Don't Wake the Dead

by C. C. Wood

  “Hey, Marcy. Glad you could make it.”

  He stepped back to allow her inside. I was surprised by her appearance. I expected her to be a middle-aged woman wearing lots of rings and amulets. Instead, she was young, only a few years older than me, and very attractive. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her full, pouty lips were slicked with red gloss. She wore a purple button-down shirt and tight black pants. From the tips of her stilettos to the top of her head, she looked professional and successful. With the exception of the glaring display of cleavage she was currently aiming at Mal, and the sultry smile that curved her mouth.

  “Of course, Mal. Anything you need.”

  I felt Teri’s presence a split second before I heard her make a gagging sound behind me. “I changed my mind. Jonelle isn’t a cock hopper. That is a cock hopper.”

  I snorted, quickly covering the sound with a quiet cough. “Excuse me.”

  This brought Marcy’s heavily made-up eyes to me. She narrowed them, staring holes into me without speaking.

  “Marcy, this is Zoe. She owns this house, and I gotta tell you this is one of the hottest places I’ve ever been to,” Mal stated.

  I held out a hand to Marcy. I could tell by her body language that she didn’t want to shake my hand, which was part of the reason I’d done it. “Pleasure to meet you,” I lied, hiding a grimace when she laid her hand in mine. I hated dead fish handshakes, where the other person’s muscles were limp, making their hand seem boneless. It felt creepy.

  “I’m sure,” she murmured.

  When Stony and Blaine came out of the kitchen, still arguing over whatever had happened two days ago, Marcy perked up.

  “Well hello, boys,” she greeted them.

  “Is this bitch for real?” Teri grumbled behind me. “If she’s supposed to be a medium, why can’t she see me? Or at least hear me?”

  I jerked my left shoulder up in a miniscule shrug, telling her without words that I didn’t know.

  “Ugh. I’ll be back when they start filming.” I heard a wicked chuckle come from behind me. “Maybe I can scare the shit out of Prissy Pants there.”

  “Maybe,” I whispered.

  “What was that?” Mal asked.

  I glanced up at him. “Nothing. Just thinking about something else.”

  Mal disengaged Stony and Blaine from Marcy and asked everyone to gather in the kitchen to discuss the game plan for the night.

  By the time the meeting ended, the sun had sunk below the horizon. I watched as Mal filmed the introduction to the show. It took him several takes, but it was interesting to see how his demeanor changed as soon as he was in front of the camera.

  Once that was complete, their investigation began. Mal introduced Marcy and they began walking from room to room downstairs. I followed them, Teri right behind me.

  “I feel a spirit here,” Marcy stated, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. “A female spirit. She’s in great pain and so sad.”

  “Hell yeah, I’m in pain,” Teri mumbled. “It hurts to watch this bullshit.”

  I bit back a laugh.

  “Seriously, now I don’t want to appear at all,” she continued. “At least not in front of this hack.”

  I shrugged. Teri could do what she wanted. Though I almost felt sorry for Mal since his fifteen hundred bucks would be for nothing.

  “Do you know what her name is?” Mal asked Marcy.

  Marcy’s brow furrowed slightly. “I’m getting something with a T. Tessa? Trina? No, no, Teresa. Her name is Teresa.”

  “Always hated that name,” Teri stated behind me.

  I barely refrained from rolling my eyes because all it would take to learn that information was a quick Internet search of the address. The archived articles were one of the first things to pop up.

  “How did she die?” Mal asked.

  Marcy paused, obviously for dramatic effect. “She killed herself.”

  Mal glanced back at me. “Did you know this?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s it. I’m going upstairs,” Teri snapped. “I’m not dignifying this farce with my presence.”

  Though I agreed with her, I didn’t have much choice but to stick around. This was my house after all.

  I felt Teri leave as I continued to follow the group around downstairs. Marcy “made contact” with the spirit in my house a couple more times.

