Suffocation is a horrible feeling, I mused as I surreptitiously rolled my window down just enough to relieve the stifling heat of the hot air swirling around our family car.
The big city never stopped breathing down his neck, my father told us as we drove towards our new home out in the middle of nowhere. The people who stayed there were pathetic, soft spined cowards who trembled in fear of their own shadows and were simply too stupid to recognize opportunity when it knocked, no matter if that knocking was at the door or upside their head. The old man smiled as he sermonized us, full of good cheer and gleaming white teeth. His dark eyes dared anyone to raise even a breath of protest against his unilateral decision to upend our lives.
My mother stewed silently, a honed skill that to an outside observer looked suspiciously like bland acceptance. She’d been furious at first, from the moment she’d received a brusque phone call until the old man had arrived home last night and demanded to know why our entire household had yet to be squared away. As usual, I took the brunt of the blame, lazy and selfish as I was.
My mother’s practical anger had been matched by my younger sister Danielle’s righteous indignation. She would be separated from all her friends, she’d wailed, and now she’d have to change schools as well. It was an atrocity, to be sure, but in the end even the nearly indomitable will of a twelve year old girl could not derail Dad’s Big Plan. to the old man, everything had landed in the win column. My mother had often complained that she had no room in our tiny yard to grow a proper vegetable garden. Our new home boasted of a twenty acre plot which stretched deep into the woods behind the massive house, so now she could weed and till and plant and harvest to her heart’s content. My spoiled sister would be the recipient of a great chance to build character, a growth experience - my father loved those.
Nobody had asked what I thought of moving almost a hundred miles from the only home I’d ever known at the tail end of the summer between my junior and senior years, but if they had I would have told them I was delighted. Goodbye parking lots and mini malls, endless stretches of asphalt and neon, hello living in one big park. My father thought, and said, that I was a weird kid as well as a smug punk. My mother’s chief objection to abandoning the city was that she'd miss the people. While I shared her love of green things that grew, I couldn’t have been more enthused to be free of the clutches of the city and endlessly shifting quicksand upon which the social order had been built. School hadn’t been going well for me academically or socially so a fresh start in a new place sounded divine to me. If that made me a smug punk and a weirdo then, as usual, my father was right.
As we pulled up the long gravel driveway and caught sight of it through the dense trees, I saw that at least he’d not been exaggerating about the size of the house he’d gotten such a great bargain on. The place was huge, a six bedroom monster with another dozen rooms to boot, a place for everything you could possibly imagine and a few things you couldn’t. I marveled at all the space as I carried my few boxes of possessions inside and helped unload the u-haul my father had rented. I staked a claim to a room on the opposite end of the house as my folks and my sister did, then pretended not to have done it on purpose. After living for so long almost directly under the old man’s thumb, even this much breathing space was bliss.
Exhausted and sore, but in a good way, I settled into my bed that night and gazed up at the ceiling. I tried to imagine just what other world of potential this move held for me. I would be starting school on a whole other planet. I could be anyone I wanted to be. I could even meet a girl. Stranger things had happened and I slipped into the embrace of sleep, giddy with the thought that this move marked a turning point in my life.
* * * *
A creaking sound woke me some time later and I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I’d imagined it. I rolled over to look at the clock and saw it was just after midnight. I yawned, then closed my eyes.
Another creak, then a thump that was slightly muffled. In my mind’s eye, I saw someone walking down the hall and stumbling into a cardboard box. We still had stuff all over the place, so that made sense. I heard another creak, the slow procession of stops coming closer to me. By the dim glow of the nightlight in the hall I saw a pale shoulder and an unkempt pile of long dark hair pass by my open door.
I frowned. My sister’s hair had been cut short for the summer and my mother’s was dyed blonde. Whoever this late night wanderer might be, she didn’t live here. She’d been wrapped in some sort of white blanket and I still heard her creaking down the hall. Overwhelmed by curiosity, I got up and barefoot and just in my shorts I followed her. I shivered - the hallway was freezing cold.
I spied her at the end of the hall turning into the kitchen. As I drew near, I peeked in. The girl sat on one of our stools, facing away from me with her sheet cinched around her. Her shoulders were bare and her hair hung down to the middle of her back. She shuddered and made a sniffing sound. Holy crap, she was crying.
“Hey - are you okay?” I asked, stepping into the room. She spun and both of our jaws dropped together. She appeared outraged that I had snuck up on her. I, on the other hand, bit back a scream because she was covered in blood. The sheet clung wetly to her small form, crimson streaks hugging feminine curves. I stared, unable to look away, unable to even remember how to speak or what words were.
“GET OUT!” she shrieked, leaping up. She snatched a butcher knife from the magnetic strip above the sink and flung it at me. I cringed as my death approached end over end. Something solid struck me so hard I blacked out.
* * * *
When I woke up, I found myself back in bed. I breathed a sigh of relief - just a really vivid nightmare, then. I needed to take a leak so I made my way to the bathroom then froze as I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I had a black eye. What the hell? I touched my face and winced. Definitely not a trick of the light. I hurried back to the kitchen and stared at what lay on the floor for a long time, trying to wrap my head around it.
In the end, I could form no logical string of events to explain what had happened. I picked up the knife and replaced it on the strip, then returned to my room in a numb state of confusion. Sleepwalking, I told myself. Must’ve been. Nothing else made any sense.
* * * *
By the next morning I’d forgotten all about the bruise until my mother flipped out about it. Once she’d ascertained that I hadn't been beaten up by some neighbor kid = a hell of a long walk just to knock someone’s lights out, I thought - she settled into her usual routine, making me a quick breakfast while chiding me not to embarrass the family.
“You’re going to make quite an impression, showing up to your first day of school with a shiner. I hope you won’t tell them some outrageous story.”
“Well,’ I walked into a shelf when I got up to pee’ isn’t going to make me any friends. Maybe if I say it was a fight, people will think I’m tough.”
She gave me a sour look. “They’ll think you’re dumb, because only dumb people solve their problems with their fists.”
“Wouldn’t that mean whoever hit me was the dumb one?”
“Get moving, tough guy, or you’re going to miss the bus and really have something to worry about.”
