by Dalena Storm
He could hear emotion making his voice crack and he hoped it would break through her stonewalled silence. He was telling the truth. For once in his life, he knew it was the whole truth he was telling her.
“It’s the truth, Sammy,” Peter insisted, his voice rising with conviction.
Sam took a breath. She was about to answer him. He could feel it. He waited. He tried not to hope too much, but he was devastated. He needed her.
“You need me?” Sam asked softly, as if she had read his mind. Peter couldn’t even marvel at the coincidence.
“Yes,” he said simply. “Yes. I need you.”
“I need something, too.”
“What is it? I’ll give you anything.” Suddenly, Peter was desperate—desperate to please Sam, to prove himself to her.
“More life,” Sam said, and she moved into him, pushing forward until his back made contact with the hard pole at his back. “I need more life. Give me your life.” Her hands reached up to his neck and her icy fingers closed around his throat. These weren’t Sam’s fingers, not really, but they were close as he was ever going to get. Peter closed his eyes. He could have pushed her away, but he took one deep breath in and held it, held it like it was all the love he had left to give, and he let her take him.
The ghost took of Peter’s body, his breath, and his soul. It choked the love out, and then the fear, too. At the last moment, Peter opened his eyes in terror and the ghost felt almost sorry, but it pushed through. When it was over Peter was as still and peaceful as a baby, and coursing through the ghost was the vigor of fresh life. It was warm, as the ghost had known it would be, and the ghost’s stomach unclenched, the endless pain finally receding. Tears rolled down its cheeks, a sensation the ghost hadn’t experienced for…it didn’t know how long.
The ghost was panting, invigorated, but the struggle was over. Now, the ghost could have a real meal. It knelt down beside where Peter’s body had slumped to the ground. His eyes were open, blind and unseeing.
The ghost would start with those. Peter wouldn’t mind.
It was the part of the human that should have been the most easily pluckable, but the ghost’s new fingers were not the right tools. They were too thick. It should use a spoon, but it had none.
The ghost felt in its pockets for the butter knife it had stolen from the dinner table, just in case. It was a bit messy, but after some work, it did the job, cutting deep around the sphere of the eyeball and popping it out from the socket. The ghost swallowed one eye and then the other, both trailing long red strings of connective tissue that slithered down the ghost’s throat as it consumed them. As Peter’s eyes slid down the ghost’s throat, the image of a woman’s smiling face rose in its mind.
“Mommy,” the ghost felt like saying to the face, but it wasn’t Bianca’s face. Perhaps it was another mother. Peter’s mother. The ghost assumed all humans had one, it had no reason not to assume such a thing. An unfamiliar emotion overcame the ghost and it collapsed into the snow. In its vision, the woman’s eyes were full of something shimmery—the same precious light it had often seen in Bianca’s—and the ghost felt like its heart had burst open. What it had seen through Peter’s eyes was sour to the ghost, toxic and inedible.
The ghost vomited large globs that included eyes and unchewed cheese and turkey and mashed potatoes. It wiped its mouth with the back of its hand. The ghost spat into the snow, trying to get it all out, but no matter how much it cast out of itself the feeling of distress lingered.
What was it the ghost had felt? Unbidden tears spilled down the ghost’s cheeks as it looked at Peter: eyeless, lifeless, motherless. Gone. It would have to find another human to eat, something to clear the bitter aftertaste of broken-hearted longing.
The ghost dusted itself off, feeling strange. It wasn’t exactly hungry anymore, but in need of comfort. Peter’s life energy was sad. It made the ghost tremble and weep without reason, and it found this emotion even more disturbing than the constant hunger.
Perhaps someone younger, someone fresher, might have a better aftertaste.
Chapter Twenty-One
When Peter woke he saw his body lying in the snow underneath the burnt out streetlight. But that wasn’t right. He must still be asleep.
Come on, Peter. Wake up, he tried thinking to himself, but the dream-scene persisted. He recognized the shape of a woman. It looked like it might have been Sam, but it was hard to tell in the darkness.
