Phantom Ch. 15

Chapter 15: John Edwards Speaks to the Dead

"Dead?" said Sophie, with raised eyebrows. "Sonya is really dead?"

"She really is. She was killed by a ghoul... who was trying to kill me," said the Doctor.

"Doctor, are you all right?" Sophie asked, looking anxiously at him.

"Yes, but are you?" He asked right back.

"What do you mean?" Sophie looked startled.

"This ghoul boasted that he... did things to you."

"Things?" said Sophie.

"Sophie, has anyone been here while I was gone?"

"No," said Sophie.

"Are you sure, Sophie?"

"No one was here, Doctor," she shook her head. "No one."

The Doctor sighed and hugged her. "Oh, Sophie, my dear Sophie."

She hugged him back. "Doctor, about before, I'm sorry-"

"Don't worry about it," said the Doctor, feeling her warmth against him. "We're all together again, and that's all that matters."

"Yes," said Sophie, for once agreeing with him. He felt good against her. She looked into his eyes. "Is Alanna... there too?"

The Doctor nodded.

"Then I guess we're one big happy family again," Sophie grimaced, as she pulled away. "I'll make breakfast." She said, walking to the kitchen.

Doctor, do you think she's all right?

I don't know.

********

His name was Thermopylae, and he thought he was the oldest kalak still in existence.

Thermopylae didn't really know for certain; and since there was no way to take an effective survey, he simply thought of himself as oldest.

Some kalaks simply faded away. Some Moved On. Some were destroyed.

But Thermopylae, he had a burning passion.

He wanted to be an actor.

Thermopylae had been an actor in Ancient Greece. He was a good actor, so he thought, but was always relegated to bit roles. Maybe because he wasn't handsome enough, he thought. Or maybe because he wouldn't have ass sex with Theodoris, the casting producer. Whatever it was, he always saw the good roles go to others. He felt intensely frustrated.

His frustrations boiled over even after he died, at the relatively young age of 37, the casualty of Ass to Mouth Disease after he ate a greek salad prepared by a server who used the wrong hand.

But Thermopylae didn't simply fade away. He came back as a kalak. And then, for the next three thousand years, he inhabited the bodies of actors.

At first he enjoyed it, but then it got boring after a while, as anything would, after 3000 years. Thermopylae's biggest objection was that even as he helped actors with their performances, even as he guided them to emote more convincingly, it was they, the actors, who got all the credit. No one even knew that he, Thermopylae, even existed.

And so over the years Thermopylae dabbled in different careers.

When the Doctor caught up with him, he was haunting houses.

********

At first, the idea of haunting houses and driving innocent families screaming from their homes wasn't something that intuitively excited Thermopylae. He was no Shade or Fiend, he didn't have any malign intentions against anyone.

But he did want to act. And so an unscrupulous realtor (an unemployed actor who learned of Thermopylae's existence), convinced him it would be the acting role of a lifetime.

Thermopylae was hesitant, but the first time he did it he loved it. He went into an expensive family home and hovered above them while having dinner.

"Woohoohoohoooooo!" he said, waving his glowing arms.

The family screamed and ran out the front door.

It only took three more appearances (usually at the dead of night-- Thermopylae found that he found the greatest appreciation for his work in the middle of the night) to persuade the family to move out and sell their home. Which they did, to Thermopylae's realtor friend at a fire sale price, who then in turn resold the house for its real value.

Thermopylae was not blind to what he was doing, but he was so enamored of the role, he so enjoyed getting such a visceral, raw reaction from real people that he soon grew addicted to it.

At least, until two years ago when a man in a black coat and floppy hat entered the latest house he had been haunting.

For you see, the family that lived there had hired the Doctor to exorcise their ghost.

Thermopylae didn't know who the Doctor was or the danger he represented. And so when the Doctor raised a strange looking weapon at him, Thermopylae, thinking it an ordinary compression gun, simply laughed. But then the beam fired, grazing Thermopylae, and he cried out in psychic pain, drifting down to the Doctor's feet like a wounded bird.

The Doctor pointed his Infinite Infinity Repeater at him.

"No, please, don't kill me!" Thermopylae pleaded.

"You're already dead," said the Doctor, aiming more precisely at him.

"I'm just a humble ghost, trying to make a living."

"Ghosts don't make a living. As I just noted, they're dead," said the Doctor. But his gun hand wavered, slightly. The Doctor sensed something different about this ghoul. Usually the conversations Doctors had with ghouls were brief, and the ghouls were threatening and snarling. This one was... almost comical.

