It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis : A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel: Good To The Last Death Book One

by Robyn Peterman

  “Will it hurt?” I asked. I was kind of done feeling like I was dying.

  Sam’s chuckle was exactly as I would have imagined it—patient, kind and warm. “No, Daisy. It will not hurt. After we’re done, open your eyes. Remember, do not walk into the light or the darkness. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I said, closing my eyes and waiting for the next round of oxygen deprivation.

  Pictures raced across my vision so quickly I couldn’t make them out. It was like an old static-filled black-and-white TV screen was inside my head. Catching glimpses of a smiling man and woman, I relaxed. The pictures began to come into clearer focus.

  The man had to be a younger Sam. He was quite dapper, and in most of the images that whizzed by he was laughing and smiling. The woman on his arm was lovely—petite with big brown eyes that looked at Sam with such love it made me smile.

  I saw their courtship, their wedding, the birth of their children, and so many other sweet and loving memories. Sam had led a beautiful life.

  And then the images slowed to what felt like real time. My stomach dropped and I knew my eyes had filled with tears. A lone old woman sat on a chair and cried. She was incredibly familiar to me. I’d seen her before… at her husband’s funeral.

  I had gone to Sam’s funeral. She was the adorable heartbroken little old lady that I’d given my condolences to after a moving ceremony. Sam had been a well-loved man. My heart hurt a little that I didn’t know him when he was alive. I believe we would have been buddies, just like we were now.

  As enlightening as this was, I still didn’t know where Sam’s glasses were.

  The old woman had aged since I’d seen her six months ago. She wandered her home searching and searching. What was she looking for?

  “Her glasses?” I gasped out.

  “They’re in the cookie jar,” Sam said sadly. “My Adaline’s memory is going fast. I knew she’d put her glasses in the cookie jar, but I didn’t want to embarrass her by telling her. I would have died before I would ever hurt her.”

  “Are they still in the cookie jar?” I asked.

  “Yes. I meant to put them on the counter before we went to bed for her to find in the morning. I hunted down those damn glasses every night and left them right next to the teapot where I knew she’d discover them.”

  “And you died that night?” I whispered.

  “I did,” Sam confirmed. “She’s been looking for her glasses for six months.”

  “Why can’t she get a new pair?” I asked.

  “Oh, Daisy, these are very special glasses—well, it’s the chain on the glasses that’s irreplaceable. Her wedding band is on the chain,” he explained. “My Addie has arthritis and can’t wear her ring—hasn’t been able to for years. We got her a chain and put her ring on it—means everything to her. I have to put them out for her just one more time. I need you to help me, Daisy. She’ll know I’m watching after her. I would be indebted to you always.”

  “You want me to break into your house and leave her glasses by the teapot?” I asked, not quite following.

  “I do.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. I’d always wanted to live a life of semi-crime, but kind of like Robin Hood crime—steal from the rich to feed the poor. This wasn’t a perfect fit, but I got to be a burglar who was helping my friend. Win-win. “Yep. I’ll do it. You just have to help me get out of this weird place I’m in.”

  “Open your eyes, little friend,” Sam whispered as his voice began to fade. “Do not walk into the light or the darkness. Let Donna’s bark help you find your way back to the living.”

  Well, hell. I was going to have to thank my friends again for my dog. Who knew Donna the Destroyer was such a skilled freak of nature?

  My puppy could speak to the dead and bring me back from the land of weird?

  She was getting a lot of new chew toys if I came out of this hot mess alive.

  As fast as it started, it was over. I’d followed Donna’s bark and ended up right back on my couch. I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d been on the couch physically the entire hellish time, but my mind had definitely not.

  Sam was sitting next to me. The room was still full of ghosts who flew around, hovering above me with concern. Donna had hopped up and cuddled in my lap. I tried to pet her, but my arms felt like lead. My entire body was so racked with exhaustion I couldn’t move.

  “I’m alive. Right?” I asked a smiling Sam.

  “Yausssss. Aaalauuuveee,” he answered me.

