by Karina Halle
I grabbed my phone from the table, keeping a safe distance from the slippers in case they started moving on their own, and quickly dialed his number.
“Perry,” he said warmly as he answered.
His voice filled me with a spark of hope. “Hi, listen, what are you doing right now?”
“Right now?” he repeated carefully. I held my breath, afraid he might already have plans. I was so scared though, I would do what I must to convince him.
“Yeah, I could really use some company. I need to get out of my house,” I tried to say as calmly as possible, but it still came out flustered.
“Are you in trouble?” he asked, getting straight to the point.
“I’m not sure,” I said honestly.
“I’ll be right over. Where do you live?”
I told him and we hung up. The thing I knew about Maximus was when you called, he came running to you.
I passed the next thirty minutes by dolling myself up. I don’t know what possessed me to start thinking I was going on a date – he was saving my ass from going crazy was what he was actually doing – but looking at it this way eased the terror from my stomach and replaced it with butterflies. The good news was when I finally found the courage to look at myself in the mirror, my reflection was no longer demonic. My eyes were back to normal, and though I was pasty, I covered that up with a swipe of bronzer.
I ransacked my closet looking for something to wear but couldn’t decide on anything until I spied a purple sundress at the back. For some reason I was drawn to it and I slipped it on.
I glanced in the mirror. It was startling to see myself in that color but it went well with my black hair and paleness. I looked girly and for once I liked it. It felt oddly natural. I put on my own leggings and black combat boots to even things out and as I grabbed a cardigan from the closet, I heard a car vroom up to the house.
Below was an old-fashioned red truck with white trim, steam rising up from the exhaust and blowing away in cold gusts. Maximus kept the truck running and got out. I knocked on the window quickly to indicate I’d be right down, then I grabbed my purse and went for my door.
I hesitated before I touched the door knob. There was a tingly feeling in my hands, kind of like when you think you’re going to get a static shock. I wasn’t afraid of no shock; however. I was suddenly, inexplicably afraid that I’d try to open the door and there would be something on the other side refusing to let me out.
“I’ll just jump out the window then,” I said out loud to intimidate things that were probably in my imagination.
It was true, too. The roof below my window sloped gently and with an oak tree at the corner of the house, it was easy to stealthily move across and then climb down the tree. It was an escape route used many times in high school.
But this wasn’t a time to sneak around. I breathed in deeply and grabbed the door handle. It swung open with ease I wasted no time running down the hall and stairs and to the front door. The lights were on, which made things less creepy, but I didn’t want to spend an extra second in that house anymore.
I leaped out the door and quickly locked it behind me before speed walking toward Maximus, who was holding open the passenger door.
“Nice truck,” I said with a smile.
He returned the smile with extra wattage. “Nice dress.”
I was too cold and uneasy to blush. I jumped in the seat and he shut the door just as the wind picked up again.
He got in his side and gave me the once over. “Where to, little lady?”
“Somewhere far away from here,” I said, eyeing my house. It looked menacing, ominous, and not at all like the house I grew up in. “And somewhere with booze. A lot of it. This little lady needs a fucking drink.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Maximus ended up taking me to a quaint little wine bar that overlooked the river at the end of Waterfront Park. In the summer, the patio area would be packed with tourists and locals snapping up the breezes off the water, but in the winter it was small and cozy. If I were in the right frame of mind, I might have even called it romantic, especially with the lights as they twinkled off the black, waving currents outside and contrasted against the soft glow inside.
I wasn’t in my right frame of mind, though, and Maximus knew it. As he drove us here, he kept the conversation safe as a disoriented Tom Waits crooned from his stereo, mimicking how I felt. I tried to keep my mind somewhere else. But once we settled down in our tiny, windowside table, his large frame looking almost comical in the narrow spot, and ordered our first drinks, he started giving me the expectant eye.
The waiter placed a shot of tequila down in front of me and I raised it in the air at Maximus.
“To…,” I trailed off, unable to think of a single thing worth toasting to.
“To us,” he finished, raising his Corona. I raised my brow. His green eyes twinkled in the candlelight.
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” I said with a smirk and we clinked glasses. I tried to hold his eyes as I did the shot but it burned hard in my throat and I coughed.
“Easy there, it’s not a race,” he chided, picking up my lime and passing it to me.
I shoved it in my mouth until the bitterness took the wincing away. I smiled at him, all lime mouth, and sat back in my chair feeling more relaxed than I had in weeks.
“That’s a nice look for you,” he said with a wink. I took the lime out and placed it in the empty shot glass.
“You’re looking very pretty tonight,” he continued after clearing his throat. “I don’t know why I never pictured you wearing a dress before.”
“Because I don’t wear dresses, unless it’s a special occasion.”
It was his turn to raise his brow. “Is this a special occasion?”
I shrugged as the waiter came by again and poured me a glass of riesling.
“No. Maybe. Some part of me thought it was a great idea to wear it.”
“Well I’m glad that part of you did.”
“I just wish I knew what part.” I gave him a steady look.
