Deadly Spirits

by Michelle Scott

  “Leave him alone!” Ethan ordered. He lunged once again, brandishing the cross like a weapon.

  David tore the IV from his arm and tried to get out of bed. Ethan threw himself at his boyfriend, pressing his body down on David’s to subdue him. “Let go of him!” he demanded of the old woman.

  As if he weighed less than a feather, David bucked him off. Ethan tumbled off of the bed and onto the floor where he came face-to-face with the 8 ball. Instinctively, he grabbed it. The damn toy had gotten him into this mess, maybe it could get him out. If he crushed it, maybe he would destroy the portal that had called the old woman’s ghost.

  As David continued to get out of bed, Ethan smashed the 8 ball on the ground as hard as he could. He was rewarded with the satisfying sound of cracking plastic. Above him on the bed, the old woman howled in outrage. She didn’t want to give up her prize. Ethan struck again, pounding the 8 ball against the tiled floor.

  Something grabbed his ankle and yanked. The 8 ball slipped from his fingers. Ethan fought back, wrestling against David’s strong grip. “David! I know you’re still in there,” Ethan said. “Fight her! Don’t let her get control over you!”

  For a moment, David’s grasp relaxed. Ethan was getting through to him! Ethan lunged for the 8 ball, bobbling it back and forth between his hands as he tried to get a good grip. Finally, he grabbed it. With every ounce of strength, he smashed the ball on the ground. Blue dye from the 8 ball’s core sprayed his face and doused his shirt.

  David uttered a hoarse cry, and a whoosh of air flew past Ethan as the old woman’s spirit was sucked back into the otherworld. Ethan scrambled to his feet. “David?!”

  David lay back on the bed, eyes closed. Ethan shook his shoulder. “David! Wake up!”

  David’s eyelids fluttered. “Let me go.” His voice was hoarse.

  “I can’t do that!” Ethan argued. He scooped David into his arms. “I’m never letting go.”

  “You have to,” David said. “Please, release me.” His body went limp.

  Ethan was still shouting his name when the doctor and nurses rushed into the room. “I can’t let go,” Ethan said as he was ushered from the room. “I can’t give up!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Let me go.

  Please release me.

  All night long, David’s words echoed in Ethan’s mind. Not that Ethan believed them. No, the message had probably come from the old woman’s ghost. She wanted to possess David’s body, and had tried to trick Ethan into letting her do so. Well, Ethan wasn’t letting his boyfriend go. That was out of the question.

  The next morning, when Tessa texted Ethan that Bev and John were on their way back to the hospital, Ethan left. He didn’t need more drama. He went to his apartment, got into the shower, and tried to scrub off some of last night’s misery. When he got out, he wiped steam from the mirror and studied himself. His eyes immediately went to the brand on his chest. The one that he’d gotten after agreeing to help the Angel of Death. The mark was still there, but below it was something that hadn’t been there the day before: a single hash mark. Puzzled, Ethan touched it, wondering why it had appeared. Then a sick thought struck him. He’d taken one soul the previous night. The Angel was probably marking him for every soul he collected. Which meant he’d be expected to collect more. The Angel had never said how many souls he was expected to gather, only that he needed to get them. There could be dozens, maybe even hundreds, of collections separating Ethan from his goal of saving David.

  A wave despair threatened to overtake him, but he held it back, refusing to give in. He couldn’t help David if he was wallowing in his own dark emotions. In fact, Ethan needed to be more proactive, like Sophie. As he brushed his teeth and got dressed, he had an idea. He would reach out to David’s spirit and try to find the answers he needed.

  Ethan had a vague idea that David’s spirit was trapped in some inter-realm, a place that wasn’t quite life, but not death, either. If Ethan could find his boyfriend there, he might be able to talk to him.

  The problem, of course, was how to contact David. Ethan’s experience had taught him that most souls haunted the places where their lives had ended. It was as if they’d never gotten over the trauma of their own deaths.

