The Hungry Ghost

by Dalena Storm

  “I’ll call the police,” Jeff whispered in his wife’s ear after Tom and Carly had taken the girls safely back upstairs. His hand closed reassuringly around her arm. “Unless you’d rather do it?”

  It took a moment for Bianca to shake her head. “No, I’ll stay here with Sam and make sure she’s okay.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, staying down here alone with her?”

  Bianca gave him a well-practiced look, the one that said I am your wife and you are not going to tell me what to do.

  Jeff nodded and went upstairs, out of earshot, to make the call. Sam was sitting on the floor, doing nothing, so still and lifeless that it was hard to imagine that just a few moments ago Bianca had seen her trying to smother her own niece. Bianca slowly approached, stopping just out of reach. She was afraid of Sam, she realized. She had been for a while.

  “I’m…” Sam started, and Bianca flinched, anticipating the end of the sentence. She had heard enough about how Sam was so damn hungry. She’d gained thirty pounds since she woke up and she ate like an animal.

  Bianca forced her voice to sound motherly and not at all scared. “Yes, Sam? What is it?”

  “Sor-ry,” Sam said slowly, as if she had just discovered the word and was trying it out to see if it worked. Bianca blanched. She couldn’t have heard her right. Not now. It was too damn much.

  “Excuse me, what did you say?” Bianca heard her tone switch into one that sounded suspiciously like her own mother’s. She’d told herself she wouldn’t talk like that—but well, look at what had happened, at what Sam had become!

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” Sam repeated, more firmly the second time, and her voice didn’t sound as raspy. It sounded more like Sam.

  Bianca turned her back on her daughter. She crossed her arms and made her face tight because she was not going to cry.

  “Mother,” Sam pleaded behind her.

  Bianca crossed her arms tighter. She took deep breaths and counted to ten.

  “It was an accident.”

  “An accident!” Bianca whirled around. “It was an accident that you killed your ex-husband, that you attacked your favorite niece? It was an accident? How does an accident like that happen? Can you tell me? Can you?”

  “I was…”

  Bianca tried to read the expression on Sam’s face as she searched for words. What was going on inside that head? Bianca couldn’t fathom it.

  “I’m afraid that ‘accident’ isn’t going to cut it, sweetie. Not this time. How could you, Sam? How do you expect me to go on now knowing what you’ve done and what you’re going through—in prison?”

  Bianca felt herself getting choked up as she imagined Sam in some prison cell. She’d be raped, wouldn’t she? But maybe she’d like that. God, what was she thinking! She was going insane, becoming as crazy as Sam was.

  “I don’t even know who you are anymore,” Bianca found herself speaking more words she’d sworn off.

  "I'm Sam," Sam said simply. "Still Sam. Sam I Am."

  Rage and laughter and grief fought for dominance in Bianca but only a frustrated sigh issued from her lips. How could Sam joke at a time like this?

  “It was the drugs, wasn’t it?” said Bianca, grasping. “It’s that stuff the hospital insisted we give you. It made you…”

  “Hungry.”

  Bianca flinched. “Yes, all right, fine. It made you hungry, but you didn’t know what you were doing when you were out there with Peter just now, did you?”

  “No,” Sam agreed.

  “I knew it,” Bianca sighed. “Maybe you’ll get off easy… Twenty years or…”

  Bianca’s jaw trembled as she did a quick mental calculation. She might be dead in twenty years; she’d be over seventy. A barking laugh, a mad sound, escaped from within and a couple of tears spilled down her cheeks. She brushed them away. So, this was where it all ended.

  “You know what, sweetie? I’d probably have killed him, too, if I were you,” Bianca admitted as she looked at her daughter, sitting so meekly on the floor. “God. I just never thought it would come to this. Not you, not my Sam. How did you even do it?”

  Sam started to lift her hands and Bianca’s eyes were drawn to Sam’s stiff fingers. They tightened around something invisible, squeezed it, but Bianca barely had time to register this before Sam lowered her hands down again.

