Trevor Atkins stood by the open hospital room door as an orderly brought in a wheelchair. Emery objected saying she didn’t need one, but he stated it was policy, and she reluctantly sat down and let him wheel her out.
Trevor was Emery’s friend and fellow computer geek. They had met while playing an online game. They had become good online friends, the only kind she would allow herself to have as people in the physical sense always made her uneasy.
They had known each other online for a couple of months when they learned that Trevor lived in the same town as her. Her initial reaction was to cut all contact with him but Melissa, trying to play matchmaker, insisted they meet. Through much banter and bickering, she finally relented and agreed to meet him.
Trevor was five foot nine, had short spiky blond hair, a pierced lower lip, and dressed like a male version of her. It was uncanny how much they had in common although much of that was discovered through their online interactions because when they met in person neither one of them spoke much.
She thought of him as a friend, but they had grown close in the time they had known each other. He knew of her ability although she made him promise never to talk about it and he never did.
The orderly wheeled her out to Trevor’s blue Honda Civic. Trevor popped the trunk and placed her backpack which he had picked up earlier from her house containing a change of clothes. Emery moved from the wheelchair to the front passenger seat still feeling a little discomfort in her abdomen, but the pain was more tolerable than it had been at any time earlier.
She stared out the window as Trevor drove her home. She didn’t know how she felt. Nothing made sense; she still couldn’t believe her sister was gone. How would she survive, she wondered?
They came to a stop light, and she noticed a man standing on a street corner staring at her. He tilted his head to the right as his eyes remained focused on her. He wore a rumpled gray suit; his hair was brown, but a skewed as if he had just run his hands through his hair. His eyes are what caught her attention, they were as dark as night. His stare was so intense; she felt that he was looking right through her.
She turned away for a moment and then looked back. The man was moving towards her, stepping off the curb reaching out with his left arm as he moved closer. She couldn’t look away, the anger in the man’s face seemed to be directed at her. Reaching for the car, she raised her hands to her face letting out a small scream as the car moved forward.
She felt something tap her shoulder, and she jumped back in her seat. Looking over at Trevor, he moved his hand back.
“You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Ignoring him, she turned around and looked out the back window as the man stood in the middle of the street staring back at her.
“What are you looking at?” he peered in his rearview mirror.
She turned around in her seat; her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t talk. Checking the side view mirror, she could still see the man, his arm no longer outstretched.
Looking down at her hands, she swiped them a couple of times on her jeans to dry them from the sweat that had built up. She took a breath and no longer wanted to look out the window as they turned onto her street.
Trevor pulled the car to the curb, threw it in the park and turned off the engine. Emery remained buckled in looking down at her hands. She felt her breath come back and could see Trevor looking at her from the corner of her eye.
She couldn’t get the man’s eyes out of her mind. The deep, intense stare, the hatred she felt she knew was not imagined. Something was wrong, different but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It was a feeling, and she knew she could never ignore her feelings.
“You okay?”
She couldn’t tell him about the man or about how she felt because she didn’t want pity and refused to let anyone think of her as weak. She had been shot, her sister had been killed leaving her all alone, and the last thing she wanted was to be someone’s charity case. She trusted Trevor to a point, but she didn’t want her friendship to take on the added weight of grief or pity.
“I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“Want me to come in?”
She looked at him, and a part of her wanted him to stay, but she quickly pushed that thought away. She needed to be alone, to deal with what lay ahead.
“No, I think I just need rest. Thank you for the ride home, Trev.”
They exited the car and Trevor opened the trunk and handed her the backpack. She hugged him, holding onto him a little longer than she was used to but it felt comforting.
She stepped away and headed for the front door when Trevor called out to her. She turned around.
“Hey, if you feel up to it, I’ll be in the mythical lounge tonight,” he said referencing the online chat room they frequented.
She nodded and went inside. She placed the backpack on the couch in the living room and then looked around. She listened to the utter stillness. It was unnerving how quiet the house was, like how she imagined it would be floating in the middle of a black hole.
She moved to the bedroom and slid into bed. With her head resting on the pillow, she closed her eyes. She was afraid to walk around the house or look at anything too long as her sister's essence was everywhere, and she was in no rush to test her emotional strength at the moment.
