Stalking the Dead

by E. C. Bell

  “About the demons,” he said, glancing in my direction. I carefully kept my eyes forward. “How many have you seen?”

  “None,” I said.

  “None?”

  “None.” I shrugged. “I don’t think they’re real.”

  He frowned. “But if there are ghosts, shouldn’t there be demons? And angels and all that stuff?”

  “I don’t know about angels,” I replied. “Maybe talk to a preacher about them. Heck, a preacher might be able to help you with the whole demon thing, too. But I don’t think they’re real.”

  “Huh,” James said. I glanced at his profile, but it looked carefully neutral.

  “Ask Mom if you don’t believe me,” I said, all ready to get huffy.

  “Hey, I believe you,” James said. “I just always thought that all that stuff fit in the same box. You know.”

  “Well, ghosts are real,” I said. “But that’s all I know.”

  “So, who was visiting your mom?”

  “A ghost.”

  “I figured,” he said, impatiently. “But who was it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But she looked old.” And before he could make some sort of joke about a ninety-year-old ghost, I said, “From her clothes it looked like she died in the 1950s or something.”

  “Oh. That happen a lot?”

  “No, actually, it doesn’t.”

  Usually ghosts either dealt with their issues and moved on to the next plane of existence or they faded away until even people like my mother and me could no longer see them. But sometimes they didn’t.

  Sometimes they stuck around. I didn’t know why they would, but they did.

  “Let’s ask Mom about her,” I said, and James grinned from ear to ear.

  “I’d like that,” he said.

  No, you probably won’t, I thought. Let him think that talking to Mom about ghosts would be entertaining for a while. Maybe it would keep his mind off Officer Tyler and the six-hour “interview” that had seemed a lot more like an interrogation than anything else.

  THE “OPEN” SIGN was gone, but the ghost wasn’t. We walked inside, and there she was, sitting on the couch with the little step-on dog and Mom. They were watching a black and white movie, and all three of them looked up and glared at James and me. For interrupting them, I supposed.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why is she still here?”

  “Oh,” James said. “Oh.” Then he looked around, like some kind of idiot. “Is the ghost still here?”

  He said the word like it should be italicized, for heaven’s sake.

  Mom didn’t answer, so I did. Snippily, which shouldn’t have surprised anyone at all.

  “Yes. She’s watching TV.” Then I glared at Mom. “Why is she watching TV? What’s going on?”

  “We’re waiting for you,” Mom said. She picked up the remote and snapped off the television, and I noticed the ghost sighed sadly.

  “I suppose that was your favourite movie,” I said.

  “One of them,” the ghost replied. “I sure miss the movies.”

  “Leave Laurel alone,” Mom said. “I told her to wait. We need you.”

  “What for?” This was James. I was too busy angrily grinding my teeth.

  “We need a ride.”

  “What?” Still James, but I was thinking the same question.

  “We need—”

  “We heard you,” I snapped. “Why in heaven’s name do you need a ride? Either of you?”

  “Because we need to go to the old cemetery,” Mom said, as though this was the most reasonable thing in the world. “Laurel wants me to talk to Roy.”

  “Roy?”

  “Her husband.” Mom was starting to sound impatient, which was never a good sign. “If you don’t want to go, Marie, fine. James will drive us.” She looked at him. “Won’t you?”

  “Sure!” he said, way too enthusiastically. “I’d love to!”

  “But James—” I started. The words dribbled to a stop when I saw his face. His happy, excited face.

  “Come on,” he said to me. “It’ll be fun.”

  No. This would be even less fun than talking to Mom about ghosts. This would be working with frigging ghosts. Out in the world, where everyone could see us.

  But he grabbed my hand and jingled his keys. “Everybody ready?” he said. “Let’s go.”

  IT TOOK A while to get everybody in the car. First, Mom wouldn’t go without Millie, so we had to find her collar and leash. And then the ghost decided to kick up a stink about sitting in the back with me.

  “I always rode in the front seat when Roy took me places, before,” she said. “My stomach does not do so well when I sit in the back.”