  “I don’t know,” Sam said simply. Her voice was hoarse, but where before Bianca had thought the hoarseness was some change caused by the coma, now she thought it was the result of pain. Sam felt bad about what she’d done, didn’t she?

  “No, of course you don’t,” Bianca agreed. “You were delusional. Psychotic. We’re going to get you off those meds, starting now.” She didn’t say anything about the fact that it was clearly too late, that she’d be taken to prison and by then the question of meds would be irrelevant.

  “Mother,” Sam said, “I don’t want to go away.”

  “Well, I don’t want you to go away either, darling, but at this point, I’m afraid we’re not left with much of a choice.”

  Sam said nothing, and Bianca looked at her, thinking. It was obvious Sam hadn’t been herself. It was obvious Sam would never intentionally harm someone. It was obvious that taking her to a prison cell would be an injustice, that no one would understand her there—no one would listen, no one would know. There was the back exit from the basement, and if she and her daughter slipped out together quickly…

  “Mother,” Sam said again, using this infuriating form of address that was so child-like and formal. “I know they’re going to take me away, but first, do you think we can go for a drive together—please?”

  Perhaps it was that the request was so perfectly formulated, so very like Bianca had always imagined Sam would be in a crisis, that she found herself wondering, what was really the harm? Sam ought to be allowed to get out of the house, to enjoy a final half hour of being with her mom, before...

  Bianca’s purse was upstairs, along with her keys. She’d have to go grab it.

  “All right,” she said, calculating in her head how she’d nip up to the entryway, grab her purse, and return unnoticed. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t you dare move a muscle. Stay put.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Peter had saved the girl, or he felt like he had. Maybe it had been chance that Bianca had gone into the basement, but Peter fancied it was because of him. Now that the Sam-thing had been stopped, he was unsure of what to do. Hang around, he supposed. See what happened next.

  And then it was just him, Bianca, and Sam—the awkward trio. He knew they gossiped about him, had been doing so for years—but that comment about killing him? That one had hurt.

  Peter half-expected the creature to jump up and go running the second Bianca left the room, but it didn’t. It just sat there, unmoving. How the fuck had it gotten here and taken over Sam? What was it planning to do now? Did it even have a plan?

  A moment later Bianca returned and the two women snuck out the back door to where Bianca’s car was waiting. Peter didn’t have to sneak. This was his dream, after all… or rather, his death. He finally got to control things, to go with the flow. That was what Sam had always encouraged him to do—“Stop being so stiff, Peter. Just relax, Peter. Come on, Peter.”—as if she’d been any better.

  The night was dark and the women seemed cold. At least Bianca did, she was shivering. It was hard to tell with the other. From inside the house came the sounds of bustling and movement, and Peter watched the lighted windows, remembering the night’s earlier events as if those had been the dream, rather than this, now. Had that been him, earlier, sitting down to a cheerful Thanksgiving dinner, or had that been someone else? Who was he now, anyway?

  Nobody. He was a dead man, and frankly he wasn’t sure if he cared.

  Peter sat in the back seat while the women rode in front. When the engine turned on the radio automatically filled the cab with the sound of a talk show, but Bianca quickly turned it off. No one seemed to breathe
—not that Peter needed to—until they were out on the road, and then it was as if they all heaved a collective sigh. They hadn’t been caught. They had gotten away. Peter wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, but at least it was less complicated.

  With the radio off, it only took a few seconds for the silence to become oppressive. If anyone could have heard Peter, he’d have tried to crack a joke.

  Well, this is a dark night. Why all the dead faces? Look more lively!

  Ha.

  Bianca was first to speak. “Remember, Sam, that you don’t have to talk to anyone if you don’t want to. We’ll get you a lawyer, someone who knows what we should do.”

  Sam said nothing in response, which probably infuriated Bianca, but Peter knew why. It was because the thing in the front seat was not really Sam and probably didn’t give a damn about the fate of the body it had stolen. If only he could warn Bianca.

