Chapter Nine
Ugh, there’s too many plants in her house.
What is this shit?
The Mushroom Kingdom?
Everywhere you look in Autumn’s apartment, something flora or fauna hangs.
Sprigs of sage hang over each window and doorway.
There’s a huge mushroom rug on the ground and a mushroom shaped coffee table sitting on top of it.
If I could smell, I’d probably be hit with an overabundance of essence, sage, and pot smoke.
She looks like the type. Earthy. Laid back.
In touch with her feelings. Then there’s the white furniture.
White upon white upon white. I guess it looks good with the plants hanging everywhere, but still, it’s too much white for my liking.
It looks like an angel threw up in here.
“Nice place,” Phantom comments, hovering just outside the doorway.
“It’s okay, Phantom, you can come in.”
He cautiously strolls in, and I obediently follow, only to be stopped by some invisible force that won’t let me go past the doorway.
“What the fuck?”
“Sorry, Eve, you’re not invited,” she shouts, her words turning into arrows of war.
“Oh yeah, bitch? Watch me! I’m tethered to him, where he goes, I go!”
But the barrier keeps me out, and my ghostly hands bang on it like I’m shut out in the rain.
A weird-looking dude appears from the shadows, standing there just outside her door, looking at her apartment with longing. “You can’t get in, sweetheart. I’ve tried.”
“Yeah? And who the heck are you?”
He smiles, his age showing by how many teeth are missing from his mouth. “They call me Angus. I used to be the maintenance man here.”
“And what happened? Death by a ladder? Hammering gone wrong?” I roll my eyes, my annoyance rising the longer I stand outside her doorway.
“Heart attack, actually. It was Autumn who found me in the courtyard and called for help. It was too late though, I’d been sitting out there for far too long.”
Part of me feels bad for the guy, the other part of me couldn't care less. “Sucks to be you, I guess.”
He frowns. “You aren’t very friendly, are you?”
My hands pound on the barrier separating me from Phantom, and I start getting pissed. “Bitch! Let me in. Invite me. What the fuck are you doing? You can’t just take my man and expect me to sit out here waiting for you two to have dinner.”
Autumn saunters over to the door, looking too damn smug as she quietly says, “I need some time with him alone, Eve. Hope you understand.”
Then the door shuts, and my patience snaps.
“Bitch. Whore. Goddamn stupid Cu—”
“Your mouth is angelic,” Angus exclaims, grinning a little too wide for my liking.
“Shut up, Toothless Joe. I’m pissed. Did you see what she just did? She purposely kept me out of her place. Now she has my boyfriend in there doing God knows what, and I’m out here, chilling on the stoop with you.”
In a huff, I sit down on one of the steps and sigh. Angus keeps his distance but moves close enough to have a chat. An unwelcomed chat.
“Is he your unfinished business?”
I shrug. “I guess so. I’m tethered to him.”
He nods. “Ah, so you promised him you wouldn’t leave him.”
My head shoots up to look at him. “How did you know that?”
“There’s a girl near 45B that haunts around.
She made the same promise to her lover too.
But her lover stopped connecting with her a few years back, after he found someone new, and now she just wanders around the complex aimlessly, slowly forgetting why she’s even here and why she can’t seem to go too far from a man she barely recognizes anymore. ”
“That’s… sad,” I mutter, throwing my head in my hands. “I don’t want Blake to forget me. That’s why I keep reminding him that I’m still here.”
Angus shifts a little closer, his withered face holding more age than it should after dying.
He’s at least forever in his seventies, with reddish hair streaked with gray, and eyes too blue to be real.
He has a beard which is scraggily and gross, and besides his missing teeth, I guess his smile isn’t unpleasant, but I still don’t like the unwanted conversation he’s forcing me to have, it makes eavesdropping almost impossible through Autumn’s metal door.
“So, what’s your poison? Are you a throw something at their head to grab their attention type of ghost?” He laughs when he sees my surprise.