  Fantastic. Stuck in the back seat with a carsick ghost and an over-excited step-on dog. This was not going to go well at all.

  “Everybody buckle up,” James said. The ghost—Laurel, her name was Laurel—looked confused, so I put her mind at ease.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “He’s just talking to the living.”

  She nodded, then perched on the edge of seat, leaning forward until her face was next to Mom’s.

  Fine, I thought. You don’t want to talk to me; that’s just fine.

  But then the little dog jumped into the front seat and curled up on Mom’s lap, and I was abandoned by everyone.

  I morosely buckled up and decided to ignore them all.

  Luckily, the ride was short, because the cemetery was in the old part of Fort McMurray, just like Mom’s trailer. Mom’s trailer was actually parked in one of the oldest sections of McMurray, next to the Clearwater River, but the cemetery was right up there in the age department.

  As we maneuvered through the vehicle-clogged streets, James peppered Mom with questions, which she happily answered.

  Hey, better her than me. She was the one who told him about ghosts and our wonderful little gift, after all.

  He hit her with the demon question almost immediately.

  “No,” she said, pulling at her seatbelt as though it was hurting her neck, which it probably was. “No, I don’t think there are actual demons. Think in terms of truly angry ghosts, out to hurt and maim.”

  “Oh.” James chewed on that for a second. “What about angels?”

  That question even brought Mom to a stop for a moment. Welcome to my world, Mom.

  “Angels?” she finally asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You know. Wings and harps? What about them?”

  “Well, I can’t say that there aren’t any angels,” she said, carefully. “But I’ve never seen one. And I don’t know that I’d want to, if they exist.”

  “Why?” James asked. “I think it would be kind of cool. Don’t you?”

  “You ever read the Bible?” Mom asked. “The Koran? Any of the Hindu Scriptures?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe give them a read, and then decide whether or not you’d want to meet an angel.”

  “So—not good?” James sounded surprised. “I thought they were good.”

  “It depends on your source material,” Mom said. “It’s like Santa Claus. He’s not always depicted as a nice old man, now is he?”

  I snorted soft laughter, and Laurel glanced over her shoulder at me. “What are you laughing at?” she asked.

  “Mom gave me the same Santa Claus talk,” I said. “Next, she’s going to tell him not to believe everything he reads.”

  “And don’t believe everything you read,” Mom said.

  “See?” I whispered.

  “Believe what you see,” Mom continued. “And if you can’t see, believe someone who can.”

  “Huh?” James sounded confused, and I didn’t blame him.

  “The stories are just that. Stories,” Mom said. “There are ghosts, and then there is everything that was written as people tried to make sense of them. I believe that’s where the idea of angels and demons and Santa Claus came from. I know for a fact that ghosts exist. But the rest? I’ve never seen them,
so I don’t know.”

  After that, James fell silent. Guess Mom gave him enough to chew on. Hope you enjoyed the lesson, James.

  “AREN’T WE THERE yet?” Laurel said weakly. “I feel ill.”

  “Just a block more.” I reached past her to open the window. “Let the air hit your face or something.” Then I leaned forward and whispered in James’s ear. “Hurry up. She’s gonna puke, and I’m not cleaning it up.”

  James gasped and put his foot into it. “Just hang on,” he yelled. “We’re almost there!”

  “She’s not deaf,” I said. “Just dead.”

  “Oh,” James said, and his ears turned a bright pink. “Sorry.”

  Laurel leaned against the car door and let the wind wash over her. “That’s better,” she said.

  Luckily, we were almost there. We turned down Biggs Avenue and stopped at the entrance of the Fort McMurray Cemetery.

  The gates were closed, which didn’t surprise me at all. It was getting late, after all. A chain, looped loosely between the low gates, held them shut.

  “Can you pick that?” I asked James. He shrugged, but Mom waved him off.

  “No need,” she said. “I can get through, and you two should be able to go over.” She glanced at me. “Can’t you?”

