Secret Dead Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked.
    "Yep. And you're not going to remember any of this, either." I cold-cocked his soul with my spectral fist--you can do that, you know--then walked through the front doors and back into the real world.
    I stood up and dusted myself off. Then I closed my eyes again, and visualized Agent Fieldman. Once I had him, and started to feel the weight of his conscious mind, I popped open my eyes and flung Fieldman's soul back into his physical body. A moment later he popped back to life, choking and writhing. In my professional opinion, he'd live.
    I started to run down the road. My head pounded something fierce. I wasn't used to collecting and flinging souls around like that. About twenty yards later, I heard Harlan's voice in my head. Uh, boss? What am I looking for again?
    Boy, was I going to hurt that fat bastard when this was all over.
    * * * *
    Two miles and four pounds of sweat later I found a black Dodge, recent model. My dress shirt was drenched. I removed my jacket, wrapped it around my elbow, smashed the passenger window, unlocked the door, brushed broken glass off the seat with my jacket and slid across the seat. I couldn't stop sweating. My head felt like a garden hose with a hundred leaks. I wiped my forehead with my coat sleeve. Wonderful. Another $35 investment down the tubes.
    It was time to call for back-up. I closed my eyes, and visualized a microphone with a big black button on its base. I mentally depressed the button--which triggered a set of speakers in the Brain Hotel--and started thinking out loud. Doug Isom. Paging Doug Isom. Doug was this hippie who used to steal stereos to buy marijuana. I'd absorbed him for moments like this.
    Hey, Del!
    "Hi, Doug," I said. "No time to chat. I'm going to surrender control to you in three seconds. I need you to start this car."
    Right on, man.
    Since Doug could grow all the Brain pot he could ever use in the comfort of his own room, stealing was now strictly for fun. In many ways, reality was a bigger high for Doug--especially parceled out in tiny snatches, here and there.
    I nestled back into the seat, closed my eyes and slipped away, and found myself inside the Brain Hotel lobby. Doug was there, smiling lopsidedly at me.
    "Go ahead," I said. "Body's all yours."
    Doug walked through the front doors and into total blackness. His image vanished as his consciousness was transported to reality. And let me tell you, reality must have been a serious rush for this baked potato. But he didn't let it affect his professional abilities. He cracked the column, pulled out a wire, and sparked the ignition.
    "Your car, sir," Doug said upon his return. He was laughing to himself. He was always laughing about things that, quite frankly, were not even remotely funny.
    "Thanks, Doug," I said as I passed him and walked back through the front doors.
    I hammered the gas pedal like the back of a long-lost friend.
    * * * *
    I wanted to drive west, to return to familiar turf, but my instincts told me to head east, away from the maelstrom. Indiana came and went and I'd barely registered the state. Not much to it; a lot of highways and random office buildings interrupted by farmland. The only thing that kept me sane on the trip was the car's AM radio. Thank God it worked. I'd missed listening to my albums back home--sometimes, I think pop music holds the tattered and worn fabric I like to call my "life" together. Songs pin down times and places like nothing else. I can remember what song was playing the day I drove home from college graduation ("True Love Ways"), the first time I had sex, ("Sweet Pea"), and the day I was hired as a reporter at the Bulletin ("What is Life?"). Right now, the station I'd found was playing Lynn Anderson's hit "Rose Garden." Big hit in 1970--the year I was collected. " Smile for a while and let's be jolly, " I sang along. " Life shouldn't be so melancholy ."
    Yeah, pop songs were comforting all right, but sometimes they could be a huge pain in the