I took a large sip of my wine and immediately felt the smooth, golden liquid go straight to my head where the tequila was already sitting. I don’t even think I ate anything for dinner. Things like food were slipping my mind lately.
“So what happened tonight that made you call me? I’d like to pretend you just wanted my company, but it sounded as if anybody would have done the job.”
My lips twitched slightly as I observed him. He looked a bit put upon, like there was a chance I could hurt him if I told him that actually anyone would have done the job and I just wanted to get out of the house, to be with people. But I wasn’t sure how true that was.
“I think I’m being hunted,” I said, leaning in closer to him, keeping my voice low. “Or haunted. Or I’m going crazy. One of those three. Or all of them.”
He leaned forward too, and his forehead nearly bumped against mine. He grabbed my hands with his large, weatherbeaten ones and squeezed them. It was a comforting gesture.
“Tell me everything,” he whispered. His drawl was incredibly sexy when he whispered like that. I didn’t like how I was noticing him in that way. Not tonight.
I dropped my eyes to the table and begun the long, crazy tale of the last few weeks. I left out the miscarriage part because it was none of his business. I just told him I had severe “woman problems” and I’m not sure if he deduced anything out of that. I concluded the story with the last straw, the baby slippers in my room.
While I was talking Maximus kept quiet; his eyes were squinty emeralds in the low light. I met them occasionally, afraid to see signs of doubt in them. To his credit, he only seemed engrossed by my story and then extremely concerned. He finished the rest of his beer and placed it on the table so that the bottle spun around like a top.
“I wish I wasn’t the designated driver tonight, darling,” he said finally, “because after hearing that story, I reckon I want another drink. And I know you do too.”
“Well, what do you think?” I asked cautiously.
He gave my hands a quick squeeze again and leaned back in his chair.
“I’m going to speak my mind here, Perry,” he said. My heart thudded around a little. He thought I was crazy. He thought I was nutso. He thought I was losing my mind.
“I do think you are being haunted,” was his matter-of-fact answer. “And I’d love to come over, spend some time in your house, and do a reading. Get to the bottom of this.”
Oh.
“Are you serious? You believe me?”
“Of course I do. Not every haunting is a clear-cut case. There’s no guide for ghosts to follow. If you’re being haunted by something, it could mess up a lot of things in your life.”
“But it doesn’t explain everything…”
He stroked his chin for a few moments and observed new people entering the bar, the cold blast from outside following them in. “No, it doesn’t. I reckon your problem is you’re combining all these events that have happened to you and expect them to all be connected. But I don’t think that’s the case here.”
I waved my hand for the waiter and caught his eye. Screw it, Nancy Drew must have let her hair down once in a while.
“So what says ‘ghost’ to you?” I asked, my attention back on the burly redhead.
“Obviously the slippers. The doorbell. The knocks. The yelling, the TV, those are all things that poltergeists do.”
“Last time you thought there was a poltergeist, it turned out to be skinwalkers,” I pointed out.
He smiled, a tad embarrassed. “I’m not saying it can’t be anything else…”
“What about my nail polish?” I say, wiggling my right hand at him.
“It’s very pretty.”
“I mean, how did this get on my nails? And for that matter, who hid the syrup on me?”
He gave me a sharp look as the waiter approached the table. I composed myself and smiled up at him.
“What will you be having?” the waiter asked. “Another of the Quails Gate?”
I nodded and Maximus caved and ordered another beer.
His eyes followed the waiter until he was gone, then he leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. I noticed his steel grey shirt was made out of fine silk, like fancy cowboy wear.
“What happened to you in Seattle?”
I flinched, surprised at the question. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean with Dex, I don’t care to hear about that.”
I could have sworn a dark shadow passed over his freckled face as he mentioned his name. The same look probably appeared on my face as well, and often.
He continued, “What ghosts did you encounter?”
“Oh. Well I don’t care to particularly think about that. You saw the footage that aired, right?”
He nodded. “And that was it? Was there anything else in that asylum?”
I thought about Creepy Clown Lady’s message on the EVP. Then I thought about Creepy Clown Lady in the hospital.
“You know how I was telling you about that woman I saw?”
“Circus freak?”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “Yeah. She left a message for Dex. Well, us, really. On the EVP. And only I had heard it. Dex might have now, but I heard it first and told him not to listen and then everything, well, you know…she really does seem to want to warn me about something.”
He leaned closer still. I caught a whiff of his spicy cinnamon smell. I breathed it in and automatically found myself closing my eyes for a second.
“What did the message say?”
“I can’t really remember,” I said, somewhat truthfully. “She told me to ask my parents who Declan O’Shea was…do you know?”
“Not unless Dex had a different last name. He hasn’t for as long as I’ve known him.”
I nodded, not really expecting to have gotten an answer. I took in a deep breath before I blurted out the more painful stuff.
“She knew I had done some things to Dex.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “What things?”
“Don’t judge me, but…I switched his medication. I mean, I found out what he was taking and then I replaced half his pills with placebos.”
