Spectral Tales: A Ghost Story Anthology

by Jamie Campbell

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  Ghost Girl

  Susan Fodor

  When Kurt smiles he gets dimples at the corners of his lips. He drives the car, hands at ten and two, singing along to an Ed Sheeran song. His hazel eyes sparkle in the dying rays of sunlight, the calm before we reach the pounding noise of Amanda’s party.

  Butterflies flutter through my stomach at his cheeky grin. “Testes is really enjoying his home,” Kurt teases. He motions to a pair of loom band smiling cherries with black bead eyes hanging from his rear vision mirror. I had made them for him a few months ago, and when he had hung them in his car he said they were his new mascots. Junior, Kurt’s best friend had been in the car and said, “It looks like gonads. You can not hang those there …”

  I rolled my eyes. “Come on.”

  “People will think you’re a homo,” Junior said to Kurt.

  He shrugged. “People can think whatever they want. My girl made them for me and they will remain in my car. I shall name them Testes and they shall be my Testes,” Kurt announced grandly.

  In that moment I’d known Kurt was a keeper. He would never be allowed to name anything or anyone in our home, but he sure knew how to make me feel valued. True to his word Testes still hung from his rear view mirror.

  “I’m still not sold on the name,” I respond, shifting in my seat to have a better view of him.

  When his eyes meet mine, I can see our future; high school sweethearts going to the same college in two years, getting married after graduation. I’ll work for five years before we have our first child and then settle into being a mother till our three children are all at school and then I’ll work part time and care for Kurt and our family. The future is always on my mind.

  My daydreaming is interrupted by Kurt’s phone beeping. He grabs it from the middle console and glances at it. “Junior is at the junction, is it OK if we pick him up.” It’s a question phrased like a statement. We often pick up Junior, but he always puts me on edge.

  I shrug. “Whatever.” I catch my reflection in the sun-visor-mirror rolling my green eyes. My red hair is blowing in the breeze from the open window, and my black spotted chiffon blouse is kicking with the faux leather skirt that arrived today off Ebay.

  Kurt continues to hold his mobile, his right hand rests on the steering wheel, glancing at the road as his fingers tap lithely across the screen.

  “He’s only a few miles down the road,” I say, not seeing a need to text him back. “Here, let me text him for you.” I extend my hand to him for the phone.

  Kurt laughs. “It’s fine. I’m nearly finished.”

  “Come on …”

  Kurt’s mouth opens in a silent scream, his eyes so wide his tan face can barely contain them. I turn my face to see a truck hurtling toward us. Kurt jerks the wheel. My head slams against the window. We are spinning like a dreidel. I squeeze my eyes shut. Twisting metal. Breaking glass. Heat. Darkness.

  ***

  “She’s out of the car. No pulse. No respiration,” says a wrinkly-faced ambulance officer. He is leaning over me, his hands on my sternum and cheeks flush with exertion. I feel nothing. One of his curly grey hairs flutters down and rests across my left eyelash. I should move my hand and get it out of my eye, or blink, or tell him to get off me, or something. It feels like there is all the time in the world to do those things—no that’s wrong—it feels like there is no longer time. Time no longer exists.

  Another ambulance officer enters my line of vision. A small woman with thick black hair and almond shaped eyes, her uniform enhances her beauty. “She’s gone. Call it.”

  “No. No. No. Keep trying.” Kurt’s voice is so filled with anguish, I want to sit up and tell him I’m okay. I am frozen, but fine.

  “Zoey … Zoey … Zoey!”

  ***

  The afterlife was not what I had expected. There was no paradise in the sky by and by. No burning hell. Even haunting was pretty lame. I’d imagined being able to go where I wanted when I wanted, like those ghosts who walked through walls and sent chills down spines and raised hairs on people’s arms. That was not what it’s like.

  I am, but I am not.

  I closed my eyes and there was nothing but the black of oblivion. I opened them to find myself in random places. For example, my room. My room hadn’t changed since I died, which to tell you the truth, I don’t know when it was.

