Every Breath You Take Read online

  A confession to the killing.

  The room smelled like meat loaf, the kind Julia’s sister, Rosilee, used to make one weekend a month when Julia and their brother, Victor, used to go over to Rosilee’s for family time. But that was before Julia had dosed their water with hard-to-trace ricin and quietly “nursed” them herself until she “found” them both at Rosilee’s home and hysterically brought them to the hospital, only too late.

  Poor Julia. She was now the only sibling alive and in line for a modest family inheritance that’d be released from its trust next year.

  Now, as Julia sat up in her chair and sniffed the meat loaf in the air, Randy changed his mind about getting in on the action and settled on top of a piano near the computer, at least trying to put some effort into the haunting.

  “Thass right, lady, take a good whuff of what we got for ya.”

  His eternally drunk slur only added to his comic appearance, what with his 1940s sailor hat tilted on his head and his white uniform touched with ghost gray. He was smiling in that endearing crooked-toothed, pug-nose way he had, too. But it wasn’t the smile that’d grown on me over the past few months, after Amanda Lee had pulled me out of my time loop in Elfin Forest, where I’d been in a perpetual state of shock ever since being murdered there. It was goofy, fun Randy himself.

  Louis, who was still floating aimlessly, seemed even extra–bummed out today. Just at the sight of him, my pseudo-heart sank. A black man in a World War II–era factory uniform, still on the fringes of the group. His complexion was wan from the sun that struggled through a window and permeated his form.

  At least he was engaged enough to have a faint smile on his face as he watched Julia frowning and gazing around the room. It was like he was thinking, Yes, you piece of filth. Remember that night when you served meat loaf along with that ricin cocktail?

  Oh, I was sure Julia was remembering, all right. I’d told her dead sister and brother when they’d come to me and begged for help that I would get her to this point. As new ghosts, they’d suspected her of the crime but hadn’t known all the tricks to find out for sure. Also, they hadn’t exactly wanted to put her through a haunting themselves if, for some reason, she was innocent.

  All they wanted from her was a confession and the promise of justice, and then they could rest in peace. Lucky dogs.

  Julia slowly got up from her computer chair, her hand to her chest, her fingers clutching the robe shut. She warily walked to the kitchen, where the smell was coming from.

  Randy glanced at me, and I jerked my chin toward her. Go for it!

  I could see his decision—to keep haunting or not to haunt? That was the question—play out on his expressive face. And it dragged me down again, because Randy and Louis had never been like this. Not until they’d been attacked by that dark sprit—

  Without warning, Randy zoomed away from the computer, catching up to Julia, and I almost did a fist pump. But Louis stayed put, resting his chin in his hand and going to float-sit on the top of a recliner.

  I gave him a defeated look, and he sighed. The sound traveled through the atmosphere like a vibrating cuff of wind. Near the kitchen, Julia whipped around to see what was going on. Randy was right behind her, hesitating again.

  Could my partners be bigger wastoids right now?

  Julia was starting to get scared, so I guessed that meant I could start feeding off her fear. Finally.

  I culled her cold emotion, and added more energy from the air itself. I put both together, creating a sound that was sure to scare her. . . .

  A person gasping for breath, like someone in the room was dying.

  As Julia grasped the counter next to her, I added a wail that resembled her brother’s voice for good measure, then spread my hands out to my friends.

  “Seriously, you guys?”

  “I jus’ don’t have it in me,” Randy said.

  Louis merely sighed again.

  Julia was starting to shiver. “Hello? Who’s there?”

  Almost as a consolation to me, Randy halfheartedly groaned behind her, and she spun on her heels toward him, her hand to her throat. Randy was this close to being his old, perky self, and I motioned for him to sound off again.

  He complied. “Groooooaaan!”

  Awesome! Her fear was tickling me.

  I turned to Louis. “Now your turn. Let’s finish this!”

  Julia was peering around like a frightened bird.

