Ridiculust Ch. 13

"Sarah," said John gently, "there's someone who wants to say hi." He pointed towards the bar, where Julia, Emma, Bill, and Matt were talking to a female figure who was glowing with violet, gold, and red. She turned pale.

"M-mom?" she asked in a small shaky voice, already starting to push her way through the Purple Chimps and others, with John following close behind to take advantage of his personal bulldozer.

"Debbie, what the hell have we done?" Roger asked, closing his eyes and trying to maintain his grip on the power that was washing around the room like a bathtub full of water on a boat. "Jeannie, Joe, maybe you're better positioned to answer."

"I don't even know how we're holding this in," Debbie replied with gritted teeth. "I have no idea what I'm doing or how I'm doing it. Joe, can you help somehow?" The two ghosts looked at each other, shrugged, held hands and each held their original spouse's hand.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Jeannie as she somehow connected to Roger's circuit. "We brought a few friends because we thought that you guys would be up to something."

"They may have been hoping that somehow they could be made visible so that they could interact with their loved ones," Joe added, wincing as the power flowed into him. Both he and Jeannie were glowing brightly in multiple, fast-shifting colours.

"I wonder who might have told them that?" said Debbie flatly, glowering at him. He tried to look innocent, but would not meet her eyes.

"I have a pun we could use," Roger said, ignoring the expected eye-rolling. "I don't know how much power it would take to give everyone flesh-and-blood bodies, but I think that we can at least anchor the spirits here in our world. But I think that everyone will have to hold hands and become part of the circuit. We can't do this ourselves if we want more power than this." The din from all of the people crowding into the room made it barely possible for the four of them to hear each other, let alone get a message out. Then Debbie got an idea, and she glowed even brighter.

"A poster of a bunch of watches and clocks is a sign of the times," she said clearly. A message in bright yellow letters suddenly appeared on the ceiling, which said "Everybody SHUT UP!" The words drifted around the room, and they quickly had the desired effect.

"It was you who corrupted her!" Joe accused. Roger snickered, as silence fell and the attention of the crowd of people and spirits fell on them. "Ladies and gentlemen, please gather around and hold hands to form a chain," he said loudly. "For our final number, we will be singing 'The Rose', and we will need everyone's help to contain the energy that Roger will use to solidify the forms of the ghosts." It took about five minutes of murmuring and shuffling as the people rearranged themselves so that they eventually formed a closed ring. Sarah and John had returned to the other four and linked up with them so that the ghostly spouses were between the flesh and blood spouses.

Outside, about a dozen other passers-by had joined the five who had come to see the Archetypes in action, and they all somewhat reluctantly formed a closed L shape that wrapped around the outside corner of the building. Roger, who found himself near one of the corner windows, looked out and saw them standing there.

"Hi, folks," he said, attracting the attention of the others near him in the room. "I'm glad that you could join us. Brace yourselves!" Anna quickly stepped out of the group to select 'The Rose' from the karaoke website, and then resumed her place between Arthur and Pat. The simple piano intro started and there was a collective intake of breath.

"Some say love, it is a river," they began quietly, all thinking about people they had lost in the past, some of whom were here in the room with them. "How many times has this song been played at funerals?" Sarah wondered as she looked around her. The spirit of her mother was over by the bar with Emma, Julia, and their beloved. As it happened, she had John holding her right hand and Jeannie her left, with Roger holding Jeannie's other hand. Debbie was holding John's other hand, and Joe holding her other hand. She remembered all too clearly how the school's choir had sung it as part of the assembly held in remembrance of John. Looking at him looking at her, she could see that he remembered it too. Everyone she could see had tracks of tears glistening down their faces as they remembered.

"It's the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance," the group continued. Jeannie thought of how she'd taken the chance by sitting next to Roger in the movie theatre that one magical night in which everything had changed. And now, somehow, he'd become the linchpin of this whole crazy scheme to get her and the other spirits some sort of body again. They locked gazes and she knew that she had not made a mistake. Everyone inside and outside the room was glowing brightly, especially the ghosts who seemed to be accumulating power as the song progressed. Joe could feel it all through him, a tingling, tickling sensation. He had no idea what the hell was going to happen, but even if it didn't work out, he was glad that he had been granted the chance to tell Debbie that he loved her one last time, when for all the past few years he hadn't even been able to reach her.

