The Reaper Within

by Stephanie Jackson

  “You actually made coffee?” she asked, sitting up and taking the cup from him.

  “Yeah, I did. I saw that you’d brought instant and regular coffee with you, plus milk and sugar; so I figured it was part of your morning ritual. There’s a coffeemaker on the kitchen counter so I made the regular. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” she said, taking a sip of the coffee. It was perfect, two sugars with just a splash of milk. “What I find incredible is that you can make coffee.”

  “Should I not be able to?”

  “Well, some ghosts can move things intentionally, but it takes a lot of energy for them to do it, and nothing as organized as what you’re capable of. Mostly what they can do is knock something off of a table or throw something across the room.

  “After they do something like that, they vanish for awhile, because they’ve used up most of their energy and need to recharge before they can do anything else. The energy that you use seems to be fairly human-like, and has no bearing on what you’re doing at the time.

  “You seem to be more tied into the electrical system of the house somehow, because every time that the lights dim, you disappear. I wonder if you’re somehow using the energy from the house to be so solid, but when the lights dim for some reason it knocks you off the grid.”

  “Have you ever seen a ghost attached to a building’s electrical system before?”

  “No, but I guess it could happen. I mean, spirits do need an energy source to manifest themselves in any physical way; i.e. moving things or touching someone. They’ll even draw on the energy of living people if it’s all that’s available. I take it that you understand that you’re dead now?”

  “I don’t really have a choice. I was talking to you in the kitchen, and it was pitch dark outside. The next second you were gone, and the sun had started to come up. Unless you’re somehow able to manipulate the weather and the rotation of the planet, I just don’t see any other explanation.”

  “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said throwing back the light sheet and getting out of the bed.

  She’d slept in just her panties just like she would have at home. She didn’t suffer from an over abundance of shyness and had none around spirits.

  She spent her time trying to cross them over without suffering too much damage to her own body not worrying that one of them might see her naked.

  “Just like that, huh?” Jack said, sucking in his breath at the sight of her. “Do you always run around half naked in front of men you just met?”

  “Not live men, but dead ones sometimes catch a good look.”

  “Jesus, Mel, what happened to you?” he asked when he caught sight of the scars on her arms and legs. “Who did that to you? Was it some of your foster parents?”

  Mel smiled at him and pulled a clean T-shirt out of her bag. “No, none of them cared enough to spend this much time on me. Don’t get me wrong; while I was in foster care I saw my fair share of slaps and punches. But none of it caused any of this scarring.

  “No, all of this is just the risk I take doing this job. Most of the claw marks were suffered from particularly malicious spirits that didn’t want to cross over. The bite marks on my arm and across my stomach were a parting gift from a Revenant.”

  “You gotta stop doing this job before you get yourself killed. No amount of money is worth that kind of damage to you body.”

  She laughed while she was putting on her jeans. “Clearly you’ve never lived inside the foster system. Trust me, Jack, it’s worth it. Plus, if it didn’t happen to me it would just happen to someone else, and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I can.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think the angel, or the light, or whatever it was, intended for you to go through this kind of pain.”

  “Maybe, but it is what it is,” she said, pulling her laptop out of her bag and flipping it on.

  “What’s that?” he asked when she sat down at the small desk to check her email.

  “It’s a computer. They’re so small now that you can carry them around with you. Pretty much everybody has one.”

  There were some spam emails, but nothing important, and nothing from Betty but a picture of a kitten peeking out of a grocery bag. Betty found the strangest things amusing. She erased it and was about to turn the computer off when Jack leaned over her to have a better look.

  “What else does it do?”

  “Well, pretty much anything. Like check the weather forecasts,” she said and pulled up the local weather.

  It was going to be ninety-three degrees today, and they were calling for severe storms that afternoon and through the night.

  “You can also read books on it, play video games, buy and play whatever songs you like. Plus, there are tons of social networks that you can use to find people or reconnected with old friends. Betty also uses hers to run background checks on people and find out any information that I may need about a job.”

  “You can find people with this thing?”

  “If they’re registered anywhere on the internet, then yes, I can find them.”

  “Anywhere in the state?”

  She bit back a smile. “Anywhere on the planet. The internet is worldwide, Jack. If a person so much as buys a song from anywhere online using their own name or bank account, then you can find them.”

  “That’s amazing. I can’t believe we’ve advanced this far in the twenty years that I’ve been gone. Is one of these expensive to buy?”

  “They can be. It depends on how much speed, drivers, and memory you want. They can go for up to a few thousand dollars. But you can get a good cheap one at Wal-Mart for a couple hundred. Not that I’m allowed at Wal-Mart anymore.”

  “Amazing,” he repeated. “How do you find someone with one of these?”

  “Well, I start with a Google search. If that doesn’t work I try some of the other search engines or a paid database like the ones Betty uses to run background checks and whatnot.”

  “Can you run the name Theresa Gilroy?” he asked.

