Chapter 8
"You really think this is a good place to confront him?" Erin looked around the outpatient toy room, remembering the puzzles, crafts and games. The plastic tub full of fun gifts she’d pawed through as her reward for dealing with needle pokes. The “poke box” had never made her forget the pain, discomfort and fear of weekly port accesses, but there had been the coolest journal for her to write in all through to high school. The jokes on different pages had kept her smiling through some dark times.
"If this doesn't work, we can try the fish hallway. That place was pretty cool."
The lightness of her thoughts dived into darkness again. "You don't think that's too far for a quick escape?"
"Not if we go through the walls."
Erin frowned. "Like we did with the doors, but not the counters. Now, how does that work? We can run through walls, but sit on chairs and not fall through floors."
Davis chuckled, the sound a happy memory in itself. "Man-made objects are more solid than air, but not impossible to pass through. Kind of like gel. The thinner they are, the better, because it’s difficult for most new ghosts to wrap their minds around passing through barriers."
"And natural things, like trees and caverns…"
"Hurt when you run into them."
She made a face. "Good to know."
He squeezed her hand and pulled her close to his side. "You'll do great."
Great? She was terrified and trying not to be. How could her surroundings be so familiar, yet so strange and new at the same time? "You're sure he'll find us?"
"Absolutely. He'll be pulled to us first. Like a magnet." His voice was as grim as the thought. To forever be a magnet to misery? That just sucked.
She opened her mouth to ask another question, but when she inhaled cold air, words fled her mind. Cold air. Fear. Good warning system. Before her trepidation and self-doubt could take over, she pulled up her happy memories from this room and others. She didn't have one single moment of stunning elation to draw on, so she compiled them all. Maybe the sheer number of them would bolster her.
When the wraith appeared in the doorway, towering over them both, she held her ground and gripped Davis's hand tight. The twisted black mask swiped at her memories of making plaster handprints and putting together puzzles and knocked them aside like plastic logs in a windstorm. A windstorm of hate and fear, anguish and hopelessness. When the screams erupted all around them, any happy emotions those memories held just couldn't last.
Pressure squeezed around her, holding her immobile and helpless. Not only was she trying to keep the damn wraith from overwhelming her with the weight of the souls trapped inside, she also had to fight the rising darkness inside of her. The crushing despair at the unfairness of life, death and grief. A sense of impending defeat vibrated through her muscles. Unable to take more, she gasped and cried out, "Davis!"
Davis pulled and they ran. The first wall in their way passed quickly with only a slight squeeze. After that, it was as if the walls themselves were fighting – on the side of the wraith. The doors to the fish hallway hurt, scraping with each jagged sliver of wood that formed them. Erin fell against the handrail, gasping and holding on. "That didn't feel like running through gel, Davis."
He sat on the floor and pulled one knee up, breathing heavily. "You're right. More like wet cement. The first few walls were easy but after a while, they became almost impossible."
Erin collapsed beside him. "You really don't do this often, do you?"
"The hospitals are protected, so I don't face wraiths very often. When I do, I just need to know how to run."
She batted her lashes up at him. "You're so good at running, Davis."
He laughed and shoulder-bumped her. "Mock me all you want, but I wasn't looking to spend my after-life in one endless battle after another. I prefer to go to the root of the problem and help people before they are lost to their own misery."
Understanding bloomed inside her. Like with her cancer, people would do what they could, skew a few battles, but ultimately the fight was hers. Only she could win the war for her soul. She smiled gently. "What you do is admirable. And if I mock you, believe me. I am mocking myself as well. I do not feel empowered by this challenge."
Davis cocked his head, curiosity filling his tone. "What does make you feel empowered?"
Erin thought about it for a long minute, cut short by the appearance of the wraith. She sighed and rose to her feet. "Getting tired of chasing us, are you?” Raising her hands, she curved her fingers and wiggled them. “No more slow build-up as you walk slowly down the hall like Freddy, scraping your claw-like blades over the walls?"
Davis gasped, his disbelief and horror clear. "Erin! Do not taunt the wraith."
Erin laughed and the wraith flinched. "You asked what empowered me. How about this?" she put her hands on her hips. "I. Am. Stubborn."
Davis rounded her side, his disbelieving face now in front of her. "You're stubborn. That's the defense you want to go with?"
Erin shrugged at him. It was the best she had at the moment. She faced the wraith, all the attitude she’d developed during years of facing her monstrous disease now propping her up. "You cry and scream. You inspire fear. You look scary. None of this is any different from getting poked. Needles and spinal taps and blood transfusions and MRIs. All of it knowing that at the end of the day, you still might hear bad news. I have faced those battles twice in my life. It took a lot of time and a lot of battles to kill me. What makes you think you can take me down now?"
The wraith stood there, his tendrils of hatred and anger swirling around him. The sounds of screams and cries abounded, pulsed air throughout the hallway.
She stood strong, her chin out and her back straight. "That's it?"
Scary laughter came from the caricature of a face staring at her. Long, gnarled fingers crossed in front of the wraith, slowly dragging the edges of his cloak open and showing her a shiny black surface over his chest. Slowly, dulled and darkened images became clear and Erin stumbled back.
Her dad held her mom, tears drenching their faces as they battled through all the small, devastating decisions that had already been decided but now seemed wrong. Was it really good to take all the posters and pictures down and empty the room now? Or should they leave it long enough for the doctors and close friends to come say goodbye? Should they start the phone calls or just take the next hour or two to grieve on their own?
Erin clenched her hands. "I can't believe you went there, you bastard."
"Don't get angry. That's what he wants." Davis took her hand in his, worry clear in his eyes when the plan had been for him to focus on his own happy memories, also.
She was messing it up. Anger had bored a hole straight inside her and now it blossomed all through her system. So much injustice. The cancer, her early death, her parents’ pain and now she couldn't even face a wraith with the happiest moments of her life because, damn it, there hadn't been enough of them.
Death Is Becoming Page 8