She couldn’t get the man’s image out of her mind. Something was wrong. What was it? Why was he looking at her? Why was he angry? How come Trevor didn’t see him?
“You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She remembered Trevor asking.
A ghost? He didn’t look like any spirit she had ever seen. He had looked just like anyone else. He saw her, he knew she was there; he tried to reach out to her. Spirits didn’t see her; it was always the other way around. No one else on that street corner reacted to him. Trevor didn’t see him.
She sat up in bed, a sharp pain ignited from her gut and traveled up her spine. She was supposed to take her pain medication every 4 to 6 hours which she had already exceeded that by two hours, but she wanted to have a clear head, she was on to something and didn’t want to muddy her mind with the effects of any drug.
She moved slowly, adjusting the pillows so she could sit up in bed. She reached over to her nightstand, grabbed a notepad and pen so she could make some notes. Sometimes when she was faced with a problem, she would write out the problem on paper and work out a solution.
She wrote on the top line, ‘Emery losing her mind!’ On the next line, she wrote hallucinating sister in the hospital. The pen dropped from her hand. She looked around; shadows were starting to grow in the corners of the room as sunset approached. The quietness in normal circumstances was always a welcomed occurrence, now the silence seemed more of a warning, a sign of things to come. She shivered but not due to any change in temperature, the air was warm, but she didn’t feel alone.
She looked down at the paper again. Hallucinating sister in the hospital. She picked up the pen and put a line through the word hallucinating and wrote above it, Saw. Saw sister in the hospital. Why didn’t she see it before? How could she be so stupid, she thought. She spent most of her life seeing spirits and when one of the spirits was her own sister; she dismissed it as a hallucination.
“I think you have fine-tuned that antenna we talked about. You can interact with the spirits now.”
It wasn’t a dream; her sister was telling her she could see them and communicate with them now. But how? Why now? Where was her sister? She felt dizzy; she took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She tossed the pen and notebook back on the nightstand and gingerly moved off the bed anticipating the oncoming pain. Surprisingly, the pain was only a slight pinch.
She moved from the bedroom to the living room and switched on a light as the dark shadows quickly danced away from the source of the light. She stood in the middle of the room and closed her eyes. She didn’t feel any different. She opened her
eyes, and she remained alone.
Maybe her sister moved on. She wasn’t sure how it worked, but she was never able to see every spirit, she never saw her parents she reminded herself. Her sister was in the hospital, it wasn’t a dream. Her sister had to be around, she had so many questions. She walked over to the sofa and sat down. She looked down at her hands and wondered if this is what other people go through who had lost a loved one, clinging to the hope that they were still around. Despite her unusual ability, she wasn’t sure if her newfound hope was cemented in the grounds of her reality or just a wisp of faith of a grieving heart.
Three loud knocks on the front door brought her out of her haze. She looked at the front door, its looming presence disturbed her for some reason. Had someone actually knocked on her door, she wondered.
Three more knocks confirmed that she had visitors. She got up from the sofa and walked to the door and looked out the peephole. She could see two men wearing suits standing on the porch. She took a breath, wiped her hands on her pants and then opened the door part way.
“Emery Hallindale?”
She felt a lump in her throat. She fought to swallow it down and managed to nod her head.
The two men wore similar colors, dark blue or black but she couldn’t really tell. The man speaking appeared younger, short brown hair parted in the middle, a slim nose, deep set eyes and a small chin that had a divot in the middle. The other man stood off to his left, had a shaven head and wore dark sunglasses.
“I’m Detective Saunders,” said the brown haired man holding up his badge, “and this is my partner Detective Wynchet, can we come in?”
Her hand gripped the inner door handle tighter in case she had to slam the door quickly, “What is this about?”
Removing his sunglasses, Wynchet’s voice was deep and void of any feeling she surmised, “It’s in regards to the shooting. We need to speak to you now!”
“If this is a good time,” Saunders interjected.
She could already see that these two were the epitome of good cop and dickhead.
She pulled the door open and waved the two detectives in. They sat on the couch, and she took up the chair opposite them. She didn’t offer them anything to drink and clasped her hands between her knees. She always felt uncomfortable around people she didn’t know, and cops made her feel that she was in a room full of a hundred people she didn’t know.
