by Dan Dillard
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Ghosts
While Rusty watched, Laura began to fade. Not in light or color, it was more of an aging process. Her eyes sunk into dark pits and the skin on her face began to crumble, slowly revealing a skull underneath.
“Jesus, Laura,” Rusty said as a piece fell from her lip. Every expression she made from then on showed teeth, giving her formerly pretty face a menacing makeover.
“I guess I’m all used up, twerp,” she said.
“You can’t leave me. I’ll be stuck in here.”
“You’re already stuck in here.”
“You can’t help me?” Rusty asked.
“I’m not sure what I can do.”
“Just don’t leave me, Laura. You can do that. You can stay with me. God, I can’t be here alone. Stuck here. I just can’t. What if that cop comes back? He’s crazy. He has lost his fucking mind.”
“What can I do, little bro? I don’t know what to do.”
Another piece fell from her face. She held a hand up in front of her, looking at it with amazement. When she made a fist, the skin pulled taught around her bones. When she relaxed that fist and stretched her fingers out, the skin cracked apart and disintegrated like ash leaving only bone behind. “I really don’t know how I can help, Russ.”
“Why did you come to me in the first place?” he said.
“Like I said, I don’t know. You needed me.”
“I still need you.”
“You think you do. You just don’t want to be alone. No one wants to die alone, twerp, but it’s not so bad. You lose all that baggage you carried around all your life. You just get to be. At least as a ghost. I’m not sure what happens when you get called back.”
“Called back?” Rusty said.
“You saw them, right? The undead?”
He had. He’d hoped he imagined them. That he imagined Laura, the cop, all of this. He still hoped he was in a hospital somewhere recovering from a car wreck or some bump on the head.
“Please, just stay with me,” he said.
“You won’t want me here. I don’t know what I might do when I rot. I might become like them. Who knows, my bones could be out there eating someone right now,” she said with a chuckle. Her face was mostly gone, so there was no joy to be seen, but Rusty was glad to hear her laugh one more time. He guessed if it was the last thing he heard, it wouldn’t be so bad.
“You never liked eating meat, Laura.”
“Nope. I was vegetarian before it was cool. Except for pepperoni pizza. I loved that shit.”
She faded further, almost gone. Rusty wasn’t sure if she was still there at all. She was like an afterimage seen after looking directly at a light bulb.
“Don’t go,” Rusty said.
“Can’t help it, twerp. Take care, okay? Maybe I’ll see you on this side.”
Laura shimmered for a moment like Jell-O or that rainbow oil makes on top of a puddle of water. Almost gone.
“Someone is coming, little bro.”
“Who?”
“Someone is coming.”
“Don’t go,” he said. But Laura was gone. He reached for her and grabbed the wool blanket where she had been sitting. Rusty pulled it to him in a hug, and then realized what he held and began to weep. He was angry and scared and he was tired of seeing Thomas Bledsoe’s body.
He tossed the blanket at the bars near the dead man in an ill-planned attempt to cover it. The blanket only hit the bars and fell to the ground in a heap.
How is it gonna end, Strings? The sergeant? This death woman? Stupid. You’re so stupid, Rusty. You fucked up back then and you’re fucked up now. The only difference is this time, it’s going to kill you.
Someone was calling him. Another ghost? A monster of some sort?
“Rusty?”
The voice was a whisper. Then he heard a gasp, followed by, “Rusty? Are you okay?”
It was Robyn. She’d seen Sandy. That was the gasp. She was in the building. She had come back for him. “Robyn!” he shouted.
She hurried through the door and to his cell. Kelly was right behind her. They both looked at and then away from Thomas’s corpse.
“He’s in jail? You didn’t tell me he was in jail. What can he do from in there? Where are the police?”
“Shh.” Robyn said, silencing her daughter. “We’ll figure this out. Rusty, where did Greg go?”
“I have no idea. He shot Thomas and then that poor woman. The phone was ringing. I saw my dead sister. I thought he’d killed you, too.”
“You saw who?”
Laura. She’s asking about Laura.
Rusty closed his eyes. “I saw Laura. I know she’s been dead for years, since I was a kid, but she was here.”
Robyn nodded. “After what I’ve seen today, I’m not surprised.” Kelly nodded along with her mother.
“Laura said it was going to get worse. So much worse. She said death was coming for all.”
“I don’t understand,” Robyn said.
Rusty held up his hands and shrugged. “I don’t either. Just get me out of here and we’ll figure something out.”
Robyn nodded and looked at Kelly. “Stay here.”
“No. I want to go with you,” Kelly said.
“I know that you’re safe back here. Wait with Rusty and I’ll be right back.”
“Mom…”
“Kelly,” Rusty said. “It will be okay.”