"All right, poor choice of words," said Thermopylae, holding up a ghostly hand as if that could protect him from an IIR blast. "But I've been around for so many years! I have to do something to keep from going crazy."

"I have the cure for that," said the Doctor wide eyed with a smile, raising his gun again.

"Wait!" said Thermopylae. "Take pity, please! I never harmed anyone."

"You never harmed anyone? What about all the people you've driven out of their homes?"

"They moved! They went to a new environment! It's healthy, mentally speaking!" Thermopylae looked at the Doctor's face for any sign of encouragement. "Listen, you shouldn't be wasting your time with guys like me. You should be going after the real fiends, the ones who go after little girls and-"

"You know of some?"

"It so happens that I do."

And so the Doctor had spared Thermopylae's life, on the condition that he never, ever haunt a house again, and he promised never to interfere in the lives of mankind again. Thermopylae agreed, becoming the first kalak the Doctor had ever spared.

********

John Edwards was a holonet sensation.

For John Edwards could talk to the dead.

His studio audiences were filled with people desperate to talk to their loved ones from behind. And John Edwards delivered.

Unlike other psychics, who spoke in vague terms, John Edwards delivered. He would roam the audience at first, scanning for psychic energies, and then he would zero in on a single source of it, and find the person it was connected to. Then he would, in very specific terms, tell the person about their dearly departed. Given the specificity of his readings, there was no doubt that he was talking to the dead.

Vera Baker's husband Donald had died during a routine operation to get atomic testicle implants. She blamed herself bitterly. When she had been about to turn 40, Donald had offered her anything she wanted. Vera had shyly asked about testicle implants. She knew the latest atomic models were not bigger and heavier than their predecessors, but offered up to 25% more squirting power. She loved the idea of Donald squirting all over her titties. Ever since he had turned 35 his penis had turned from a spray hose into a drip irrigation system.

But when Donald went into surgery he never came out. It was only later that a nurse whispered to her that the surgeon had been smoking Weed, but Vera had no recourse because Weed was one of the nine basic civil rights decreed in Constitution 2.0 by the World Government.

But then she heard of John Edwards. John Edwards could talk to the dead! So she signed up to appear in the studio audience for his show. So did 200 other people--it was a small chance he would focus on her. But to get a private reading with Mr. Edwards cost ten thousand credits. This was all she could afford.

Vera felt a tingling in her body as she took her seat. She had a feeling that Mr. Edwards would come to her, would help her connect with her dearly departed Donald.

Sure enough, after Mr. Edwards introduced himself, he smiled at Vera. "I'm hearing a voice... a voice from the great beyond... it's a man's voice... a man whose name begins with the letter... D...."

"David! My uncle David!" an obese woman shouted.

"No, not David," said John Edwards. And then he walked so casually over to Vera. "His name is Donald."

"Yes!" said Vera. "My husband! His name was Donald!"

"At this very moment I am hearing the voice of your dead husband Donald," said John Edwards.

"You do? Tell Donald I love him! I love him I love him I love him!" Vera shouted, bouncing up and down like an atomic ping pong ball.

"He's telling me...." John Edwards concentrated immensely. "He's telling me that he loves you. That he loves you and misses you."

"Yes! That's my Donald!" Vera cried. "What else?"

"He also says... not to worry about the money," said John Edwards.

"He... he left me everything in his will... he wanted me to be provided for....."

"Yes," said Edwards. "He also said he loved going places with you. I'm seeing a place with... with trees, and grass."

"Horse Tackler Park! We went there many times!" Vera cried.

The audience started clapping hysterically.

John Edwards smiled and bowed low. He loved it all... the fawning crowds, the fan letters, the adoring audiences... it all made him feel so incredibly good.

And not only did it make him feel good, but it made him incredibly wealthy.

After the session was over, he went back to his dressing room. His producer patted him on the back and congratulated him on another fine show. The rest of the studio crew greeted him and gave thumbs up. Edwards felt like the day couldn't be better, until he entered his dressing room, to find the Doctor, sitting in his chair with his boots on his dressing room counter, raising his eyebrows suggestively as he aimed an IIR at him.

"Good afternoon," said the Doctor, grinning broadly. Sophie sat at his side.

********

"Who are you?" John Edwards said.

"I think you know exactly who I am," said the Doctor.

"No, I don't. Are you someone who was dissatisfied with a reading I did?"

"No, I'm actually here following a reading of my own," said the Doctor. "Voices spoke to me from the beyond, and told me that you have some connection to the Penguin, and if you don't tell me about it, I'm going to have to kill you."

"A penguin? Is this some kind of joke?"

Doctor, maybe he really doesn't know!