The old man was a tyrant when it came to being punctual and I needed no further encouragement. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to call my house and tattle on me for being late. I headed out and jogged a good way down the road to the local pick up. Nobody else was there and for a moment I panicked, then a big lumbering yellow mammoth came over the hill, belched diesel smoke and picked me up to carry me towards a new adventure.
Not only did I not make a big splash on my first day, I made such a lack of an impression on anyone that I kept thinking I must be dreaming again. I felt like a ghost drifting aimlessly around the corridors of the ancient rural high school. Nobody seemed to notice me at all, save for a few knowing smirks cast towards my black eye. I figured that everyone assumed a guy with a shiner is either a smart ass or a creep - after all, why else would you punch someone in the face?
Thankfully nobody asked, because I didn’t have any better explanation. I’d had a dream that some bloody almost naked girl tried to stab me, then I woke up with a bruised face. I could practically hear their eyes rolling. “Oh, he’s not a dick, he’s just crazy.” no thanks.
The invisibility cloak I wore didn’t stop at other students, either. My third period English teacher took a moment to eye me critically as she called roll, then scribbled something on her notepad. After that, she ignored me completely. I raised my hand twice with questions but she never called on me, so I tuned her out too.
The only person I had any real social interaction with that day was a short girl in my seventh period history class. She sat beside me because her name was near mine in the alphabet. Her first name was some confusion o f vowels the teacher couldn’t seem to get straight. After the third misfire, she smiled sweetly and explained that her name was Japanese and everyone called her by her nickname, which was Yuki.
Once the teacher had moved on, she happened to turn and catch me trying to pronounce her actual name from how I envisioned it must be spelled. She giggled and I turned red, then she leaned over and pronounced it correctly for me in a breathy whisper.
“It’s not so strange, is it?”
I shook my head, grinning. Her name was a tongue twister and a half but she was a girl and cute, so I’d agree with her even if she told me the earth was flat. “I’m Jonnie,” I told her.
“Hi, Jonnie. Who socked you eye?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I like stories.”
The teacher rapped a metal=edged ruler on his desk. “No talking in my classroom!”
She rolled her eyes at me and winked. I found it impossible to pay attention to anything else I hear, though neither of us spoke another word until the bell rang. After class let out, Yuki and I walked in the general direction of our lockers. The sea of people parted around us, giving the impression of being in our own little bubble. I savored every moment of it.
I had no idea why she was talking to me. I’m a tall scrawny dork with the personality of a veteran hermit. I could talk for hours about books or video games but on the topic of real world things, or anything I’d imagine a female might be interested in, my mind is a vast empty wasteland.
Physically, we couldn’t have been more different. Yuki stood barely five feet tall and weighed about as much as a handful of feathers. While I was gangly and awkward, Yuki brimmed with lithe grace. Walking beside her, I felt like a king amongst men and I only hoped that she didn’t realize I would be more likely to wear a dunce cap than a crown. She cleared her throat politely and I realized I’d fallen short on holding up my end of the conversation.
“You still owe me a long story,” she said, pointing at my eye. I sighed. Things had been going so well that I didn’t want to ruin it with some lunacy about women wrapped in sheets throwing knives in my kitchen. I also didn’t want to lie, so I chose to compromise.
“I had a really bizarre dream last night. Somebody was in my house. We just moved in. I followed them, trying to see who it was. I must’ve sleepwalked too because I woke up all bruised and - some stuff had been moved around.” almost all technically true.
“That’s not that long,” Yuki replied, but she didn’t scrutinize my story too harshly. Our conversation turned to more mundane things and we boarded the bus, homeward bound. My stop came before hers, which I found odd. I’d thought there weren’t any more houses beyond our lot. Did that mean Yuki lived nearby? The thought of having such a neighbor sent a shiver of excitement down my spine.
Later that night, I settled into bed with a book. I enjoyed scary stories and this one was about a guy who thought he was going crazy because people around him kept changing or vanishing. It had me enthralled. I could relate to the protagonist since even though he was really smart, everyone treated him like he was a dumbass and didn’t really listen to him. Engrossed in the tale of my doppelganger, i stayed up much later than I’d intended . i looked over and saw that midnight fast approached.
I got ready for bed and closed my eyes. I found myself almost immediately assailed by another bad dream. I lay on my back and in the dark I could see very little. I tried to sit up but I felt pressure on my chest like an invisible ton of bricks. My body refused to respond to my commands.
My desk lamp flickered to life and my heart skipped a few beats. Sitting beside my bed was the girl from last night, still clad only in her bloody sheet. It wasn’t quite a sheet, though, a distant part of my brain muttered obtusely. There was another name for it, though at the moment it eluded me. Most of my energy was tied up in trying not to scream.
She stared at me intently, her eyes fully engulfed in a conflagration of rage. Her bold look of hatred made me want to shrivel up and commit to a new life in which I never again came out from beneath my covers. Her hand pressed down on my chest so hard that I couldn’t breathe. My lungs burned, desperate for air.
A shroud, a useless voice in my head informed me as I lay suffocating. Those sheets are called shrouds, the ones they wrap dead people in. I tried to speak but all my vocal chords could manage was a wheezy cough. This brought a cruel smile to her bloody lips.
“What’s the matter?” she hissed. “Cat got your tongue?
I shivered, my whole body trembling as she pressed harder on my chest. I heard my ribs creak in protest. “You should have never come back, you sick son of a bitch. Now I’m going to play with you!”
Her voice was a knife of ice, slashing me with every furious word she spat. Her face came down towards mine as I lay helpless. My first thought was that she meant to kiss me and despite the horrific circumstances I felt a dark thrill. It passed as her mouth opened hugely, her jaw unhinging like a snake’s. She pressed her lips over my face, covering my nose and mouth entirely, then inhaled.
An iron vise crushed my lungs as every bit of air I’d jealously guarded was ripped out of me. I felt like a husk, withered and collapsing in on myself. My vision tunneled but she didn’t break the seal over my face. Paralyzed by her touch, I could only wait to pass or, or die.
Then she exhaled. The stench of her humid, rotten breath became my whole world. All I could smell and taste was rancid meat and sulfur. My nose plugged and my sinuses felt packed and itchy. Something moved inside my head.
“See you real soon,” she whispered in my ear, then she was gone.I could move and I ran for the bathroom, my stomach flopping over itself like a roiling bucket of fish. I barked my shin and smashed my toes on my mad dash to the toilet. I puked like a bomb going off, turning my guts inside out and giving them a good shake.