  Photos of my former life still hung on the wall. I spent most of my time looking at the picture of Kurt kissing my forehead. In the Polaroid the sun glints through my red hair, my green eyes crinkle in the corners from the smile on my coral coloured lips—I was so pretty, but I had no idea. I want my body back, it may not have been runway perfect, but it was better than this existence.

  Billowy white curtains blew gently in the summer breeze. I’m not sure how many summers have passed. The window was always open a crack, because I never wanted to be closed in. Yet I am trapped listening to my parents fight. They always fight now. Before I died they would go into the car and turn on the radio to fight, now they just scream at each other whenever the urge arises.

  Dad: “You shouldn’t have let her go to the party.”

  Mom: “It was an accident.”

  Dad: “You always allowed her too much freedom.”

  Mom: “Maybe if you’d actually been a father to her …”

  It was the same argument, rephrased, rehashed and re-yelled around the table at mealtime, or in the living room, or in the car. I spent a lot of time trying to comfort my parents, but they don’t feel me.

  Seeing them like this was worse than hell. Maybe seeing the consequences of my death was hell? How could anyone be happy in heaven if they were looking down and seeing their family like this?

  There is no heaven or hell.

  ***

  I sat in my place at the dinner table. Mom set four plates on the table. It was leftover night, and three-day-old meat loaf sat on the table beside stir-fry tofu and vegetables, and pizza that had seen better days. I’m grateful for having no sense of smell, Mom’s meatloaf smelled like wet dog on its best days.

  Chloe picked up my plate. “Dad will get upset,” she said, looking at Mom. My sister looked older. At some point she had dyed her strawberry blonde locks to black, and started wearing way too much eye-liner.

  Are you a pirate or a vampire? I teased, but it fell on deaf ears.

  Tears welled in Mom’s eyes. Chloe hugged her. I tried to hug them both, but I can never get close enough.

  ***

  School was the one place I never expected to haunt, especially at lunchtime. My friends sat around the plastic table, one in a sea of tables crowded with puberty stricken teenagers. Amanda sat in my place beside Kurt.

  “You can put your arm around me,” Amanda said, taking his hand and pulling it around herself.

  “It’s doesn’t seem right.” Kurt grimaced, his hand limp on her shoulder. A thin silver scar from his hairline to temple was the only reminder of the crash.

  “Come on dude, she’s gone. There’s no harm in moving on.” Junior laughed. His face was getter fatter by the day, his squinty brown eyes and spiked hair reminded me of a ferret.

  Get stuffed, Junior, I said. While I didn’t want Kurt to stay alone, he could do better than All-The-Way-Amanda.

  “I just bought the best dress for graduation.” Amanda beamed.

  My friends started talking about graduation. I watched Kurt with his arm slung around Amanda’s shoulders, and she was giggling about some garbage that no one cares about—or maybe it’s just me who doesn’t care about this high school stuff anymore.

  I can’t believe this is how I’m spending my afterlife. I turned, floating away.

  “I can’t believe you crashed because she was giving you a blow job,” Amanda snickered.

  They were behind me now, I wanted to turn around and see Kurt’s face. There was no way they were talking about me. Kurt would never suppo
rt that.

  “Zoey was a very naughty girl,” Junior replied, his voice dripping with innuendo. “Kurt’s lucky I arrived in time to help him tell the sheriff the truth, otherwise the whole thing could have ended badly.”

  The cafeteria din was behind me. No wonder my dad was so mad, he thought the accident had been caused by … Ewwww. For the first time since I died, I felt something.

  Anger.

  Maybe the reason I hadn’t passed on was to make things right. I was going to make Kurt and Junior pay for what they did to me and my memory.

  ***

  I lay on my bed, watching the breeze dance with the curtains. The conversation at lunch played through my mind on repeat, filling me with lava-hot anger. It felt glorious, rolling around in my stomach and forcing me to focus my thoughts.

