This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events
are entirely coincidental.
DEAD AND BURIED
First edition. August 31, 2017.
Copyright © 2017 Jordaina Sydney Robinson.
ISBN: 978-1386021209
Written by Jordaina Sydney Robinson.
Edited by Lourdes Venard
Cover design by Design for Writers
For Diane.
For her support, enthusiasm and lack of judgement over my (ridiculous) rants.
Chapter One
“What about this one?” Petal, my teenage housemate, held up a lime green and sugary pink floral sundress that I wouldn’t be seen dead in. And since I was dead that literally applied.
“It doesn’t really suit my colouring. See?” I twirled a strand of my fire engine red hair around my finger and held it against the dress. “Why don’t you take it for Pam to try on?”
“You are so good at this!” Petal pushed her candy floss haze of blonde hair out of her young face and draped the bottom of the dress over the hanger so it wouldn’t drag on the floor. “Are you ready to try your things on?”
I grimaced at the swarm of people buzzing around the fitting rooms. I hated busy fitting rooms. The tiny cubicles with curtains that didn’t close properly. The mirrors that made you look fat in everything. The odour a mixture of a million different liberally applied perfumes, deodorant and feet. And now, a silent swarm of Ghosting Busters, the afterlife über police, hovering around to keep all us unruly dead folk in check. Or, more accurately, all us dead female folk since only one gender was permitted to shop at a time. On an independent level, where I firmly believed I should be allowed to choose who I socialised with, I was offended. On a superficial I-was-allowed-to-shop level I didn’t care.
“I think I might try them on upstairs,” I said, glancing up the escalators to the peaceful floor above. Would Oz notice? Who was I kidding? Of course Oz would notice.
“But how would we all see them?” Petal stuck out her bottom lip and inched toward the fitting rooms as if she could entice me to follow. When her subtle side-shuffle didn’t work, she walked back to me and spread her arms as if she were going to give me a hug. Instead, she grabbed the heap of clothes from my hands and backed up a few steps. “Come on.”
I spotted Oz still sitting on the cash desk not too far from the fitting rooms, head turned in my direction.
I pointed at the clothes Petal was holding and then upward, asking if I could try them on upstairs. He grinned at me, shook his head oh-so-slowly then jerked his thumb at the chaotic mess that was the fitting rooms.
“See! Even Oz wants to see what they look like,” Petal said and skipped off toward the changing rooms.
“No, Oz wants us all in one place,” I mumbled but followed her anyway. What else could I do? She had my clothes.
I’d been dead nearly two months and in that time I’d been involved in three murder sprees, shot, drugged and interrogated more times than I could remember. I’d also been assessed for how well I was adjusting. Which, since I kept finding dead bodies, had been shot, drugged and interrogated more times than I could remember, wasn’t all that well. And I’d managed it all with only one set of underwear. I’d had this conversation with Oz, my parole officer/jailer/guardian angel, earlier in the week and he had finally relented and booked us on the next available shopping trip.
Other than we had an allotted number of items I wasn’t entirely sure how the whole ghost shopping worked. When I’d asked Oz about it he’d been tight-lipped. I think the Bureau of Ghostly Affairs somehow switched the store cameras onto some sort of loop so when the security guards came in the next morning they didn’t find a video full of clothes flying around the place. As for the stock we were allowed to take, I figured the bureau assumed the stores would simply write it off as theft. Unless the GBs fiddled with the stock levels somehow. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. As long as I got to shop.
“Bridget!” Lucy waved her arms around trying to get our attention and nearly karate chopped a GB. Oblivious, she twirled and held her hands out to the side.
The hot pink body con dress she wore reached all the way down to the middle of her shins. It had a low crew neck and cap sleeves. She’d finally had the mass of hair extensions removed so her blunt, dark bob suited the dress.
“Looks amazing on you,” I said, giving her two thumbs up. Lucy was another of my housemates. She’d died in her mid-twenties, like me, but she’d been super athletic, unlike me, so pretty much everything looked good on her.
Lucy grinned. She spun back around and disappeared into the crowd of thirty or so women buzzing all over the fitting rooms. All of whom had armfuls of clothes and were in varying states of undress, as if the GBs and male parole officers were of no concern to them.
I was pretty sure they were all as limited as me in regards the number of items they could have, but you wouldn’t have known it the way they were loaded up.
In the middle of the melee Pam was zipping up a lilac sundress on someone I didn’t recognise. Pam was another housemate. I had five in total. Six if you counted Oz. Anna, my ex-adjustment companion now housemate, smoothed the wrinkles out of a black polo neck jersey dress that hugged her Barbie-esque proportions as she stood on the outskirts of the crowd. Her blonde hair hung like a curtain as she bent forward, which I was pretty sure was a calculated move to get some male attention. A couple of nearby GBs were covertly watching her until they realised Oz was not-so-covertly watching them.
Katie, half hidden behind a selection of scarves a good anti-social distance away, scowled at the whole fitting-room-o-fun. She was our other new housemate. Katie had once attempted to strangle Petal but it had been decided, by whoever decided these things, when she was released from a mental asylum after being exonerated of killing a bunch of people, she should return back home. She’d been living with us for three days and still hadn’t spoken. Even when asked a direct question. It was super weird. And super creepy.