  “Yes.” I got out and opened Mom’s door. “Let me help you.”

  “I’m fine, girl,” she said, but took my hand anyway. Her fingers felt like burning sticks wrapped in fine leather, and she clutched my hand, hard.

  Millie the step-on dog skittered out over Mom, causing a little more confusion, then ran to a small skiff of grass by the car and squatted.

  “She better only be peeing,” Mom said as she hauled herself out of the car. “I didn’t bring any of those dog poop bag things.”

  “And I’m not picking it up,” I said.

  Mom snorted laughter as she shakily gained her feet. “I’d like to see that sometime.”

  “Not in this lifetime,” I replied.

  Luckily, all the little dog did was pee, so we were both off the hook. Mom was right about the gate. She was so thin, she was easily able to slip through the opening. Millie followed her, and then James and I rattled over the top of the gate, and we were all in.

  All except Laurel, who stood on the outside of the gate and shook her head.

  “I’m not going in there,” she said. “If I do, he’ll think everything’s been decided. And it hasn’t.”

  “Mom, I thought you both wanted to come here,” I said impatiently. “What’s going on?”

  “Your mother’s going to talk to Roy,” Laurel said. “And bring him to his senses. Right, Sylvie?”

  “I’m going to do my best,” Mom said to Laurel, then turned to me. “Don’t worry about her. Let’s go find Roy.”

  “You’re not going to take her to the trailer, are you?” I whispered. “If you can’t convince Roy to go along with whatever she wants? Are you?”

  “We’ll worry about that after the meeting,” she said, and turned away from the gate.

  So I followed her. What the hell.

  James had dug a flashlight out of the glove box of his car and was running around checking out gravestones. He’d wandered off to the right, but Mom headed left.

  “She told me they’re over here,” she said. “Two graves together. Out in the open.” She reached into her voluminous purse and pulled out a little flashlight of her own. It shone yellow light over the hummocky grass and trees. “Do you see them?”

  “No.” I wasn’t exactly looking for the graves. I was watching for other ghosts.

  This was an especially old cemetery, and sometimes ghosts clung pretty hard to places like this.

  Mom had a theory, of course. She thought that this was where the living came to mourn the loss of the dead, and it was all the mourning that held the dead here much longer than anywhere else. Like they still had something to do here on this plane, and it was making the living feel better.

  I didn’t buy it completely, but it made some sense. A cemetery was one of those places where the dead and the living absolutely came together, and the living only came to a place like this to remember the dead. It might be that connection that held them—but it didn’t explain the dead that had been around for a hundred years or so.

  I’d never seen that myself, but Mom had. And moving that ghost on had really taken something out of her, no doubt about it.

  Whatever the reason, though, the spirits of the dead seemed to congregate at places like this. But I wasn’t seeing anyone, which seemed odd.

  “Shouldn’t there be at least a few ghosts here?” I asked.

  “Probably hiding,” Mom replied. “They might come out when they see we’re not dangerous. Or not. Hard to say.”

  “Yay.”

  She flashed the light over a group of graves, and then the light stilled on one.

  “Here’s Laurel,” she said. Moved the light. “And Roy.”

  “Oh, hell,” I whispered. “They drowned.”

  “Yes,” Mom said. “Together.”

  Not that drowning was the worst way to go, but it was right up there, as far as I was concerned.

  “Did she tell you what happened?” I asked.

  “All she said was a boating accident. I didn’t want to pry.” She looked around. “Now, where do you think Roy is?”

  “Hiding?” I said, not very helpfully. “Heck, maybe he doesn’t want to see Laurel.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Mom asked. “Laurel assures me that he loves her more than death itself.”

  “Oh yeah, and ghosts never lie,” I said, rather caustically.

  “I don’t think she was lying,” Mom said. She played the yellow light over the two tombstones again and sighed. “I wish I could find him and get this show on the road.”

  So did I.

  “Roy!” I called.