  Kurt had taken my life texting to Junior, and Junior had sullied my reputation in death to protect Kurt. I’d always thought that Junior brought out the worst in Kurt, but now I saw them as two sides of the same asshole coin. I had dreams of attending college, of getting married, and having a family. They had stolen that from me, and then made me look like a whore in death. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

  I had to do something. I had to get justice for my death. My parents deserved to know the truth, so they could stop imagining the worst. Kurt needed to be made an example of, so that no other douche-bag boyfriend would feel entitled to murder his girlfriend by texting and driving. I would get justice, but how?

  ***

  I didn’t like church buildings, they were a symbol of dead faith. God didn’t live in a building. If He was real, he would live in people’s hearts, which made the church building a total waste of time and money.

  After all the hours I clocked on at church, I should have been in heaven right now. Mom, Dad and Chloe were seated in a pew three rows from the pulpit. Kurt’s family were seated on the other side of the church in the front row, so Mona, Kurt’s mother, could get to the piano easier. Before the accident our families had sat together in the front.

  I glared at the back of Kurt’s head, sending negative energy toward him. How dare he sit in church knowing what he had done? I hoped there was hell for that little maggot. I didn’t care if he was scared of going to jail, he could have said he was distracted, he could have said anything that didn’t mean victim blaming. Kurt glanced around; I hoped he felt the full weight of my disgust bearing down on him.

  The sun shone through the stain-glassed window depicting Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane at the front of the church. It left a rainbow of light in front of me.

  In times gone by the pastor had mentioned God’s throne being surrounded by a rainbow of light. Maybe the reason I was stuck in limbo was because I hadn’t forgiven Kurt or that I couldn’t let go of my family? Was heaven worth giving up for petty revenge? Was there really anything I could do in my current state? All the maybes made my head ache.

  My eyes traced the edges of the light rainbow on the carpet. I must have seen that pattern thousands of times sitting with my parents, but I didn’t remember it. I didn’t remember much of anything since the accident. My memories faded like the first snows of winter, swallowed by the ground never to be seen again. Perhaps heaven was forgetting, and moving on. I closed my eyes. I love you Mom, Dad and even Chloe. I forgive you Kurt and Junior, may God bring you the justice you deserve.

  Warmth filled my legs. I smiled. Time to go home.

  The minister’s words filtered into my brain as I waited to cross over.

  “Ecclesiastes 9:5 says, ‘For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.’ The dead are dead. They are in dreamless sleep waiting for Jesus to return. There were two choices in the Garden of Eden, death or life. Not eternal torment or eternal pleasure. Death or life. No ghosts. No immortal soul. Death or life. You’re either dead or alive. If you know something my friend, then you are not dead. So you better get busy living.”

  I opened my eyes.

  My legs were still warm, the sunlight from the stain-glassed window had moved to my lap. I was not going anywhere. This was not limbo, or a test for me to let go of earth.

  A crotchet blanket mom had made me as a child covered my lap. I couldn’t move or feel my legs or arms or any part of my body. My eyes flicked around the church frantically, till they rested on my limp legs. Craaaaap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Sorry God for cussing in church. Crap. I’m not dead. I am very much alive, but I am trapped in my body. Please God, help me.

  ***

  Now that I saw my life clearly, I wanted to return to the haze of the post-accident brain injury. Thinking I was a ghost was easier to deal with than knowing mom was sponge bathing me everyday and sticking me with intravenous nutrition.

  Memories from after the accident returned in flashes. Spoiler alert: my life sucked. The ambulance officers revived me, but I was declared brain dead. Dad wanted to pull the plug, but mom refused. Now she was the permanent caregiver to an eighteen-year-old vegetable. I don’t know if I want to thank mom or slap her. I can’t move, and I’m angry. So angry that I didn’t know how my frail immobile body contained it.