  Louis ran a hand over his short dark hair. “You’ll get this done without me. Go on.”

  Randy stopped groaning. “Shame here, Jen. I jus’ need . . .” He slumped toward the ground. “Shome rest.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.” I sped over to him, creating a whoosh of air that lifted Evil Julia’s brown hair off her back. She squeaked and fell to the linoleum floor.

  “Hello!” she said again, fright sawing her voice.

  Out of patience, I gestured toward the TV near the computer, drawing more energy from the air and making the screen come alive with a fleeting image of Victor’s and Rosilee’s faces, just a flash of horrifying mouths opened in silent screams.

  It disappeared with an electric whine, but it was enough to make Julia gasp and huddle into herself.

  “Come on, you duds!” I yelled at Louis and Randy, on a fear high now. “Let me see the justice-seeking ghosts I’ve come to know and love!”

  “I . . . dunno,” Randy said, sinking to the counter, where he hovered just over the surface. “This is takin’ a whole lot outta me.”

  “So exhausted,” Louis added. “Inside and out.”

  I balled my ghost hands into fists, wishing I could lash out at the dark spirit that’d attacked Louis and Randy when it’d reached into their forms to rip out a slice of their essences. They’d been weak ever since, but, even worse, it was like they’d lost more than energy. They’d lost hope, too.

  Unfortunately, the dark spirit was more than just your average nuisance—he was actually my unknown murderer who’d been let in through a portal during a séance led by Amanda Lee, and he was out to scare the shit out of me in this dimension. Attacking my friends was only a part of his campaign of continued pain for me.

  Great, huh? And all I could really do for my friends was try to liven them up. But, clearly, that wasn’t working so well today, so I decided to pull a card from the bottom of my deck to get my partners going.

  “You’re really going to make me do all this myself?” I even added moony eyes as the guys made that male aw-damn expression that told me the girly act was halfway working.

  At the same time, I could see that Julia had started to crawl toward the TV, where she’d witnessed the faces of her victims. She was making sounds like an animal might make when caught in a trap.

  Finally, Louis said something. “Knock it off, Jensen. Don’t make us feel guilty about leaving this to you.”

  “But I need your help.”

  Randy let out a restrained guffaw. “Tell us ’nother one, toots.”

  Well, at least I’d tried, but they were so depressed that a dose of superpouting hadn’t even worked on them.

  Back to haunting, then. I waited until Julia got a little closer to Louis and the TV, then gestured to him.

  I just had to give it one more try. “Please, Lou?”

  When he hung his head, then muttered something I didn’t catch, I knew I had him.

  Bitchin’!

  He shook his head once before lifting a hand to the TV, causing a burst of screaming and an explosion of gaping mouths and blazing eyes to fill the screen, before letting it go black again.

  As I clapped in appreciation, Julia screamed, speed-crawling away from the TV until she was behind a chair, taking in chopped breaths, sobbing.

  “It’s now or never,” I said. “Finish! This!”

  Louis lifted his head so that his dark eyes fixed
on me. “Closing is your area of expertise.”

  “Amen,” Randy said from the kitchen. His shoulders were slumped, his hat dipped over his brow as his short legs dangled from his seat on the counter.

  “My God,” I said. “Well, can you two at least tap into the air to make a call to Amanda Lee while I do this? And make sure you draw a couple neighbors over here pronto. I want them to hear Julia spill her guts.”

  Our hauntee was still quaking behind that chair, so I whizzed over to her, ready to close the deal. I lay what passed as a hand for me on the bare skin of her neck, reaching past her flesh and going in for the mental kill.

  Hallucination time.

  As I zipped into her superficial thoughts like a greased lightning bolt, I froze her with electricity, lowering her melatonin level and causing a mini seizure while I joined with her fuzzy mind.