  My heart constricted for a moment that Sam’s voice had gone back to sounding like he was dead… but he was dead. There was nothing I could do about that. But there was something I could do for him that would make him happy. However, right now I was in no state to do anything. I was bone tired. I’d never known the true meaning of the phrase until now.

  “Guys. I’m going to close my eyes for a little bit,” I told all of my squatters. “Don’t make a bunch of noise. I need to sleep this off. Cool?”

  Everyone nodded and settled in. Apparently, they weren’t going to leave me. That was fine. It was sweet in a bizarre, loony tunes kind of way.

  “Oh… and Sam?” I said as I yawned and let my eyes fall shut. “If I get arrested for this, I’m going to kick your ass and not glue it back on. You feel me?”

  The last sound I heard before I fell into the deepest sleep I’d ever experienced was ghostly laughter. The idiots were laughing hysterically.

  Maybe I should be a stand-up comedian… or maybe not.

  Chapter Nine

  “Oh shit,” I screeched as I jumped up off the couch and glanced wildly around the room in confused panic. “What time is it?”

  It was pitch black outside. Donna was on the couch and the family room was filled with ghosts. What day was it? Was I late for school? Had I done my homework?

  “Think, Daisy. Think,” I muttered as I began to pace the room erratically.

  Donna’s bark abruptly snapped me out of my bewildered and terror-filled thoughts. I wasn’t in high school. I no longer had homework. I was a forty-year-old widow with a houseful of dead squatters. I’d hugged Sam and was pretty sure I died for a few minutes. I promised to break into his old home and find his wife’s glasses. I’d also threatened to kick his ass if I got arrested.

  Then I passed out on the couch.

  I still didn’t know what day it was. I could have slept for a few hours or a week. However, since the room wasn’t full of Donna poops, I was fairly sure I hadn’t been out for too long. Besides, my friends would have checked on me if they didn’t hear from me for days.

  I’d hugged Sam around noon. Grabbing my phone and checking the time and date, I gasped. It was four in the morning. I’d slept for sixteen hours. What the hell?

  “Donna, do you need to pee?” I asked, trying to get the important stuff out of the way before I figured out anything else. I certainly had to pee. I could only imagine how hard it must have been for a puppy to hold it for sixteen hours.

  Donna barked and wagged her tail. Yanking the front door open, I spotted and stepped in a few pee puddles. I couldn’t blame her or even be annoyed. I considered peeing out in the yard with her. Sometimes it was awesome to have no neighbors.

  “Pee quick,” I told her, hopping up and down. I’d decided it wasn’t the best plan to relieve myself in the yard even though it was four in the morning. It was chilly and I didn’t have toilet paper with me.

  The memory of peeing in the woods as a child and inadvertently wiping with poison ivy came roaring back in full-blown itchy color. I would never make that mistake again. Gram—even though she felt awful for me—had thought it was hilarious. I didn’t. However, she gave me a thorough lesson in plant species after that. I hadn’t touched poison ivy since that horrible day and had no plans to touch it by accident tonight. I had enough problems without adding itchy lady-bits to the equation.

  “Get in here, Donna,” I called out. “I have to go too.”

  Donna did her business
and raced back in as I sprinted upstairs to my bathroom. Peeing had never been so glorious. Sighing dramatically, I glanced up—and screamed when I noticed how many ghosts had followed me.

  “Out,” I shouted. “Unacceptable. The bathroom is off-limits. Forever.”

  The rules needed to be laid down a little firmer. If the dead dummies were going to live with me, I had to have some freaking privacy. My bedroom and bathroom were going to be mine and mine only.

  A faint scratching at the bathroom door yanked me out of my mental list-making for the dearly departed squatters.

  “What?” I snapped, ready to evict everyone.

  “Waauufff lassssh gaussaus,” Sam said through the door.

  Sighing, I washed my hands. Staring at my face in the mirror, I wasn’t sure I recognized the woman staring back at me. Was all of this really happening or was I imagining it? Was I really about to break into an old woman’s home at the risk of ending up in jail?