  Mom entered my room in the morning and bathed me before moving me into the wheelchair and inserting my feeding tube. She wheeled me into the kitchen and ate breakfast with me—she would eat and I would sit staring at the wall skewiff. My neck didn’t hold my head upright; the world was always on a weird angle.

  My days were spent running errands with mom, or once a month my sister would take me to school to sit with my friends. Mom insisted the socialization was good for me; maybe it was good for Kurt to see the consequences of his actions.

  Over her breakfast smoothie Mom rambled at me. “So it’s been fifteen days since we started the cannabis oil. I don’t know if it’s making any difference. I mean you look …” She looked at me tilting her head at the same angle as mine. “Do you feel any different?”

  I blinked, or at least I tried to, but by the time I managed to close and open my eyes mom was staring at the seat across the table from her. “You know there’s no reason you can’t walk, no spinal cord damage, just a brain injury, well a pretty serious brain injury. The swelling has all but gone now, but there’s no brain activity or not enough to show up on the scans … There must be some brain activity for you to breath and blink … I wish scientists would do proper research on cannabis oil, I don’t even know if I’m getting the dosage right … “ Her voice was tight as she shook her head, causing her blazing red hair to dance around her face. She sipped her smoothie. “The doctors said you’ll never recover. It’ll take a miracle.” She mimicked whoever said it. Mom smiled at me conspiring. “Lucky I believe in miracles.”

  ***

  I’d been vegetating for almost eighteen months. From my estimation I had twenty-seven days before the next time mom forced Chloe to take me to school again. If my calculations were correct, it would be the second-to-last lunch before graduation.

  I had to get up and move.

  A spring breeze blew through the window carrying the scent of flowers. The sweetness of it almost brought me to tears. With my senses slowly returning I had to do some training. I practiced blinking on command. Blink, blink, blink. It was easier than I thought it would be.

  Mom entered my room. “Good morning sleepy head,” she announced with forced enthusiasm. Since my mind had returned, I noticed mom’s speech was always forced, her smile contrived. “It’s time to go to the pool.”

  Three days a week mom took me to the pool for physiotherapy. With the assistance of her friend Tina, they would work my muscles in the water. Everything should have been functioning, but I still couldn’t feel a thing. Not the motion of my limbs, not the pressure of mom’s hands on my body. Heat and cold had returned, but nothing else. The water was cold, raising goosebumps on my skin. If I could have, I would have smiled, even unpleasant sensations were welcome. Every sensation was one step closer to Kurt taking responsibility for what he had done to me.

  Tina
handed me over to mom, who held me in the water. Light reflected off the indoor heated pool to create lightscapes on the ceiling, battles of light against shadows played out overhead.

  I focused my mind on my little finger. Move. Nothing. Move. My hand continued to trail lifeless through the water. Move. Move. MOVE!

  Nothing.

  ***

  Nights were the worst. Mom put me to bed and I would lie there waiting for sleep. The television blared through the house, but was not loud enough for me to decipher what my family was watching. I stared at the ceiling willing my finger to twitch or my toe to move until the nightmares started.

  The spinning car. My head crashing against the tree. Kurt laughing as he told everyone it was my fault. I raised my hand to protect myself…

  I woke with intense pain shooting up my arm. My hand lay over my face. The moon illuminated my pinkie, strewn across my eye. I scanned the room, it was dark except for the moonlight creeping around the blinds. I was alone.

  Focusing back on my pinkie, I whispered. Move. The word fluttered on my breath sounding like a grunt, and my fingertip twitched sending searing pain up my arm. I smiled, igniting a fire in my cheeks.

  Pain glorious pain! I’d never thought I could love it with such intensity. I could feel the pressure of my hand resting across the bridge of my nose and forehead. Taste the air as it rushed across my tongue. I could see my finger twitching and hear the quiet sounds of night.

  I willed my index finger to move, and it pressed into my forehead. “Yes,” I grunted, the word indecipherable. I tapped my aching fingers on my brow, until the pain receded and all I could feel was the glorious movement of my fingers.