  “You know, Bianca,” Peter said out loud. “That isn’t really Sam sitting next to you. It’s something else, I’m sorry to say. What kind of something, you ask? To be honest, I haven’t figured it out, but some kind of monster is my best guess.”

  No reaction, just as Peter had expected. But then Sam turned slowly and looked to the back seat, her eyes staring right into where his were supposed to be. It had heard him. Despite the fact that was dreaming, or dead, or whatever, that monster had heard what he’d said.

  “What is it, honey? Did something happen?” Bianca asked, glancing sideways at Sam as she flicked the signal switch, turning onto Main Street.

  The monster smiled and turned to face front again, just as slowly as it had craned its head back, and said in its new slow, careful English, “Nothing, Mother.”

  Nothing, Mother, Peter mocked.

  Oh, fuck you, monster.

  “What is it, honey? Did something happen?” Bianca asked.

  “Nothing, Mother,” the ghost said. It had killed Peter, and that should have gotten rid of him, but now the man’s consciousness was tagging along, refusing to do as most dead things did and stay with his body or move along to somewhere else. Maybe it was because the ghost had taken his eyes. Maybe that had been a mistake, and the action had tied Peter to the ghost somehow. Whatever the reason, Peter had gotten stuck in the ghost’s web like some kind of fly. The ghost would try to avoid such an unpleasant scenario next time. It had tried to enjoy a real meal with the little girl but it had been stopped so abruptly.

  It had to feed again. It would go slower this time. It would get it right.

  “Mother,” said the ghost, and it waited for Bianca’s response. Bianca kept her eyes on the road, not giving the ghost her attention. The ghost waited patiently, staring at her intently.

  “What?” asked Bianca at last.

  “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  “You said that before!” exclaimed Bianca, exasperated. “What do you want me to do, forgive you?”

  The ghost continued to stare, watching Bianca’s lips tremble and her eyes water. Her jaw moved as she fought to maintain control.

  “All right,” she swallowed, “I’ll grant that you’re sorry. I’ll grant that. I’ll grant that what you did was a horrible, stupid mistake, and it will never, ever happen again—it had better not, not if you ever want me to be able to look at you again.”

  “Of course, Mother.”

  “Good.” Bianca heaved a shaking sigh, finally allowing herself a glance at Sam. A tear spilled from one eye and she hurriedly wiped it away. “Not that it matters now, anyway. What’s done is done and you’re going to prison. This is going to be our goodbye. So, first, take this,”— she reached for something in her purse and handed her phone to the ghost—“and put it somewhere I can't hear it. I can't bear to listen to it vibrating when they realize we’re gone. Now, tell me, Sam, just pretend things are normal for a second. Is there somewhere you want to see before they lock you up? Somewhere you want to go before you’re stuck in a tiny little cell where you can hardly move?”

  The ghost carefully put the phone into its pocket. It had been waiting for this question, and it knew just where they should go. “To the lake.”

  “To the where?”

  “To my house. To the lake.”

  “To your… Sam, I’m surprised at you. I didn’t know you even remembered.”

  The ghost smiled to itself. It had heard many things during its convalescence. The Sam who had used to live in this body had been quite fond of the place called the lake house. It would be quiet and private there, the ghost was certain. It would be the perfect place to enjoy Bianca.

  Peter’s brain rushed forward quickly. She wanted to go to the lake house. It would be secluded and no one would come around looking for them. It would be the perfect place to…

  No. The bitch wouldn’t.

  But she would because this wasn’t Sam. This was whatever thing that now inhabited Sam’s body. It had already killed him. It had tried to smother Rosa. He would be stupid to think it wouldn’t hurt Bianca, too.

  Peter took a deep breath, preparing to call out to Bianca, but that had been futile before. It would only alert the monster to his plans. Okay, Peter. Think, think, think.

  He elevated himself out of the car, started to rise up, and then realized he didn’t know where he was going. He sank back down quickly. He didn’t want to lose them.