  She typed in the name and waited for less than a second for Google to respond.

  “There are eight listings for that name. Where was she last known to be living?”

  “Here in Memphis,” he said, and Mel typed in the information.

  “Here she is. She has a Facebook account,” she said and clicked on the link. The profile picture of a pretty, dark haired woman popped up. “Is that her?”

  “Yeah, she looks older, but that’s definitely her.”

  “Is she an old flame of yours?”

  “No,” he said with a sad smile. “She’s my sister.”

  “Oh,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

  She’d never spent this kind of time, or done anything like this with a ghost before. And she’d never told her life story to one like she had Jack last night. Her only excuse was that he didn’t feel like a ghost to her.

  He felt like a real, live person. The arm that he had draped across her back was even warm to her. She was even starting to crush on him a little…maybe more than a little. But she had to get it through her head that Pinocchio wasn’t a real boy, and at the end of her time here, she’d have to reap him too.

  “I wish I could know more about her life now.”

  “Maybe you can, let me check her privacy settings,” she rattled the keys on the keyboard. “She hasn’t set any restrictions. Anybody can see her wall and profile page.”

  “Her wall?”

  “Yeah, it’s where she posts news or pictures for her family and friends to see.

  “See, right here. This morning she posted that she had a headache and was tempted to call into work. But she has a new trainee at the bank; so, she decided to just take a couple of aspirin and hope that the headache didn’t turn into a migraine like they sometimes do at this time of year.”

  “She said that this morning?”

  “Yep, at 7:19 a.m.”

  “It sounds like her. Even when we were kids she would get these h
orrible headaches in the summer. She works at a bank?”

  “Uh…yeah, right here it says she works at the downtown Memphis branch of Bank of America.”

  “Does it say anything else about her?”

  She saw him running his eyes over the screen, but she knew he didn’t know how to piece together what he was seeing. Even something as simple as Facebook was too advanced for him to grasp. She was sure if he had a few hours he could sit down and learn it, but what would be the point?

  “She’s married to a man named Shawn Gilroy, and has two sons, an eighteen year old named Shawn Gilroy Jr., and a sixteen year old named Jack. Here’s a picture of the whole family in her photo album.”

  He stared at the picture for a long time. “She married Shawn in1989. She didn’t have any kids, though. Does she say anything about my parents?”

  This was getting away from her. “Not that I see.”

  She turned the computer off and stood up.

  “Well, can you send her a message on that thing?”

  “I could, Jack, but I’m not going to.”

  “And just why the hell not?”

  “Okay, let’s say that I was willing to send her a message for you. What would you have me tell her? That you’re a hundred percent not alright? That you’re dead and trapped in the home of a stranger, and you don’t know why?

  “Do you know how much she must have mourned for you after you died? How long she was stuck in a state of being distraught? Even if she did believe me, which I highly doubt, why would you put her into another bout of sadness over something she can’t do anything about? She’s happy now, Jack. Leave her that way.”

  He ran a hand over his face; a face that would never need another shave, in frustration. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was feeling right now. To have his sister as close as Mel’s computer and still not be able to reach out to her.

  “Okay…okay, yeah, you’re right. It would be cruel to tell her that I’m here but that she can never see me again.”

  “I’m glad you understand,” she said, slipping her feet into her tennis shoes and heading for the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To the kitchen to get some breakfast. I hate to reap on an empty stomach.”

  “I’m starving,” he said.

  She gave him a bemused look. “You’re hungry?”

  “Am I not allowed to be?” he asked, following her down the stairs to the entry hall.

  “No, I guess you’re allowed to be whatever you are. I’ve just never heard a ghost complain of being hungry before.”

  She walked into the kitchen, opened the cabinet, and grabbed out a box of Pop-Tarts.

  Jack sat down on a stool at the island. “You should have a more substantial breakfast.”

  “I should, but unfortunately I have to pack as much food as I can while still traveling light. I don’t want to carry around pots, pans, and dishes with me everywhere I go. With one box of Pop-Tarts, I have breakfast for six days.”

  “You brought a coffee cup.”

  “Well, yeah. What decent human being doesn’t travel around with their own coffee cup?”

  He smiled at her, and she felt a little better about denying his request to contact his sister for him. He grabbed the second Pop-Tart out of the wrapper and took a big bite out of it.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said around the food in his mouth. “I’d forgotten how good these are. And the blueberry ones were always my favorite.”

  “Should you be eating that?”

  He swallowed the big bite in his mouth. “I can eat it, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t.”

  “I’m just worried what…”

  The light dimmed and Jack vanished. The Pop-Tart he’d been eating fell onto the top of the island, and the bite he had swallowed, and the coffee he had drank before bringing the cup upstairs, spattered the stool seat and the floor.

  “…what might happen when you disappear again.”

  She sighed and pulled some paper towels off the roll that she’d brought in with her. She cleaned up the mess and threw the dirty paper towels into a small trash bag.