Once the worst of the nausea passed, I knelt there panting and dizzy. My nose was still tremendously impacted with snot. A tickling sensation in my face was driving me crazy. Unable to blow the obstruction out, I snarked it down as hard as I could.
Something plopped down into my mouth and wriggled. I gagged, spitting and flicking on the light. I instantly regretted it as I gaped in horror. Amongst the remains of my dinner writed a glistening pile of maggots.
I lost count of how many times I hurled after that. Finally I had nothing left to give and I was more tired than disgusted. I cleaned up and thoroughly rinsed my mouth, brushing my teeth roughly a thousand times. I grimaced at the sight of the bruises on my chest when I changed my shirt. Five small circles in an arc with a half moon beneath them, purple as plums. Fingers and a palm.
As I returned to my room, certain that I’d never sleep again, I realized it was getting pretty damn hard to convince myself that I was just having nightmares.
* * * *
The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed after having lain awake all night terrified to shut my eyes. I couldn’t stop yawning and my hair was barely combed. I slugged my way through a bowl of cereal and hardly spoke a word while Danielle yammered on about how excited she was to see her new classmates again. A variable ball of energy, the hardships of the move already forgotten, the contrast between us led my father to turn his ever critical eye towards me.
“You look like hell,” the old man grunted as I made my way to the door. “Quit staying up so damned late.”
I nodded at his sage advice and hurried to the bus stop. I slumped down and caught a solid two minutes of shuteye, then someone sat beside me. I flailed, edgy and disoriented. For a moment I couldn’t make sense of the face making noise at me, then my thoughts caught up with my body.
“What?” I asked and Yoki gave me a long look, her eyes still wide.
“I said,” she enunciated slowly, “are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Just up late last night is all.”
“More dreams?” she asked. I nodded. She patted my arm as the bus pulled up. We boarded and she took a seat next to me.
“Go back to sleep, Jonnie. I’ll wake you up when we get there,” she urged. The ride was a little over half an hour and by the time she nudged me, I only felt half dead. I muddled my way through my classes trying not to draw any attention to myself.
In my English class I failed spectacularly at this when my neighbor had to poke me awake. Apparently, I’d interrupted the teacher with my snoring. Red-faced, I slunk out of the room the moment the bell rang but I didn’t escape the dissecting gaze Mrs. Baker directed towards me.
By the end of the day, I felt completely drained. I didn’t remember anything I’d learned and all I wanted to do was take a nap. Seeing Yuki picked me up enough to be sociable and once history ended we again followed our circuitous route to our lockers and then the bus.
“I have something for you,” she said as we waited. She took a small thermos from her backpack and sunscrewed the lid.
“What is it?” inside, I saw a murky green liquid. It smelled like fresh flowers.
“It’s herbal tea, I drink it every day. It helps wake you up and builds up… immunity,” she yawned and for the first time I noticed she looked a bit worn out too. “I saved mine today because I thought you might need it more than me. Go on, drink it all.”
I took a cautious sip. It tasted like mint with a hint of something else. Once i had tried a stick of ginseng chewing gum that a friend had offered me. It had tasted like a mouthful of dirt, but not exactly bad. That was how I thought of this tea - mint and good dirt. I felt a flush come to my cheeks and my mind shook off its stupor almost immediately.
“Wow,” I said as Yuki grinned. “Just - wow.”
It’s got a lot of caffeine, but the real benefits don’t kick in right away. It has to build up in your system over time. If you want, I can bring an extra thermos - my mom taught me how to make it. Are you planning on having any more bad dreams?”
Yuki must have seen the stricken look on my face as I realized that my ordeal might just be getting started.
“I’ll bring more tea tomorrow,” she promised softly.
The bus came and we settled in. Yuki dozed, clearly as in need of sleep as I had been. I felt guilty for finishing her tea. Rather than bug her, I watched the scenery roll by the window. I wondered what possessed people to build giant cement cities over top of such wonderful things as trees and grassy hills. I could be perfectly happy out here in the middle of nowhere. At least, if I could ever get some sleep.
That evening, nobody gave me any flak. The tea had bolstered me enough to feel and act normal. It was only after dinner, once I retired to my room, that the icy talons of panic seized my heart. I sat at my desk, wondering if I’d be attached again tonight.
By the time the witching hour rolled around, the tea had long since relinquished its hold on me and I could barely keep my eyes open. As I started to doze, I felt a chill cut through the warm summer air wafting in through my window. I smelled a strong metallic tang and my teeth ached. I breathed past the blood stink and turned to face whatever horror was softly rustling behind me.
Instead of her bloody shroud, my dark haired tormentor now wore jeans and a baggy black sweater, the front of which looked wet and sticky. Her eyes blazed and her lips curled back from her too=white teeth in a feral snarl.
She lunged, her cold hand clamping around my throat like a manacle. As soon as she touched my skin, a massive discharge of static shock blasted us apart and made my hair stand on end. She leapt pack, shrieking, then charged me again. The force of the impact flung me into my desk and I scraped my arm and bit my lip, but again she was rebuffed.
“You fucking coward,” she growled, stalking back and forth just outside of striking range like a penned lioness. “How dare you deny me!”
“Deny you what? Who the hell are you? What are you?”
“I’m the girl of your dreams,” she cackled, then she spat in my face. It struck my cheek with the force of a pizefighter’s fist and I reeled. “Didn’t get enough, sicko? Had to come back for more? I hear freaks like you can never stay away - they’re like firebugs.”
My galloping panic had exhausted itself and I found myself too weary to be afraid anymore. Something seemed to be keeping her at bay. The only thing I’d been holding when she struck me was the book I’d been reading. I brandished it like a cross at a vampire.
“Is this what’s messing you up? You want to torture me some more, make me sick again? You’re the freak, lady - but I refuse you!” I thought I sounded pretty tough.
She laughed and slapped the book out of my hm slithering up between my arms. Her body pressed against mine as if we were slow dancing at the prom. She smelled like wet earth and machine oil and spoiled meat. No blast of energy accompanied her arms snaking around my torso and squeezing me so tightly that I could scarcely draw a breath. The dampness of her murder sweater soaked into my shirt and made my skin crawl.
