Phantoms of Fall (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 2)

by Joy Elbel

  “Well, I would start looking through old yearbooks. When someone dies they usually do some sort of page in their memory. The school was built in the early eighties, I think, and there should be one from every year there.”

  I needed to get this over with as fast as I could. There was nothing wrong with taking the easy way out, right? “You went to that school, didn’t you? Do you remember anyone dying there?”

  “I graduated in ’85 and I don’t recall anything happening up ‘til then. But I left town after graduation and didn’t come back until about five years ago, so that leaves about a twenty year gap that I know nothing about.”

  Disappointment must have been written all over my face because she added a quick “sorry” at the end. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. But compared to what I went through to figure out who was haunting Rosewood, this seemed relatively easy. I could burn through twenty yearbooks in a day or two assuming I even needed to go through them all. Maybe this wouldn’t be so tough after all and I could solve my problem before my next date with Zach.

  It was starting to get late, so I thanked Rita and drove home. I couldn’t start on my research until Monday so I decided to relax and enjoy the weekend as much as I possibly could. Without Zach as a distraction, I could get a lot of reading done for English and print out a copy of “Ghost Stone” for Mr. Raspatello. But most of all, I was looking forward to my shopping trip with Chloe the most.

  I stayed up late reading and received another goodnight “mwah” from Rachel’s phone. My talk with Rita really helped me feel better about my situation and I fell asleep with hope in my heart. But like so many nights before, there was horror on the horizon.

  Something wasn’t right. I had no idea where it came from, but I had the worst sense of foreboding as I walked down the hall toward the cafeteria. Slowly putting one foot ahead of the other, I felt like a prisoner heading to the gallows. Tonight, I was going to die.

  Music poured through the open doors, inviting me to join the party. Everyone was dancing and laughing and all I wanted to do was join them. I saw Rachel and Boone first, glued together at the lips like always. I yelled over to them but they ignored me. That was weird. Even though they were kissing, normally they would at least wave in recognition. Maybe they didn’t hear me. I shouted over the music but they never responded.

  Moving through the room, I saw Zach seated at a table in the corner. Bonus! He was still supposed to be grounded and I didn’t expect to find him here. Who cares why he was here—I was excited to see him so I quickly dodged the dancing couples and made my way over to him. I was almost there when Ryan suddenly ran out in front of me. Closing my eyes and bracing for the inevitable collision, he walked straight into me. And by that I mean straight through me like I was nothing but a pillar of smoke. A sensation of intense heat swept through my body like a laser beam had just sliced into me.

  But while I stood there confused, Ryan kept walking like nothing even happened. That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t going to die tonight—I was already dead. One by one, people swiped into me and while they didn’t seem to notice, I certainly did. Searing heat cut into me every time I connected with someone. I didn’t want to be dead! Standing right in front of Zach now, I could see he was crying. He called out my name like he knew I was there, but never once made direct eye contact. He couldn’t see me and it stung worse than any pain I felt before. I tried to call his name in the hopes that he could at least hear me but my throat tightened more and more with every attempt until it closed completely. It didn’t matter—I wasn’t even breathing. Then ever so slowly, I disappeared until I was nothing.

  The dream disturbed me. Was that really how it felt to be dead? Was that how Creepy Girl felt—like she was nothing at all? A deep feeling of despair crept into my heart. I never wanted to feel that way—I had to find a way to live my life without regrets. But to do that, I needed to figure out how to balance my connection to the other side with my love for Zach—because if I couldn’t, I would have to break my own heart by letting him go.

  12. I Wish It Was Just a Mouse

  Surprisingly, the weekend flew by. All hopes for talking to Rachel about Zach flew out the window when she and Shelly decided to go out of town in search of the perfect furniture for what would become the guest rooms. Luckily, my shopping trip with Chloe was an amazing success. Hanging out with her was the complete opposite of spending time with Rachel. In short, she listened more than she talked. Even though I didn’t set out to discuss my issues with Zach, that’s exactly what ended up happening.