  Well, to be honest, I barely raised my voice past a whisper, because I really didn’t want to get the attention of the living—meaning anyone living in the apartment building that backed onto the cemetery. It was a warm night, and I was sure that almost everyone had their patio doors open, hoping to catch a cool breeze or two. I didn’t need anyone hearing me calling out the dead, and then calling the cops. Didn’t need that at all.

  “Roy? Where are you?”

  “I’m over here!” James called, most unhelpfully. Then he waved his flashlight, and I could have kicked him when I saw the beam of light hit some of the balconies that looked out on parking lots and the cemetery.

  “Stop it!” I whisper-yelled.

  “What?” he yelled back. Even louder than before, if that was possible.

  Then Millie barked a couple of times, just to add to the din.

  “Can everyone please keep their voices down?” Mom asked. “You’ll scare Roy away.”

  “Who?” James called. Luckily, he was walking in our direction, so he’d softened his voice considerably, but still not enough, as far as I was concerned.

  “Shut up!” I hissed. “You’re too loud!”

  “Oh!” And then, finally, he quieted down. “Sorry,” he whispered.

  At least, I thought that was what he said, because I could no longer hear his words at all. That man drove me crazy sometimes.

  “Just get over here,” Mom said. I was happy to hear the impatience in her voice. “And be quiet. You’ll chase Roy away if you don’t.”

  I watched the beam from his flashlight move through the trees, and then, finally, he was standing beside us.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know.”

  “I understand,” Mom said. “Now take Millie, and be quiet.”

  “Will do.” He took the leash, tugged the little dog to him, and then lifted her up in his arms. She gave him a quick lick on the chin and settled.

  Then the three of us stared at Mom.

  “Now what?” I finally asked.

  “We wait,” she said.

  Wonderful.

  Arnie:

  A Wom
an’s Like a Disposable Lighter

  HERE’S THE THING. I was never one for just sitting around. If I had a spare minute or two, I usually found something (shitty) to watch on TV. Or I’d get the hell out and head down to my favourite watering hole, the Blue Ox Inn, for a drink. And if I couldn’t do any of that, well, there was always taking a nap.

  Anything so I didn’t have to spend much time with myself, in my own head. Because that was one dark empty place, and that was the truth.

  But that first day (and night) in Rosalie’s apartment, I couldn’t do much more than sit and think. Until I met the dead guy. Roy. The one who lost his wife.

  Then I spent my time watching him.

  Trust me, I had a few skills in this department. After all, I’d spent a good couple of years doing that to Marie.

  Even when she ran away to Edmonton—Edmonton, for God’s sake!—I was able to find her. I just wanted to convince her to come home. She needed to come home. She needed to marry me, so we could have a bunch of kids and live a good life. We would’ve, too, if she hadn’t run away.

  She got scared. I knew that, now. I maybe came on too strong at the end. But hell, she’d promised to marry me.

  She’d promised.

  She couldn’t break a promise like that. Not without repercussions. But I would have taken her back in a second. She had to know that.

  I loved her.

  Rosalie was a great gal, no doubt about it, but she wasn’t Marie. She’d be the first to admit it, too, if I’d ever talked to her about Marie. But I didn’t do that. Not even once.

  Better to keep my two worlds separate.

  But if she had, I’m sure she would have admitted that she wasn’t half as good as Marie. Not a quarter as good.

  Rosalie was disposable. Like a Bic lighter. To be used until she didn’t do exactly what I wanted, every time I wanted. Then I would’ve thrown her away and found another one just like her. After all, there were a million of them. And they were all absolutely disposable.

  The only woman I’d ever found who wasn’t was Marie. And that was the truest statement I’d ever made in my life.

  Anyhow, I watched Roy.

  He didn’t do much, but hey, Marie spent whole days not doing much, so I was used to sitting and waiting for some action. He mostly stuck to the area around his grave. Every once in a while, he’d throw his hands up, make fists, and shake them at the sky, like he was cursing God or something. Then he’d go back to walking around his grave. I assumed he was calling out his wife’s name, but I couldn’t hear him. I was just that much too far away.