In a bone-chilling parody of the type of dancing I’d only ever dreamed of, she gyrated against me and made throaty noises that in any other circumstance would have made me blush. After a moment that lasted an eternity, she craned her neck up to me and smirked. Her voice came from the pits of hell, distorted beyond anything even remotely human.
“Don’t you know what you are, where? We are bonded in blood now, you and I am you. I can do anything I want to you. No one will ever find you, you're nothing. You’re mine.'' The words were alien to me but the way she delivered them, the cadence of her speech, raised the hair on the back of my neck. Why was it familiar?
She allowed me no time to think, seizing my face and pressing her lips to mine. Instead of a kiss, her tongue raked across my teeth and stole the blood from my split lip. She bit me in exactly the same spot and wrenched herself away, prompting a far more substantial flow down my chin. She grinned, her mouth smeared with gore. Her eyes were electrified. Manic. Tears ran freely down her cheeks but she was laughing.
“Now I own you,” she whispered, trembling.”Bonded in blood.”
I opened my mouth to ask a question but she kicked me between the legs so hard my brain took a shit. Mercifully, the explosion of marrow deep agony blasted me into sweet unconsciousness. I woke up on the floor, shivering and unable to stand. I pulled myself into bed and fell into a brief, dreamless sleep.
The mirror the next morning revealed a horror show. My t-shirt had streaks of brownish blood all over it. My lip had swollen to twice its normal size and sported a jaunty scab. I’d acquired a much larger bruise on my cheek to go with my black eye and a long scrape up my forearm from wrist to elbow. My eyes were reddened and gritty, my face sickly pale. There was no way to explain any of it. My parents would never believe another sleepwalking mishap. I looked like a junkie who’d been tossed down a flight of stairs.
I didn’t even try to make up some lie. I took off my shirt and buried it in a drawer, then got dressed and shoved my stuff into my backpack. I skipped breakfast and slipped out my window, creeping around the back of the house through the woods until I was out of sight. I got to the bus stop over an hour before it was scheduled to arrive and passed out.
Something touched my foot and I flinched, falling off the bench as Yuki cried out in alarm.
“What the hell, Jonnie? You almost hit -” her voice died away as she saw me, the hurt in her eyes transforming into horror. “Oh my God! Your face! Who did that?”
“I … don’t know what the hell is happening to me,” I admitted. “I think I'm going crazy.”
“No you’re not. Somebody is hurting you. Tell me,” she demanded, turning my arm over to examine the scrapes where the psycho girl had clawed me. She hissed. “These are really deep.”
“You won’t believe me. If I tell you, you’ll think I’m insane. I don’t want you to stop talking to me. You’re the only person who even notices I exist.” I hadn’t intended to sound so pathetic, but I had nothing left in me to wear as a mask. Yuki only shook her head.
“Try me.”
I sighed, giving in. What did I have to lose? I told her about each of the visits from the woman who kept hurting me. I told her about the blood, the bugs, the way she stole my breath and paralyzed me, her creepy voice and her confusing threats, the kiss, the kick, everything. By the time I’d finished, I was crying and couldn’t bring myself to look at her. Shame burned my cheeks but even worse was the fear that I’d see her face disbelieving or disgusted, or not even there at all. I felt raw and broken. I couldn’t take anymore, I couldn't bear to lose what little I had.
To my surprise, Yuki wrapped me up in a fierce hug and held me until I felt less like I was unraveling at every seam. She smiled, reaching into her backpack.
“Here. this will help.”
I drank greedily and felt the tea batter my enervation back down to a manageable level. I took a deep breath and thanked her.
“Of course,” Yuki smiled. She looked into my eyes. “And I believe you. I don’t understand it, but I am going to help you. You’re not alone anymore.”
She couldn’t have said anything that would have reassured me more. I had no idea how I’d gotten so lucky to find a friend like her but I felt eternally greatly. She helped me up and dusted me off. The scant few others who used this stop arrived just before the bus did, ignoring us. The driver gave me a long look as I boarded but said nothing.
At school, I heard people whispering behind my back and caught others openly staring but nobody talked to me. In the third period, we had a quiz on some of the summer reading we were supposed to have done but since I hadn’t been here last year I’d not been privy to the list. I had actually read one of the three novels the quiz covered and seen a movie based on another one so I thought I did alright. Towards the end of class, Mrs. Baker returned the quizzes and in red ink I saw “C-” respectable, given my handicap, but below it she’d scrawled the ominous phrase “see me after class.”
The bell rang and everyone left. I approached her desk, wanting nothing more than to flee. She was a severe, grey-haired woman who would’ve looked more at home in a schoolhouse a hundred years ago, caning students who dared speak out of turn. Maybe she had been - she was certainly old enough to have been teaching since school had been invented.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yes. sit.” I sat.
She cleared her throat. “Twenty years ago, this conversation would never have taken place. Home business is home business, or at least it used to be. Now, as part of my contractual obligation with the state, I’m required to ask after your injuries.”
“Huh?”
She frowned, obviously annoyed. “Your black eye. Your bruises. Your lip. Your listless demeanor, as well. You demonstrate the classic symptoms of a child who is being abused in the home. If this is the case, I’m required to contact the relevant authorities. So, do you have an explanation for why every time you set foot into my classroom you look as if you’ve been on the bad side of a street fight? Speak up, boy. This is how such things get resolved.”
I shook my head, dumbfounded. I felt like I was drowning. I knew instinctively that involving the authorities would be the worst possible move. Yes, I had been abused in my home, but by some kind of angry vampire spirit. The cops couldn't help me. I needed a damned ghostbuster.
I figure the safest thing to do would be to deny everything. Hopefully Mrs. Baker wouldn't press the issue and nobody would send me to the rubber room. I concocted some paper-thin lie about a bike accident and promised to be more careful, then escaped. By the time I saw Yuki again I’d already rinsed the awkward conversation from my mind. We talked as the old yellow coach bumped along the winding country roads.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” she told me. “It sounds like you’re being haunted. Whoever that girl is, she’s not at peace. For some reason, she blames you. Was anyone ever murdered in your house?”
“What? No! I mean - well, I have no idea. But if so, wouldn’t they have told us? Or it would have been in the newspaper, or online, right?”
“Probably, yeah. I’m going to the library later. I’ll see if I can dig something up, there’s got to be a reason she thinks you’re involved. I’m really curious. I like investigating things. I might be a detective some day. Well, except I don’t like blood and guts. Or guns, guns are scary. So, maybe an archaeologist instead. What do you think?”