  The main goal of my shopping trip was to find the perfect outfit for my first post-grounding date with Zach. He promised to make it special, a night to remember. I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that, but I knew what I was hoping for. I was so excited just thinking about it that I shared the news with Chloe.

  “As soon as Zach’s punishment is over, we’re going on a special date,” I said as I hauled an armload of clothes into the fitting room. “A really special date, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I think I do.” Chloe helped me sort everything into outfits and then waited outside the door for me to change. “So…will this be your first time together?”

  “First time period—for either of us.” I popped out to get her opinion on a pair of jeans.

  She wrinkled her nose disapprovingly. “No, they make your butt look flat.” I looked into the mirror and saw she was right. Everything had to be just perfect for my date with Zach. A serious case of flat butt just wouldn’t do. Those jeans had to come off—fast. Our conversation continued while I changed.

  “Oh…really?” she said disbelievingly. “I’m so happy for both of you. You make the perfect couple.” She flung another pair of jeans over the top of the door in exchange for the flat butts. “So…are you scared?”

  Was I scared? No, I knew what real fear truly was. “Nervous is more the word for it. Mixed with excitement— definitely excitement.”

  “I’m sure! But Zach loves you so much—I’m sure everything will be just fine.”

  “What about this?” I twirled in the mirror so she could see the skirt and top I was wearing from every angle. A big smile swept across her face. “Perfect!! Your butt looks awesome and you have just the right amount of cleavage going on. Zach won’t be able to resist you!”

  Just the effect I was going for. I thought the outfit was perfect too, but having a second opinion solidified it. I changed quickly and handed the rest of the pile to the fitting room attendant. It was a really weird feeling knowing that I was about to buy the clothes I was going to lose my virginity in. Well, not actually in, I guess. Weird and exciting all at the same time.

  Our date was still so far away, but I was already starting to fantasize about it. What was it going to feel like? Would everyone be able to tell just by looking at us first thing Monday morning? OMG! Would Dad and Shelly know the minute I got home? As uncomfortable as that would be, it still wasn’t a deterrent. I wanted to have sex with Zach and nothing in the world would change that fact.

  Curious, I asked Chloe if she had any experience in that arena. She gave me a really odd response. “Um…well…uh, it was....” Her face was a blaze of red and every word was stammered and stuttered out. “I mean, no. No, I haven’t.”

  Who was she trying to convince—me or herself? She definitely had a skeleton or two in her closet—I could practically hear the brittle, old bones clanking around in there. I was about to ask her what juicy secrets she was keeping but stopped myself just in time. Oh my, what if she’d been molested or something? How horrible would I be for poking into that sort of charnel house? I felt like a freaking idiot even though I hadn’t said a word and dropped the subject immediately.

  “Hey…do you want to go get something to eat? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving!” I paid for my new clothes and waited for her to do the same. Slowly, her face returned to its normal shade and she answered my question.

  “Definitely! L
et’s hit the food court—I could use a burger and fries. Shopping is hard work!” The mall was about to close so the food court was almost empty. In no more than five minutes, I had the juiciest burger ever right in the palm of my hand. But after only a few small bites, I tossed it back into the wrapper. It tasted fine but for some reason I just couldn’t eat any more. The fries looked okay but all I could taste was the grease. Suddenly, I wasn’t even remotely hungry anymore.

  “I thought you were starving?” Chloe cocked one eyebrow at me suspiciously. “You’re not on a diet, are you?” Losing a few pounds wasn’t a bad idea, especially with my big date coming up but that wasn’t why I wasn’t eating. My appetite was totally in the toilet since the first day of school. But even if I was dieting on purpose, I knew I couldn’t tell Chloe that. She wasn’t a skinny girl and I could see that she was already taking offense to the fact that she thought I was trying to lose weight.

  “Some people eat when they’re stressed—I guess I’m the exact opposite.” “Oh. It has been a stressful week for you, I guess. I’m sure you’ll be okay once you get used to the routine.” She finished her food and we said our goodbyes. My shopping trip was successful and not just because I made some awesome purchases. I now had another awesome new friend, too.

