by Megan Hart
Mr. Shady landed upon the SUV, and his minions released their grip on the semi. Now the SUV dragged them behind it like some kind of oversized hellish bridal train. The souls shrieked and thrashed as the blacktop throttled them. Bits of arms and legs broke away, turning in mid-air from glistening black to pale grey. I didn’t want to look at what came next, but I couldn’t help myself. The SUV drifted closer. The dark man upon the roof lurked over me, hands outstretched.
The cold crept into my phantom bones, freezing my joints. I could barely move, and I might’ve actually been grateful. I’d suffered the sun’s hurtful embrace and was terrified of enduring it again. At least with Mr. Shady, maybe I’d know peace.
Except he smiled, and terror filled me. His black teeth. His black tongue. His black mouth. All so cold and empty. Shannon gripped my hand so hard that something crunched.
Mr. Shady crouched and leapt, and his followers propelled him across the void. Ribbons of twisting appendages streamed from his heels. He landed upon the Aztec’s roof, trailing a twisted river of black souls behind him like an endless cape. He climbed onto the bicycle on which I was impaled, perched upon the seat and gripping the handlebars. Relentless cold paralyzed me. An eternity away, Shannon screamed, “No! Leave her alone!”
I looked at her, trying to ignore the shadowy figure inching closer to me. My chest and throat went numb. In the periphery of my vision, his lips parted. The cold washed over me. Into me. My face went numb.
Mr. Shady pressed closer, his bruised aura smothering my own.
“Kiss me,” he said, his slippery voice like crude oil oozing out of a jagged crevice.
I couldn’t answer, but I didn’t obey.
He shook his head and said, “I’ll take the pain away, Molly. Just kiss me. Let me inside you and everything will be better. The darkness will set you free. The sun will rise soon. Let me in first, and I can save you from oblivion. We can be happy together.”
All the hurt twitched and flared inside me. So much pain—more than I could endure. His words offered me hope. I’d suffered enough. Slowly, I nodded to him.
22
Mr. Shady grinned triumphantly and bowed his head to accept my kiss. I looked to Shannon, wanting her to be the last thing I saw. I tried to mouth my final words to her, “I’ll miss you.” Instead, my numb lips twitched three times, the words shattering on my tongue.
I was about to let go of her hand and embrace Mr. Shady when a yellowish field washed over Shannon’s aura. It was the color of ancient brittle pages. A familiar tingle ran through the hand holding hers. An unseen force lifted her into the wind, pulling her off the bike. From the way she was smiling, I could tell it didn’t hurt.
The Ouija board was summoning her.
She gripped me tight, now using both hands. Tara must’ve received the text. Only she must’ve been more precise with her summoning this time. The Ouija’s field only enveloped Shannon. It was going to leave me behind.
Mr. Shady snarled and leapt at Shannon, but bounced harmlessly off the Ouija’s protective field. He tumbled back, ricocheted off the kayak, and crashed onto the gravel shoulder. His followers collapsed behind him, and a speeding semi burst them apart. I imagine that their shrieking was terrible, but I couldn’t hear it over the sound of my own.
Shannon rose into the air and pulled me with her. My body tore free of the bicycle’s frame, the hard metal scraping me out. Hollowing me. Agony swarmed in places that I didn’t know could hurt. The pain nearly blinded me. My innards wiggled and tangled through the air. I howled in agony. My disemboweled body resembled a jellyfish with long tendrils. I was practically turned inside out. When I screamed, globs of ectoplasm and pieces of my soul splattered into the air.
Shannon pulled me close and hugged me, burying my face into her neck. She wrapped her legs around my waist as the Ouija’s force yanked us down the length of the highway toward the coming dawn. It weaved us between the oncoming traffic, protecting Shannon but not me.
A passing station wagon slammed into my dangling legs. A semi smacked my trailing entrails. I tried to scream, but there was nothing left inside me. Shannon kept her legs wrapped around my waist, while she reeled in my spilled innards and stuffed them back into my torn torso.