  “Waauufff lassssh gaussaus,” Sam said again.

  Yep. I was.

  “I’m coming, Sam,” I said, opening the door and trying not to grin at all of the contrite ghosts floating in the hallway. “Guys, listen up. As of right now, my bedroom and bathroom are no-man’s land… or no-ghosts land,” I added just in case I’d not been clear enough.

  Donna barked. I laughed.

  “Donna, you’re allowed in no-man’s land,” I told her, and she wagged her little tail so hard she fell over.

  My dog was freaking me out a little, but I decided to ignore it. I adored her and wouldn’t give her up for anything at this point.

  “Bauuuyfeeend,” Sam said with what I think might have been a smirk.

  His face was kind of difficult to look at, but I sucked up my gag and leveled my dead friend with an amused squint.

  “What did you just say?”

  “Bauuuyfeeend,” he repeated.

  I was shocked that I understood. I was also alarmed that I understood.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend, Sam,” I told him with an eye roll. “But… umm… yes. If I had one, which I really don’t see happening anytime soon, due to the fact that I’m rooming with dead people, then yes, he would be allowed in my bedroom.”

  “Waauufff lassssh gaussaus,” Sam repeated yet again.

  “I know.”

  What did one who was starting a life of crime at forty wear to break into a house? Black. All black and running shoes. Thank God I was a runner. If I couldn’t use my self-defense skills from the Y, at least I could fall back on my running to save my life. Closing my eyes for a second, I lambasted myself for a logical thought process for the most illogical and illegal notion I’d had to date. Whatever. Since I was going to do it, I may as well have a semi-half-assed plan in place.

  Realizing I had no clue where Sam had lived when he was alive, I figured I could look it up in the phone book.

  Nope. I didn’t know his last name and I couldn’t recall it from his funeral. I suppose I could look up the obituary section of the newspaper online, but daylight was coming in the next few hours and my internet was spotty out in the country. It could take an hour just to get into the newspaper’s website. It was now or never.

  “You’ll have to come with me,” I told him. “I don’t know where you live… lived.”

  Sam nodded and reached out for my hand.

  “Umm… no,” I told him gently. I didn’t have time to sleep for another sixteen hours straight. I was fairly sure that a simple touch wouldn’t send me back to the scary, weird, half-dead place. I’d touched handless lady and Sam when I’d glued their body parts back on. It was probably just hugging that was dangerous, but right now I was playing it safe. “Let me get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs. Cool?”

  In the blink of an eye, all of the specters disappeared. It was almost enough to make me believe they were never here at all. For a brief moment, I considered going into my bedroom, locking the door and going back to sleep. Maybe when I woke up, I’d realize all of this had been a dream.

  Who was I kidding? I’d already embraced my crazy in a big way. Not coming through for Sam would make me feel just awful. A promise was a promise, even if it saddled me with a criminal record.

  I’d get dressed and march my crazy butt downstairs. Plus, I had pee puddles to clean up.

  “Can you ride in a car?” I asked, trying to figure out the best way to go about this considering I had no clue where I was going.

  I mean, Sam couldn’t actually give me vocal directions—or at least not ones I could understand. But I was hoping he could point. As long as his arms didn’t fall off, it was our best bet. I’d pocketed a few tubes of superglue just in case.

  Thankfully, the moon was hidden behind a densely clouded sky and it was seriously dark outside. The sun wouldn’t rise for at least another three hours. I hoped Sam’s house wasn’t in a well-lit neighborhood. That would suck.

  “I’ll bring Donna,” I told Sam, lifting the furball up and putting her in the front seat. “She can let me know what you’re saying.” Purposely banging my head on the top of the car, I groaned. “For posterity’s sake, I’d like to say that if you guys aren’t real and I end up in jail, I will be pissed.”

  “Raeuwl,” Sam assured me as he floated into the car and waited for me to come to my senses or lack thereof.

  “Right,” I muttered as I got in and started the car. Of course, Sam would tell me he was real.