  When Monday morning came, I was actually excited to go to school—for three separate reasons. Of course I wanted to see Zach—that goes without saying. He was the most perfect guy ever and being separated from him was actually painful, physically painful, like a weight was pressing down on my chest. I was also anxious to start trying to identify Creepy Girl—I mean the ghost. I called her by that name all week and it would be tough to stop cold turkey. Once I knew her real name, it would get a whole lot easier, I suppose. And strangely enough, I was dying to get out on that track to release some of the pent up frustration I bottled up inside of me. Sports never interested me until now for some reason.

  Without one single trace of the ghost, I was able to spend every moment of homeroom huddled with Zach over his math homework. Maybe it sounds dorky, but even quadratic equations were romantic when they were shared with a Norse god. We were only separated for two days but it felt like two decades. As always, I could swear that he was even hotter than he was on Friday—not that I would ever complain about that sort of thing, of course.

  With each class, I kept waiting for the appearance of my spectral stalker but she never surfaced. I almost didn’t go to the library during study hall but I changed my mind. Even if she never reappeared, it probably wouldn’t hurt to identify her anyway. I mean, she had crossed the line between life and death to communicate with me—it was the least I could do. Positive that it wouldn’t take long, I strolled leisurely down the hall confident that I would have an answer before the end of the period. And I was wrong again.

  It was my first trip to the library and boy was I under whelmed. I loved books and it made me kind of sad to see that I wasn’t going to find anything I liked there. But personal reading preferences aside, I knew I would find what I was looking for today.

  There was something about the library that made me feel comfortable there. I picked a small table beside a window and plopped my stuff down. Where would they keep the yearbooks? I had absolutely no idea so I started to wander through the stacks. The room was too warm and coupled with the hum of the overhead lights, I lapsed into a sort of trancelike state as I walked down each aisle absentmindedly running my finger across the dusty spines. The silence was so all encompassing that piercing the air startled reverberated endlessly through the room as I popped my head around the shelf to find its source.

  a sudden, bloodcurdling scream

  me out of my trance. Its echo And I found something odd—no one else in the library seemed to hear it. The few students scattered around the room were still reading intently. The librarian remained at her desk, fingers still clicking across the keyboard of her computer. There was no way that scream came from the hallway—the door was closed and no noise seemed to be seeping in from around its cracks. There was only one answer—that scream came from my dead friend.

  Where was she? The temperature of the air in the room went from suffocating to suddenly crisp so I knew she had to be near.

  “Where are you?” I whispered quietly hoping that no one would hear me—no one alive anyway. “Show yourself.” I walked quietly through the aisles, repeating myself after every few steps. I didn’t get a response but I did get something else.

  In the midst of my search for her, my eyes came to rest on a shelf laden with yearbooks. Bingo—just what I was looking for. I slipped the first book off the shelf and returned to my table.

  Charlotte’s Grove High School, 1985. The words were emblazoned in red on the faded black cover of the book. I leafed through pages that clearly hadn’t been touched in years until I found the memorial page. There was only one photo— a boy who died in a car accident. It was only the first of twenty books I had to go through, but I felt deeply disappointed.

  I returned the book to its spot and pulled out 1986. This one was designed in red with black lettering, the opposite of the last. Not finding a memorial page the first time through, I searched it again and still found nothing. Congratulations Class of 1986—you all made it out alive. The next three years weren’t so lucky. I counted four deaths—two boys and two girls.

  Scrutinizing the girls’ photos carefully, I was positive they weren’t images of my stalker. One was a pretty blonde who died of leukemia and the other was a larger girl with dark hair who was the victim of a hit and run. Neither of them was my scrawny, pathetic friend. But this town sure had an unusually high death rate among the under eighteen crowd.

  There were only a few minutes left in the period, but I decided to look through one more volume before the bell rang. As I raised my arm to replace 1989 and grab 1990, I caught a flicker of movement on the other side of the shelf. An eye appeared in the crack, staring straight at me.

