The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance (Mammoth Books)

by Trisha Telep

  “I know what I said. I was wrong. If we run, she’ll just come again. She’s not going to stop.” Jack pressed Laura back into the wall by the fireplace again, positioning himself protectively in front of her. Margot had also told him there was another way to stop a Ker; he hadn’t considered it until that moment. Fight.

  “It ends here. It ends now, tonight.”

  The Ker flapped her wings, rising clumsily back into the air again, marking a wary distance from Jack and Laura as the thing bared her teeth and snarled.

  “Come on, you bitch!” Jack shouted hoarsely. “What the fuck are you waiting for? Come on!”

  With a shriek, she dived at him. When he swung the bat, aiming for her head, her hand whipped around, catching the shaft. She was strong – incredibly, impossibly so – and damn near wrestled the bat from his grasp. As he struggled, waltzing clumsily while her wings beat down around him, her free hand swung around, fingers splayed. He felt her talons swipe against the front of his shirt, and then the side of his face stung like fire as the nails tore through his skin, laying his cheek open. She clawed at him again, those wicked nails coming straight for his eyes, and he dropped to his knees. The move was unexpected; it startled her enough to loosen her hold on the bat and he ripped it free. Dragging the bat with him, he scrambled out of her path and onto his feet.

  He felt the whip of wind from her wings as she went airborne again, following him. He drove the bat around in a broad, sweeping arc, twisting his hips, putting all of his strength behind the swing. The shaft smashed into the side of her head, knocking her sideways in a messy, tangled sprawl of claws and wings. He heard the crunch of splintering teeth and bone. When she hit the floor, he didn’t give her the chance to recover.

  “You can’t have her,” he yelled, raising the bat high and driving it down onto the head of the fallen Ker. With a furious screech, she tried to stumble to her feet, but he hit her again, then again. “You hear me, you fucking bitch? I wouldn’t let you take her before, and I won’t let you now!” With every word, shouted breathlessly as he swung the bat, he struck the monster. “You—” whap! “—can’t—” WHAP! “—have her!”

  When at last the Ker stopped moving, stopped even the last feeble, scrabbling hints of protest and fell still, he staggered back, gasping for breath, sweat-soaked and trembling from a mixture of exertion and adrenaline. Shell-shocked, he blinked at what was left of the thing.

  It hadn’t bled, not blood anyway. Something black and glistening, viscous like warmed tar or oil had gushed from her battered form, standing out in stark, ghoulish contrast to her pale skin. The left side of her skull had been battered inward, leaving a sunken, misshapen crater. Her eyes were open, black, button-like and unblinking, fixed with unfocused attention on a point against the wall somewhere past his shoulder.

  When she blinked once, he was startled and drew the bat over his shoulder to swing again, crushing her skull further, sending more of that ichor splattering in all directions. With a disgusted cry, he staggered away.

  For a long moment, he stood there, gore-splashed and gasping, waiting for her to move again – damn near counting on it. When she didn’t – when he’d counted to ten and back again in his mind and the Ker remained still – he let the bat drop from his fingers.

  “I did it,” he whispered. With a shaky laugh, he turned around. “Laura, I did . . .”

  His voice faded. She was gone.

  “Laura?” He hurried to the corner by the fireplace where he’d last seen her. “Laura!”

  “Behind you!” he heard her scream and, as he whipped his head to follow the frantic sound of her voice, he saw the Ker springing at him.

  Her outstretched claws grazed the front of his shirt, but then she gave a violent jerk. More of the ichor, hot and thick, slapped Jack in the face as the sharpened end of a wrought-iron fireplace poker suddenly thrust out through her chest, driven with murderous ferocity through the creature’s heart. Behind the creature, he saw Laura, her brows furrowed, the poker handle clutched between her hands.

  The Ker uttered a low, breathless croak. Her fingers slipped clumsily from Jack’s shirt as she pitched to the floor, landing face down this time, the poker protruding from her back like a grisly place-marker.

