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Granny was on it the moment the words escaped Echo's mouth. She had her phone whipped out and emergency services dialed before I even made it over to Johnny.
My friend leaned closer. "Help is on the way, dude. Wanna open the door?"
"Noooo..." Echo groaned from inside.
"I have a key," I offered.
Johnny nodded and I jogged over to get it.
The nice thing about living in Seaside is that people are really close, and the closest EMT was actually just a couple buildings down, a guy named Tim who ran the bait shop.
He ran into Bitter Beans with his medical bag. His red, curly hair was mussed, and he was wearing his visibility vest over his sweatpants and t-shirt. I must've interrupted him in the middle of a sleepy movie marathon or something, but he was here.
He adjusted his brass, wire-rimmed frames. "Someone's been poisoned?"
"He's in the bathroom," Granny said, pointing to the back wall. "Paige, unlock the door for Tim, would you dear?"
I got the key in and opened it up.
Echo was lying on the cold porcelain tiles, hugging the toilet. His face was pale and he groaned, but groaning meant he was still alive, which was good. His flat, black hair was sweaty and matted onto his face. Tim hurried in and began checking him out, lifting his lids and taking his pulse.
"Vitals are good. I think he'll be okay," he told Johnny and me. "Probably a stomach flu or maybe he ate something bad."
"I've been poisoned..." Echo mumbled.
"I got him," Tim assured me and Johnny as he wet a paper towel. "You do what you need to do. I'll get him cleaned up. The ambulance is on the way. We'll bring him over to the clinic and get some fluids in him, see if there's anything in his stomach that he could use some help getting out."
"Pooooisoned..." Echo muttered.
"Dude! Echo!" I could see that Johnny was trying to keep him talking, tapping into those years of being a lifeguard. Tim motioned to keep going, that it was good to give him a reason to stay conscious. "What am I supposed to do without you, my main man? You're my tour guide, Echo! What am I supposed to do with all these people who came to see you? There's mad crowds! Not angry-mad. Just, like, mad-crazy a LOT of people mad crowds. And, heck, I invested a lot of money at the dollar store on those glow sticks."
"The glow sticks are dumb..." Echo was conscious enough to murmur.
Guess he wasn't so far gone.
"Well, you could lead the tour yourself," I said to Johnny, trying to egg Echo into sitting up and telling us what he thought about the idea.
"Oh man..." he said. "I can't remember the real history of this town, much less the fake history."
"Ghosts are real..." Echo blathered.
Johnny and I fell into silence, not sure what else to say.
Granny came over and shooed us toward the front door. "Go take care of your guests, Johnny. You have a big crowd. I'll stay here with Echo."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Absolutely," she replied. "This is too big to blow off. We need to make sure all those people have a good time."
"I'll be there in a minute..." Echo slurred.
Granny began physically pushing Johnny and me out the door. "GO!"
We stepped onto the boardwalk and began walking fast toward the surf shack. Granny was right, there was a massive crowd milling about nervously. We needed to do some damage control before they went home and complained about how lame Seaside was and how some dork with a surf shack ripped them off.
Johnny seemed to have a deer-in-headlights moment as he tried to figure out what to do next. But then the light bulb went off.
"Would you come with me?" Johnny asked me. "Like, I'll do the tour and stuff, but just let me know if I'm getting anything wrong. And also if you could remember what I say so that I can tell everyone the same thing tomorrow if Echo still isn't feeling good?"
I squeezed his arm, honored he needed me to be there in his hour of need for some moral support. "Of course. Do it!"
And then Johnny flipped the switch on his nerves and showed only his master showman charm. You know, if the master showman was a burned out surfer who had been knocked on the head a couple too many times.
"Sorry!" apologized Johnny. "Slight change in plans! You'll be getting a tour with one of the people who was actually a witness to some of the brutal crimes here on the island and the ghosts they left behind."
"Johnny..." I cautioned.
"Just part of the show," he said out of the side of his mouth. "Play along." He raised his voice again. "Okay! Everyone follow me!"
He picked up the remaining glow sticks and held them aloft like some tour guides hold up umbrellas. It was actually pretty effective in the dark. We all slowly began to climb the hill to Main Street. I grabbed Echo's ghost box from the surf shack, and made sure to take the rear, keeping all the stragglers moving along.
"All right, m'hearties." Johnny seemed to be having a rough time deciding if he wanted to go with ghost hunter or pirate. "Seaside is the home to some of the most gruesome murders. And we're here to introduce you to some of the ghosts who still live here."
I was waiting for him to go into the sordid details of the past summer, but instead, Johnny started spinning stories about haunted fishermen who were lost at sea and ghosts who pushed people off of cliffs, and secret bandits who left their treasure inside the old bank and an old cannery worker who had died. It was kind of everything that had happened on our island, but set with the distance and safety of history.
I couldn't help but reflect on how Johnny is sometimes pretty darn genius. And even better, people were eating it up. The glazed over eyes of past tours were gone. People were laughing and joking, and thoroughly enjoying Johnny's pirate-surfer persona.
Finally, we ended up next to the old hardware store.
Johnny pointed up at the second story. "And here, Paige herself was with a group of people when a poltergeist appeared and knocked over a stack of products.
All eyes shifted over to me expectantly, as if waiting for me to confirm or deny it. But then, suddenly, someone shouted, "Look! There's someone up there!"
A girl in our group screamed and pointed.
We all turned just in time to see a pale face appear and then disappear in the dark glass.