  With that in mind, Ethan packed a satchel with things he could use for a seance. His Scrabble tiles, which he used in lieu of an Ouija board; a polished, silver bowl; several pieces of chalk; and a glass prism. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any black candles, but the local home goods store carried dark purple ones. Hopefully, the spirits wouldn’t notice.

  He drove to the Victorian house where David had fallen from the roof. It was after nine, and the street was mostly empty. A young woman pushed a stroller up the sidewalk, but she barely paid any attention to Ethan as he parked and got out of his car.

  Turning his collar up against the cold, Ethan surveyed the house. Being back gave him an uneasy feeling. He could still hear the terrible thud David had made when he’d hit the ground. But as far as psychic energy went, the place was quiet. If David’s spirit was really trapped in the inter-realm, it wasn’t here.

  Getting back in the car, Ethan considered his next move. After what had happened the night before, he wasn’t willing to try it in David’s hospital room again. As he went through the nearest drive-through for a cup of coffee and a bagel, he remembered that David’s plants hadn’t been watered nor his fish fed since before the accident. When David woke up - and he would wake up - Ethan didn’t want him coming home to dead ivy and cichlids floating belly-up in the tank. He made a quick U-turn and headed off towards David’s house.

  Luckily, Ethan had his own key, and when he walked into the house, he shook his head, amused. David’s house was a mess, even by David standards. Clean clothes were scattered across the couch and crumbs dotted the carpet. Two bags of groceries, all shelf-stable, thank God - sat on the kitchen table waiting to be put away. The bathroom sink was full of David’s dark beard hair, and the bathtub had a scum lining. Although David wouldn’t be using the kitchen or bathroom, at least for a while, Ethan rolled up his sleeves and went to work, wanting everything to be perfect for David’s return.

  As he scrubbed the kitchen sink and mopped the floor, he considered how he might reach David’s spirit. He got his answer as he tidied up the living room. There, on a shelf next to the fireplace was David’s Eagle Scout award kit, something David was very proud of. Even ten years after earning the award, David talked fondly about the project he’d worked on: landscaping a butterfly garden at a nursing home. Next to the kit was a framed picture of eighteen-year-old David, shovel in hand, standing next to the garden. He’d always said that the project had made him want to earn a living working with his hands.

  Sometimes, spirits were attracted to locations, and sometimes they were attracted to objects. Once, when Ethan was in seventh grade, his mother had bought a china teapot at a rummage sale. Unfortunately for Ethan, the teapot had come with a ghost: an elderly woman who wore her graying hair in a severe bun and had reading glasses on a chain around her neck. As ghosts go, she was quite passive, but she was a terrible voyeur. Everywhere he went in the house, Ethan could feel her disapproving stare. She glared at him while he ate dinner and did his homework. Her eyes would narrow each time he played video games or watched TV. The worst, though, was that she left him no privacy in the bathroom or in his bedroom. At that time, he was just discovering how much he liked boys. Especially naked ones. When the prudish ghost interrupted Ethan while he was masturbating in the middle of the night, he’d had enough. The next day, he smashed the teapot, and the ghost had disappeared. His mother had been furious and had taken away TV privileges for a week, but it had been worth it.

  Now, as Ethan picked up the Eagle scout award, he wondered if David’s soul had attached to it. If so, he could call up his boyfriend right now. It was worth a try.

  Ethan moved the coffee table, clearing a large space in the center of the living room floor. Not exactly sure how to begin, he
placed the candles in a semi-circle and laid the kit in the center. It sucked that so much of this was guesswork. He’d lived with his abilities all of his life, yet had been too ashamed to explore them. Now, he wished he had.

  He sat down, cross-legged, and lit the candles. Then he closed his eyes and centered his thoughts. He pictured David’s face in as much detail as he could, specifically focusing on David’s brilliantly-blue eyes. “David? Can you hear me?” Though he spoke softly, his voice sounded overly loud in the quiet house. “Are you there?”

  When nothing happened, Ethan took the medal from its case and held it tight, willing it to make a connection with its owner. “I’m here,” Ethan said. “If you can hear me, follow my voice.” He rubbed the medal between his palms. “David, please. I need to talk to you.”