"I'm going to count to three," said the Doctor.

Sophie looked alarmed.

"No, please!" Edwards cried.

"One."

"I don't know what you're-"

"Two." The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Wait!"

"Three," the Doctor raised his IIR.

"Wait, wait, it was all him, not me!" Edwards cried.

"All him?" said the Doctor.

A glowing outline of a person slowly oozed out of John Edwards, causing Sophie to nearly stumble out of her chair.

The glowing kalak raised his hands in the air. "Don't shoot, Doctor!"

"Thermopylae?" said the Doctor. "I thought it was you."

"How did you know?" said Thermopylae.

"A psychic DNA trace."

"What?"

"Never mind," said the Doctor. "Thermopylae, what are you doing here? If I recall, I spared your life once."

You did? Doctor, did you really spare a kalak's life?

Yes.

I thought you killed all kalaks you encountered!

I had a moment of weakness with this one.

The more I learn about you, Doctor, the more I-

"Yes, you did spare me, and that was so nice of you," said Thermopylae.

"What are you doing here, Thermopylae?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, you see, it's him," said Thermopylae, pointing at John Edwards. "He's just like me."

"Just like you? He's a 3000 year old ghoul?" the Doctor asked.

"You're 3000 years old?" said John Edwards. "You didn't tell me that!"

"I do a lot of exercise, to stay young," said Thermopylae. "Doctor, John here is an unemployed actor, just like me."

"Except he's alive, and you're not," said the Doctor.

"A minor technicality. Anyway, he came up with this idea to help people."

"Let me guess," said the Doctor. "You talk to the dead."

"Yes," said Thermopylae. "And let me stress that in the beginning, to get us started, I actually did it, for real. I found kalaks floating around, and communicated with their relatives, letting their loved ones know they were all right."

"How charitable of you," said the Doctor dryly.

"Of course, word spread, and then we got our holoshow," said Thermopylae.

"But you don't actually talk to their dead relatives anymore, do you?"

"That proved to be too cumbersome for live holovision," said Thermopylae. "The odds of finding a kalak related to a studio audience member was infinitesimal."

"So how do you know the names of the loved ones who died? Let me guess, you go into their minds and pick their brains dry."

"I resent that!" said Thermopylae. "You make me sound like a body snatcher! They don't even know I am there, and they certainly aren't harmed."

"Aren't they? You're deceiving them about their deceased family members!"

"Yes, but I'm also making them happy, we're making them happy," said Thermopylae, pointing to John Edwards. "We're comforting people about losses in their close, personal lives. What could be more noble than that?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the Doctor, taking a Pad out of his pocket. "Let's see here. A private holoconsultation with John Edwards is 10,000 credits. For 50,000 credits, he'll appear at your fancy dress party and do his act in front of crowds. For 75,000, he'll appear at funerals and chat with the person being buried. Need I go on?"

"These... these were John's ideas," said Thermopylae.

"Listen, I'm an actor! I need to eat, you know?" said Edwards.

"It seems you eat quite well," said the Doctor.

"What about the Three Laws?" said Alanna, speaking through the Doctor for the first time. Thermopylae may not have noticed, but Sophie turned to the Doctor and scowled.

Thermopylae looked surprised. "You know about the Three Laws?"

"Of course," said the Doctor. "And you have violated them."

"No," said Thermopylae. "The First Law, the people I go into don't even know I'm there!"

"But he knows!" said the Doctor, pointing to John Edwards.

"He doesn't count. He wants me inside him, whispering in his ear," said Thermopylae.

"Which brings me to the Second Law. Interference," said Alanna, sounding like the Doctor.

"There is no interference," said Thermopylae. "How can I be said to be interfering when I'm helping people?"

"You're not helping people, you're deceiving them," said Alanna. "Which brings us to the Third Law, and the most important of all. The prohibition against doing harm."

"But they haven't been harmed. None of them have. They walk out of here so much happier and more content than they were when they came in," said Thermopylae.

"And with less money in their credit accounts," said the Doctor.

"It's a service. It's a... feel better service," said Thermopylae.

The Doctor pointed his IIR at Thermopylae. "I let you go once. I'm starting to regret that now. You promised to stay out of peoples' affairs."

"You're right, you're right," Thermopylae sobbed.

"But I might forget I saw you if you shut down your little act... as well as tell me everything you know about the Penguin."

"Shut down the show?" said Thermopylae. "But I'm an actor! The show is my lifeblood."

The Doctor raised his IIR again. "You have no blood. And if you continue this way, you may have no life to speak of."

"All right, all right," said Thermopylae. "You win!"