“I think you’d make a great archaeologist.”
“No, dummy,” Yuki laughed. “ I mean what do you think about my plan? Why do you think our ghost has such a hate for you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe she thinks I’m someone else. Do ghosts think? How do you know about ghosts, anyways?
Yuki shrugged. “There’s lots of spirits in the world. I believe in them because I’ve seen them. And I study them when I get the chance. It’s too bad your folks wouldn’t let me spend the night. I’d love to try to record the ghost, or talk to her. She sounds like an extreme case.”
My head spun as I contemplated Yuki spending the night in my room. Then I remembered that there’d also be a bloody maniac in there with us trying to kill me. Then I had an idea so obvious that my only excuse for not thinking of it sooner was that, deprived of rest as my brain had been, it hadn’t been working right.
“What if I slept in a different room? Do you think she’d still come?”
Yuki shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. Try it tonight. Restless spirits behave in really weird ways. I guess it’s possible she’s just made you’re in her room.”
Oh, if only it was so simple, I thought. We had plenty of space so it would be an easy enough theory to test. I smiled. Maybe my luck was finally beginning to change.
* * * *
I saw a police car in my driveway as I walked up. My sister sat on the porch, giggling like a kid who just heard their first dirty joke. She gaped at me as she saw my face.
“What happened to you? Did you get beat up?”
“Nothing. What’s going on?”
Danielle snickered. “You are in so much trouble, Jonnie! Like wow, is Daddy maad at you!”
I swallowed hard and went inside. My parents and a cop were seated at the kitchen table. When I entered, all conversation stopped and they all stared at me.
“What happened to your face?!” my mother screeched.
The old man just shot daggers at me. The cop, a burly grey-haired guy with chips of flint for eyes only stared intently.
“I … got beat up,” I admitted.
“By who?” my mother demanded.
“A bully. It’s fine. It’s over.”
The cop stood. “Someone at your school tuned you up like this, son?” I nodded.
“You’ve only been there for three days! What did you do?” my mom yelled. Her hysterics weren’t helping.
What followed was a tense but mercifully brief question and answer session. I truthfully admitted that I didn’t know the name of my assailant, lied about where the ass-kicking had taken place and deftly avoided mentioning that my attacker was a girl, who was possibly a ghost, who’d possibly been murdered, possibly in this house. Finally the cop seemed satisfied that I hadn't received the bruises at the hands of my folks and had a word with the old man before taking off. I breathed a sigh of relief.
My father came through the doorway to the front and snatched me up by my shirt. Before I could say a word he slammed me into the wall, knocking the air from my lungs. Then came the shouting. He wasn’t the nicest guy to begin with but our relationship had mostly been centered around mutual indifference for years. I’d never seen him so angry, nor had he ever handled me so roughly. His tirade included a liberal peppering of the word ‘motherfucker’ and he punctuated it with bone-jarring thumps into the wall. The overall message I took away from our little chat was that if I ever brought the police to this house again, it better be because I needed a body bag.
I hadn’t the faintest clue what had so enraged him, but I wasn’t about to ask either. I slunk off to my room and didn’t come out the rest of the night. The thought of sleeping in another room went out the window - the murderous ghost was no longer the thing in my home I feared most.
* * * *
I’d set my alarm for 11:55 so I could at least get some sleep. Thus far, the girl had only ever come around midnight. So it seemed like a safe bet.
Sure enough, just after I woke up the room’s temperature dropped and the stench of rotting flesh and moldy cellars slapped me in the nostrils. I sighed, too tired to offer anything but a token resistance as she stepped out of my closet in her bloody sweater and jeans, barefoot as usual. Her face twisted into a rictus of hate the moment she saw me but I didn’t cower or panic. I knew the ghost would come, do some horrible thing to me, and leave. I just wanted to get it over with so I could go back to bed.
My blase attitude only seemed to infuriate her but she stopped several feet from me, unwilling or unable to draw closer. She had regained some of her color and was now only a ghostly pale instead of fishbelly white.
“Hey,” I said, slumped at my desk. “What’ll it be tonight?”
“Get on your knees! Beg for mercy, and maybe I won’t feed you your balls,” the girl hissed. She seemed both angry and somewhat confused.
“ Maybe instead you could just tell me what your problem is, and I could help you. Do I remind you of someone? How did you die? What’s your name?”
The barrage of questions seemed to throw her off kilter. “Fuck you!” she shrieked, lunging at me. When we collided, a bright flash of light deafened me and I fell down. I convulsed a bit, then threw up. When my ears stopped ringing and my vision cleared, I saw she’d gone.
All in all, I felt like I got off easy. I cleaned up, amazed that the commotion hadn’t woken the whole house, and had the best night’s sleep since we’d moved in.
* * * *
I awoke refreshed and got breakfast for myself.
Nobody spoke to me or even looked at me, so once I’d finished I headed off for school. As I left, I heard my mother muttering to my father, ‘do you think it’s drugs?’
Whatever I said would only make it worse so I didn’t even bother to object. Instead, I greeted Yuki and enjoyed a thermos of her fantastic tea as she pulled out a thick sheaf of papers she’d printed for me from the library computers. While we rode, she told me what she’d uncovered.
“This is… really freaky,” she wanted me. “I expected to find an article about a girl who’d been killed, but… well, just look.”
There were a dozen articles, not just one. I flipped through them slowly as my heart fell from my chest and rolled down into my shoe. Almost twenty years ago, a young woman named Clora Ferretti had gone missing in the area. She’d been found a month later, horribly mutilated, in a ditch.
In rapid succession, Denise Perkins, Angela Bost and Gina Raleigh, all also locals, met the same fate. More names and faces awaited me on every page I turned. Twelve girls, all killed up until as recently as two years ago, the details best left to the imagination. As awful as Yuki’s research folder was, none of these faces belonged to my mystery guest.
Yuki seemed to have expected this. “These girls all suffered horribly, but they were all found. They had funerals, they were laid to rest. But look at this.”
She pulled out another stack. This one was ominously titled ‘the missing.’ ten more girls, between the ages of sixteen and twenty three had disappeared in the county under various circumstances. Yuki’s notes left little doubt that she suspected foul play.