  A few minutes later, I distinctly heard a door upstairs slam shut. Everyone around me jumped.

  “What was that?” Blaine asked, his voice loud and excited.

  “A door upstairs,” I replied.

  Everyone dashed up the steps, but I followed at a slower pace. Marcy was just in front of me, probably because running in stilettos was nearly impossible.

  When we crested the stairs, we saw Mal standing in front of the closed bathroom door, talking into the camera.

  “Earlier this evening, when we were setting up, we left all of the doors upstairs open,” he explained. “Now, this bathroom door is shut.”

  Before he could continue, we could clearly hear the shower come on. All the guys got excited, speaking all at once.

  Marcy stepped in front of all of them. “Let me talk to the spirit here,” she insisted.

  There was some back-and-forth as they decided the best way to film the moment, and all the while my shower ran. If Teri kept this shit up, that check from Mal would be required to pay my water bill.

  I leaned forward as Marcy reached down and slowly turned the doorknob. The door swung open on silent hinges because there was no way in hell my dad would let me live in a house where the doors squeaked.

  She stepped into the steamy room and began speaking. “Teresa, I’m here. You can speak to me.”

  Blaine followed her into the small space, moving around to film her face as she spoke.

  Suddenly, the shower curtain slid back, the loud sound of the metal rings against the bar making everyone jump. I could see Teri standing in the tub, grinning maniacally.

  Marcy crept closer to the shower, clearly unaware of Teri’s presence. “Teresa? Please talk to me.”

  The shower shut off. Marcy gasped, inching even closer to the bathtub.

  I smiled then because I realized what Teri was up to when her hand lifted the removable showerhead from the stand.

  “Oh my God, tell me your getting this,” Blaine whispered.

  “I am,” Mal replied, his voice equally quiet.

  The tension in the bathroom grew as Marcy stopped right beside the bathtub, peering into it. Teri looked at me and winked. The spray head rotated until it faced Marcy, then with a flick of her thumb, Teri gave the medium a face full of water.

  Marcy shrieked, arms pinwheeling as she scrambled back from the tub.

  Teri followed her mercilessly, spraying her head and soaking her clothes.

  The men backed up quickly, never looking up from their cameras as they filmed the incident.

  “Help me!” Marcy yelled, diving out of the bathroom to escape the cascade of water.

  As soon as she could no longer reach her, Teri shut off the showerhead again and let it fall into the bottom of the tub with a clatter.

  Everyone jumped again except for me.

  Marcy stumbled downstairs, yelling and cursing as her wet stilettos slid on the treads. The men followed quickly behind her, asking if she was okay.

  I stepped into the bathroom and grabbed a hand towel. “Good girl,” I murmured to Teri, who was hovering in the corner.

  She winked at me again and disappeared, probably to go downstairs to witness the upheaval she’d caused.

  I looked around the bathroom and sighed. It was a mess. I tossed a couple of bath towels on the worst puddles, snagged another towel for Marcy, and left the room. Clinging to the handrail, I slipped and slid my way down the stairs to the living room.

  I nearly fell off the bottom step when I got a load of Marcy’s face. Her dark eye make-up had run down her cheeks, leaving black and grey streaks against
her skin.

  Then there were her eyebrows. Well, what was left of them as they dripped down her temples to her jawline.

  As soon as she saw the towel in my hand, she snatched it and began wiping at the mess on her face. I winced at the dark stains that appeared on the white cloth. There was no way they were coming out.

  “Shut the camera off,” she snapped at Blaine, who was hovering nearby.

  “I need to document-”

  “SHUT IT OFF!” she screamed.

  He lowered the device immediately, his wide eyes shooting toward Mal.

  “I think you need to calm down, Marcy,” Mal began. “This is an amazing phenomena that we’ve caught on tape.”

  I sucked in a breath at his first words. Clearly he hadn’t had many girlfriends because telling a pissed off woman to calm down was like taking a stick of dynamite out of the freezer—which meant an explosion was imminent.