As Peter’s eyes adjusted he saw that it was Sam, and she was crouched down over his body, doing something to his face—to his eyes. Peter drew closer, wanting to let her know that the body wasn’t really his because he was here behind her, but as he came closer he noticed something strange. Sam's body was shimmering, and he could see through her skin.
There was something wrong with the person in front of him. On second inspection, Peter saw that the woman he had thought was Sam wasn’t Sam at all. It was her body, but not her.
“Sam?” he said, and as if the sound of his voice had struck her, she fell backward, down into the snow. It wasn’t a person. It was a thing—a thing that was somehow inside Sam’s body and her body wasn’t fitting it right. Her eyes looked upward, wide and staring, and Peter had a glimpse of a face wavering behind Sam’s face. The face belonged to an imposter, a creature with bulging black eyes and a pinhole mouth. Peter realized with horror what had happened to him.
Sam had killed him, only it hadn’t been Sam. It had been that thing inside of her—whatever had taken residence in Sam’s body after she had died in that car accident, because, Peter realized now, that was what had happened. That thing—that hungry thing—had never been Sam. She had never woken up.
“No, no, no,” Peter cried aloud, trying to un-see it. “This can’t be real. It can’t.” And yet the memory of what had happened was coming back to him. They had left the house together, he and the Sam-thing. They had walked to the streetlight. He’s offered to give himself to her, and she’d closed her hands around his neck
Peter had taken in one last breath, and then—
“What is this? What am I?” On one hand, Peter was terrified, but on the other, he was more confused than he’d ever been. “Is this heaven or hell? Am I a ghost? And what the fuck? What. The. FUCK.”
He had just seen what Sam—not Sam—had done to his eyes.
Peter felt himself filling with rage, a more energetic state than confusion. Whatever this thing was—whatever it had done to him—it was disgusting. It was evil. He wanted revenge.
After everything he’d done, everything he’d worked so hard to do for himself—for Sam—this is what his life had fucking come to: dead in the street on Thanksgiving and a ghost? A fucking ghost? It couldn’t be real.
But it was.
“Fucking shit!” Peter cursed, grappling with the reality of it.
Maybe it was all a dream and he just needed to wake the fuck up.
“Come on, Peter. Try and remember. What were you doing? Did you fall asleep somewhere?”
He must have been back in his apartment, passed out drunk again on the couch, watching television. No, he had quit drinking. He was sure of it. But asleep on the couch, that had to be it. Yes, without a doubt, real life had left off last night. He was just having a nightmare, caused by stress over Thanksgiving. Sam wasn’t some demon creature. This was a bad dream, a sign he shouldn’t go to the party. When he woke up he would listen. He’d phone Bianca and apologize, and he’d see Sam some other time.
“I’m just dreaming,” Peter tried to convince himself. “This is a dream, and I’ll prove it. If it’s a dream, I can do anything. I can fly.” He concentrated, and almost instantly energy surged upward from the bottoms of his feet, pushing him into the air.
Peter laughed victoriously. He raised his arms high and congratulated his own clever thinking. “What did I tell you, Peter old boy? Totally dreaming!” But now that Peter was up high, he was unsure where to go. The city stretched out below him, picturesque and startlingly clear. He m
ust have night vision. This dream was awesome. Where should he go? What should he do?
He could go to a nightclub, see some dancers. Maybe catch a movie. No, that was too mundane. Come on, Peter, he chastised himself, if you could do anything…
He’d go and see Sam.
Sam. The thought trigged something he wasn’t ready to think about just yet.
Far below, in the street, he could make out Sam’s figure—or at least the figure of the thing that he had thought was Sam. She’d left the dark area under the burnt out streetlamp and was moving back in the direction of the house. Memories of the night’s earlier events came back to him, forcing their way through his dream and into reality. Sam’s family was there—her parents, her brother, her sister-in-law, and her little nieces. So if—just supposing—that creature really wasn’t Sam…and if this wasn’t a dream…and if she’d done to him what he thought she’d done…
“Okay, Peter, it’s time to man up,” Peter told himself. He swooped back down to the street, following closely behind Sam.
