Page 16 of The House on Haven Way

“Damn it,” I groan. My plan worked! I got Amber out. She was terrified. Screaming. Hysterical.

And then... She turned around and fought me. Fought against something she couldn’t see, something that was way stronger than her.

To be honest, right now I’m running on fumes, but my conscience is still working. I can drive the girl out, sure. That’s just fair. This is my place. I deserve it.

But I can’t let her die.

What if she’s already dead? What if she broke her neck?

The thought sends me screaming into the night, doors and windows flung wide, and my body wrapping around hers and dragging her inside as she tries to struggle. Her body is mostly limp, but she still finds time to curse at me.

Don’t know why that makes me smile a little.

I plop Amber on her couch, soaking wet, bedraggled, and covered in grass and mud.

She rolls to the floor. “Don’t get the couch dirty,” she snaps, eyes still closed, speaking through bloody lips.

“Quite the fighter, kid,” I say, voice holding just a little bit of admiration.

“Hm?” Amber lifts her head. “You’re a man?”

“What? You can hear me?”

“Well, I can now,” she mutters, breathing shallowly, her eyes still shut. She looks spent and hurt, and her head just lolls on the wooden floor while a little puddle forms around her.

I feel like a real heel.

“Why are you being such a dick?” she asks. “I thought you were some little old grandma ghost who wanted to scare me off.”

“I’m no grandpa. I am a ghost, and I want you gone, kid.”

“You called me kid. Why are you calling me kid if you’re not an old grandpa?”

“I call all the cute young girls kid.”

“That’s gross.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, it wasn’t in 1954, okay?”

“In 1954? Is that when you died?”

“Yep.” Don’t know how it happened, but Amber and I are having a conversation. It’s the first conversation I’ve had in seventy years, and it feels... Wonderful.

I can’t explain it, but it makes me feel different. More alive. More like the me I used to be.

Well, don’t get used to it, Johnny. I give myself a shake.

“Look, you can have any house you want. You’re alive. Go buy another one. This is where I have to stay. I don’t want you here, no offense.”

“Just go buy another one? Ha!” Amber’s eyes flutter open. “Are you out of your mind? Do you know what the housing market is like?”

“No. Because I’m a ghost, smart alec.”

“Oh. True. Well, that isn’t happening. I couldn’t have afforded a house as nice as this anywhere else in New York, or even the whole Northeast!”

“Uh... How about the Southeast?” I suggest.

She glares, eyes open now. “My family is here, dipwad. Well, in the Boston area.”