  I could only slightly guide her thoughts from this point on, and I couldn’t control her reactions to them. After introducing a scary image to her, I wouldn’t be able to control what she encountered next. I would think what she thought, see what she saw, and I had no idea what was in store for me now—

  We can’t get up from the floor. Sitting here, shaking, unable to move . . . Can’t get up, no matter how hard we try, we just . . . can’t . . . move . . .

  What was that?

  Sounds from the hallway. Gasps for breath. Nails running over the walls. And . . .

  We see them emerging from the hallway—Rosilee and Victor, dressed for our monthly dinner. She’s holding a pan of meat loaf as she walks into the room, her tongue hanging out, flapping and coated with blood, her eyes rolled back into her head. Victor, too, except he’s clawing his face with one hand, trying to breathe, grasping out with his other, looking for something to cling to as he dies . . .

  Rosilee’s eyes roll around as she drops the pan. The meat loaf wetly smacks to the carpet, throbbing there. But then the throbs grow stronger, like a blood-topped heart. It squirms.

  Slowly, it swivels around to us, just like it can see us.

  Slither . . . It wipes over the floor, toward us, leaving a trail of red on the carpet.

  Rosilee and Victor groan together, and we hold back a scream, biting down so hard that we can taste our own blood.

  “Did you do this to us?” they say in their dead-tongue-mumbled, slick voices while blood gushes out of their mouths. “Was it for the money, Julia?”

  Bile rises in our throat. We can taste the sourness along with the tang of blood, both so thick that they start to choke us.

  “Just for the money, Julia?” they sloppily repeat, their voices rising.

  The meat loaf keeps throbbing like a heart that won’t shut up. Liquid, a poison, oozes out of it, reminding us of the poison we used on our brother and sister.

  They begin to lumber toward us, and we still can’t move, even though we’re trying to, dying to. Our fingernails dig into the carpet, scratching at it. . . . Got to get away from the ghosts! The nails tear away from our fingers, embedded in the shag, but we still claw.

  We cry. “I’m sorry! I needed the money, and you pigs were only going to waste it! I told you I was in debt, but you didn’t care. You’d rather see me go down in flames than help!”

  “Murderer,” they whisper thickly, blood still tumbling from their mouths.

  Our heartbeats echo the throb of the meat on the floor. Our fingertips bleed, raw and scraped, as we try to get away.

  “Murdering bitch!” they chant, their tongues lolling and making their words nearly unintelligible. “Murdering . . . bitch! Just say you killed us, loud and clear, and you’ll never see us again, murdering, murdering, murdering bitch!”

  “No . . .”

  More blood, streaks on the floor. Can’t . . . move . . .

  “Say it!”

  The corpses stumble nearer to us, and fear gouges us like the claw marks we’re leaving in the carpet.

  Then—

  In a jarring flash, brother and sister are suddenly in our face, their mouths wide open, stinking of rotting flesh and rancid meat loaf. In a replay of what we saw on the TV screen, they roar at us, but their screams aren’t silent. The sound tears through us, shattering our head, ripping our nerves apart.

  We scream, too. “Leave me alone! Please!”

  Their mouths slam closed, their eyes only an inch from our face. Stink. Death.

  Say it, we think. Say it and they’ll go away.

  “I killed you both, okay? Brother and sister—both of you dead, and good riddance. Now go. Leave me alone, you assholes!”

  “No,” they say. “We’ll be back unless you tell everyone . . .”

  Our brother and sister smile, their teeth stained with red; then they fade away. . . .

  After easing out of Julia, my energy was at a lower ebb. Hallucinations did that to a ghost, but her fear made my energy level spike.

  I floated over her head. She was crouched on the floor, shivering, her fingers digging in to the carpet. A couple of fake nails had come off. She’d also scratched her skin, leaving streaks of blood on her just like the ones in the hallucination, except the red wasn’t on the carpet.

  It was obvious that Julia had made some noteworthy noise, because a couple of neighbors were in the doorway, staring at her in clear shock. Right behind them, I saw the ghosts of the real Rosilee and Victor, looking as healthy as they’d been before they were poisoned. They smiled grimly.