  The faintest shiver of energy tickled the air. It was like the nibble on a fishing line by a curious perch. The hair on Ethan’s arms prickled as if electrified. “David?” He prayed it was his boyfriend and not some other spirit.

  The shiver grew more intense, becoming a slight breeze that played with the candles’ flames. Ethan?

  Ethan gasped when he heard his name. He couldn’t see David, but he could feel him. The smell of Old Spice nearly brought him to tears. “David!” The room had grown so cold that Ethan’s breath came out in a cloud of vapor.

  Where am I? David asked. His voice was thin, like a radio station that was nearly out of range.

  “I don’t know,” Ethan confessed. “Can you see me?”

  No.

  “What can you see?”

  Shapes in a fog. Then, David’s voice became urgent. “Something’s been chasing me. Every time I lose it, it comes back.”

  “Don’t let it catch you!” Ethan cried, alarmed. Surely, that was Death stalking him. “Try to find your way back to me.” When David didn’t reply, Ethan gripped the medal tighter. “How can I help you find your way back?” he asked. Still nothing. “David? Stay with me.”

  Ethan? It’s so cold here.

  “Follow my voice,” Ethan pleaded. “Come back to me.”

  I can’t, David said. He sounded leagues away. I keep trying, but I can’t.

  “How can I help you?” He’d do anything to bring David back, even change places if that was possible. The thought of David being chased by Death was almost too much to bear.

  “What the HELL are you doing?!”

  Like an overstretched rubber band, the world suddenly snapped back into place. David’s presence fled, and Ethan’s eyes popped open. Standing next to him was Bev. “Is this a seance?” she demanded. “Are you calling Satan?” Her face was red with outrage.

  “I was talking to David,” Ethan said, calmly getting to his feet. He glared at David’s mother. “He’s trapped between worlds right now, and I wanted to rescue him.”

  If Bev had been wearing pearls, she would have been clutching them. “That’s witchcraft!”

  “It’s spiritualism,” Ethan corrected angrily.

  “It’s evil!” She tore the Eagle Scout medal from his hands and returned it to its case. “You have no right being in here!”

  “I have every right,” he corrected. “David gave me a key.”

  If he hadn’t been so angry, it would have been fun to watch Bev fume. She blew out the candles and before Ethan could stop her, dumped them in the trash. “I cannot believe the immorality you’ve been subjecting our son to,” she snapped. “You’re leading him down the path of unrighteousness.”

  “Remind me why you’re here,” Ethan said. He wasn’t about to debate morality with someone who tipped waitresses by giving them religious tracts.

  “I came to tidy up,” she said primly.

  “You came to snoop,” Ethan countered. “Besides, I already cleaned the place and watered his plants. There’s nothing left for you to do.”

  She pursed her lips and swiped her finger over the fireplace mantel, looking for dust. “Did you change his sheets? Do his laundry? Clean his fridge?”

  “I will,” Ethan said.

  She sniffed. “But you haven’t yet. You know, you like to tell me that you’re my son’s boyfriend, but you don’t put in the effort. Have you thought about what’s likely to happen over the next few months? Will you be willing to attend to his physical needs? Bathing, changing his diapers?”

  “He won’t need me to do that,” Ethan said tensely. He couldn’t let himself believe that David would become a vegetable. There was no way. “But if he does need that, I will happily take care of him.”

  “So you say. But after week or two weeks of doing those things, single life will start to look pretty good. You’ll go to a bar and meet some other…man…” It was as if she could hardly bear to say the word. “Then you’ll go do whatever it is you people do and forget about my son.”

  Ethan clenched his jaw so tightly that a headache was forming. “You know nothing about me or what I would do for your son,” he said. “Or what he’d do for me.”

  “Believe me, a mother always knows.”

  A thousand, angry words boiled in Ethan’s mind, and he itched to unleash the torrent. But for David’s sake, he gulped them back. He grabbed his jacket off of the couch and palmed his keys. “Don’t forget to lock up when you’re done,” he said. “And don’t worry about the sheets or the laundry. I’ll take care of them the next time I’m here.” And there would be a next time.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Back at his apartment, Ethan tried for over an hour to contact David again, but with no luck. Finally, feeling drained and a little dizzy, he gave up. He’d have to go back to David’s after he was sure Bev was gone and try again.