Her eyes were as black as night, and the eastern sky had lightened to navy blue.
Late night drivers and early morning commuters passed by us in a blur, oblivious to the two souls soaring through the air. Without warning, the force yanked us off the interstate and into the forest lining the highway. We tumbled and twirled, cutting between trees and over branches. My head wobbled at all the twists and turns. Shannon gripped me tighter to protect me. We darted and whirled through the underbrush. Branches slashed through me. Pine needles raked into me.
By the time we popped out of the woods and barreled through a cloud of bats, my torn phantom body resembled a handful of crumpled, shredded paper. Only one eye remained.
“It’s okay,” Shannon said. “I see the van.”
In the distance, the blue Dodge van rambled down the desolate route that connected I-70 to the airport. A departing plane soared into the air. We’d made it. Oh, hallelujah, we’d made it. I couldn’t help but smile with what was left of my mouth until I realized that the van’s windows were rolled up.
Shannon said, “How are we going to get inside?”
We dove through the air until we were soaring beside the van’s driver side door. The force pulled Shannon’s feet inside first, yanking them through the crevice between the door and the frame. It flattened her out so she could slip inside. Her stretched out legs resembled a long ribbon flowing into the van’s interior and piling behind the seats. She clutched me, black eyes as wide as silver dollars.
“I’m sorry, Molly,” she said, because clearly the field wasn’t going to pull me inside too. She was now halfway inside the van, up to her waist. In the vehicle, her legs reformed out of the tangle of flattened soul.
I couldn’t answer her with my shattered jaw. So, I nodded. With a loud grunt, she muscled me toward the driver side rearview mirror. I managed to drape my left shoulder over it and lock it in place by gripping my hands. Through the van’s windshield, Cleavage rode shotgun with the Ouija board on her lap. Tara of the Glasses had one hand on the wheel, the other on the planchette. The road below pummeled my dangling feet, knocking my shoe off. The heel bounced away and then flew back. I hadn’t the strength to lift my legs. So instead, I suffered through the hurt.
Shannon rose between the seats, her face looking a bit like a stretched out accordion. She tried to steady her pancaked head but her arms resembled tangled Slinkys. The velocity forced me down, out of sight of the window. I dangled by my arms, trying to kick my legs away from the road, but gravity soon won. The passing highway cracked at my knees and shins, shredding them like coleslaw. That was how I rode the rest of the way to the airport, all the while wondering why I hadn’t kissed Mr. Shady when I had the chance.
23
Mr. Shady
A single black tear wormed its way down Mr. Shady’s temple as he lay on the side of the road. He’d had Molly. She’d been his, but that bitch Shannon had taken her away. He sat up. Around him, the mess of ruptured souls scattered all along Interstate 70 twitched and screamed and writhed. He trembled with rage and climbed to his feet.
As he collected chunks of ghosts and assembled them into a crude mode of transport, he shook his head at himself. He’d foolishly thrown himself at Shannon when it was really Molly that he’d wanted. He should’ve bitten Molly when he’d had the chance, but he hadn’t wanted to take her like that. No, she needed to offer herself to him. It wasn’t enough to claim her. She needed to invite him—to open up to him. He loved her too much to force himself upon her.
Traffic roared past.
Mr. Shady climbed onto his new mount—a mish-mash of perhaps a baker’s dozen of souls, though the stray pieces only added up to two full body’s worth. The glistening black mess could barely be recognized as hum
an. The chunky meat and shattered bones shambled and lurched across the highway into the eastbound lane. Ahead, his foe the sun nibbled away the night. Dawn was coming. The mess of souls beneath him screamed as it galloped alongside first a Volkswagen Jetta, then a green Ford Ranger pickup.
The shrieking shadow beast lifted him into the cab, which was filled with empty Pepsi cans and stray bits of wood. He considered letting the beast go, but decided to hang onto it a little while longer. Perhaps it would come in handy for what happened next.