  She didn’t know what to think about Jack. He was the most unique ghost she’d ever been around, and she really liked him, though she wouldn’t want to go to dinner with him. Not unless someone else had to clean up the mess.

  She’d lost her appetite and slid her Pop-Tarts back into the wrapper to save for later. Then she started to make her rounds of the house so she could finish this job up and get out of this house.

  ***

  Within a couple of hours, she’d crossed over a woman that she’d seen in the house before and a child she had not. The kid had been a surprise that she wished hadn’t been here.

  She’d been in one of the old offices on the first floor when she’d turned to find the little boy behind her.

  “I want my mommy,” the little boy said.

  He couldn’t be much more than seven if he was even that old. He had brown curls and dark blue eyes. He’d looked very sad.

  Mel held her hand out to him. “Take my hand and I’ll take you to her.”

  The little boy took hold of her hand, and she crossed him over. She stood where she was until the rush of warmth faded away, and then walked out of the room. She didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about lying to the little boy.

  She knew that once the little boy found himself in the tunnel that he wouldn’t care about the lie she’d told him to get him there. If it made his crossing a little easier, then what harm did it do?

  And for all she knew, the boy’s mother may actually be on the other side of that light. If the little boy was like the other ghosts she’d reaped from this house, then he’d been here for twenty years or more.

  A lot of things could happen in twenty years, and a lot of people died in the passing of that time too. It was possible that the little boy’s mom was one of those people. She tried to shake it off and go about her job. She walked past the library and saw old Curtis’s echo walk from the middle of the room to the fireplace and disappear again.

  Something about her presence seemed to kick echoes into high gear. She walked up the stairs to the second floor and checked the rooms up there. She was at the very end of the hallway, closing the door to an unfinished bedroom, when the floor gave way beneath her feet.

  It happened so fast that she didn’t have time to jump to more solid ground. She fell through the hole, barely managing to catch herself with her hands on one of the jagged boards. She knew it wouldn’t do any good, but she screamed anyway.

  She looked down and found that she was dangling above the old Ballroom dance floor. There was about fifteen feet between her and the floor. Probably not enough of a drop to kill her, but she was probably going to break both of her legs, and maybe even her back. Angie Mabry really needed to talk to the people that told her the house was ‘structurally sound’.

  She’d left her phone on the kitchen counter, so she was going to lay down there until Betty got worried enough about her to have someone come out and check on her. The paramedics were going to forcibly pull her out of an uncompleted job, and she was going to wind up right back in a mental hospital again.

  She felt her fingers slipping on the board and screamed again. She’d just lost her grip completely and had started to fall when someone grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her back up through the hole. She fell to the hallway floor on top of Jack.

  “Is this just one of the hazards of the job, too?”

  “Not usually,” she said, and then started to cry.

  She felt stupid; she wasn’t usually a crier, but she just couldn’t seem help herself. The emotional shock of finding that kid spirit, and then falling through the floor had been too much.

  “Shh,” Jack said, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her tight against him, and rocking her. “You’re okay; you’re safe now.”

  She let him hold her like that for minute or so before pushing away from him and sitting up.
He sat up next to her and took her hand.

  She used her other hand to wipe the tears from her face. “Sorry about that. I guess I was more shocked than I thought. I just crossed over a kid a little while ago, and I guess I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been.”

  “The little boy?” Jack asked. “I’m sorry; I should have told you about him, but I’d forgotten about him being here.”

  “It’s okay. I would have had to reap him whether you’d told me he was here or not.”

  Jack leaned forward and looked at the hole in the floor. “Water damage. There’s no telling how long the ceiling’s been leaking on it. If you go back up to the third floor be careful not to step on the floor above here.”

  “Right, I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Mel, do you mind if I try something?”

  “What?” she asked.

  He dipped his head forward and kissed her. She knew she should stop him, but it was nice. It caused a glowing warmth inside her that had nothing to do with reaping a soul. She’d never had a serious boyfriend, and it was nice to be kissed by someone she knew cared about her, someone who had just saved her from, if not death, at least serious injury.

  She let it go on for a few more seconds, and then pulled away from him. “Jack, we can’t do this.”

  “Why not?”

  She pushed herself to her feet and looked down at him. “You know why not.”

  “Because I’m dead,” he said and pushed himself up.

  “Exactly,” she said, and then turned to walk back down the hall.

  She froze in her tracks when she saw a woman standing halfway down the hallway, staring at them. It was also a woman she’d seen before; but upon closer inspection, she found the woman to be dressed much more modernly than she’d first realized. She was wearing a short, black dress, but it was the shoes that got Mel’s attention.

  “Uh…hi, I’m Michelle Brighton. I saw what you did with the little boy, and the woman in the kitchen that told you her name was Rosie. I’ve been debating on coming to you; but after seeing you almost crash and burn, I thought I might ought to get out of here while I still have a chance. I don’t mean to intrude…”