Valentines Heat I

by Ally Shields, Nessie Strange, Keith Melton, CL Bledsoe

  Tammy had stopped screaming, but she looked to be on the verge of a panic attack. She gasped for air and struggled to calm herself. Finally, she held up a hand. Her eyes watered. “It’s OK Lisa,” she paused to suck in a deep, wheezing breath. “It’s…OK. It was just a spider…” Another gulping breath. “A really big…spider.”

  Lisa frowned, looking concerned, but she’d barricaded herself behind the door, glancing suspiciously at the floor before looking back at Tammy. “H-how big?”

  Tammy made a low, whistling noise, but she was still shaking. “You ever seen those old movies from the fifties, you know, with the giant ants and shit?” She held her hands apart, measuring a width just larger than the average store-bought bread loaf.

  Lisa paled. “No way.”

  Tammy wiped her brow. Her gaze darted back to where Chip was crouching, and once she confirmed he was still there, she let out a nervous giggle. “Well, maybe not that big. But it probably could’ve eaten a small rodent. I swear to God.”

  “Do you…need me to get someone, er…something?” The only parts of Lisa visible now were her fingertips and her nose.

  Tammy waved at her again. “No. No, I’ll just take care of it. Thank you, Lisa. You can go now.”

  The door closed abruptly. Sam and I looked at each other. What the hell was that about? He offered a slight shrug. How was it that Tammy hadn’t noticed Chip at first and then all of a sudden she saw him?

  “Don’t you remember Earthbound Spirits 101? A spirit’s will has much to do with whether or not they can be seen by a living human. He didn’t believe it was her at first, but once he realized, his natural instinct was to show himself.”

  That theory deserved some serious side-eye. I’d desperately wanted to make contact with Jack after I died, but he hadn’t seen me. I’d sat next to him for hours, praying there was some way I could comfort him. Nothing. So obviously will had nothing to do with it.

  “There may have been other factors in play. Besides, the living soul needs to be open enough to be in tune with the deceased. Perhaps your Jack was just not ready to see you.”

  Now there was a thought that stung. I turned away from him. Chip was creeping from his spot in the corner. There was little doubt Tammy could see him now.

  “Chippy? Is that really you?” Tammy gripped the back of her chair, keeping it as a barrier between them.

  Sam nearly choked on the swig of whiskey he’d just taken before erupting into laughter. “Chippy? Hell, mate, you can’t have any balls left with a nickname like that. They’d shrivel up on the spot.”

  I tried to ignore his commentary, but Sam had this way of coaxing out my own juvenile humor, and pretty soon I was snickering, on the verge of full-on laughter. He seemed a little…less moody than usual. Was he actually getting drunk?

  “Not exactly drunk, just can’t wrap my head around any man OK with being called Chippy.”

  I shushed him, even though he wasn’t talking out loud. Sam’s voice in my head pretty much overpowered any other noise in the room, and I wanted to see what was going on with these two. Chip and Tammy still stared at each other, frozen in place.

  “It’s my charming personality that turns you on.”

  And Sam was obviously in rare form. He wished he was charming. I thought I heard a snort.

  “I can’t believe…I must be going crazy right now.”

  “Tammy, I’d hoped I could find you.” Chip stood directly in front of her but he didn’t say anything else. In my head, I urged him on—we couldn’t come this far just to have him clam up—but I didn’t want to interfere.

  She swallowed, wide-eyed. “Find me? You looked for me?”

  He nodded. “At Mardi-Gras. I searched and searched.”

  “Christ, Chippy. It’s been so long. I just can’t believe it’s you.” She smiled, but it wasn’t particularly happy. “I remember that night like it was yesterday. Those boys…they said they wanted to show me something really funny. I just never imagined.”

  Chip looked at the floor, seeming to collapse into himself. “So you were in on it.”