"No more talking to the dead shows?"

"No more talking to the dead shows."

"No more fleecing clients with private consultations?"

"No, no more," said Thermopylae

John Edwards cried out. "You're being quite unfair!"

"Quiet, you," said the Doctor. He turned back to Thermopylae. "All right, now what can you tell me about the Penguin?"

"Why... nothing. I've never heard of the Penguin."

The Doctor raised his IIR. "Would you like to reconsider that statement?"

"Really, Doctor! I know no one named the Penguin."

"He's a quite distinctive chap, half black, half white. Are you sure?" the Doctor asked.

"Absolutely," said Thermopylae.

What do you think, Doctor?

He could be lying.

Your psychic DNA tracing deals with probabilities. We still don't have a full DNA profile of the Penguin yet. He might be telling the truth.

That's possible also.

The Doctor reluctantly lowered his Infinite Infinity Repeater. "All right, Thermopylae," said the Doctor. "What else can you give me?"

********

The Doctor had booked two adjoining hotel rooms at the New York Hilton, one for himself and one for Sophie. After dinner he retired for the night in his own room, and made his goodnights to Sophie.

The Doctor lay down in bed and looked at his Pad while Alanna rubbed his back, virtually speaking.

The Crook of Devon? I've never heard of it.

"There's no reason you should have," said the Doctor. "It's a small village in the south of Scotland." Scotland. Not far from Glasgow, where Sonya had been killed. He tried not to think about it. The Doctor looked at his Pad. "My orbiting network detects an enormous concentration of kalaks there. Thermopylae may be right."

All Thermopylae had told them was that strange things were going on in the Crook of Devon. He hadn't given any further details, though the Doctor sensed he knew more than he was telling.

Alanna looked at the Doctor's Pad through his eyes, and saw the enormous red blotch on the small village. How many kalaks does that represent?

The Doctor shrugged. "Dozens, perhaps."

Dozens? I thought you had an orbiting satellite network. How come you didn't detect a concentration that large on your own?

"I have 63 satellites orbiting the Earth, constantly scanning for traces of psychic energy," said the Doctor. "But the scanners are very focused. It would take them years to meticulously cover every inch of land on the planet, and even then they could miss something. However, when I focused them on Crook of Devon, they detected this," said the Doctor, indicating the red mass. "Maybe it was a good idea not to shoot Thermopylae after all."

For the second time, Doctor. I never dreamed that you spared any kalak's life. Have you spared others?

The Doctor shifted in his hotel room bed. "I don't recall."

I think you do. When I first met you, Doctor, I thought you were a ruthless killer of kalaks, both good and bad. But you're not, are you? At the time I thought I barely persuaded you to spare Max's life. But if I hadn't have been there, would you have shot him?

"Maybe... possibly... who can say?" said the Doctor.

You're a good man, Doctor.

The Doctor suddenly felt a warmth against his side, as if someone was lying next to his chest and belly. And then, startlingly enough, he felt the nerve endings being stimulated in his lips, as if he were being kissed.

"Hey!" he cried out.

Did I do it right this time, Doctor?

The Doctor blinked rapidly. "It was... a credible effort."

I will try better next time. Goodnight, Doctor.

"Goodnight... you."

********

Sophie sat on her bed in her hotel room next door. She rubbed the crotch of her legs and felt immensely frustrated. The Doctor was all alone with her next door. She tried to tell herself that she shouldn't be jealous of a ghost, but she sensed that the Doctor was becoming closer to Alanna, even while he held her at arm's distance.

It wasn't fair! She loved him, didn't he see that? She knew he loved her too, loved her in the way she wanted, but was just too stubborn to admit it.

As Sophie pouted and felt sorry for herself, a stranger entered her hotel room. He didn't bother to open the door first; he just came right through it.

Sophie blinked as she recognized the intruder.

"Jack!" she cried, jumping out of bed and giving him a big hug.

Jack smiled and laughed. "Did you miss me?"

"So much!" Sophie cried.

"Then assume the position." His expression hardened. "Do you want me to ask twice?"

Sophie immediately got down on her knees in front of him. She bowed her head down and put her hands behind her back.

Jack cupped her chin and smiled as he watched her breasts stick out of her tight blouse. "So beautiful... and so submissive. Tell me, what is a beautiful thing like you doing all alone in a hotel room like this?"

"The Doctor refuses to let me share a hotel room with him," said Sophie.

"Why?"

"He says it's improper." Sophie made a face.

Jack chuckled. "Would you like me to do improper things with you, Sophie?"

"Yes, very much so." She looked up eagerly at him.

