Ghoulies Abroad by Julie Steimle (bts book recommendations txt) 📖

the ground.

Chen glanced smugly to the others though, challenging their western paradigm of the universe.

“What was that?” Eddie muttered, looking wiped out.

“Ox-head and Horse-face,” the monk replied in decent English. “Spirits who guide souls to Diyu.”

Tom shook his head. “Weird.”

The monk chuckled knowingly, nodding to him.

“And what is Diyu?” Andy asked the monk while Rick came over, wondering why he had not seen the monk on the train.

“The spirit world,” Chen said. “Or what some people describe as Chinese Hell.”

Nodding to him, the monk added, “It is the place where all spirits normally go after they die.”

“So then why are there ghosts in the first place?” Daniel asked, examining this monk thoughtfully.

“Weird,” Tom murmured again.

Rick peered over at him.

Chuckling with another peek to Tom, the monk said, “Not all ghosts want to go to Diyu. Some are too attached to this world.”

“And need to be exorcised,” Rick murmured, thinking of JJ who had done that sort of thing all the time.

“What?” James peered at him. “But those two—”

“Are the weirdest grim reapers I have ever seen,” Tom said.

Chen gazed wanly at him. “They are not grim reapers, Tom. They are gate keepers to Diyu.”

“Actually,” the monk shook his head, “Your friend is technically correct.”

Chen stared at the monk, wide-eyed. “What?”

Tom cringed, hunching his shoulders down as is he had revealed a long-held secret. “Uh… I don’t just see imps. I see nearly every invisible being in the unseen world. Imp eyes witness the world as it is—that is those things which are not intentionally hiding themselves.”

This was new. Rick stared at Tom, now wondering what else he saw besides imps. He then recalled the goblins at the Macey’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Tom had seen them clearly. “What exactly do you see?”

Shrugging, Tom muttered, “I don’t like talking about it.”

Walking up to Tom, the monk patted him on the shoulder. “Tell them about this one thing.”

Glancing to him, Tom cringed. He closed his eyes and said, “I see what’s called… uh… destroying angels.”

They stared.

Sighing, Tom winced. “They are not fun to look at. Some of them are terrifying. And some of them are just ordinary.”

“Imp eyes see this?” Andy asked, his mind immediately going to Eve McAllister, whom Rick also thought of.

Tom nodded, following their thoughts well enough. “Yeah.” He then shook his head. “I don’t always understand what it is I am seeing. So I am sure your friend doesn’t either. But some destroying angels look like angels with wings. Others look like the grim reaper in all those scary pictures. But these two—I have never seen destroying angels with animal heads before. I’ve seen ones that look like bikers, ones that looked like monks of different faiths. I have even seen one with huge black wings and sharp teeth—like some kind of harpy or gargoyle. But all reapers have those hooked staffs which they use to catch souls.”

“Hooked staff?” Rick thought about what he had seen those two weird spirits were carrying. They did not look like a grim reaper’s scythe at all.

Tom shrugged. “You see what they want you to see, Rick. For all I know that cow head and horse head are both for show.”

Chen shook his head uncomfortably. “No. No. That can’t be it.”

Turning to him, the monk said, “We all look at the truth through a lens of perception. We all see something different because the minds of mortals are not capable of grasping the true extent of eternity. We only ever get bits.”

“If that,” Tom muttered, averting his eyes. Apparently he saw more than just bits.

The monk nodded to him. “True wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.”

“Well… I don’t know about any of that,” James said. Then he gestured to their battle ground and the strewn broken weapons. “But we can’t leave the train station with this mess.”

“We can’t leave a trail,” Eddie muttered, shaking his head at the metallic carnage. “First the hotel. Now this?”

“We melt them,” Daniel said, picking up a katana.

Agreeing, all of them gathered up the katanas to a spot on the concrete, piling them. The monk even helped. Then the Seven encircled the pile, invoking a searing hot fire together using their red crystals. It was as if the sun itself blazed down and rendered all those Japanese swords into a puddle of steel. The metal steamed in the cold air. When they stepped away, it was with a breath of relief.

“Ok…” They breathed more at ease, almost together. “Where to now?”

“Where are we going to sleep?” Chen muttered. “I don’t want to see another hotel room get destroyed.”

Rick nodded at that, cringing. But he also wanted to sleep in a bed. Those guys in the Seven were already sharing looks showing their willingness to sleep anywhere if necessary. They were like that.

But a local came up to them, gazing with wide eyes. “You get rid of ghosts! Ni pochu Riben guibing!”

The Seven exchanged looks.

“Tai hao le!” the man said. “Ni shi haojie! Come to my house! I give you food! Ni chi le ma? Lai wo de jia!”

Chen looked to them. “He’s offering us dinner.”

“But is he a demon?” Eddie hissed to him, leaning near.

Rick drew in a breath and shook his head. “He doesn’t smell like one.”

The monk grinned, bowing to the man. “Xie xie ni. Women de pengyou ren shi ni hen gao xing. Women chu ni de jia.”