"... that with the sun's love in the Spring becomes the rose." This was it. The room was full to bursting of glowing people, full of loving memories, full of hope. Roger focused on the idea of giving the spirits around him some sort of physical bodies. His clearing of his throat seemed loud in the silence of the room and the quiet sounds from outside. As the pun formed in his thoughts, he felt the power surge, wanting to be free.

"Why do ghosts like elevators?" he asked. He heard Jeannie groan quietly in the way he'd heard her so many times as he wound up for the punch line. "Because they lift the spirits." There was a pause, then everyone felt a surge of power as the magic went to work. The eighteen spirits inside and two outside glowed brighter and brighter with more and more rapidly swirling colours.

"Oh, this feels really weird," said John. "Don't let go of us!" There was no need for him to fear because the power was causing the muscles in the hands and arms of those holding the hands of the ghosts to lock, rather painfully for both of them. In addition to the lights, there was a sound like a herd of horses at full charge that was rapidly increasing in intensity. It was all that Roger could do to keep his brain from flaming out. The truly weird thing about it was that there was a feeling of calm and peace that was sitting rather heavily on top of the fear and agitation caused by the roaring power that had been unleashed.

"Oh God, here it comes!" he shouted over the thunder and there was a tremendous flash of light and an instantaneous clap of thunder and people inside and out were thrown all around. The door into the kitchen was blown in and a pulse of multi-coloured light raced towards the park where it eventually slammed into the silver maple in the grove of huge trees. There were several small explosions of smoke and blown-out rot and a loud crackling and popping as suddenly empty channels were filled in by the contracting branches and trunks.

But at Julia's Bed and Breakfast, all was eerily quiet. As it happened, it was Sadie Corcoran who regained consciousness first. She sat up from where she had fallen and blearily surveyed the wasteland of overturned tables and chairs and scattered bodies, most of which were starting to stir. A blonde head peeked over the edge of the bar, whose exposed bottles of alcohol had mostly survived because they were not in the direct path of the explosion. Emma smiled weakly at the bassist, who returned it with a grimace as various muscles declared their outrage at their mistreatment. Jeannie suddenly sat up with a gasp, looking around wildly, and then looked down at her hands. They looked human, complete with veins on the top. She lifted her C-cup breasts with dollar coin sized brown areolas and medium-sized nipples and looked at them in astonishment, then suddenly realized that she was naked and tried to cover them up. She shook her head and her past-shoulder length brown hair moved with it.

"He did it!" she croaked, then coughed. "He brought us back! We're alive again!" The volume of noise quickly rose as everyone returned to the land of the living. There were happy shouts and screams when it was found that all of the former spirits had become flesh-and-blood humans again. Despite the physical and mental battering that the people had experienced, it had left everyone feeling happy and excited. The biggest problem was finding enough clothes for twenty naked men and women so that they wouldn't be busted for indecent exposure when they were taken to their loved ones' homes. Sarah, Julia, and Emma, with John, Bill, and Matt trailing behind, had the easiest time of it, having only to retreat to the apartment at the back of the house to get some things for Sarah and Julia's mother. Others who were guests in the B&B also grabbed some things, while frantic phone calls home brought in another bunch of emotional people, as well as clothing. Of the Purple Chimps, only Ellen had someone come back, her maternal grandfather as it turned out, and they were all really happy for her and were able to get him to her car with Pat's shirt around his waist as an improvised loin cloth.

"Just like what Roger had to do after he rescued Sarah," said Debbie to a somewhat decently covered Joe and Jeannie. "Speaking of whom, where is he? Have any of you seen him?"

"I think that he got away in the confusion," Jeannie scowled with her hands on her hips. "How are we going to find him? He's had at least an hour out in the wild and could be anywhere!"

"Maybe he made it back to Sarah's place," Joe suggested, warily eyeing the women. "Or the park. I know that he liked it there."

"Let's get you two properly kitted out and go look for him," said Debbie. "I think that you're right, Joe. The park is a good place to start, since he doesn't know the town."