  “Calm down?” she asked, her chest heaving. “Calm down? I was just attacked by a ghost! An evil entity that obviously intended to harm me!”

  “It’s just a little water,” Stony stated. “It didn’t truly hurt you.”

  I shook my head and bit my bottom lip. These guys were fast digging themselves into a hole they’d never be able to climb out of.

  “Excuse me?” Marcy hissed to him.

  “Uh, never mind.”

  Then she turned toward me, pointing a finger in my direction. “And you! You knew this would happen.”

  I felt my eyebrows lift. “Pardon?”

  “You had to have known that this ghost would attack me. Why didn’t you warn us that it was dangerous?”

  I drew my shoulders back and straightened from my slouch at the stair railing. “I’ve never experienced harm at the hands of any spirits here. Not even a scratch or a spook. This is the first time that I’ve seen anything like this happen.”

  Marcy shook her head wildly. “Well, it’ll damn well be the last! I’m going to cleanse this place if it’s the last thing I do.”

  I frowned as she darted over to her purse and began rummaging around inside of it. Now that most of her make-up was gone, I could see that she was much younger than she looked. Maybe in her early twenties.

  She yanked out a bottle that contained a clear liquid.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Holy water,” she snapped, moving toward the front door.

  “Now, wait a minute-” I began.

  “I cleanse this house,” she murmured, wetting her thumb with holy water and making the sign of the cross on the top of the doorjamb.

  “Stop that, right now!” I cried, moving forward.

  My foot hit a small puddle and shot out from under me. I hit the floor with a crash. Immediately, Mal was at my side.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I blinked up at him, taking stock of my body. “I think so.”

  I tried to sit up and winced as I felt a twinge in my lower back.

  “No, you’re not okay. Let me help you to the sofa,” he offered.

  Before I could respond, he lifted me into his arms and carried me across the living room. I clutched his shoulders and felt my eyes widen as I felt the steely muscles beneath my fingers. I had to suppress the urge to move my hands over his chest to see if the muscles there were just as firm.

  Gently, he sat me on the sofa, tucking a couple of throw pillows behind me.

  “Seriously, I’m fine,” I insisted. “More startled than hurt.”

  “Sit here for a minute,” he commanded.

  With a sigh, I crossed my arms over my chest and looked around to find Stony and Blaine eyeing me speculatively and Marcy at the end of the couch, her holy water clutched loosely in her hand.

  “Why don’t you want me to cleanse this place?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

  “Because I know for a fact that the spirit here is harmless.”

  “Weren’t you upstairs just now?” she queried scathingly. “Didn’t you see what that ghost did to me?”

  “Yes, I did. I saw everything. Especially the fact that you’re a liar and a fake. You can’t see or feel ghosts.”

  She gasped just before her hand flew out, dousing me with the holy water. “Bitch!”

  Before I realized what I was doing, I was on my feet, shoving Mal out of my way. “Get out of my house, you scheming con artist! You couldn’t see Teri when she was right in front of you! And if you had been able to connect with her as you claim, you would have known that she swears she didn’t kill herself. She was murdered!”

  Everyone in the room gaped at me.

  “Fuck,” I muttered quietly. I took a deep breath. “I want you to leave, Marcy. Right. Now.”

  She huffed, but moved quickly to gather her things. Just as she got to the front door, Teri appeared and flung it open. The so-called medium squealed in surprise, then scurried outside as fast as her spike heels could carry her.

  No one seemed surprised when the door slammed behind her.

  “Good riddance,” Teri stated, brushing her hands together as if she was dusting off dirt.

  “I’m going upstairs to clean up the mess in the bathroom,” I said, avoiding the eyes of the men around me. I didn’t want to see the skeptical expressions on their faces or the pity in their eyes. “Feel free to keep doing what you’re doing.”