  Tammy shook her head. “Oh, no! I had no idea what they were up to. Those boys. Those terrible, horrible boys. I never really liked them. We used to run in the same crowd, sure, but it was mostly my friends dragging me to parties and whatnot. I wasn’t much of a party girl. I just wanted to fit in, you know?” Despite the babble, it was growing obvious that Tammy had cared about Chip. At the very least as a friend and a decent human being. I wondered if he could recognize it. “But those boys were just juvenile…and mean. I saw the stuff they did to you. To other people. But you have to believe it, Chippy, if I’d known what they were planning, I would’ve come to you sooner. I would’ve warned you.”

  “But I looked like such a fool.”

  Tammy took a step toward him, like she wanted to comfort him. “They played a nasty trick on you. It wasn’t your fault at all.” She sighed. “You know, nobody was the same after that night. After you died, people just stopped hanging out with them. There was a trial, but nothing came of it. Said it was an accidental death and that was that. People moved on. You never did get your justice, I suppose.”

  “You were the only one,” Chip said after a moment.

  “Only one what?”

  “Who was nice to me. I knew they hung around with me just so they could laugh at me, but you always treated me like a real person. Like I mattered.”

  Tammy offered a pained smile. “You did matter. You were a nice guy and you had a good heart. I wished I’d taken the time to get to know you better.”

  It amazed me how the human soul could actually mimic its living body. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually seen it or not, but it looked like Chip was blushing. “I…I had a little crush on you,” he finally admitted. “That’s what I planned to do that night. To tell you, and see if maybe you’d go out for coffee with me. Or something. Do you think you would have?”

  “I don’t think I would’ve had the heart to turn you down.”

  “I see.” Chip hung his head. My heart sunk along with him. That was more or less like admitting she hadn’t felt the same way.

  “I was still pretty hung up on Ronny Wilson at the time, so I don’t know what would’ve happened,” Tammy explained. At least she was trying to make him feel better. “But I wouldn’t have turned you down. And who knows? Maybe if we’d gone out, we would’ve hit it off. Fate has a strange way of working sometimes.”

  “Perhaps now would be a good time to reel him in?”

  True. He’d gotten the chance to meet her again and to tell her how he felt. That was way more than I could’ve hoped. It was also closure, wasn’t it? Before I had the opportunity to intervene, however, Tammy continued.

  “How long do you have, Chippy? Before you have to…go where people go. After they’ve died.”

  Immediately he perked up. “I don’t have to be anywhere.”

  “Chip,” I started. “Yes you do have to be somewhere and I think it’s time for us to head out. Now say your goodbyes…”

  I may as well have been mouthing the words to the wall behind me.

  “Well, I was thinking,” Tammy said. “We never did get the chance to have that coffee date, or to talk. Perhaps you could stick around for a while? We could catch up.”

  “Chip, that’s really not a good idea.” I tapped his back, trying to get his attention.

  A deep, rumbling laughter erupted behind me. “Well, at least you tried.”

  Not funny. I continued to try for Chip’s attention.

  “Could I? I mean, could we?” He sounded like a kid on Christmas morning. Even the aura around him changed—it glowed brighter, almost like a living soul. His form solidified. Would this excess energy make him deteriorate faster?

  “It’s possible.”

  I panicked. We had to stop this. We had to take Chip whether he wanted to or not—for his own good.

  “Oh please, I’m going to vomit if we have to listen to any more of this.”
Sam hopped off the filing cabinet and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here before I lose a perfectly good bottle of whiskey all over this floor.”

  “But…” I pointed at Chip. With a sinking feeling, I realized this was already far, far out of my control. He was making googly eyes at her. That puppy-dog, love-struck look that people get when they first become a couple. “We can’t just leave him here.”

  Tammy took Chip’s hand in her own and squeezed. Within seconds, she was shivering until her teeth chattered, but she didn’t let go of him. Human souls were unstable and caused the temperature to drop. When they touched the living, it was ice cold to the skin. I wondered how she could possibly stand the contact for such a long period of time. Her lips were blue, for fuck’s sake.

  “Can we?” I asked. This was completely absurd. He was dead and she was living.