  I was caught off guard and pitched backward into the shelves behind me, screaming as my spine slammed roughly into the edge of one of them. The eye stared back at me unblinking in a cold, menacing gaze. It was an odd shade of green, rimmed in a ghastly tint of purple. It was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen—and that was saying a lot. I got my second scare when the librarian rounded the corner with a no nonsense look on her face.

  “Young lady! Is there a problem over here?” she hissed in a voice barely above a whisper. She was almost as scary as the ghost. She was dressed in an austere palette of brown that faded into the mousy brown of her hair and skin. Her face was gaunt and almost skeletal in appearance, her jawbone sharp enough to cut glass. Ms. Wright, her nametag read. Ms. Wrong was more like it. Nothing about her was even remotely appealing and it was my best guess that she’d never seen any kind of hot romantic action in her whole life. Never. Not even close. Not even on any man’s worst day.

  “Answer me!” she eyed me accusingly as she wrapped her khaki sweater tightly to her barely there chest. I glanced briefly to the gap on the shelf before answering her. The eye was gone. outburst, I fought my brain

  Needing an excuse for my for something plausible. “No…no…I just thought I saw a mouse.” “Nonsense!” she replied sharply. “There are no mice in my library! Return to your seat now.” She pointed to the table I’d been occupying and I was too afraid not to follow her command. Thankfully, the bell came to my rescue. I gathered my stuff and scooted out the door before she could yell at me some more.

  Still shaking from the experience and trying to decide who was more frightening—the ghost or the librarian—the sight of Zach in math class was even more welcome than usual. He couldn’t know that I was upset, so I put a smile on my face and caressed his shoulder lightly as I sat down.

  “Hey, sexy! How’s your day going?” It was something I normally would have thought but not said. But since we were merely days away from losing our virginity together, I was feeling bold. I mean, if I was going to let him see me naked—for re
al this time—I should at least get comfortable at flirting with him.

  I couldn’t have asked for a better response. “Better, now that I have your hot little body sitting behind me.” Any chill I still had from my encounter in the library was definitely gone after that. I spent the entire class daydreaming about our upcoming date and was almost sad when the period ended. Zach and I walked to our lockers and he lingered for a moment before leaving.

  “So I have something really good planned for our next date….” He leaned against his locker and watched me as I stacked my books on the shelf in mine. He gave me a shy smile and continued. “Do you wanna guess what it is?”

  I didn’t have to guess—I knew exactly what he had planned but it was more fun to pretend I didn’t. “Hmm, I have absolutely no idea. Give me a hint,” I replied playfully.

  Zach shook his head. “Afraid I can’t—no hints. You’re just going to have to trust me when I say it’s going to be a spectacular night.”

  I closed the door to my locker and walked up to him. Standing dangerously close to him, I locked eyes with him and replied, “I do trust you—so whatever it is you have planned, I’m ready for it.” While he was still trying to digest my words, I blindsided him with a smoldering kiss.

  Zach stood speechless as I turned to go. “Heading to the track now—I’ll see you in the morning.” Now that I knew we were about to seal the deal, all I wanted to do was flirt with him. Why? Because it was an incredible amount of fun and he seemed to be enjoying it just as much as I was.

  “I love you, Ruby Matthews!” he called after me. “And I love you, too, Zach Mason!” When I heard a loud slam, I looked around to find the source. Misty Landrum was standing at her locker and heard every word we said. I couldn’t have timed it more perfectly if I’d tried. Take that, Misty—he’s mine.

  My time on the track was therapeutic. It felt like I was running toward something instead of the usual running away. As I ran, I thought about my date with Zach, my not so small victory over Misty, and getting rid of my new ghost. It felt like I had everything under control again and it felt great. My future with Zach was no longer in jeopardy. I couldn’t believe that only days earlier I actually contemplated breaking up with him. He was the perfect guy for me and there was no way I would let him slip through my fingers. I knew that once we slept together, there would be no turning back for either of us. And that was exactly the way I wanted it to be.