  As he was making lunch, his phone rang. A very businesslike Christian said, “You free? I’ve got a job for us. It pays four-hundred dollars for about an hour’s worth of work. Interested?”

  Ethan wasn’t. He was desperate to contact David again and try to get him out of wherever he was. “I can’t.”

  “C’mon. I know you can use the money.”

  True. And there was no way he could go back to David’s house with Bev hanging around. Besides, as much as he hated to admit it, he wanted Christian’s take on his tattoo. “Fine. Pick me up at my apartment.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen,” Christian said and hung up.

  The moment Ethan got into Christian’s SUV, Christian said, “I’m sorry about last night.” He kept his eyes firmly on the road. “I messed up.”

  “You did,” Ethan agreed. And so had he.

  “You looked so broken and upset that I wanted to take away some of that pain,” Christian continued. “I was stupid.”

  “You were.”

  “You could cut me some slack,” Christian growled, finally flicking his eyes towards Ethan. “You’re not totally in the clear, you know.”

  Ethan frowned. “How is that?”

  Christian made a right turn, pulling onto an entrance ramp. Within moments, they were flying down the freeway. “You knock on my door every time you need something. A hot meal or a place to crash. Some might say you’re leading me on.”

  “I’m not leading you on,” Ethan snapped. Then he considered his actions over the past few days. He’d depended a lot on Christian. Far more than he should have, given the short time they’d known each other. “I appreciate what you’ve done,” he said, softening his voice. “But David - ”

  “Is your boyfriend. Yeah, I get that.”

  Ethan glanced at Christian, curious. “Haven’t you ever had a boyfriend?”

  “Of course. Plenty of them.”

  “I mean someone really special. Like the one person in the world you know you can depend on. Someone who means more to you than you do to yourself.”

  “No,” Christian finally admitted. “It sounds pretty good, though.”

  Good and bad, Ethan thought. When you opened yourself up to someone on that level, they had power to hurt you deeply, even if it wasn’t on purpose. David hadn’t meant for the accident to happen, but it
had, and now Ethan was paying the price. Contacting David that morning had been a blessing and a curse.

  Christian got off at the next exit. It wasn’t a neighborhood Ethan was familiar with. “Where are we going?”

  “New client, unusual problem.” Christian pulled into the parking lot of a small grocery store. The lot was empty, and the store had ‘closed’ signs at both entrances. A thin man in a starched shirt and pants with knife-edge creases stood outside searching the busy street, but when he saw Christian’s car, he hurried over.

  Christian parked near the entrance and rolled his window down. “What took you so long?” The man asked. He blinked his eyes rapidly, as if he needed glasses.

  “Traffic,” Christian said. He grabbed his duffel bag from the back seat and nodded at Ethan. “Ready?”

  The man wore a name tag that read Eddie. He hustled Christian and Ethan into the empty store and behind a door marked ‘employees only.’ “I caught it on camera three nights over the past week,” Eddie said. “I’m the store manager,” he explained. “I’ve tried telling the district manager, but she won’t listen.”

  Ethan scanned the area for truant ghosts. The prickling in the air told him something was near, but he didn’t see anything. “What, exactly, is the problem?” he asked.

  “The milk is going sour,” Eddie said.

  Ethan blinked. “Come again?”

  Eddie wrung his thin hands. “Every night, the dairy products spoil. The milk curdles, and the cheese gets moldy. I’ve had the refrigeration guys out here four times looking for the problem, but the units are all working fine.” He turned to Christian. “All the spoilage is costing the store a fortune. And what kind of grocery store doesn’t sell milk products?” He was growing more and more antsy, jiggling from foot to foot while he told his story.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Christian assured him. “Show us that footage you have.”

  Eddie brought up the video from the security cameras. Ethan watched intently. At midnight, a vaporous entity breezed up the dairy aisle. Tendrils of mist caressed the various foods on display.