“Who are you?” Peter called, wondering if she could hear him. Either she couldn’t or she was ignoring him. It was hard to tell. “What are you?” he tried again, more forcefully this time. He observed her closely, studying her shimmering quality. It was as if some creature was squeezed into Sam’s flesh, moving her body like an ill-fitting flesh costume. If that were the case, where the hell was Sam? Had she actually died in the accident, or had this thing done something more nefarious to her—pushed her out of her body somehow while she’d been unconscious? Peter didn’t have the faintest idea how ghosts or demons or little pinhole-mouthed creatures stole human bodies. He hadn’t even known they’d existed at all until just now—assuming he wasn’t dreaming, of course.
Peter closed the distance that separated him and the Sam-thing, hovering just behind her shoulder as he evaluated the ethereal texture of her body. He took a breath. Could he move inside her body, too? And more to the point, should he? Wouldn’t it be invasive, or disgusting, or weird?
I am not really a ghost. This is just a weird dream, Peter reassured himself, and he reached out one dream hand.
There was a light pressure, but then his hand dipped straight through Sam’s shimmery skin. It was nasty, or cool. Exciting. He could go…
Inside her.
He gulped.
Peter shivered with something that might have been erotic pleasure. It had been so long—so fucking, fucking long—and how he ached for her!
Before Peter could chicken out, he stepped in entirely, and it wasn’t at all difficult, just a faint resistance and then entry. He was larger than her, and he stuck out awkwardly at the front and sides, but around him, and through him, was Sam’s body, moving as the other thing inside her propelled itself forward. He tried to pace her, to remain inside.
He didn’t really want to pontificate on why he was doing this. Some kind of cathartic bullshit, probably. Another one of his invasions into Sam’s life. Or, not her life, as it would seem. His either, for that matter.
Someone younger, someone fresher… Someone small… A little girl…
What was that? What was he hearing? Was it the thing inside Sam?
Peter’s dead now… Gone…
"No, I'm not!" Peter shouted defiantly.
Peter went still and let Sam walk out of him, having found that experiment to be less satisfying than he had desired. What had the Sam-thing meant by someone small? Why was it talking about a little—
Oh.
Peter had a rush of understanding, and it was not good.
Sam—or whatever she was now—had arrived outside of the house and was stepping onto the path that led to the stairs to the front door. If he were going to warn anyone, he’d have to do so fast.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rosa was still hungry. The food had been okay. She liked the mashed potatoes, piled high with a tiny bit of gravy in a puddle on top. She’d had at least six bites of corn and some carrots, but despite her grandma’s earlier promise, she hadn’t had any cookies—and she really, really wanted pie.
“Stop it,” Rosa reprimanded Diane. Her little sister was grabbing at her arm, trying to pull her away to go play their game of fairies and firemen. The game had been Rosa’s idea. The fairies started fires and the firemen put them out. Sometimes the fairies caused floods and the firemen had to evaporate them, and sometimes they fell in love and tried to make babies, but the firemen were stupid, and the fairies were smart, so they fought a lot. Rosa had tired of playing that game. She wanted to go do something else. She wanted Auntie Sam to read her a book. “I said, stop!” Rosa cried, pushing away her little sister. “Mom,” she cried, “Didi won’t stop grabbing me!”
Annoyance shadowed Carly’s face as she turned away from the card game she was playing with the other adults and faced her daughters reprovingly. She got less patient and a little mean whenever she drank wine, and Rosa knew what was coming.
“Diane Simmons,” her mother snapped, “keep your hands to yourself.”
Throwing her arms across her chest, Diane pouted. She kicked the chair legs with her feet and rocked back and forth, making a moaning sound. She was only a few years younger than Rosa, but she was such a baby.
“Go find something else to do,” Rosa said, slipping down off the chair. She didn’t want to play, but she also didn’t want Diane to get too mad and throw a fit, so she tried to be helpful. “Help Mom with the card game. If you’re good, maybe she’ll give you pie,” she added in a whisper.