  Jack blinked at Laura in shock. For a long moment, neither of them moved; neither of them spoke. Then, at last, he reached for her.

  “Oh God,” she gasped as she rushed into his embrace. “Did we do it? Is it over?”

  “I think so.” Closing his eyes, Jack clutched her fiercely, kissing her ear through her hair. Christ, I hope so.

  He didn’t even get to say goodbye. One moment, he was holding her, her body pressed to his own, and then in the next, there was nothing in front of him but open air, nothing for his arms to encircle but empty space.

  “Laura?” Startled, bewildered, he lowered his hands, looking around. “Laura?”

  But she was gone. And so was the Ker. Of its crumpled body, the puddle of black that had pooled around it, there was no longer any sign. The trashed remnants of his house remained, but the causes of all the destruction had literally vanished in the blink of an eye.

  “No.” Dragging his hands through his hair, Jack ran frantically through the house. “No, no, no.”

  He threw open closet doors, looked vainly under tables, in corners, behind furniture, any place he could think of, anywhere she might be hiding. At last, with a frustrated, anguished cry, he threw his head back and shouted at the ceiling. “We stopped it! It’s over now. She’s supposed to be OK. She’s supposed to . . .”

  He fell silent, his eyes flying wide as he realized. If they’d defeated the Ker, if they’d destroyed it and saved Laura, then, according to Margot, that would mean her spirit was free to return to her body.

  Her body! he thought, racing for the patio door. It wasn’t until he’d charged outside into the dark, cold night that he remembered his Jeep was currently sitting in an impound lot somewhere, trashed beyond repair. For a wild, frantic moment, he didn’t know what to do.

  “Margot,” he whispered, rushing back into the house.

  By the time they reached the hospital, almost an hour had passed. Jack was out of his seat before Margot had even killed the engine. He hadn’t put a coat on, or shoes, and sprinted barefooted across the icy parking lot, his breath huffing around his face in thick, pluming clouds of frost.

  By the time he reached the cardio-thoracic intensive care unit, he was red-faced and out of breath from having taken the stairs up from the lobby at least two at a time. The staff at the nursing station jerked in simultaneous surprise as he burst through the unit doors, ragged and filthy, his clothes torn and stained with the Ker’s blood.

  “Dr Harris?” one of the nurses gasped after a long, stupefied moment’s silence. When he said nothing in reply, simply tore off in the direction of Laura’s ICU bay, they all sprang to their feet in bewildered alarm. “Dr Harris, wait! What are you—?”

  Frank Bennett and his wife had fallen asleep at Laura’s bedside, sitting side by side in a pair of uncomfortable-looking chairs. As Jack burst through the curtains and into the small alcove room, they startled awake, both of them twisting in their seats and gasping for surprised breath.

  “Dr Harris?” Frank asked, bleary and confused.

  Ignoring him, Jack hurried to Laura’s bed. Clinging to the side rail, he panted heavily for exhausted breath, his face glossed with sweat. “Laura,” he gasped, reaching out, seizing her by the hand.

  He didn’t understand. She was still unresponsive, her eyes still closed.

  But she can’t be, he thought in dismay. We did what we were supposed to do. We stopped the Ker. She’s supposed to be OK now. She’s supposed to wake up!

  “Dr Harris?” Frank asked again, on his feet now, alarmed by Jack’s appearance. Laying his arm against the crook of Jack’s elbow, he said, “What’s going on?”

  “Laura.” With a frown, Jack shrugged loose of his grasp. He heard the rapid patter of approa
ching footsteps in the hall, and tried to shake Laura by the shoulder. “Laura, wake up.”

  “I said what’s going on?” Frank said, but when he caught Jack by the arm again, Jack whirled on him, brows furrowed, fists bared.

  “Get your goddamn hands off me,” he snapped, and not only did Frank recoil, but so, too, did the trio of nurses who had suddenly appeared in the curtained doorway. They all stared at him in shock, eyes round, mouths agape.

