever manage to catch poor Nigel, after all these years?”
“The same way I can catch you," Scratch said, determined yet plainly.
“How can you catch a ghost?” Polito scoffed.
“You are not a mere ghost! Whatever you are, you’re physical enough to be killed again and for good when I get my hands on you!”
Scratch went forward in a bold fit to make Max an example of his point, but before he knew it Polito was no longer there. Instead, the vision of him vanished,