I sat in class, fidgeting with the edge of my fingerless glove. The fabric was frayed, just like my nerves.
I wondered if I had nearly sabotaged Gordy’s party in an effort to avoid talking about my post-graduation plans. I just knew that everyone was going to sit around a bonfire on the beach, get all sappy, and talk about how they’d miss everyone when they were gone.
Everyone was leaving me.
Dude, snap out of it! I was turning into a totally depressed jerk.
It didn’t help that Emma might be there, snuggling up with Simon, while I was having my heart ripped out. I felt raw, like my skin had been rubbed off with sandpaper.
And I smelled pickles.
The golden glow of Jackson Green, a ghost who I had helped last October, hovered at my shoulder. He should have been in Heaven, or wherever spirits go when they find peace. I had helped him find his way into the light, but Jackson kept coming back.
The first time Jackson returned to me was on Samhain. He had been one of the ghosts who tried to protect me from The Grays. I knew it was him; I’d recognize that vinegar soaked smell impression anywhere.
But it wasn’t Samhain today. My eyes strayed to the wall calendar beside the chalkboard, with its days crossed off in bold sharpie and graduation day circled in red, turned to the month of June. No, it was definitely not Samhain, which was at the very end of October. The veil between worlds should have kept the man’s spirit where he belonged, but try telling that to Jackson.
My ghost pal had started showing up lately, whenever I was stressed. He seemed in tune with my emotions. Was I somehow calling him to me? I’d have to ask my spirit guide about that. It didn’t seem right, calling a ghost to me and disturbing his rest just because I was feeling grumpy.
I scribbled a reminder in the margin of my notebook; contact spirit guide about Mr. Pickle Pants. If anyone other than my closest friends read that, they’d think it was some obscure anime reference. Nope, just my bizarre life.
Too bad hovering ghosts can’t speak. I could use some good advice right now. The fact that I’d be willing to listen to the opinions of a dead guy who was murdered by his own wife showed how desperate I was.
He may not be able to speak, but Jackson and I could communicate. With my newly emerging ability to see glowing shapes of the dead, Jackson and I had developed a new means of communication. In the past, I’d create a makeshift Ouija board with the words YES, NO, and MAYBE and hope that the strength of the smell impression indicated which word a ghost was answering with. It could be accurate, but being overwhelmed by smelly ghosts was exhausting and left me with a killer headache.
Recently, I’d asked Jackson to try shining brighter to indicate his answer. Amazingly this new approach worked, and didn’t leave me a moaning, drooling mess. But using my ghostly guardian as an impromptu magic eight ball seemed all shades of wrong.
I’d just have to figure out my problems on my own.
I jumped as the bell rang out. I took a deep, steadying breath and headed for the door. Once in the hallway, I braced myself for the inevitable vampire bats that swarmed inside my stomach.
“Only two weeks left,” I muttered. “You can do this.”
Getting to my next class meant walking past a door that filled me with dread. The memory of the things that happened behind that door still made my hands shake and my knees feel weak. The hallway seemed to shrink, closing in on me as I neared the source of my fear.
The supply closet loomed like a monster from a nightmare, growing larger as the hallway narrowed and the rest of the school fell away into a darkness so black even the humming overhead lights couldn’t penetrate. The humming became a buzz as the roaring in my ears warned of a full-blown panic attack.
A little voice in my head whispered hauntingly, but managed to be heard over the incessant roaring. Don’t pass out now, girl. If you do, the J-team will get you. Oh yeah, those thoughts were so not helping.
I shook my head, took a step closer to the door—and froze.
I knew that I should get a grip. It was just a small, messy storage room filled with the typical boxes of school supplies—no sweaty jocks or insane J-team. Not today. But the boxes of chalk and toilet paper still loomed like specters, silent witnesses to my humiliation and fear.
Did that room hold some echo of past events? One thing I’ve learned from my experience with the paranormal—anything is possible. If spirits of the dead can leave behind smell impressions, then why not a feeling of terror in a place where I had experienced such intense emotion?
At first, when I was abducted I had been scared, but then I got angry. Trapped and tormented by narrow-minded jerks had made me so mad, I thought my blood was boiling. The cold, emptiness…the utter terror? That came later.
Now I stood as if frozen in carbonite. Unable to run, blink, or scream. Han Solo, eat your heart out.
My body was as traitorous as Lando Calrissian.
Unlike carbonite freezing, my condition didn’t cause temporary blindness. I wish that it did. I was forced to stare wide-eyed at the door that led to my darkest, most frightening nightmares. As with any bowel-churning nightmare, mine happened to feature evil jocks.
The room had been filled with members of the football team, but they were lead by the J-team. Those two were the ghouls who haunted my existence, but one of them was pure evil. Jared Zempter’s threatening pose and obvious willingness to carry out any order from Jay had been terrifying enough. But the specter who tormented my dreams, and that my mind warned still lurked behind the supply closet door, was Jay Freeman.
Jay’s eyes had gleamed with sadistic pleasure as meaty-hands Eddy held me down. Jay had wanted more than just answers. He had wanted to play with me, like a cat plays with a mouse. The look he had given me made my stomach churn and my skin crawl. I didn’t want to be the defenseless mouse.
Jay’s words from that day rang in my ears. “Yeah, freak, that’s why we’re here,” he said. “Well, that and a little fun after.” It was the “fun after” that had worried me then, and terrified me now. What if he came along and decided to finish what he had started?
No, I was not letting that creep ruin my life. Not anymore. I had sworn that day not to give up, and not to show fear. I wouldn’t give the J-team the satisfaction while being held captive by the entire football team, so why start now?
A flash of heat loosed my frozen muscles and unclenched my jaw as anger burned through me. I swallowed the growing lump in my throat, blinked away tears, and bolted past the supply closet.
Nobody knew just how afraid I still was. I worked hard to smile and pretend that I was fine. But I’m far from okay. No, I’m light-years from that place. Maybe someday I’ll make it there, but for now, I’m flailing around in limbo.
How did everything get so out of control?
I need to talk to Cal. I have been keeping the worst of my feelings from that day hidden, but that obviously wasn’t helping anyone. Maybe talking things out will help me banish my demons, before they swallow me whole.