Her eyes darted from each of them then to her hands and back again. There seemed to be a long silence before Saunders spoke.
“Ms. Hallindale, I apologize for stopping in on your first day home, but we do need to ask you some questions regarding the events of that day, to see if there is anything that you can remember to help us catch this creep.”
The thought had never occurred to her that the shooter was still roaming free, leaving her the only surviving witness who could identify him. Maybe Detective Saunders read her mind or something on her face revealed her fear, as he leaned forward.
“We don’t think you are in any danger. If we did we would have units stationed outside your home, we still can for a couple of days if it would make you feel safer.”
She shook her head, “No. I will be fine. I don’t know how I can help. It all seems like some sort of nightmare. Not sure what is real or not.” Her voice was low, and she did her best to avoid eye contact, but she could feel the eyes of both detectives upon her.
They asked her when she first became aware of the shooter and what she could remember of his appearance. Did he have an accent, any tattoos, or any noticeable words he may have spoken? She did her best to describe him but did not notice any markings or anything else that would make him distinguishable.
She tried to remember anything about him but all she could remember was his eyes. The eyes that lacked life, that was drenched in death, the eyes void of feeling or remorse. His head was shaved, light skin, Caucasian she remembered. There was something else about him too that she thought that she should share.
“He wasn’t there for the money, he had the money already before he shot the kid behind the counter, and he could have left. It was personal I think, he was going to kill the kid whether he got the money or not.”
“Are you a detective now?” Wynchet had said before his partner interjected, “What makes you say that?”
She thought about the boy in the store, how fragile he looked but she couldn’t tell the detectives about a ghost boy, that wouldn’t go over very well.
“He just seemed like he knew what he was doing, he had it all planned out and was going to kill that kid anyways.”
“Jacob Lomas. The kids name was Jacob Lomas, he was seventeen years old.”
Hearing the name hit her in the pit of her stomach, it made him real. He wasn’t just a kid behind a counter; he was someone’s son, someone’s brother.
“I’m sorry, seventeen; I don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s okay, you have been very helpful Ms. Hallindale,” Detective Saunders said.
Wynchet shifted in his seat, folded his hands on his lap and leaned forward.
“So how does it work exactly?” His dark brown eyes seemed to be watching her every move. The question hung in the air a moment as she was trying to understand what he was asking her. She looked at Saunders and then back at Wynchet.
“How does what work?” Her voice cracked a little. She didn’t know what he was getting at but rubbed her hands together and took in a breath.
“Dead people! You see them, don’t you?”
Saunders snapped his head towards his partner.
“For Christ sakes, enough! This is not why we are here,” and then to Emery, “I am sorry for this, this is completely inappropriate.”
She stopped rubbing her hands and folded her arms across her chest. She was used to the question. The insinuation and skepticism in his tone should have alerted her to what was coming, but nevertheless there it was. His eyes searching hers as if he was trying to see if he caught her off guard or was about to lie to him.
She unfolded her arms and rested her hands on her legs. She met his glare and looked directly at him when she spoke. Her voice was slow and steady, she tried not to let out any hint of anger that was building up inside.
“I see spirits. Not all the time but I see them. I don’t know why I can, it’s something I discovered when I was younger. I will see someone, but they do not look like everyone else, their color is darker, grey-like, and they seem lost that’s how I know they are not part of the living.”
When she finished, she noticed a slight smirk grow across his face, again another facial expression she was accustomed to. Before Saunders had a chance to speak, Wynchet responded.
“Do you see your sister?”
“We’re done,” Saunders said as he got to his feet while Wynchet’s eyes never wavered from Emery’s.
“She is sitting right beside you,” she said, her voice was flat, and no smile crossed her lips. She continued to stare at him, and he tried not to look, but he gave a glance over to his right.
“Outside, now!” Saunders said to his partner.
Wynchet looked away; the expression on his face had changed as he looked at her, it wasn’t as smug as it had been just moments ago. He then gave one final glance back at the couch before walking out the front door.
Saunders apologized for his partner’s behavior and handed her his card stating if there was anything else she could remember or if she needed anything to give him a call.
She closed and locked the door. She returned to the chair across from the couch where her sister waited for her.
Chapter Four