“I didn’t think you were going to make it down here,” Oz called to me from his perch on the cash desk. His shorts, T-shirt and flip-flop combo gave the impression he was an oh-so-relaxed surfer dude but I was pretty sure he’d not slept in the three days since Katie moved back in. Of course, I was sleeping with Lucy, Pam and Petal squished up in my bed, with a chair shoved under the door handle so no one could sneak in and murder us in our beds, so it wasn’t like I could judge.
“I was making sure I had the right items,” I called back, smiling happily at the cluster of designer bags strewn around him. He’d let me visit the cosmetic department and the shoe department. I’d wrapped up my stolen items like the sales assistants did because I liked the feel of carrying all the posh bags around with me. It made me feel like I’d had a productive shopping trip. I had no clue why people stole things. They missed the best part.
“Finding things with elasticated waists can be so tricky.” Anna’s faux sympathetic voice carried across the open area of the fitting rooms. “I feel for you, hon.”
All activity at the fitting rooms stilled as everyone stared my way. Someone might as well have shouted “catfight!”.
Two girls near Anna, one heavily tattooed and the other with turquoise streaked black hair, whispered to each other. I very much had the impression they were betting on the victor. I briefly wondered what they were betting with and, if it was clothing items, whether I could bet on myself. I could totally take Anna if it meant a co
uple of extra clothing options.
“Bridget? Let’s go.” Petal brought me back to a reality where I wasn’t strangling Anna with her own hair. I followed her through the temporarily still swarm of women who were obviously disappointed at the lack of cat fighting.
We made it safely into the actual fitting rooms where a girl in her early twenties turned in a circle as she tried to do up the back of her dress in front of the huge mirrors. It was like watching a dog chase its tail. Petal nudged me and nodded in the girl’s direction.
“Help her,” Petal hissed, shrugging my clothes at me to show she didn’t have a free hand to help.
I hated it when people intruded on my fitting room experience—I liked to struggle with my own zips, but then she was blocking the aisle and I wanted to try my stuff on.
“Let me help.” I peered over her shoulder so she could see me in the mirror and gently nudged her forward so I could get past her when I’d zipped her up.
The girl spun to face me, her expression disturbingly eager. She made a long, high-pitched noise with several undulations that could possibly have been words.
I paused. “That’s nice.”
See, this was why I didn’t speak to strangers. It was like buying a packet of Revels—you never knew what you were going to get. The girl took a deep breath and opened her mouth again.
“I’m sorry. I talk a little fast when I’m excited. I would very much appreciate your help with the zip. I love these types of dresses but I always forget how awkward the back zips are. Maybe I should change my style.”
I stepped back to look at her. She was wearing a fitted olive sheath which gave her skinny frame some shape. It reached mid-shin and looked like there was no give in the material should she need to run. Funny how I’d considered that when I’d selected my items. But the look was ideal for her.
“No, this is perfect for you,” I told her and moved behind, brushing her thick auburn hair out of the way so I could zip her up. “It really suits you. You should get it.”
“Do you think?” she asked and turned around when she was zipped in, smoothing the lower half of the dress over.
“Absolutely. You might want to try a smaller size, though,” I said and pinched the extra material on the torso out to the side.
She turned back to face the wall of mirrors and did a side to side twist to check out her outfit. She met my eyes in the mirror. “I think you might be right. You’re Bridget, aren’t you? Petal’s housemate? I’m Olive.” She spun back around and stuck out her hand for me to shake. I scanned her face, desperately trying to find something memorable to tie her name to. This stuff never used to bother me when I’d been alive but since dying I’d learned small things, like remembering names, seemed to mean a lot to people.
“It’s really nice to meet you, Olive,” I said, stressing her name to myself and trying to imprint her face to my memory.
“I always wear something olive coloured, so you’ll remember.” Olive pointed at my face. “You have the same panicked look I get when I meet someone new and think I won’t remember them in a different setting.”
I frowned at her. “Then how did you know who I was?”
“Everyone knows who you are,” said a mountain of a woman as she strolled along the fitting room aisle toward us. The way she looked me up and down told me that hadn’t been a compliment. “And, without being rude, I’d prefer it if you refrained from having any contact with my wards. They don’t need to be fraternising with the likes of you.”
“I’m sorry. Did you say without being rude?” I asked. “Because I think your navigation was a little off.”
The woman smiled but it was more like an animal baring her teeth before a fight. “No, being rude would be me cursing in your face.”
I gave her a super fake laugh. “No, that wouldn’t be rude. That would be a mistake.”
“Haven’t you tried anything on yet?” Lucy asked as she walked into the fitting rooms, her attention jumping from me to the heap of clothes Petal was still holding, oblivious to what she’d walked in on. “You’re going to run out of time.”
“Yes, Bridget, let’s try your stuff on.” Petal walked along the aisle with all my clothes and ducked into a cubicle. I followed but only because I didn’t like the way Lucy had been eyeing my pile.