  “She’s supposed to be awake,” Jack said, turning back to the bed. Still clutching Laura’s hand, he leaned over again, stroking her hair back from her face. “Laura, come on. You can wake up now. It’s all right.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Mrs Bennett asked, her voice soft and frightened. “What is he doing?”

  “What is this?” Frank demanded of the nurses. “What kind of outfit are you people running here?”

  “Dr Harris, please . . .” one of the nurses began.

  Jack ignored them all. Voice choked, eyes stinging with the dim heat of sudden tears, he said to Laura, “It’s OK now. I promise. I won’t let anything hurt you, never again. I promise, Laura. I swear to God.”

  And then he thought of something Laura’s friend at Harrah’s nightclub had told him earlier that night.

  She’s waiting for her Prince Charming, or some such bullshit. You know, like in Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.

  Pulling away as Frank again tried to grab his sleeve, he leaned further over Laura’s bed, lowering his face toward hers.

  “Dr Harris, stop,” the nurse said again, sharper now. “What are you—?”

  When Jack kissed Laura, he heard her mother utter a horrified cry from behind him. A fluttering gasp of shock rippled through the nurses, and then Frank seized him roughly by the scruff of his collar, hauling him forcibly away from the bed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. He’d closed his free hand into a fist and drew it back now, ready to introduce Jack’s teeth to the bridge of his knuckles. “You sick son of a—”

  “Daddy . . . no,” Laura said, her voice soft and frail. At the sound of it, Frank’s fist froze, and his furious grip on Jack’s shirt abruptly slackened. Eyes flown wide, he swung toward the bed, where the nurses, too, had now flocked in stunned disbelief.

  “Don’t . . . hurt him,” Laura breathed, her eyes heavy-lidded but open. “Please.”

  Frank and his wife rushed to her, all but falling over the side rails to embrace her. “Laura,” he cried. “Oh, my God!”

  “It’s . . . fine, Daddy,” she murmured, hoarse and feeble. Blinking sleepily past her parents, she saw Jack.

  He didn’t know if she’d recognize him, remember what had happened. For one fleeting, horrifying moment, he worried that she’d have forgotten it all, that he’d be a stranger to her – but then she smiled.

  “Jack.” She reached for him, and this time, when he went to her, everyone stepped aside and let him pass. He felt her fingers twine weakly in his hair, pulling him toward her. In her physical form, she was injured still, her face battered and bruised, but she kissed him with the same passionate certainty he’d felt when she’d come to him as a ghost.

  “Is it over?” she whispered as they drew apart. “Did we do it?”

  In the doorway, he saw Margot, finally catching up to him after the long sprint from the parking lot. She blinked at Jack and Laura, then smiled. He didn’t need to ask her; in that moment, he knew for sure.

  “Yeah, Laura. It’s over.” As he gazed back down into her eyes, it occurred to him that there was something else he was sure of as well; something certain and true in his heart. Kissing her again, he whispered in promise: “Everything’s going to be all right now.”

  Can You Hear Me Now?

  Sharon Shinn

  Stacey was on the phone with her father when he had the heart attack. She heard his gasp, his struggle for breath, the sound of his body falling to the floor. “Dad? Dad? Dad?” she cried, but there was no answer except the faraway tinkle of glass breaking 300 miles away.

  They’d both been on their cell phones because he loved the notion of free long-distance in-network calling. She kept shouting into the cell phone while she leaped across the apartment to dial 911 on the landline. “I have an emergency in another state, I don’t know what to do,” she panted to the operator who answered. “I can tell you the area code, I can tell you the address—”

  The operator was brisk and efficient, and paramedics were on the scene within twenty minutes. But it was too late. Stacey’s father had already died.

  It was two months after the funeral when the first call came.