  I started up the stairs, then paused. Leaning down over the railing, I looked at them. “Don’t even think about cleansing the house or I’ll chase you out of here with the shotgun my daddy bought me as a housewarming present.”

  They were all still silently gaping at me as I straightened and stomped up the steps.

  Chapter

  On my hands and knees, I cleaned up the puddles of water all over my bathroom. There was even water on the walls and the toilet.

  The place was a mess.

  “Next time you decide to scare the shit out of a fake medium, please find a less messy way to do it, okay?” I mumbled to Teri. “This is a pain in the ass. Literally.”

  My butt and lower back ached continuously from where they’d come into contact with the hardwood floor downstairs.

  “I’m sorry, Zoe,” she replied. “But did you see her face?”

  I snickered. “Yeah. It was kind of worth it, wasn’t it?”

  “Totally!”

  We both chuckled as I wiped up the last of the water and threw away the roll of toilet paper that had somehow managed to get soggy.

  “Oh, Hunkypants at six o’clock,” she warned me.

  I straightened from my crouch and turned to face Mal. He stood in the doorway, his arms raised as his hands hooked on to the top of the doorjamb. I tried to ignore the little flutter in my belly at how sexy he looked lounging there.

  Dammit, Teri’s horniness was rubbing off on me.

  “Hey,” I greeted him, dumping the towels in the plastic hamper by the bathtub.

  “Why did you lie to me?”

  It seemed Mal intended to get right to the point.

  I sat on the edge of the tub, wincing as my butt came into contact with the unforgiving porcelain.

  “Because I learned a long time ago that people don’t want to hear the truth. At least not about me and what I can see,” I answered bluntly.

  He tilted his head to the side. “Why not?”

  I shot him a disbelieving look. “Seriously?”

  He shrugged, bringing my attention back to the bulk of his arms and chest.

  “Well, golly gee, Mal, most people would think I was crazy if I started telling them that I can see ghosts. Oh, and talk to them,” I replied sarcastically. “It’s not as if most people are open-minded. I’d end up in a straightjacket and doped up on anti-psychotics faster than you could say ‘hallucination’.”

  He released the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest. “No need to get snarky,” he commented.

  He was right. I wasn’t truly angry with him anyway. I was mad at a world that couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept me for who I was. A world f
ull of people that would avoid me like the plague if I told them the truth they didn’t want to hear.

  Then again, there was always the occasional desperate person from Kenna that had heard the rumors about me. They would show up on my doorstep, asking me to contact their Grandpa Jack or their twin sister because they could no longer bear their grief or loneliness.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I’ve just been living with this…secret for a long time now. When I was younger, I tried to tell people what I saw, but they always thought I was making it up. As I grew older, I learned to keep my mouth shut before I got into trouble.”

  He studied me, as if weighing my words. I couldn’t say I blamed him, considering I’d already lied to him once.

  “Have you always had this ability?” he queried.

  I shook my head. “Not always.”

  “What happened?”

  I stood up, rubbing my back. “Let’s talk about this downstairs. I need a comfortable chair and something alcoholic to drink.”

  A few minutes later, I was settled on the couch with a bottle of hard cider in my hand. Mal sat on the opposite end and Stony and Blaine were slouched on the chairs that faced the sofa.

  “I died when I was five,” I began. “No one could ever figure out why. My parents took me to doctor after doctor, convinced that it could happen again. My heart just…stopped.”

  “Damn, that sucks,” Stony commiserated.

  I shrugged. It did.

  “The woman who lived across the street was a nurse. When she saw me hit the ground, she rushed over and administered CPR until my heart and breathing started back up again. I don’t remember the trip to the hospital but as soon as I regained consciousness, I could see people. People that no one else could see.”

  Mal leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Do they look different from regular people?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It’s hard to describe. They’re almost flat. There’s no sheen to their skin or hair. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference until they turn their head or someone walks through them.”

  “Did you tell anyone?” Blaine questioned.