"Yes, very much so, what?" Jack looked at her insistently.

"Yes... very much so... Master."

Jack smiled. "Remove your clothes."

Sophie hurriedly undressed herself as Jack casually lay on the hotel room bed on his back. As she undressed, she never took her eyes off of him, hurriedly pulling her blouse over her head, and then putting her trembling hands behind her back to untie her breast control collar. It came off with a snap, and suddenly her firm Dutch breasts were on prominent display.

But Sophie felt no embarrassment. She was in too much of a hurry to disrobe. She kicked off her wooden shoes, removed her white pants, and took a deep breath and lowered her panties.

Then she stood erect in front of her Master.

"How shockingly beautiful," said Jack. "It's a real crime to keep you locked away in a Dome with a man who doesn't have the balls to use you."

"Yes, Master," Sophie agreed wistfully.

Suddenly Jack's form shimmered, and he was completely nude. His Poltergeist penis was already firm and hard, sticking up almost vertically from his groin.

Sophie licked her lips and rubbed her legs together hesitantly. "Will it... hurt?"

"Exquisitely," Jack smiled. "You may mount me now, Sophie."

Sophie looked at his tall penis and took a deep breath. She climbed onto the bed and spread her knees so they were on either side of her master's thighs.

Jack looked encouragingly at her with dark eyes and nodded ever so slightly. That was all that was needed.

Sophie hesitantly took Jack's penis in her hands, lifted herself up, and inserted him into her. Then she slowly started to ride up and down.

"Do you like it?" Jack asked.

"Yes, Master, very much," said Sophie.

And then the pain started.

Sophie felt a jolt of pain, radiating from Jack's penis deep inside her, every time she thrusted down on him, every time she lovingly impaled herself on him.

"It hurts, Master," she said.

"I know," Jack grinned.

Sophie never stopped moving up and down, despite the pain.

"Remember the pain with the arc lamps, Sophie?"

"Yes, Master," She said.

"Remember how good it felt?" Jack asked.

"Yes, Master," She hissed, her face screwing up with tension.

"Think about it. Think how good the pain felt. Think how the pain helped you come," said Jack.

His words had an almost hypnotic quality to it. As he spoke, Sophie felt the pain in her vagina coupling with pleasure. As she moved up and down she still felt discomfort, but also sexual arousal. Very quickly the pain became associated with the tortuous climb towards an orgasm, as it had with the arc lamps.

"Oh!" Sophie cried, as she moved up and down on Jack's tortuous shaft. "Ooooow!" she cried again, from pain and pleasure.

"Not so loud!" Jack said sharply. "The Doctor is in the next room. We wouldn't want to wake him, would we?"

"No, Master," said Sophie quickly.

"Then climax in silence!"

It was so difficult. The buildup of pain and pleasure was almost unbearable. Sophie cried out, but almost silently now, in a whisper. She bit her lip to silence herself.

It was the sexiest thing Jack had ever seen. A young 18 year old, riding up and down on his penis almost of her own accord, her young, firm breasts bouncing up and down, her body slick with sweat, her gorgeous face contorted with sexual agony, her eyes wide, her mouth pleading... it was enough to make Jack climax, even in the artificial body of a Poltergeist.

He felt himself building up to it now, just as Sophie was.

"Oh Master," she said, her breasts all shiny now. "Master, the pain is incredible!" she whispered yelled, in an oh-so-sexy voice.

"Then come!" Jack growled. "Let the pain take you over the top!"

"Oooooh!" Sophie whisper-cried, shaking her head as if to deny the intensity of it. "Ohhhh.... Ooooohhhhhh!" She yelled, in half whisper, half high pitched squeal, jerking her head up to the ceiling, her face twisted in a mask of pain and delight. It was enough to send Jack over the edge, and he felt an explosion in his penis as he exploded inside of her. But Jack's body wasn't real. He had no sperm to deposit. What he put in her instead was something much more durable, something much more valuable which, over time, would help to further cement his control over her. Sophie felt it as a burning sensation, a burning sensation which metastasized as a heavy weight deep inside her.

Sophie collapsed on top of Jack, breathing heavily as she pressed her large Dutch breasts against him. After a moment she raised her sweaty face. "Have I... satisfied you, Master?"

"Immensely," said Jack, petting her wet dark hair.

"I'm glad," said Sophie, putting her head on his chest.

"So am I," said Jack, glad that he didn't kill her earlier. Sophie wouldn't die, not yet. She still had possibilities. "And now Sophie dear, tell me exactly what the Doctor plans to do next."

The words spilled out of her mouth as she rushed to obey Master.