  Damn it, Peter. Back to the drawing board. How could he stop Sam?

  Sam.

  His mind kept going back to Sam. This was another thing that was bothering him. If there was a monster in Sam’s body then where the hell was Sam? If Peter was here, then certainly Sam must be somewhere, right? She couldn’t have vanished? She couldn’t be gone?

  The thought struck Peter as incomprehensibly horrible. If Sam were gone from the world, it would mean this really was hell, because in as long as Peter had lived he’d never met someone so good. That was the truth, the real truth—the truth that lurked behind his thoughts of how much of a bitch she’d been. Sam had loved him more than anyone when nobody else could even see him. Sam had saved the small light of his soul from the darkness he was trying to drown it in. He was consoled by his knowledge that somewhere out there was that goodness, was Sam as he’d known her.

  Sam had never loved him the way he’d loved her. He wasn’t a fool, he could see that. She’d loved him in her way, sure, but she’d never doted on his existence like her life depended on him. She didn’t know what that felt like. She couldn’t understand.

  Peter deserved it. All of it—the heartbreak, the imbalance—and Sam had deserved his admiration, while he’d done nothing to deserve hers. For years he’d wanted nothing more than to become worthy of her praise, but the more he’d grasped after it the farther away it had gone. The more impossible the task had grown.

  Now, Peter knew, he would never succeed at getting Sam to love him. After all, he was dead, wasn’t he? It was time he just admitted it. And so, very likely, was she.

  And God, what a memory of him she’d have if she was still somewhere. She’d see pictures in the news: his eyeless body dead in street.

  Disgusting, she’d think, so that’s how Peter ended up. I knew he would.

  No, that was too hard on her. He knew Sam would feel more than that. Of course, she’d try not to, she’d try to bury it like she always did.

  It was the main talent she’d honed over the years their marriage had been failing. She’d become a master at suppressing what she was feeling. The more he’d tried to get her to not do that, the deeper she’d buried her heart—the farther away she’d gone. So Peter understood. In a way, it was all his fault. He’d pushed her away long before she’d ever had the chance to leave.

  But I do remember, Peter, he could almost hear Sam saying. I didn’t forget we were happy once. That’s what makes me so sad.

  It was like he could hear her, like he could actually feel where she was in the universe. Yes, that was her he felt, out there. He was certain of it. And she was not too far, not too far at all.

 
; Peter closed his eyes, and behind them was a map of the universe. There were two glowing dots—one was him and the other Sam. He watched as one of the dots—his—moved down the streets of Boston while the other remained still. She was six-point-four miles away. Somehow he knew that, like Google Maps for the brain. Another neat trick he seemed to have picked up, like moving through walls.

  Keeping his eyes closed, Peter lifted out of the car. He’d find her, the real Sam. He’d try to let her know what had happened, and maybe together they could stop the beast in time.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Madeline locked herself in a tiny little bathroom that smelled of litter and cat urine and turned on the light. She stole a glance at herself in the mirror and burst into fresh tears.

  Sam would rather become a cat than give Madeline a chance. Oh, fuck her, the fucking bitch. A cat!

  Indulging in a moment of self-pity, Madeline sat on the toilet and sniffled into a handful of tissue, then she got up, washed her hands, and dabbed away the mascara pooling under her eyes. In her reflection, Madeline’s jaw trembled as she imagined everything she’d wanted to tell Sam in person. She’d wanted to say, Hey. She’d wanted to say, I’m sorry. She’d wanted to say, I love you, no matter what. But now she couldn’t say that, not in a way that Sam would hear, because Sam was a fucking cat.

  Madeline dabbed her eyes. She needed to clean herself up. She needed to get back out there. She needed to apologize to Jimmy, get out of there and go home where things made more sense. There was an ending to her story working itself out in her mind, and she needed to finish things. It was time.

  Checking herself once more in the mirror, a gasp lodged itself in Madeline’s throat. There was someone in the room behind her. She couldn’t see him, not clearly, and it was gone in a blink, but she’d seen it.