According to her summary, a homeless man named Ricky Verent had been arrested two years ago when a construction crew had uncovered a buried body in a parking lot they’d been tearing up. An unidentified waitress had directed investigators to the campsite nearby, where Verent was found to be in possession of the dead girl’s wallet and personal effects. He had no alibi and he’d been living off the grid for decades.
“I remember this,” I frowned. “I heard about it on the news. It was all they talked about for a couple days, then they never mentioned it again. Is he still in jail or what?”
“He hung himself before the trial. He’s dead,” Yuki said quietly.
“Oh. Well, at least we don’t have to worry about him still being… out there, doing this.”
“I’m not sure. Keep reading.”
I scanned the rest of the page. “Oh,. shit.”
Two more disappearances, after Verent’s suicide, one last year and one last month. I turned to the pages of photos, certain one of them would be my ghost, but neither were. Yuki’s notes indicated they’d both been listed as runaways but she was unconvinced.
I thumbed my way through the other pictures and almost had a heart attack when I saw the oldest one. Seventeen years ago, which would make her victim number two. Rebecca Sloane, nineteen, long dark hair and green eyes that for once weren’t brimming with rage. In the photo she even wore her black hoodie and jeans. She looked happy. I wondered if it was the last time she ever was, where this had been taken.
“That’s her?” Yuki asked. I nodded. She flipped through her notes until she came to Rebecca’s sparse page, then we read it through together. She’d been a waitress at a now defunct restaurant and had lived in a cheap apartment by herself.
She had no boyfriend nor any family to speak of. Her absence from work had only warranted notice when she’d failed to pick up her paycheck. The article made allusions to a history of ‘emotional turmoil’ and a brief stay in a ‘psychiatric facility.’ suicide had not been ruled out.
Rebecca Sloane seemed to have vanished, leaving all her possessions behind. There was nothing else, no leads, no followup, not even speculation as to say she might have allegedly killed herself. She’d been a ghost even before she died and I felt a stab of empathy. I knew the feeling. Yuki’s next question came out of nowhere and smacked me upside the head.
“Do you know who Thomas Rutger is?” she wondered as she pulled out a notepad. I frowned.
“Yeah, that’s my grandfather. He died before I was born. Why?”
She showed me a picture of a huge, familiar house and I got goosebumps. “What’s going on, Yuki?”
“Thomas Rutger built this house twenty five years ago. Your house.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t we still own it then> my dad got it from some bank. I heard him say it was a foreclosure.”
“I don’t know. There’s not a lot of information in the public record. Thomas and his wife used it like a youth hostel, that’s my guess. The census said they lived there with their son Daniel. Then there’s an obituary later. Your grandfather had a heart attack. The bank took the house.
I shook my head. “So my dad lived in our house before? Why wouldn’t he have told us?”
“I don’t know. But look at this.” She showed me a handwritten timeline. “Your grandma and your dad were evicted, but then the house just sat empty for years, starting right about the same time that Rebecca Sloane disappeared. What if someone was squatting there? Maybe they even kept renting out rooms. Ricky Verent would have known it was a place for ‘wayward girls’, him and who knows how many other people in the area.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “So what do we do now?”
Yuki grinned. “Talk to her.” she said, tapping the photo of my ghost.
The rest of the day passed in a blur, my mind too full of anticipation to share space with anything from school. I knew if I could get Revecca talking, we could resolve things. Maybe she could even help me solve her murder. I’d be in the papers and people wouldn’t think I was such a loser anymore. It was win-win.
When I got home, the old man told me gruffly that my mother had taken Danielle into the city to spend the weekend with her sister. “Make your own dinner and don’t bother me.” he said over his shoulder, then headed off to his study on the other end of the house.
I did, then I went to my room and took a nap. I knew she wouldn’t show up until midnight and I wanted to bring as much brain power as possible to our meeting of the minds. I woke up around 11 PM, showered and dressed and mentally prepared myself. I felt excited, and now that I could actually see a way out of this nightmare, I looked forward to her visit.
True to form, the garbage dump aroma wafting in preceded her arrival at just after the hour. She seemed subdued, glaring but keeping her distance. That gave me enough nerve to plunge on - maybe she knew I’d figured out who she was.
“Rebecca, it’s okay. I know what happened to you and I[m going to help you,” I told her, my voice calmer than I felt.
She twisted her face into an incredulous stare. “You know what happened to me? What game is this, sicko?” she hissed.
“No games. I didn’t do whatever it is you think I did. I’m not the one who -”
“I know who you are!” she screeched, surging forward. She seized my wrists and there was no explosion of energy but I also didn’t feel paralyzed or sapped of my willpower. Her grip turned my skin to ice as she twisted my hands around to show me my palms. “Look!”
I cringed as she shook my arms in my face, wondering if I’d made a mistake. Maybe she wasn’t rational, maybe she didn’t care who’d killed her and just wanted to hurt somebody. I swallowed hard. “I don’t see anything.”
She wrenched my wrists back around towards her and stared for a long time. “There’s no blood on your hands,” she whispered.
“I know. I’m not the one.”
She let go of me and stepped back, her face slack. She’d been dealt a crippling blow to the fanatical belief that had sustained her and now Rebecca Sloane looked smaller, lost and broken. I steeled myself and reached forward. She gasped as I touched her shoulder. “Where are you, Rebecca?” I whispered.
She favored me with a pain filled smile, her eyes wet and gleaming. Her voice distorted, sounding as if she spoke through one of those voice scramblers they used to conceal people’s identities on TV. “scream all you want. Nobody will ever find you down here. Down here. Down here. Down here…” she vanished. The voice bothered me, again hauntingly familiar.
I sighed, rubbing the livid bruises all over my wrists and racking my brain. Down here. Down where? I lived on the ground floor, there was no upstairs. Did we have a basement? I remembered seeing a storm door on the far side of the house, beneath the office window. It was as good a place as any to start.
I slipped out and crept towards the gig window of the old man’s lair. Dark - good, he’d gone to bed. We hadn’t had much interaction since our little heart to heart and I wasn’t eager to answer a bunch of questions just now. I examined the door which led to the storm cellar. The thick wood boasted a black iron padlock, the dye to which would literally be anywhere. Poking at the rotting wood around it, though, I had an idea.
