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“They’re just passing through, Ana. It’s okay when they leave. They’re meant to leave.”
“No!” Anastacia’s eyes sprang open. Another reminder of the life she left behind, hundreds of miles away and six feet deep.
The echo of her mother’s voice rang through the empty apartment. A warning. The feeling of dread and an undertone of a growl accompanying it.
“You aren’t her and you’re wrong!” she yelled, putting her hands over her ears. A gesture she knew wouldn’t work, but her muscles went back to what they knew. A dark chuckle vibrated through her mind, dissipating quickly. Her voice, rough and sob-filled, repeated affirmations and meditative hums, the best weapon in drowning out the thing copying her mother’s words. She felt it leave. It knew to only come after her when she was completely alone. Mel had kept it away since they met, not allowing it to come any closer than the far shadows. She had become spoiled and let her guard down too far.
Anastacia curled her legs up into the chair, unable to stop her body from shivering. She couldn’t feel him. He wasn’t there. She would have felt him pass over. Something must have happened when she took her shower and left him alone. There was no way Knight would have turned himself in, not when he was willing to kill rather than be caught. Mel wouldn’t just leave her without saying something.
Without leaving a token or a message behind.
But she hadn’t found anything because there was nothing for her to find.
Nothing at all.
Apeekatthesky foretold of rainfall, but the harsh humidity fell before the rain, a suffocating tarp of dampness and heat making it impossible to draw a comforting breath. The world felt colder in the apartment.
Mel may have already passed over. The idea sent chills dripping down her spine. It didn’t ring true. Something about it wasn’t right. It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on, but she knew it in the deepest parts of her soul. Everything about him being gone was wrong.
Maybe he didn’t have a choice, like when Sammy went into the light. She knew Sammy was about to say something, but the light swallowed him first. Still, their knowledge about Knight wouldn’t have been enough for Mel’s time to arrive, not in her experience anyway.
A heavy sigh cut through her panic.
If Mel had wanted to go or not was beyond the point. He was gone, and without him, she wouldn’t stay in his home where everything reminded her of their night. Their one, blissful night.
She closed the front door behind her, refusing to allow herself to wonder if she’d ever return.
Anastacia watched her hospital slippers scuff against the ground as she staggered back to her apartment. The dragging of her heels drew her attention away from the small parade of spirits behind her. The five ghosts who had waited all night for her to emerge from the apartment tried to tell her their woes. Two of them, dressed in pristine hospital gowns, didn’t have any visible injuries. The other three weren’t so fortunate. One was killed by a stab wound, the blood making their shirt plaster to their side. No darkness marked the blood, but it could be only a matter of time before the soul became lost. The other two looked like they were in an accident. Slashes and bruises covered their faces, while broken bones distorted their bodies. They knew how to walk well with the injuries.
Mel told her he didn’t feel pain after he died. Maybe they didn’t either.
She would have tried to wave them away by now if it wasn’t for the single dark soul trailing behind them. They had picked him up somewhere along the way.
Her eyes traveled sporadically to the shadows in search of any Gatekeeper activity. They should have shown before now. First, Mel’s nonexistent send-off, and now the lack of Gatekeepers. It filled the whole morning with too much weirdness.
The last corner brought her building into sight as the clouds opened up above her. Pausing for a moment, the group of ghosts stalled their movement as well. The constant cold from the current company at her back wasn’t as reassuring as it was with Mel, the eyes at the back of her head were an annoyance now more than a warning. This cold was empty and reminded her too much of the time before when she was alone and a lost soul herself.
Even with her sprint to dodge the rain, she was careful to check for any unfamiliar cars or people. Everything was the same on the outside. The sameness unnerving her instead of giving her the comfort home should.
The small entourage of ghosts followed behind her as she slipped into the building. It no longer mattered if they knew where she lived. The charms inside her door would keep them out.
The same charms now hanging torn in her open door.
“This doesn’t bode well." The flat tone of her voice should have surprised her, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She pushed the door completely open, hitting the inside wall behind it; the hallway light illuminated her small, shoe box of a one-room apartment.
The apartment was torn apart. Not by claws or anything supernatural. She would have preferred it to be something out of the human element. At least then she would have been able to work with it.
Nothing was left untouched. They turned her desk over, the computer screen on the floor next to her tipped PC, half shattered and rendered useless. All of the kitchenette cupboards were open; pots, pans, and pantry items were spread over the old, wood flooring. The ghost-hunting equipment she had collected through the years was either broken or tossed haphazardly across the room. Her favorite quilt was thrown over her upended clothing hamper. The drawers of the dresser were pulled completely out, the contents strewn over her bed. She couldn’t see into her tiny bathroom, but she assumed it was just as bad since her tooth and hairbrushes lay just outside the door.
“What the hell were they looking for?” She heard the hard gravel in her throat. She peered down the hallway to the other doors, but they all remained shut. If her neighbors noticed anything, which they must have, they weren’t sticking their necks out for the strange girl in apartment seven.
Her phone charger was hanging from the outlet by the door, as usual. She leaned in, careful to only grab it, and plopped on the ground outside of her apartment next to the closest outlet in the hallway. The small crowd of ghosts circled her, a couple of them sitting next to her on the floor as she tried to charge her phone, their voices muttering despite her situation. The power bar on her phone struggled to stay solid as they drew energy from the small device, voices growing louder, ignoring her choice to neglect them.
She took a deep breath through her nose to center herself.
“I’d appreciate it if you would let my phone charge.” The words were forced out between her teeth. The spirits grew louder and more excited. Now they knew she could hear them, just like she heard the girl in the hospital. The spirits would draw only enough for the phone to charge to a meager three percent before it was completely drained again, never able to keep the screen on.
Letting her phone fall to the floor beside her, she pressed her hands to her ears and squeezed her eyes shut against the onslaught of spirits. Hot tears burst from her eyes and ran in short streams down her cheeks.