  Sam gently tugged on my arm, coaxing me away from them. “You’ve done all you could. There’s no changing his mind now.”

  “But…”

  “No buts, come on. Think of it as the ultimate Valentine’s reunion. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Sam kept one hand on my arm and used the other to open a new portal.

  “Won’t it be bad if we just leave him here?”

  The glow of the portal brightened the room. “I’ll tell you what would be bad.” Sam tossed a glance over his shoulder. “Getting caught here, atop a pile of evidence.”

  “Who would catch us?”

  “You never know who’s been watching.” Then Sam grasped my hand.

  The next thing I knew, we were free-falling again, and the portal closed behind us. My feet landed on solid ground with a gentle thud. The spinning sensation was nowhere near as bad traveling back to purgatory as it was to Earth.

  “That’s because your body is meant to be in this world. Not that one.” Sam squeezed my shoulder. He leaned closer, as if to whisper, but instead of speaking out loud, he spoke in my head instead. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about.” I followed his line of vision, suddenly aware of the shadow in the periphery of my own. We were standing in the hallway of reaper headquarters, and Death leaned against the wall, as if he’d been waiting for us.

  Dressed impeccably as always, he wore a finely tailored black suit and a matching fedora. The ultimate mobster king. An involuntary shiver passed through me. Something about this man scared the living shit out of me. He didn’t seem angry. In fact, he was smiling. It was a knowing smile. The kind meant for kids lying about stealing cookies when they’d been caught on video doing it.

  “You two have been busy,” he said. His smile widened. When he did, fine lines formed at the corners of his eyes. “How were your first trips back to earth, Jennifer?”

  “I…uh. Fine.” The use of the plural trips instead of trip wasn’t lost on me. He knew.

  “You do know what this job entails, don’t you?”

  I nodded, speechless.

  “And you do realize that causing a haunting isn’t part of it?”

  Sam rested his forearm on my shoulder and intercepted Death’s attention. “Well, technically we didn’t cause a haunting. We just moved it.”

  A silent staring contest erupted between them. Both were expressionless and non-blinking. It was uncanny how much they could be alike sometimes. Almost like they were related.

  “Think of it as a teaching tool,” Sam continued. “She now knows what not to do on a reaping mission. I’ve shown her the error in her naive thinking when dealing with a lost.”

  How Sam could just stand up to the boss without a care was beyond me.

  “I’ve centuries of practice.”

  Some of the intensity of Death’s stare began to soften. Oddly enough, he hadn’t moved at all. I let my body relax anyway. “Sammael, I’m not convinced that’s the best method.”

  “Mmm, you might be right. I tell you what. Next time, we will not use that same method.”

  I noticed the distinct lack of promise to cooperate. Sam had said we wouldn’t use that method, but he also didn’t say we’d use the correct method.

  “You’re catching on.”

  Death cracked the subtlest beginning of a smile, but it never progressed beyond that. The rest of his emotion played out in his eyes. Had he also caught on to Sam’s non-promise to cooperate? “I see. Well then. See that you find a more appropriate teaching method.”

  Without another word, he backed through the wall and vanished from the room altogether.

  “Uh, Sam? What the heck just happened?”

  He chuckled. “I just saved your ass.” He slid his hand to the middle of my back. “Which doesn’t come free, you know.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. “What exactly do you want?”

  “Well, in keeping with the theme of this whole Valentine’s thing you’re so keen on—and because I’m a reasonable guy—I’d settle for a kiss.”

  I rolled my eyes. He just had to make a joke about it. “Not in this lifetime,” I said, but he was already laughing, and it was infectious. “Or this afterlife, either.”

  END

  ~ About Nessie Strange ~

  Nessie is a Massachusetts native and mother of two who has dabbled in everything from abstract painting to freelance sports reporting. She also loves a good story, whether it's reading or writing one. Active membership in a writer's critique group helped erase the memory of two horribly written practice novels. Living Dead Girl was her first published novel.