“It was nice to meet you, Bridget. I hope you don’t find any more dead bodies.” Olive waved at me, oblivious to the scowl from her parole officer.
“Why do people persist in saying that to me?” I asked Lucy, giving Olive a tight lipped smile over my shoulder.
“Because they’re stupid,” Lucy said with a shrug and then shoved me in the changing room as Petal came out and pulled the curtain closed behind me. Shockingly, it didn’t close the whole way.
“Have you guys all found stuff you want?” I asked while stripping out of my mauve jumpsuit. It was all I had. And since my Vocational Training Programme jumpsuit was white I was still wearing my old uniform around the house. I wasn’t supposed to be but it was that or walk around in my underwear. I had no other clothes and I simply couldn’t bring myself to wear white around the house.
“We’ve all found something,” Pam called through the curtain. “Lucy’s got a skintight tube thing—”
“It’s a dress,” Lucy interrupted with a snap in her tone that implied it wasn’t the first time she’d corrected Pam. “Bridget’s already seen and approved it.”
“Petal has a pretty skirt and she found me a lovely sundress,” Pam continued as if Lucy hadn’t spoken. “If you find something I was thinking of making a special tea so we could all get dressed up.”
“I like the sound of that, Pam,” I said as I stepped into the strappy forest green and purple jumpsuit. I had so little reason, or really no reason at all, to get dressed up in my regular afterlife, so a fancy tea sounded like fun. And I had makeup now. And heels.
I twirled in front of the narrow mirror trying to get a good look at my reflection. The jumpsuit had tapered legs with a drawstring waist and shoestring shoulder straps that multiplied into a criss-cross strappy back. Initially I’d been worried it was a little too much like my uniform, being a jumpsuit and all, but the colours, the palm leaf pattern, the fit, the everything were so much more flattering than the shapeless mauve sack of a uniform. I did a mini lunge inside the cubicle. Fashionable and practical. Should I be chased by a murderer, it wouldn’t hinder my escape. I tied the waist up, arranged the top and drew the curtain back.
“Well?” I asked as I stepped out.
“Oh, Bridget, you look amazing,” Pam gushed.
“Dibs.” Lucy pointed up and down my outfit. “Total dibs.”
“How about we let Bridget wear it a little first before you steal it, okay?” Pam suggested and Lucy made a noise that could’ve been agreement. Or not.
“Where’s Petal?” I asked. She’d been so keen on me trying stuff on so she could see and now she wasn’t here to pay me compliments.
Lucy shook her head. “She’s on a ‘let’s include Katie and Anna in our lives’ kick.”
“Why?” Barefoot, I wandered into the open space where people were still twirling in front of the mirror. Thankfully Olive’s parole officer had disappeared, probably to skin some poor animal with her teeth. I stole a quick glance at myself while scanning for Petal. The jumpsuit really did look good on me. I’d have to find a place to hide it from Lucy.
“She thinks we can help them,” Lucy said in a tone that implied she was both unwilling to help them and doubtful this was possible.
I looked between Pam and Lucy. “And I’m only learning about this now because …?”
“I didn’t realise you didn’t know,” Pam said.
“Oh, I like this!” Some random middle-aged blonde woman started pulling at my jumpsuit.
I knocked her hands off. “Me too. But I like it better when it’s not being pulled about.”
“Where did you find it?” she asked, completely undeterred. She put her hands on my shoulders and
forcefully spun me around so she could check out the back and then spun me back to face her.
“It’s the last one,” I said, knocking her hands off me. Again.
“We’re the same size. I can borrow that. Let me try it on,” the woman said. It wasn’t a question and we were not the same size.
I arched an eyebrow and looked the lady over. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
“I’ve missed mean Bridget,” Lucy whispered to Pam.
“Will you guard my stuff?” I asked Pam as Lucy began edging back along the aisle to my cubicle. Pam nodded and I headed out of the fitting rooms.
Katie hadn’t moved from her scarf hideout but now Petal was inching closer, pretending to browse the scarves. Oz was focused intently on something in the opposite direction. Which was weird since his murderee ward was trying to befriend his murderous ward. I followed his gaze and realised he was using a mirror to keep tabs on Katie and Petal without directly watching. Darn, that man was sneaky.
“This is nice.” Oz nodded to my outfit before his attention returned to his observation mirror.
“I know. That’s why I’m choosing it,” I said and was about to broach the subject of how to deal with the Petal/Katie situation when two black jumpsuited, black burglar masked, GBs moved to my left and blocked Oz’s view of his surveillance mirror.
“What’s up, Officers?” Oz asked and caught my eye while subtly jerking his head in the direction of Katie and Petal.
I moved to step away but one of the officers grabbed my wrist. “You should probably stay here.”
“And you should probably take your hand off my ward.” Oz spoke in the deceptively calm voice he used on me when I was in trouble. Which was all the time.
The GB relinquished my wrist and held up a hand. “Apologies. I’m Officer Treble. This is Officer Richards. We’ve had a complaint against one of your wards.”
Dead and Buried: A Bridget Sway Novel (A Paranormal Ghost Cozy Mystery Series Book 4) Page 1