“I do like a good empty bottle throwing. The glass shards add a little oomph to the throw afterward. I call it mosaic chaos.”
He laughs a little louder. “The bad part of mosaic chaos is that it scares the living.”
“Well, the living are a bunch of pussies and wimps.”
If he’s offended, he doesn’t show it. “Some are, that’s for sure.” He takes a cautious step closer, before resting on the steps across from me, making sure to keep his distance.
“So, what makes your living boyfriend so special?”
“He’s the only guy that’s ever meant something to me. I’d be lost without him.”
He nods. “I felt the same way about my wife when I passed away. Losing someone is never easy, but it’s even harder when you have to watch them live on without you.
When she passed away, I lost my reason for sticking around, but she didn’t know I was waiting for her out here, and walked into the light, leaving me alone to wander without her… ”
“Does that mean she wasn’t your unfinished business?”
He shrugs. “Guess not. That’s why I keep trying to get Autumn’s attention, but she has a clearing ritual when she leaves her house.”
“Ritual?”
“Yeah, she comes out with headphones in her ears. It plays the same thing over and over again, just to block out the voices in her head. I can’t leave the apartment grounds, so chasing her beyond it is impossible for me.
I was hoping she could help me figure out why I haven’t crossed over yet.
But I don’t know how to get her attention without shouting her name, and my voice isn’t what it used to be. ”
God, why am I sorta feeling sorry for the old guy? This isn’t like me. Get yourself together, Eve!
Frowning, I say, “Well, I don’t know how to help you, Old Timer. At the moment, they got me shut out and I have nothing to throw.”
There’s a strange twinkle in his eye. “Have you ever tried other forms of communication other than throwing things around?”
“No, throwing things has always worked for me.”
“Well, I’ve heard if you’re strong enough to pick up objects, then you can also manifest noise.”
“Noise?”
He motions to the door behind me. “Try your hand at knocking.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me?”
Laughing, he shakes his head. “Try it. You may find a new way for him to know you’re there. Do the lights flicker when you get angry?”
Nodding, I jump to my feet, desperate to see what’s going on in their little dinner party.
I have to stand on my tiptoes just to see in her window, but there they are, sharing a nice meal, laughing at each other’s jokes, giving one another those stupid looks of yearning.
This would not be happening if she didn’t build herself a Sage Fortress meant to keep out spirits like me.
“They look way too happy in there.”
Angus grins. “Then why don’t you do something about it?”
I’ve never been able to make noise before. Not to the extent of manifesting a knock. Though I haven’t really tried either. My biggest strength is the ability to grasp things and throw them around—Annies included. But knocking?
“I dunno, Old Man. Knocking seems kind of impossible when you’re see-through and dead.”
He motions to a rock sitting in her garden. It’s big enough to pick up. “Why don’t you try throwing a few of those at the door.”
“I like your thinking, Old Man.”
Closing my eyes, I focus extra hard, my hand fitting around a few rocks before I step back and hurl one at her front door. The rock hits the metal door, then falls on her step, making a hollow knocking sound.
“Ooh, this is kinda fun,” I exclaim gleefully.
“If she won’t invite me in, then I’ll make damn well sure they know I’m out here.
Hey, Bitch! Take that.” Rock two is launched.
“And that.” Rock three makes a nice heavy sound as it hits her door.
“And that too! You can’t ignore me forever.
” The fourth rock makes a magnificent hollow knocking sound, getting her attention.
The door flings open just as I’m about to launch my next rock. Autumn hovers in the doorway, tapping her foot in annoyance when she sees nobody outside.
“Is that you, Eve? Are you trying to get my attention?” she asks, sounding more annoyed than sweet.
“Now’s your chance, Angus, she’s all yours…” My words taper out when I realize that Angus is nowhere near her door anymore. The bastard disappeared and left me hanging. “So much for trying to get ahold of Autumn, and find out your unfinished business. Geesh.”
“Did you just say the name Angus, Eve?”
“Maybe?”