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  Also by Nessie Strange

  Buy more from the Living Dead World series

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  Nessie Strange

  Jen MacLellan has hit a dead end…

  Jen knows tattooed, blue-haired Jack Norris is trouble the minute he opens his front door. And being a mortician in the avante garde East Side of Providence, Jen has seen a lot. Jack has recruited Jen’s teenage brother Drew to play drums for his less-than-respectable punk band, and Jen has no choice but to follow their gigs to keep her little brother out of trouble. But when Drew goes missing, she finds herself in the awkward position of asking for Jack’s help. Shocked that he agrees, Jen decides she may have misjudged him. Worse, she might even like him.

  But when Jen is brutally attacked, she awakens in the hospital where a Sid Vicious look-alike greets her with the news: she’s dead, and he’s the reaper assigned to take her away. Yeah, not so much. Refusing to leave, Jen’s spirit watches helplessly as her loved ones suffer, powerless to ease her family’s grief or prevent the police from accusing Jack of her murder. Desperate to help them, Jen convinces the reaper to bring her back. But reanimating corpses isn’t as easy as it looks, and neither is finding a killer before it’s too late…

  RED DOGS by Keith Melton

  CHAPTER ONE

  I couldn’t escape the color red. Smoochy love cards. Heart-shaped candy boxes. Stuffed love monkeys clutching satin pillow hearts in their tiny, creepy hands.

  Blood.

  Some of the blood was mine. Most of it belonged to monsters.

  I’m mercenary Captain Andrea Walker, pyromancer and leader of the Zero Dogs, a paranormal action team based out of Portland, Oregon. They set us loose on the dirty jobs and pay us a fraction of what we were worth, but it keeps food on the table and gas in the tanks. The monster blood belonged to myxini-terra, otherwise known by me as “giant hagworm slime-o-pedes.” My blood seeped out of a gash on my hip where one of the hagworms had caught me below my body armor. Today was Valentine’s Day. The worst of my life.

  A look over our barricade of upended bookshelves and wreckage showed another oncoming wave of gray hagworms. They slithered through t
he four-meter gap in the antique shop’s wall and headed straight for us, squelching through a layer of slime and myxini blood on the floor, shoving past the worms we’d already killed.

  “Here they come again!” I yelled. “Suppressing fire! Watch your sectors!”

  Lingering smoke made it difficult to see inside the odd antique-curio shop. Most of its bizarre merchandise now qualified as a total loss. I felt bad, even though the stuff was on the freaky end of eccentric. We’d been desperate and outnumbered, and rapid ruin was what happened when you battled three-meter worm monsters that secreted slime, sported serrated teeth in a mouth as big around as a dinner plate, and stank like cheese forgotten in the sun for six and a half weeks.

  The rest of the Zero Dogs stood with me to face the attack. Sarge, a demon roughly as big as a brick wall with skin the color of an eggplant, opened fire with a SPAS-12 shotgun. I gritted my teeth and cut loose with pyromancy, working a column of flame back and forth over the writhing mass of hagworms. Tiffany unleashed two-handed fire from both her .357-chambered SIG P226 pistols, her black succubus wings spread wide, while Mai had portal-summoned dozens of weird furry creatures no bigger than volleyballs that spit toxic needles from cone-shaped beaks. Even Hanzo, our medic, joined the assault by chucking shuriken at anything that moved while making Bruce Lee-style kung fu noises. Ineffective, but it had a certain panache.

  My melee crew remained behind the cover of our hastily erected and haphazard barricade. Rafe had shifted into his werewolf form and crouched to leap, growling and showing some wicked fang. Berserker Erik stayed close to Tiffany with his two-handed battle-axe at the ready, protecting her as she fired. Gavin, our smartass professional driver, clutched an ornate fireplace poker he’d found in the shop because he’d somehow dropped his M5 during the initial attack. Three hours ago.

  Our counterattack cut hard into the oncoming myxini, burning and blasting them. Even so, they reached the barricade through sheer numbers and momentum.