His cold hands grasped my shoulders and shoved me onto the rough brick wall. I felt the back of my dress, the beautiful dress I had worked so hard to buy, rip. Blood ran down in long lines.
The glint of the butcher knife stared me right in the face.
“Why?” I whispered, as my voice trembled. Tears and sweat were running down my face, past my ears, down my neck. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. It was a dream, a sick and terrible, torturous dream.
Those eyes…. I stared my future murderer in the eyes. The eyes I knew so well. David’s eyes. They were beautiful, sad, light blue eyes. They had never seemed frightening until this very moment.
I remember I used to look in those eyes and feel pure joy, as I put a hand to his face and kissed him, his velvet lips moving with mine. All was right in the world when we kissed.
“I’m sorry…” David told me. His voice seemed tired, stressed. “It’s not me, Kailey, it’s her….”
That word rang in my head. Her, her, her. Her, his ex girlfriend. His true love, I thought bitterly. Kelly Morgerson. The name was like acid in my head.
“Don’t listen to her! You don’t want to do this, Dave, my Davey.” It almost hurt to use his little nickname at this time, when hate for him burned through every nerve of my body. “You love me. You’ll miss me if I die.”
David turned his head from me, the knife still held at my throat. Tears leaked from those sad, terrifying eyes of his.
“I have to… if I don’t she’ll… she’ll….” His voice broke off, followed by a sob. I cried with him, tears of hate for both of them, tears of sadness for me, my family.
“Dave… my sister will die without me. Please! She’s only six years old. If her sister doesn’t come home… how will she get ready in the morning? Get to school? Get food, for goodness sakes! She needs me.” The knife was so close to my face now I could smell the metal.
My assassin still could not stare me in the face. The cowardly bastard.
“Look at me!” I screamed, through tears and anguish and anger. “If you’re going to kill me, at least look at me!”
Dave’s eyes grew wide with fear. His eyes finally locked with mine. “Be quiet!” he hushed me.
“No!” I screamed, gaining momentum, my voice rising and rising in volume. It echoed through the buildings. “I won’t be quiet until you put that thing-”
In a sudden flash, Dave whisked the knife across my neck. Warm blood ran down and covered his hand.
Everything was suddenly blurred in pain… My hands went to my throat and I fell to my knees. I coughed, and it was as though even more knives were getting stabbed into me each time I spasmed. Blood came out my mouth, out of my neck, down my back. So much blood, it filled every pore of my body and suddenly I felt like I was drowning, drowning in all my blood…
Get it out! I screamed in my head. I wanted the blood out. I couldn’t die. What about my sister, my friends at school, all I had planned to accomplish in life…
I tried to hold on, but everything was slipping away, as though it was becoming wet and I was not able to grasp it.
The last thing I saw was Dave making one final, fatal blow to my chest.
And I was gone.
***********************************************************************************
Light…. That’s the first thing I saw, light.
My mind fumbled around for an explanation… I was dead, wasn’t I? This must be the light to Heaven. Somehow I imagined it would be more luminous, brighter, more second-worldly….
No, wait… the light was the streetlamp, a block down from where I was killed.
Killed. I was dead, right?
I looked down at my hands, and saw them clearly. Everything was clearer, more vibrant.
But my hands… they seemed transparent, see-through like.
Tears suddenly hit my eyes. Was I, I couldn’t be….
But then I realized I was staring at my own body, floating at least ten feet above it.
Ghost.
I. Am. A. Ghost. Each word hit my mind like a blow. A ghost.
But how could that be? Running my hands over my own body, I still felt solid… hell, I wasn’t even totally white! My skin still was the same deep olive tone it had always been. Even my hair still had the pale blond highlights running through it.
I pinched myself… grabbing a piece of barely-translucent skin in between my fingers. I was surprised that it really stung. How could I feel pain? I was dead, I was dead…. Tears ran down my face and wetted the top of my shirt. That shocked me too. I could cry?
“Oh, Kailey…” It was Dave, his voice floating up to me. I could hear him as clearly as though he were standing right next to me, though his voice was just a whisper. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Looking down from the spot where I was…. Floating….. I saw Dave grab the arms of my lifeless body and hug it. Dried blood from my stab wounds chipped off onto his hands.
Before I knew it, I was next to him. How I moved… I wouldn’t even describe it as flying, because it took absolutely no effort. I just sort of slid down to where I wanted to be… my mind, truly did, control my movement. Think it and I was there. Simple.
Yet so complicated….
I turned my head to look at David. Apparently, he could not see me. His pale blue eyes shone with tears. They overflowed and spilled, running down his cheeks in currents.
Anger suddenly lit a flame in my chest. How was he crying, when he killed me?
“Wipe your tears, you damned bastard. You did this to me.” The words came out quietly, hissed through my teeth. I hated him. I hated more than anything in the world, so much it burned my throat.
Dave suddenly sucked in his breath and pulled himself backward. Little goose bumps ran up and down his bare arms. His eyes darted back and forth, searching for something he could not see. “Who… who’s there?” he asked, his voice so quiet I had to strain to hear it.
I felt a smile play on my lips.
Revenge.
Without really being aware of what I was doing, I reached out my lucent hand and stroked his face. I could feel Dave’s cheek muscles twitch under my caress, but otherwise, he didn’t move.
“Oh, my Davey.” I could practically see as my sugary sweet voice reached his eardrum. His breath caught; I could see he had no doubt about who it was now. Who I was.
“Your life…” I continued, nearly giggling in glee as I saw the terror rise in his eyes and the little color left drain from as face, “is going to be hell.”
It was such a high, seeing the fear in his eyes. It was good. He deserved to be scared. Deserved it all.
“No… I’m sorry,” Dave’s voice was louder now, more confident. Like he was begging. This was so much fun.
“Look at all this blood…” was my response. And to my surprise, (though with everything going on, I really should not have been surprised) the pool of red that had surrounded my corpse was now in the air, sliding along, closer, closer still to Dave’s terrified face.
Wonderful.
A manic laugh bubbled out of my lips, and the control I had over the blood ended. It fell to the ground, with a sickening splash, mere inches from my Davey’s face.
This was to much for him. Dave hopped to his feet and ran, leaving my ghostly hand touching nothing.
I was unfazed. No matter; there was always tomorrow.
Or better yet, tonight. I had no responsibilities anymore, no things I had to do. But this, I realized, was bittersweet victory- my dear little sister, Cara. How was she going to cope without me?
I did not let that thought cloud my mind for to long. I pushed it out, taking deep, even breaths. The moment, I needed to just concentrate on this moment.
I was going to Dave’s house.