Whatever annoyed smile Autumn had, fades to one of complete fear. Her face goes white, and her feet start to wobble beneath her.
“Hey, are you okay?” Phantom asks, just as Autumn collapses into his arms. He pats her face. “Autumn, baby, are you okay?” Then his eyes turn dark and angry. “Goddamn it, Eve, what the fuck did you do?”
“Me? All I did was throw a few rocks at her door. She’s the one that went psycho crazy and passed out.” I look around the courtyard for Angus, but I don’t see him anywhere. “Now where did that old coot go?”
“Autumn, wake up. Please, wake up.”
She blinks a few times before her eyes finally open. “What happened?” she whispers, voice choked up and stalling in her throat.
“You passed out.”
“Why?” she asks, not being shy at all about how comfortable she is in my Phantom’s arms.
“You can stop leaning against him anytime now, bitch.”
She sits up, holding her head as she slightly wobbles.
“You said something about Eve mentioning someone named Angus, then you went down. It was honestly really weird,” he admits.
“Good boy. Keep thinking she’s weird. Then that look of lovey-dovey lust will stop shining in your stupid eyes.”
Fear swirls in her eyes, but this time her whole body freezes, her bottom lip quivering out of control.
“What’s wrong, Autumn?”
“A—Angus is the name of the man who was stalking me for three years.”
“Stalking? What the hell, Angus? You didn’t tell me you were some weird stalker?”
I hear his laugh before I see him, then he emerges from the shadows, tipping his stupid fedora hat at me as his eyes go from blue to bright red, a strange shadow growing behind him.
“What do you mean?” Phantom asks, still holding her, still touching her like he cares.
The only person he should care about is me, goddamn it.
“Five years ago, I started getting weird notes on my door. First, they were little love poems, then they started to get really weird and nasty. One talked about how badly the person wanted to fuck me, and that his biggest fantasy was tying me up and torturing me until I begged for him to fuck me.” She takes a deep breath, barely able to breathe.
“The cops couldn’t figure out who was doing it, even when they started watching the house.
Turns out, the reason they couldn’t figure out who was responsible, is because the man died in the building’s pool house while doing maintenance work.
I only found out it was him after the police uncovered a bunch of photos of me in his apartment, most of them pictures I didn’t know were being taken. ”
“Jesus,” Phantom exclaims. “That’s crazy.”
She nods. “It really is. But what I don’t get is why Eve mentioned him. He’s been dead for years, and not once have I felt his presence anywhere near me. I would know, I wouldn’t be able to feel my skin because of how much it be crawling.”
My gaze shoots back over to Angus, who’s now just watching from the shadows with the sickest smile on his face. Like he’s seconds away from whipping out his old crusty dick and stroking himself.
“I get it now,” I shout towards him. “Your unfinished business isn’t your wife… it’s getting her.”
He nods once, those red eyes only intensifying in depravity.
Sighing, I turn back to Autumn, despite knowing she’s probably going to be my downfall later on, and do the only thing that feels right…
“I’m sorry,” I mutter under my breath. “He told me he had a heart attack, and you were the one who saved him. Then he said he wanted to get in contact with you because you could help him crossover. I had no idea he was planning whatever this shit was.”
Autumn forces herself to smile. “It’s okay, Eve. You didn’t know.”
“What she say?” Phantom questions, drawing her even closer to him.
“She said she’s sorry.”
“You sure that was her saying it? Eve doesn’t say sorry to anyone.”
She hugs herself, staring out at the darkness like she’s searching for answers—searching for me.
“It was her,” she states confidently.
“How can you be so sure?” he asks, looking around as if he’s waiting for me to appear.
“Because girls who suffer trauma tend to feel each other, even when you can’t see them standing in front of you.”
He doesn’t ask for clarification. He knows exactly what she means, and for the first time since meeting her, I kinda feel sorry for her, especially knowing that her stalker is still out there, watching her from the shadows, just waiting for her to die so he can have her all to himself.