  Wait. Would Sam’s body even stay in the car once it started moving? Or would I drive away and he’d be left floating in the yard? The logistics defied reason.

  Right before I advised Sam to put on his seat belt, I bit down on my bottom lip. Dead people did not need seat belts. My heart raced and I felt a little tingly. What the hell was I about to do?

  Break and enter. That’s what I was about to do.

  “Dang it. Glasses,” I said, reaching into the glove for my extra pair. The last thing I needed when I didn’t know where I was going was to run into a mailbox or a tree.

  Slipping them on, I pushed them up on my nose. The frames were old and had stretched out, which was why they were my extra pair. Squinting out of the front windshield, I tried to remember if the lenses in this pair were correct.

  “I can’t see a thing,” I said, removing the glasses and cleaning them with my shirt.

  Putting them on again, I groaned. They had to be the wrong prescription even though I could swear I had them changed. Although, I didn’t know why I would believe anything that I thought was accurate since I was about to begin a life of crime because a ghost wanted me to.

  “Hang on, guys,” I said, quickly putting the old glasses back into the glove box and opening the car door. “I have to go get my other glasses so I can see.”

  Walking up the driveway, I stopped and glanced around.

  What the heck?

  As I stared at the lit front porch, everything was as crisp and clear as if I was wearing my glasses. Was I wearing my contacts? It would make sense why my glasses in the car had seemed so blurry when I put them on.

  Digging into my eye, I searched for a contact lens. Nope. No contacts. Odd.

  “Maybe my vision changed,” I told the cadavers sitting on the porch, who nodded like they were pleased with the news. I laughed and shook my head at my appallingly absurd justification. “Apparently, when you hit your forties, stuff like that can change.” I turned and walked back to the car. “Of course, I thought everything was supposed to go to Hell in a handbasket, but maybe this is a gift. Glasses are expensive. Or maybe a brain tumor would explain it,” I muttered with an eye roll.

  Getting into the car and fastening my seat belt, I looked at the dash. Everything was as clear as clear could be. Glancing out of the windshield, it was the same. I shrugged. It was a strange occurrence, but I would take it. Contacts were a pain in the butt.

  “Ready?” I asked my passengers.

  Both let me know the answer was yes.

  With a shudder and a laugh, I pulled out
of the driveway and headed for a life of illegal activity. I just hoped I wouldn’t be calling Heather to bail me out in the morning. This would be very hard to explain.

  Chapter Ten

  Sam’s home was lovely. It was an older modest Craftsman with a nicely landscaped yard. Thankfully, it was the last house at the end of a tree-lined street and there were no streetlights.

  “Donna, you have to stay in the car,” I whispered.

  My puppy curled into a little ball on the passenger seat and made herself comfortable. She’d clearly understood me. Deciding to give up on questioning why, I simply smiled and was grateful. Donna had been amazing with helping me navigate Sam’s gibberish. If I’d known where I was going, it would have taken twenty minutes. Since I was being given directions from a dead man and a dog, it took an hour and a half. Whatever. We were here and had at least an hour before sunrise.

  “I’m going to park a few houses down and we’ll walk,” I told Sam, who grunted his assent. “If we get busted on the street, I’ll pretend like we’re just out for an early morning run… or that I’m out for a run,” I corrected myself with an eye roll. “Don’t think anyone will notice you, Sam. No offense.”

  Sam giggled… kind of. His frail little frame trembled with excitement. I felt insanely great with all the stress on the word insane. It was crazy what I was about to do, but it was already established that I’d lost my mind.

  “Is there a key hidden anywhere?” I asked, hoping to God there was.

  I began to add up all the things that could go wrong. A security system was at the top of the list. I also didn’t want to break a window that Sam’s wife would have to pay to get repaired. If she was living on a fixed income, which I assumed she was, she didn’t need the expense of replacing a window.

  Sam nodded and pointed at the welcome mat on the front porch as we quietly approached the house.

  “Excellent,” I whispered as I kept glancing back to make sure we… I hadn’t been spotted. “Does it work in the back door as well?”