He then led the way, following that eager local man.

“And I guess that means we are going…” Rick murmured, gazing at the monk who winked at him. Rick also noticed the monk’s staff was no longer there. He wondered about that.

Daniel nodded and so did James, following after the monk without any trepidation. Eddie and Semour exchanged a look, holding back while Tom and Chen went on ahead. Rick started off also.

“Woah,” Andy hissed with a look to Rick, grabbing his arm. “And why are we following this monk? I can feel something supernatural about him.”

“But he is not hostile, is he?” Rick asked.

Pausing, thinking on as he felt out, Andy shook his head. “No. Oddly enough.”

“This is the third time this monk has helped us,” Rick whispered closely to him. “I think what we really need to do is find out who he is—because maybe he is the monk who had contacted me.”

That sank in.

The monk glanced back at Rick winking once more. “I knew you were an intelligent wolf.”

 

No Safe Places

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

 

The Monk did not say much while they journeyed to the local man’s home. The local man, however, chatted enthusiastically with him, Chen, and anyone else who would listen or comprehend him. The long and short of it was that those Japanese ghosts had actually been haunting the train station at night for several months now—and the Seven’s arrival had been fortuitous. Rick suspected they had been told to come to Xinghua for just that reason. He also eyed the monk who was cheerily listening to Chen’s translations.

The local man’s apartment was on the seventh floor of a twelve story building. To get there took a bit and was an adventure in itself as they had to dodge insane traffic while maneuvering roads under renovation. His building was one of the older constructions in a typical Chinese block complex—mostly brick and lots of concrete with tile and stucco-like overlay. They stared up at it when the man pointed it out, then led them toward the main gate where they could go in.

Unlike American apartment complexes, most Chinese complexes take up the entire block, circumscribed entirely by a wall of store fronts on the ground level with a handful of guarded gates one can pass through on foot or by vehicle. Scooters alongside bicycles filled most of the sidewalk, with electric cords dangling down from balconies to charge them. Cars filled the rest of the gaps. The walkway itself was bumpy tiled path of laid baked brick. It was surreal as some children rolled by them on tiny Segway scooters listening to their iPhones—a mix between the old, dilapidated vestiges of the Mao era and the new, functioning capitalism that was sneaking in. That was China in general.

The security guard barely eyed them as he watched them pass through the gate at the word of the local man simply saying they were his friends. Each of them had the feeling that in a different era they would not have been allowed to walk around so freely—though Chen remarked it wasn’t a free nation yet.

Rick nodded, agreeing. His family’s company had done enough business with China to know that. Behind the scenes, dirty corrupt dealings still took place, and the government still maintained immense distrust toward foreigners.

Up the concrete stairs to the man’s door, the local man invited them into the house. The apartment was chilly with one space heater. The walls were covered in chalky paint with cracks than ran down the plaster, exposing the lines where brick blocks were stacked upon another. Rick whispered to the others, “This man is not very rich. So be very careful and polite.”

“Do all Chinese live like this?” Eddie murmured, looking around at the tile floor and the tiny room at the side which looked like it was a kitchen of a sort. There was a woman in it stirring something in a wok on an electric hot plate. A rice cooker was steaming to the side of it while another woman was chopping up garlic.

Rick covered up his nose, coughing. “No. Some are *cough*cough* very wealthy and have really nice stuff. He’s just not *cough* one of them.”

They looked around more while Rick hurried toward an open window to breathe. The windows were open, letting in ‘fresh’ air in the form of a cold draft.

Chen urgently whispered to the man of the house that Rick was deathly allergic to garlic. The monk watched Rick, scratching his chin pensively.

“Maybe dinner here is a bad idea after all,” Daniel murmured, watching Tom hop over to Rick as well, asking where Rick kept his epinephrine.

Andy grabbed Rick’s suitcase, digging it out. He rushed over to them.

“Wo gaosu ni, ta bu keneng chi dasuan.” Chen seemed to be getting riled up over his conversation with the local man who apparently was shocked about the garlic.

“Da suan hen hao chi!” The man paled.

“Ta keneng si le!” Chen exclaimed.

Shooting Rick a look of panic, the local man ran into the kitchen and begged them all to put away the garlic.

“I can’t stay here,” Rick wheezed. “It’s in the air.”

“How about we go out?” Tom quickly suggested, “Find an all-night KTV place or something and crash there?”

Rick nodded. They both headed back to the door. The monk followed.

“You guys can stay here,” Rick said to the others.

But Chen was already getting his things. “No. We don’t separate anymore. It’s not safe for any of us—especially not you. This man was well-meaning, but…” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “…you’ve gotta know how much garlic is in Chinese dishes.”

Rick nodded, his eyes set on the man who was now anxiously apologizing. Rick tried to explain in his limited Mandarin, “Duibuqi, keshi wo *cough* bu keneng liu zai zher.”

Distress rested on that man’s face. Yet he nodded.

Once more they were down the stairs.

The man guided them to a KTV as