24
When the van eased to a stop at the airport’s curb, I didn’t bother trying to stand on my wrecked legs. Instead, I collapsed in a heap onto the blacktop. A moment later, I heard the door slide open on the other side of the vehicle. Shannon’s ghostly feet plopped onto the ground. She ran around the side and dragged me onto the sidewalk. My face had healed enough to form words, though something in my jaw clicked painfully with each syllable.
“You go,” I told her. “I can’t make it.”
“Fuck off,” she said, now pulling me toward the entrance doors.
“Did you tell Tara goodbye?”
“There’s no other way to end a Ouija session, Molly.”
We had to wait for a disheveled mom and her elementary-aged daughter to activate the sliding doors. The mom pulled a massive rolling suitcase loaded with a duffel bag behind her. The daughter wore a sparkly backpack. Tara hoisted me up, one of my arms slung around her shoulders. We slipped through the doors right before they closed.
Aside from a few clumps of impatient travelers at some of the check-ins, the airport crowd was pretty sparse this early in the morning. Maybe a dozen people stood in the security line. One lone barista manned the Boston Stoker coffee bar in front of security.
“There’s no ghosts,” Shannon said. “Maybe they’re all already hiding because the sun’s coming up.”
“No. It’s because no one really lives at the airport. You come. You go. It’s a place of transition. It’s an annoying pause. Haunting an airport would be like setting up a tent in the middle of the road.”
She looked at me. “You and your metaphors.”
“It was a simile actually.”
“Dumbass. All similes are metaphors. Similes are just a type of metaphor.”
“Huh,” I said. “I didn’t know that. Now let’s find a fucking plane.”
She dragged me in front of the Departures board. The next flight out was the seven o’clock to Minneapolis at Gate A13. It was leaving in nine minutes. There weren’t any other flights until 7:15, and I had to imagine dawn would have cracked open the sky by then.
“Come on,” I said. “No rest for the dead.”
Shannon tightened her grip on me and we staggered around security. My legs cracked and crinkled. Bits of my insides still dangled from my torn belly and dragged along the carpet—oddly patterned grey squares that must’ve looked outdated the moment they were installed. My kitten heel trailed behind me, wobbling and whimpering.
A long hallway stretched from the security checkpoint. Shannon made it a few steps before my weight caused her to collapse.
“Please,” I said. “Just go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“No? Well, I was ready to leave you. If that Ouija field hadn’t grabbed you, I would’ve kissed Mr. Shady and said goodbye to all the hurt. I was ready to give up. Still want to stick around?”
She cocked her head at me. Her eyes narrowed. “You get that one. I did kill you after all.”
“You can’t drag me all the way to the gate.”
A grin stretched across her face. “I don’t have to.”
The daughter and mom, no longer pulling the big suitcase, walked briskly toward us. The little girl’s sparkling backpack had three dangling straps. Shannon grabbed a strap as they passed, and soon the little girl was dragging us down the hall. My kitten heel hurried after us.
“What do you think comes next?” Shannon said.
“An escalator, if memory serves.”
“No, doofus. Assuming we make it into the Light, do you think we’ll be in Heaven?”
“I don’t think it matters.” I shook my mangled head. “Anything is better than this hell on Earth.”
We had to let go of our diminutive ride at the end of the hall. The mom and daughter hurried to the right toward Concourse B, but we needed Concourse A.
A woman’s voice on the PA system announced, “Last call for Flight 4552 to Minneapolis.”
A young man, probably college aged, strode toward us wearing a hoodie and jeans with a black backpack. I said a silent prayer that he was heading to Concourse A. Sure enough, he angled left, and Shannon gripped his ankle as he passed. I clutched her waist, wishing I could smell her. I bet she’d had a lovely scent before she died.
The boy unknowingly dragged us to the escalator. Shannon let go of him and we rode up the metal stairs.
“I’ve never sat on an escalator,” I told her.
“They scared me when I was little—at the mall—but only the down escalators. I thought they looked like metal shark teeth, row after row, wanting to pull me down into the department store’s stomach. I didn’t mind going up though.”