  Louis’ satisfied but tired voice interrupted. “The neighbors heard everything.”

  “Yup,” Randy confirmed.

  And when one of the neighbors got out her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1 while tripping outside, the other stayed in the doorway.

  “Just calm down, Ms. Lincoln,” he said, his gaze running over the fake fingernails in the carpet and the bloody streaks on Julia’s flesh. Her hair was messed up even more now, and she was wild-eyed, so he probably wanted to stay a million miles away from that.

  She started to cry, never moving from her finger-gnarled hunch.

  None of the humans noticed, but in the doorway, ghostly Rosilee and Victor faced each other. Behind them, two gray shapes descended, falling from the sky.

  The wranglers resembled time-worn brides with ragged veils covering the upper halves of their bodies, and with graceful, ethereal efficiency, they lifted the material, taking Rosilee and Victor underneath the gauziness. As the veils floated back down, there wasn’t a trace of the ghosts anymore.

  The reapers slowly looked over at Louis and Randy.

  My essence buzzed. Did those looks have something to do with the pieces of Randy and Louis that the dark spirit had stolen? Were they half real-dead already, and the wranglers were ready to escort them to a glare spot with just a yes from either one of my friends?

  When Louis and Randy didn’t say anything, the wranglers reversed course and flew backward into the sky, their veils fluttering.

  For a few seconds, we ghosts didn’t speak to each other. Not until we heard cars pull up in front of the house. Probably the cops.

  “Well,” I said. “There go two more ghosts who’ve broken their tethers. Hooray for them.”

  Louis and Randy exchanged unreadable glances at the word tethers. Was it because they were questioning whether their own binds that kept them here on this plane mattered anymore?

  Damn my unknown murderer for taking a part of them. Damn him for also promising to haunt the shit out of me and, obviously, my friends, too.

  Wherever you are, I thought, why don’t you just come and get it, huh? I’m waiting for you. . . .

  But as soon as I thought it, I felt guilty. Maybe I could just save my friends by breaking my own tether, calling on my wrangler to pick me up and take me to a glare. If I was gone from this plane, my killer would have no reason to rain down more trouble on everyone I hung out with.

 
Here was the thing, though: none of us had any clue what the real afterlife held, and I had to say that this scared me ever so slightly. Yeah, even ghosts get scared, believe it or not. But I also had so much more to do here in Boo World, and that included finding out who my unidentified killer was, plus helping Amanda Lee banish him from this plane, since she was the one who’d let him in during that séance. Cosmically, she was responsible for putting him back where he belonged, as his wrangler had already fulfilled its official duty by taking him to a glare once, after he’d died. It was Amanda Lee’s fault he’d found a way here again.

  God, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to leave this plane, anyway. I mean, I also had Amanda Lee’s whole save-as-many-spirits-as-possible attitude. There were so many ghosts like me who had unfinished business here, but some of them didn’t have the guts to face their own pain. Just look at Rosilee and Victor, for crying out loud. They hadn’t been able to deal with the truth of their sister being a murderer, so they’d begged me and Amanda Lee, the girls with a reputation, to find justice for them.

  Then there were the ghosts who might not even know how much danger they were in, and I needed to save them, too—like the other girls who’d been murdered by the serial killer who’d gotten me with an ax in Elfin Forest. Some of those girls had probably gone into a glare with their wrangler already, and rest in peace, I say. But I suspected our killer was, even now, tracking down victims who’d stayed here in Boo World, haunting them, too, just because it got him off.

  Truthfully, I’d been a waste of life when I’d been living, smoking lots of dope, giving up on college graduation, and giving into depression after my parents had died, but at least I’d found some purpose here in Boo World. I couldn’t just leave.

  As a patrolman entered the house, the neighbor reported what he’d heard Julia confess, and a suddenly very helpful Julia began babbling about poisoning Rosilee and Victor because she never, ever wanted to see them again.

  And that was that for now.