“Jesus,” Maximus swore, his eyes going wide as saucers. He let out a low whistle. “Perry, I’m not sure what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I said quickly, feeling cold sweat nip at the center of my palms. “I know what I did was wrong. I just had to know. I had to know what was wrong with him.”
“Did you find out?”
“I think he’s as sane as I am. I don’t think there’s anything that medication can fix.”
“I don’t know about that,” he began.
“I do,” I said firmly. “And I don’t mean to talk about him. I don’t want to talk about him. There was something else. Pippa, circus freak, said that she’s being watched. By the soulless ones who keep her there…the…demons.”
“Demons?” Maximus repeated. He sounded rather disbelieving and I didn’t want to have to convince him by bringing up some of the freaky shit I dealt with in the past. Freaky shit like Jacob.
“Yes, that’s what she said,” I reiterated. “Then she said, I’m in real danger, especially if he thinks I’m fine. When I’m safe, the damage will be done. That she’d come after me…”
“She? Who? Pippa?”
I looked down, my head twitching no. I placed my hand on the crook of his elbow, needing something solid to hold onto.
“No. Not Pippa. Pippa was warning Dex. About Abby.”
Because my hand was on him, I could feel all the muscles in his arm tense up at the mention of her name. I looked up at him slyly, and grinned. I felt a wave of hate dripping off of myself, as if it clung wetly to my teeth.
“You remember me, don’t you Redboy?”
A look of utter terror filled his face. “W-what?”
“I said, you remember Abby, don’t you?” I gripped his arm for a second and then let go. The strange rush of anger I felt seconds earlier was released. “You told me about her yourself, in New Mexico.”
“That’s not what you just said,” he stammered and pulled away like he was suddenly scared of me. “You just called me Redboy.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “Maybe crazy is contagious.”
He seemed to think about that.
“Maybe,” he finally said, his voice low and wispy. A line of fear never left his face. “Maybe.”
“Well, we saw Abby all over the damn place.”
“We?”
“Dex and I. We both saw her. In the asylum, on the street, in the apartment.” I couldn’t help but shudder at the vision of her walking across his apartment, dripping blood onto the floor, the thick splats. The wasps. The smell of gin.
“I think she might be fucking with me,” I said slowly. It was like dawn was bursting through the windows and illuminating a very simple problem. “Abby. I think she’s haunting me.”
Maximus nodded but I could tell he wasn’t too impressed with my deduction skills. Of freaking course Abby was haunting me. That’s what Pippa warned would happen. That’s why I saw Abby in my dreams, in the hospital. That’s who was knocking on the doors and leaving baby slippers everywhere.
Talking about her was making me feel extremely edgy, like she was perched somewhere on my shoulder, waiting to slip inside through my ears.
“Can ghosts…,” I started, then looked around me. The crowd was loud and the sound of clinking glasses reverberated around the room, but I was still incredibly conscious of what we were talking about. “Can ghosts fuck with you like that? Like, get inside your head? Can they…take over?”
“You mean like possession?” he asked, and at the word, my blood ran cold. I brought my cardigan around me.
I urged him t
o continue by gesturing with my fingers.
“It depends on the culture,” he explained. “In some societies, shamans can possess someone. In others, like in Wicca, they can be possessed by the Goddess, willingly. In Catholic society, some believe you can be possessed by the Devil.”
“Do you?”
He looked a bit uncomfortable and fidgeted in his seat, trying to get comfortable. “I don’t know if I do. It’s usually something else. Mental illness.”
Oh, of course. Everyone goes for the mentally ill angle.
“OK, and what about ghosts. Plain ol’ dead people. Spirits. Specters. Et cetera. Do you think they can take over?”
He pursed his lips and wiggled them back and forth as he thought. “No. And if they can, if they do, I believe it has to be voluntary. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t get inside your head. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a nasty, revenge-fueled poltergeist on your hands, straight from Seattle, Washington.”
I let out a burst of hot, booze-soaked breath I must have been holding onto for the last hour. So there was a distinct chance that some of the crazy, terrifying things that were happening to me were because Abby had decided to haunt me and make my life a living hell. I felt partially relieved at having come to some sort of conclusion, but it left me with the overall debilitating sense of what the fuck do I do now?
I mean, seriously?
~~~
I had forgotten I had thought of the solution to my predicament earlier. And that was to get extremely drunk. After the Abby epiphany, I drank more wine and Maximus said we’d take a cab back, and then he got in on a few rounds and shots of whisky.
We stayed at the wine bar until it closed. I fielded texts from my parents and Ada wondering where I was and if I was OK and I reassured them I was fine. But I hadn’t expected to stumble out of the bar at 2 a.m.
We both waved drunkenly at the waiter, who was only so happy to see us go as he locked the doors with a resounding click, and Maximus grabbed my arm and led me to the bike path that weaved its way along the dark, churning river and passed through the open park space where homeless bums slept on the benches. It was cold and a little bit frightening, but I felt safe with his hand on me.