Chapter 32
thirty-two
. . .
The next few days are normal. Sure, I’m glancing over my shoulder at every opportunity, but normal.
Everything is as it was. While I’m not at work, I’m editing the contest video.
The footage we got at the haunted house is great.
Violet can be seen in full on the thermal camera, a fiery orange body in the pink and purple room.
I also caught a flash of something in the bathroom.
It was a random flash of orange before fading to purple.
Also, I found a shadow on the camera I set up in the kitchen while I was upstairs, and I could hear something that could be argued as a voice on the EVP recorder while in the bathroom.
I’m distracted, though, by the fact that I never posted the video of the house I was investigating when I met Kit. Or, re-met him, I suppose.
I leave the contest video behind to work on that one.
While editing the moment I was talking to the ghost of Alice McCall, I spot something in the corner of the screen.
Right when I was asking if someone else was with us.
It’s a dark shadow. A massive one. Humanoid, for the most part, but it almost looks like something is jutting out from its shoulders and head.
Like spikes. Shit. I’ve seen that before—in the video from the minigolf course.
Balores. There’s no doubt in my mind.
Alice the ghost did say someone bad was with us. I had thought about this conversation afterward and assumed incorrectly that the unfriendly other presence was Kit. Balores was right there. Watching me. Waiting. A shiver runs over my body as I quickly twist around, afraid I’m being watched again.
No. I’m fine. I’m sitting at the counter in my kitchen with the curtains drawn. I am alone, and no one can see me.
I wonder if I can edit him out of the video?
Not that it’s not incredible that I caught a demon on video, especially an awfully evil mid-level one who wants to possess me, but if people see it, they’ll probably say it’s fake, and I don’t need all of those negative trolls in the comments ganging up on me.
But…engagement.
It’ll be fine. I’ll leave it in. I continue to edit the video, staying up late and almost forgetting to eat dinner, despite my stomach’s angry reminders (dinner got eaten, just not until eleven o’clock).
I end up posting the video at two thirty a.m., not bothering to care about the algorithm, with a note about how sorry I was that this was later than expected and that I’ve been oh so busy and taking a mental health break—I should probably take an actual mental health break soon.
That’ll be good. My subscribers will have something to wake up to, and now I can focus all my energy on the contest video.
I go back to it but shake my head and close my laptop.
I need to have a fully awake mind for editing this one.
Instead of going to bed as I should, though, I go to my phone. When the screen brightens, my lips twitch. I had changed the lock screen to the photo of Kit’s spray paint ghost. Why? Because I like to suffer.
I swipe my phone open and go to Google. I type in Kit Mitchell, Sacramento then change my mind and write Christopher instead of Kit.
I find an obituary from ten years ago, a black-and-white picture of a smiling Christopher Mitchell at the top.
I notice the white scar above his lip before I focus on his eyes.
It amazes me how even in picture form, his eyes are just as distinctly his as they are in any body I have seen him inhabit, including my own.
I scan the obit, but I don’t see any information I don’t already know.
It says he was known as Kit by his family and friends, that he died of heart complications, that he is survived by his mother, father, brother, sister, and nephew.
He was twenty-six. Worked as an Integration Engineer at a tech company.
Enjoyed art, hiking, fishing, and spending time with his friends.
He was happy. He was human. They’ve included a few of his drawings and paintings at the bottom of the page, ranging from sketches of people in the park to paintings of dragons. All beautiful. He was talented.
I swipe out of the obituary, knowing I should stop while I’m ahead.
But I don’t. I descend into the past and go to Facebook, thinking I’ll have a better chance of finding him there than on Instagram.
I find his profile after a few mis-clicks.
His profile picture is the color version of the one they used in the obit.
I click on it so I can look at him again.
As always, I can’t focus on anything but his eyes.
My chest aches, but I ignore it as I swipe in an attempt to get out of the picture.
Instead, I end up swiping to the next picture.
It’s of him and a woman with a blonde bob. I tap the picture to see if she’s tagged. She is. Jenna Hodgkins. Jenna. That was the person he almost called on the day he died. An ex, he said. She’s pretty.
I exit the profile picture and scroll through his page.
It takes a while to get through all the messages posted on his wall after he died.
There’s a lot. Paragraphs and photos filled with memories of a well-lived, short life.
He was loved. Finally, I reach his own posts.
There’s not a lot, mainly tagged pictures of him at parties or out at bars or concerts with friends.
A lot with Jenna. I scroll for far longer than I should.
There’s one from thirteen years ago where I can clearly see stitches in his lip, so it must be from right after that fishhook got caught and pulled through it.
There’s one from fourteen years ago of him at Disney World.
I take note of the date: August thirteenth. August’s birthday.
Hang on.
I chuckle wetly with my hand over my mouth.
That would have been August’s fifteenth birthday.
We went to Disney World to celebrate that year.
Her dad paid with his divorced-dad-guilt money.
Were we there at the same time? It’s not like that would have mattered at all, considering he was twenty-two.
Even if we were in the same vicinity, he wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) have looked my way, but that means…
that means we breathed the same air at one point.
I go through his Disney photos, his face young, clearly a little drunk, and happy. Most of the pictures are with a group of his friends. There’s one where Jenna, hair longer than that profile picture, is kissing his cheek. They must have dated for a while.
Jealousy sparks through me. It shouldn’t, I know.
This is an ex from ten years ago, even more for him.
But they had been dating since college, and he broke up with her because he knew he was going to die, not because he didn’t love her.
And, well, I am jealous, because this woman got to know him first and got to know him as a human.
She got to exist in her own body while he was in his.
She got to have him in a way I never can and never will.
She had him. I will never have him. I’ll probably never even see him again.
Which is the way it should be. I’ve fallen for a demon. I haven’t fallen for this man in the photos. I don’t know this man. I know my Kit. My demon. It’s pathetic, really. Someone pays attention to me, and I’m over the moon.
I sigh, because I know whatever was between Kit and me was more than that. But it’s over. I finally force myself off of his profile and go sleep in my bed and, as I have every night since he’s been gone, feel pitifully alone.