Abandonment - Part 3

You're cooped up. You've streamed so much, water is coming out of your tv. You've eaten more macaroni-and-cheese than is humanly possible. Friend, take a break on the electric streets of New Toronto. Missed part 2? Then take a detour here, otherwise, let's get on with the action. 

I couldn't sleep. Hospitals put me on edge at the best of times and especially at night. During the day they ran their tests on me and later told me my head seemed ok, but said I should stay over night so they could observe. Just in case. I didn't have anywhere to be, and I didn't want to risk some blow-out in my brain. I stayed.

But I couldn't sleep. I think it's the sounds. The only free bed they had was up on the seventeenth floor in the geriatric ward. During the day it was ok, but now there were all manner of disturbing noises. I decided to walk around the floor awhile and try to burn off my edginess. There was a small lounge near the nurse's station. It had a coffee machine that dispensed some fluid they referred to as soup. I walked over, dropped in some coins, and out squirted something steaming into a cup. I reached down to remove it from the machine's output slot and felt a cold grip on my left shoulder. I turned to see who it was and automatically jerked my shoulder back when I did. It was Adams. Again.

Adams released his grip and pulled back. He said, "Hello again."

It was either a ghost or I was having a stoke. I stood there frozen, staring at him. If it was a ghost, I could handle that; a stroke, not so much. He said, "Why don't we sit down."

I shuffled over to one of the worn out, half-dozen cast-off chairs that made up the lounging part of the lounge. I sat down and Adams sat in a chair opposite me. He said, "Are you ok?"

"I don't think I'm ok. I'm sitting in a hospital talking to myself."

"You are not talking to yourself, you are talking to me, Zachariah Adams. Do you remember who I am?"

"I remember who you were. There must be something wrong with me." Believe me, I thought there was something seriously wrong with me. I said, "I think I need to speak to a nurse."

"If it will make you happy, but before you do, please let me speak."

I was finally feeling tired. Maybe it was the shock. I didn't feel like fighting him. Fighting it. Or fighting period. I slumped back in the chair and said, "Ok, shoot."

"I need you to do a job for me."

"Can you tell me why I should believe you're here? Maybe you're a hallucination? Are you a ghost? I saw you die."

"Yes, I am dead, but I do not know if I am a ghost. All I know is I have seen no one or no thing. I do not know if I exist or not. Sometimes I believe I think or something thinks my thoughts. I cannot explain anything or even how I got here, but I am here, and I have a  job for you."

"Why me?"

"We are connected. Are we not?"

I was feeling tired and raw and my edge was getting ragged. I leaned forward and asked, "Is this how the afterlife works? Harassing the living and giving them jobs? Why should I help you after all the trouble you caused?"

Adams leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, rested his head in his hands and stared at the floor. He replied, "I do not know how all this works. Am I ghost? Am I in the afterlife? Heaven? Hell? I do not know what I am or where I am. I know I caused a death, ruined lives, and was responsible for all manner of trouble. I deeply regret it and I would reverse it all if I could, but I cannot.  All I know is I have a job for you."

He was distraught. I relented to try and end all this. I said, "OK, what do you want me to do?"

Adams looked up a bit and replied, "I kept a set of records documenting my activities with those men who were paying me to disrupt fusor research. I put the records in a file labeled Smith and stored them at my home mingled in with my family genealogy records. My daughter was to get the genealogy files when I died. Please retrieve the Smith file from her and send it to Phil Douglas. He is, or was, the deputy-secretary at the bureau. He is the only one there I trust. I cannot fix my sins, but Douglas will recognize what you have sent him, and have the proof to go after all those people who are bent on ruining things for other people so they can make life better for themselves. That is all I can do."

"Why me? Why don't you contact your daughter and get her to do it?"

"All I know is that we are connected and I need to ask you. I do not know why I cannot contact her. I do not know how any of this works."

"Do you know her phone number?"

"316, Russell, 738."

Here I was, in the middle of the night, sitting in a chair in the middle of a hospital lounge talking into thin air and asking a ghost for a phone number. You'd think someone would notice. Someone finally did. A nurse at the desk gently called over to me, "Are you alright Mr. Bryce?" I turned to look at her. She got up and started to walk towards me. I turned back to Adams. He was gone.

Part 4 is here.