I could only smile in response. The escalator deposited us onto the concourse and she pulled me to my feet.
We staggered toward the gate, now free of passengers. A brunette in a white button up and black vest stood at the door to the jet bridge talking into a radio mounted on the wall. I kicked off my heel. We broke into a lurching sprint, more falling than running. My leg bones crackled and crunched, sending jolts of agony up through my hips.
Only a few paces away.
The brunette placed the radio back on the wall. Maybe six paces. She reached for the door. Four paces. My kitten heel squirmed onto my foot. Two paces. She pulled the door. One pace. I stumbled on my heel, lost my balance, and slammed onto the floor. The carpet smacked my ass. I winced and cursed.
We’d gotten so close. So damn close. For a long moment, all we could do was sit there in stunned silence. Then I saw the brunette pull a metallic pink vape pen out of her pocket.
“What could you possible be smiling about?” Shannon says.
“The wonders of addiction. Come on.”
We followed the brunette down a flight of steps that emptied onto the runway. A breeze passed over me. We dove out the door right as she shut it behind her. Across the way, the sky glowed a sexy pink. Dawn couldn’t have been but a few minutes away. The scene disoriented me. Dirty concrete. Engines roaring. The brunette took a pull from her vape, frowned at her smartphone, and blew the electric vapor right through my face. I sneezed, probably just on instinct.
Shannon dragged me to the airplane. Two large metal carts sat next to the craft. The cabin door was shut, but a large door on its rear belly hung open. A motorized ramp perched beneath. Men in orange vests tossed the remaining bags into the baggage hold.
“Come on,” Shannon said.
My legs wobbled beneath me. I could feel the mending bones inside my torn thighs bending like winter saplings under the weight of snow. Wincing, I bit back a scream and collapsed on the baggage ramp. The conveyor belt had already been shut off, so Shannon dragged me up the ramp. We’d crawled more than halfway up when one of the workers closed the hatch.
The ramp lowered.
And my heart with it.
We rolled off the machine and onto the sun-bleached concrete. The airplane’s engines rumbled to life. Above us, more souls drifted pointlessly toward the clogged Light. To the east, the sky blushed with the coming dawn. Shadows crept through my skull, and I knew in mere moments I would either lose my soul to the darkness or my astral form to the sun.
“We could try climbing onto the wing, like in that one Twilight Zone episode,” Shannon said.
I shook my head. “Even if there was something to latch onto, we’d never be able to hold on.”
Shannon grabbed my hand. “We had a good run. I think we did more than most
. That counts for something, right?”
I nodded. “So, what do you figure? Should we go hide in the shadows and lose our minds, or go out onto the runway and fry?”
“I think I want to go out in a blaze of glory,” Shannon said.
“Okay, but you’ll have to carry me most of the way.”
We climbed to our feet and staggered away from the plane. The dawn crept closer. I hoped my mom wasn’t too hungover. I hoped Mr. Noble had some more great orgasms today. I hoped that old man at the funeral home stopped tickling his wife. I hoped if Ben Heck had kids, that he was a better parent than his dad. I thought nothing but good thoughts for them all.
“How did things go with Tara?” I said. “Back in the van?”
“I thanked her and told her she was very special to me. Thought about telling her about her dad, but that’s not really my secret to tell, is it?”
“No, no it isn’t.”
“Hopefully one day he’ll spill his guts to her.”
“What’d you say?”
“Hopefully he’ll tell her that he likes cock.”
“No, before that. Spill his guts, you said.”
She wrinkled her brow. “It’s an expression, Molly.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Not especially.”
“That’s probably wise.” I pulled her back toward the plane. “Come on. We have a plane to catch.”
25
Shannon spent a long time cursing at me, and I couldn’t say that I blamed her. We jogged alongside the plane as it taxied down the runway. She held her blue track shirt up to the lower edges of her breasts, while I unspooled her intestines and knotted them to the front landing gear. I used the knots that Ben showed me so many years ago to anchor her to the plane, and to tether myself to her.