I snuck around to the garage and retrieved a crowbar and a flashlight. I tried to be as quiet as possible as I set to work. After a few attempts, I threw my whole weight against the bar and heard splintering. The bolts of the lock tore through the weathered door and fell free. Inside I saw a set of rough stone steps. I clicked on the light and descended.
The basement was smaller than I’d expected for such a huge house, only a cramped, low hall leading to one wide, square room. The floor was cement and there was nothing on the walls except for a pegboard with a bunch of ancient woodworking tools hung in neat rows. I frowned.
“Rebecca?”
Even expecting her, I still flinched as she appeared by the far wall. She drug her bare toes over a patch of cement slightly darker than the rest. “Found me. Welcome to my hell,” she said quietly and I was rocked with a vision of such startling intensity I fell to my knees. Blood and torn flesh, a wooden chair with an unrecognizable thing strapped to it, the sound of bones crunching, the stink of machine oil. Big gloved hands held gore streaked tools while screams echoed loud enough to deafen me.
Then I was back and Rebecca Sloane was whole, staring at me intently. “Every night, I die. Every day, I wait for what I know is coming. I can’t leave - I couldn’t, until you came back.”
“Back? I’ve never been here before,” I told her. I didn’t understand, or maybe I just didn’t want to. She gave me a sad smile.
“Seeing is believing. You look just like him. Until I saw your hands, I would have sworn you were the devil.”
My mouth went dry and I gestured to the place she stood. “Do you… want me to dig you up, or -”
Suddenly she snarled and disappeared. A low voice behind me turned my blood to ice. “Who in God’s name are you down here talking to in the middle of the night?” the old man demanded. He wore boots, jeans, and a jacket - he hadn’t been asleep. He looked like he’d been out for a walk.
“Nobody. I just had a bad dream.”
“A bad dream, so you broke into the cellar? He held up the crowbar I’d left outside. “Bullshit.”
I cringed. Well, time to come clean. I knew I wasn’t crazy. I was, however, in way over my head. “Dad. There’s a ghost. A girl. She’s been attacking me in my sleep. But I finally figured out who she is and I’m trying to help her.”
He sneered, “A fucking ghost? Maybe your mother’s right, you really are on drugs. Get out of here - now.”
“Her name is Rebbecca Sloane. Someone murdered her. She’s buried right there.” I said pointing.
“Rebecca,” he said softly. His anger seemed to fade and his scowl gave way to something cold and unreadable. To my surprise, he laughed. “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.”
Everything clicked into place in an instant. I stared at him in horror, not wanting to believe it but despite what the old man had always said, I wasn’t an idiot.
“Cut my teeth on that one,” he said wistfully after a while. “My daddy taught me how to treat a lady. I picked up the family business by his side, but she was my first. Rebecca.”
He might have been recalling a family trip to the beach for all the concern he showed over admitting to murder. Worse than that, serial killing. I realized how much danger I was in but I couldn’t help myself. “Why?”
The old man shrugged. “Public service. Can’t have the whores and tramps running all over the place. Even a sweet place like our woods would end up as crowded with worthless parasites as the city. Old Tom taught me just like his daddy taught him. Like father, like son, he always used to say.” he sighed, then gave me a hard stare.
“Of course, you’re worse than useless. Too damned lazy, too much of a smug little punk. Nose in a book, head in the clouds. You make me sick. I don’t know how you sniffed out so much about my business, kid, but it’s the last time you’ll poke around where you don’t belong. Curiosity and the cat, you know.”
I sprang to the side, hoping to dart past him and run up the stairs. The old man was big but deceptively quick. As I lunged, he clipped me with the curved end of the crowbar and pain exploded in the back of my head. I stumbled, collapsing to the floor as my legs gave out. My vision blurred and the room spun madly, his chuckling coming from a hundred miles away.
“That’s right, you just have a seat here. You’ve got to know when you’re beat.” he sighed. “You know, Jonnie, you’ve been a real pain in the ass lately. If you’d’ve just done what you were told, I could’ve halfway liked you. Now I have to clean up another one of your messes. Your mother is going to be fucking insufferable once you turn up missing. Oh well. People disappear around these parts all the time, right?” he winked.
Blood ran freely down my shirt and I smelled burning hair and rotting vegetables. As I tried to blink my vision clear, I saw Rebecca appear behind my father. She was naked, though the extent of her wounds made it almost impossible to tell. She looked like something that had come out of a wood chipper. Her eyes danced with malice and she gave a throaty chuckle.
“Danny, Danny, Danny,” she chided. “I always knew you’d come back to me. They always come back.”
My father froze, his face screwed up in confusion. His jaw slowly fell as he gazed upon the monster he’d created, then she fell upon him like a starving animal, her claws raking his flesh and her teeth tearing into him. I staggered past and up the stairs as the old man shrieked and Rebecca Sloane cackled.
I blocked out the images and stumbled down the driveway, hoping to flag down a passing car. I needed to go to the hospital, I thought blearily. I could only think of one place to go as the empty road defeated me. I’d never been to Yuki’s house, but I knew she lived on the lot next door, the last one before the woods stretched on towards the county line. I followed the road, nauseous and dizzy. My head throbbed and the new moon made it impossible to see.
I stopped to puke and almost passed out. I’d never been so tired, not even when Rebecca had been haunting me. Terror at what lay behind me kept me going. I didn’t know how long she could keep him occupied but if the old man found me, I’d be dead. I realized I was in the woods and tried to discern where or when I’d left the road. Shit - I was lost.
I couldn’t remember if I’d been walking for minutes or hours. I hadn’t seen any cars and these were the real woods, devoid of any sign of human habitation. How could Yuki live here? I must have missed her house. I slumped down at the base of a tree and closed my eyes. My headache obliterated all thought and I wanted to sleep.
A crunching branch startled me awake. For a wild moment I thought the old man had found me and the adrenaline surged. Then, like a dream, I saw Yuki standing there in long pants and a jacket. She gaped at me in alarm. I would have thought I was still asleep except my head hurt too much.
“Oh my god, Jonnie! You can’t sleep here, you’re hurt!” Yuki’s voice was full of concern but she sounded a million miles away.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled. “Just need to sleep. I’m cold. Can we go to your place?”
She hesitated. “I - don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Please?” I said, and she nodded slowly.