Diane looked at her hopefully. Rosa loved having big sister power. She could talk Diane into anything.
“That’s right,” she said, nodding encouragingly as she grew more confident in her lie. “If you’re really good and you watch Mom play cards, she’ll give you pie. But you have to be very good, okay? That means no following me and no kicking the chair—and no crying. Okay?”
Diane pressed her lips together and nodded trustingly.
“Good.” Rosa patted the top of Diane’s head and kissed it for good measure, inhaling the sweet smell of her powdery little sister.
“What a cutie,” she heard her grandpa say, and Rosa smiled to herself as she concluded her performance with a sneaky exit.
“Not so fast.” Rosa’s mom caught her by the wrist. She was jerked to an indelicate stop. “Just where do you think you’re going?”
“To get a book. Auntie Sam’s been reading Charlotte’s Web to me.”
“Oh, yes. That’s right.” Her mother’s face softened, and she looked down at Rosa with most of her attention. “You were reading that together, weren’t you? I had forgotten. But I think Auntie Sam is busy right now, with Unc—with Peter. And anyway, it wouldn’t be very nice to read without Diane, would it?”
“But she fell asleep last time,” Rosa whined, trying to keep her voice down so Diane wouldn’t hear. “And she’s too little. She won’t remember.”
“Well…” Her mom’s attention was called away by the sound of laughter from the other adults. "What's the word? Grotesque? Oh, I've got a good one…" She released Rosa's wrist, and Rosa rubbed it, feeling free, but her mom looked at her again before she could get away. Rosa made her eyes wide and innocent. She couldn’t blink, she couldn’t blink.
“You can go and get the book,” her mom agreed at last with a stern look, “but I don’t know when Auntie Sam is coming back. And don’t make a mess!” she added as Rosa slipped out and made her way to the guest room, where Grandma kept children's books for when she and her sister visited.
It was rare for Rosa to have alone time and she relished it. This whole big house was hers. The adults were busy, and she was going to get a book and read a whole page by herself. Then, when Auntie Sam came back, she’d impress her by showing off what she’d done. Auntie Sam would make a big fuss. She’d cuddle her and tell her how smart she was and then Rosa would ask her to read more things, bigger and harder words, and Rosa would do it, and Auntie Sam would be so proud she’d make all t
he adults be quiet and listen to Rosa read. Auntie Sam loved Rosa the best, and Rosa loved Auntie Sam the best, too… at least she did when Auntie Sam wasn’t being weird like she was since she’d come home from the hospital.
Rosa reached up and caught hold of the doorknob to the guest room, then twisted and pushed the door open wide. She felt up high for the light switch and fumbled around until she caught it. The lights were bright when she flicked them on and they hurt her eyes a little. Rosa went over to the bookcase and knelt down, running her finger over each title as she paused to consider it. She knew the one she was looking for had two words, one long and one short. It was a thick book with a hardcover. There was a pig on the front, and a spider—Wilbur and Charlotte.
After running her finger over about a bazillion books Rosa determined the one she was looking for was not there, and she sat down heavily on the floor in disappointment. Now she wasn't going to be able to read anything to impress Auntie Sam or find out what had happened to Wilbur and Charlotte. It had been a long time since she and Auntie Sam had read together—since before the accident—and her memory of the story was fading. Charlotte was trying to help Wilbur, to save him. He was a… What was it, a fantastic pig? Charlotte had made him into that to save his life.
Rosa leaned her head back against the bookcase. This was no fun. What was the use of having the whole house to herself if she couldn’t have fun?
She was still staring at the stark whiteness of the ceiling and the interesting patterns created by cracks in the drywall when the lights above her head flickered. Rosa straightened up and looked around, suddenly alert. If the lights were flickering, it could be nothing—maybe a bulb dying, that’s what her dad would say—or it might be something scary. She’d seen on one of her mother’s TV shows that sometimes ghosts do things like make the lights go funny when they were trying to get your attention.