“Okay. Okay, yes, that’s fine. Come on though, we have to hurry - there’s not much time.” She helped me up and put my arm over her shoulders, then led me through the woods. I thought the whole place was beautiful, peaceful. I wished my father hadn’t wrecked everything. I’d’ve loved to spend more time here.
We came to a ravine about ten feet across. It looked like a dried up river bed. She helped me climb down and I managed a few words. “You… live here?”
“No, but we’re close. Come on, Jonnie, it’s almost too late.”
Too late for what, I didn’t have the energy to ask. My mouth hung slack and I drooled down my chin. I let my eyes fall shut and just held on to her, following her wherever she decided to take me. She had me duck my head and I smelled wet stone and earth as she guided me into a cave. Inside the ceiling was high enough to stand but I was blind. She led me through a warren of tunnels as a sense of calm stole over me. I wasn’t cold anymore and my headache faded.
Finally, we stepped into a chamber. Despite the total blackness, I could see as if it were twilight. She sat on the floor on a wooden crate and patted the ground next to her. She offered me a thermos full of tea as I gratefully slumped against the wall.
“Drink this, then you can rest. I’ll watch over you while you sleep.
I did as she said and felt a flicker of energy. “Where are we?” I asked. My voice sounded muffled and thick.
“My home, silly. Sleep now, ok?”
I lay my head in her lap and she stroked my hair. I fell asleep smiling.
* * * *
In the morning, I woke up refreshed and ready to get to the bottom of the mysteries of last night. I didn’t even remember my head injury until I sat up. I grimaced. I felt fine but my shirt was sticky with blood.
The cave was lit bright as day and I saw Yuki combing her hair, dressed for school. She smiled at me.
“What are you doing?” I wondered.
“Getting ready for class, of course.”
“It’s the weekend,” I protested.
“No, it isn’t. It’s Monday.”
“I slept for three days?” I gaped, then I shook my head. “We can’t go to school, we have to go find out what happened at my house! Call the police - I found Rebecca Sloane. She’s -”
Yuki patted my shoulder. “Everything is okay. That’s all taken care of. All you need to do is wash up and change.”
She sounded so calm and sure that I pushed my confusion aside. She’d saved my life, even if she did live in a cave. It was actually pretty cool, in a way. She took me to a stream that bubbled up from the ground and sponged the blood from my back and face. She washed my hair and then handed me a clean towel and a shirt from my closet.
“You went back there?”
“Just for a few minutes.”
“What happened to Rebecca? What happened to -?” she squeezed my shoulder.
“Hush. Everything’s fine. Hurry up or we’re going to miss the bus.”
I followed her in a daze and we hiked to the bus stop. I didn’t have my backpack but I hardly thought that mattered since there was no way I could focus on school anyways. Everything felt foggy and the harder I tried to recall the details of what had happened , the more worn out and uncertain I became. I chalked it up to getting cracked in the noggin and let Yuki do all the thinking for me.
School was as painfully ordinary as ever and the other students continued to ignore me. I made it through the first half of the day without attracting any attention and was glad. Even Mrs. Baker acted like I didn’t exist. She simply handed me my homework and passed by me without a word. At lunch, Yuki found me sitting in the grass by myself.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine, I guess. But I’m not hungry. I didn’t have breakfast either. I should be hungry.”
“It’s okay. Here, this will help settle you.” she offered me one of her ever present thermoses and I drank it down, feeling all my worries fade into the background. She was right, everything would work itself out. And now everyone would realize I wasn’t on drugs or a liar or nuts. That much I could be happy about.
After school, Yuki told me if things were too much I could meet her at the bus stop and I could stay with her. For a moment, I almost went with her right away but I knew I needed to settle things at home first. I had seen as the bus passed that there were a ton of cop cars in our driveway so I had no illusions that everything had blown over.
I made my way through the woods, not wanting to announce myself until I knew what I was in for. I smelled smoke and crept up towards the treeline where I saw two deputies having a cigarette.
“Still can’t believe it,” one said, shaking his head. “The goddamned Fallon County killer, right here under our noses.”
“Yep. Wonder why he moved back here. He got away clean.”
“They say those types always come back. Like firebugs.”
The two commiserated for a while. I held my breath. “Hell of a way to go, though. Ate up by a bear in his own basement.”
“That’s karma for you. If he hadn’t been screamin’ so, the neighbors never wouldn't have called and that girl never would’ve been found.”
“Hell of a thing. I wonder about the others, though. And the boy - where’s the son? The mother said he was staying here, before they sedated her.”
The other shrugged and stabbed out his cigarette. “The blood and hair on the prybar says the kid’ll probably turn up somewhere. Maybe with the others. Dogs’ll be searching the woods for days, my guess.”
I shrank back and couldn't process what I’d just heard. They thought I was dead? I’d spent all day at school! A powerful urge prevented me from revealing myself and instead I returned the way I’d come. Yuki met me at the bus stop and took me back to her place, a much easier trip in the daylight. Still, I doubted anyone could get there without a guide - there was nothing around for miles.
After all the weirdness and shocks of the last week I figured nothing could phase me, but as we entered the room I’d awoken in, I screamed. “What-!”
Yuki squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to tell you,” she said. Laying on the floor, I saw myself. Dressed in my other clothes and looking ghostly pale, my bloody mess of a head resting in the lap of a small and desiccated corpse in a moldering skirt and blouse. A thermos sat beside her.
“What -” I tried again. “That’s me! And…you?”
She nodded. “I kept one photo back from ‘the Missing’. Four years ago my mom filed the report. But they thought I ran away. I only ran after a man saw me walking home alone and pulled me into his car. I got away but I fell into the ravine and broke my ribs. I was so scared he’d find me that I crawled in here. But I stayed too long.
“But… you go to school. How could we be -?” I didn’t want to say it.
“People believe what they want. I go to school but people forget me as soon as I walk by. Well, most people,” she smiled, giving me a look.
“I didn’t. I thought about you all the t- um, a lot.”
“We have a special connection. You lived nearby and well. Your dad.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. She shrugged.
“It’s okay. I love it here. The woods, it’s all so beautiful. That’s why I stayed after I woke up. And all the herbs to make my tea gow nearby. That’s what gives me the strength to be real for a while. You too, now.”
“Do you think… I could stay here with you?”
She grinned and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’d like that.”