  The power had been flickering off and on all evening as a thunderstorm blew through the city. A lightning strike – which had to have hit the nearest street lamp – was followed by a roll of thunder that actually rattled the furnishings. Seconds later Stacey’s cell phone churned out the opening bars of Blondie’s “Call Me”, the ringtone she’d chosen in more carefree days. No number came up on caller ID, but that wasn’t unusual; three of her friends were lawyers who routinely blocked data on their outgoing lines. Stacey flipped open the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, sweetie, how’ve you been doing this week?”

  She dropped to the couch because her legs folded beneath her. “Dad? But . . . how . . . where—”

  “Have you enrolled in that whatchmacallit like you said you would? That Matchbox service?” His voice was rough and warm, a little froggy, like he might have caught a cold and was trying to conceal it from her.

  Stacey was so confused she hardly knew whether to scream or sob. “I . . . what? Matchbox? Oh, you mean that online dating thing?”

  She remembered now. The last time they’d been talking, right before the heart attack, he’d been quizzing her about her love life. I don’t have a love life, Dad. I haven’t met a new guy in two years. That’s when he’d started asking her about computer dating. Had she ever tried that? What did it cost? He’d pay for it if it was too expensive. But she was such a pretty girl, such a nice girl, all a guy would have to do was meet her and he’d want to take her out.

  “That’s it, Matchbox,” he said, sounding pleased. “Did you ever enroll?”

  “No, I . . . I’ve been busy.” I’ve been distracted. I arranged your funeral. I attended your funeral. I cleared out your apartment and settled your debts and dealt with your insurance companies, and I grieved. I buried you, and now you’re calling me on the phone. “What’s . . . what’s been happening with you?”

  “Oh, you know, same-old, same-old. Nothing much ever goes on with me.”

  It was a ghost – it had to be – but she’d never heard of a ghost that could make phone calls. She figured there was a strong possibility she was dreaming. Or crazy. But once her shock and bewilderment started to fade, she found herself flooded with happiness at the chance to hear his voice again.

  “Your health?” she said, pressing a little. What does it feel like to be a ghost? “How’s your knee?”

  “Hasn’t bothered me at all lately! And my back’s been good, too. I’m having a little trouble remembering things, but I haven’t forgotten anything important. Don’t you worry.”

  “I . . . no, I wasn’t worried. I was just . . . well, it’s good to hear from you, that’s all.”

  “So? This dating service? Have you signed up?”

  Stacey couldn’t restrain a slightly hysterical laugh. Even after death, her father was determined to see her married. She wondered if he planned to call her every week for the rest of her life until she finally tied the knot.

  It was enough to make her consider remaining a spinster for ever. Though she supposed twenty-seven wasn’t old enough to qualify for the word yet.

  “I haven’t,” she said. “A couple days ago I talked to the guy next door, though.”

  “Guy next door? Who’s that?”

  She couldn’t believe it. Her father was calling from beyond the grave and this was the topic they were stuc
k on. “Um, he said he was Nathan. He moved in about a month ago. He’s really cute, but I don’t know anything about him. I mean, we talked for five minutes.”

  “Is he tall? You’re a tall girl.”

  She strangled a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s tall. But, Dad, listen, let’s talk about you for a minute. What are you—”

  “Wait a second, honey.” There was a muffled sound, as if he’d put his hand over the receiver, and then he came back on. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”

  “But, Dad—”

  Then he was gone.

  Stacey was so stunned she sat there for five minutes, staring at the open phone in her hand. That could not have just happened. Stress has finally warped your brain and you’re hallucinating. Time to call a doctor.

  Or call somebody, anyway. She was mentally flipping through her address book, wondering who could offer both a soft pat of sympathy and a sharp dose of reality, when a sudden loud crashing in the hall made her jump to her feet and drop the phone. Running over to throw open the door, she found her neighbor Nathan in the hallway, kneeling on the floor in a welter of spilled groceries. Oranges and melons had rolled down the first two stairs; what looked like ketchup and grape juice made a gooey cocktail on the welcome mat right in front of Nathan’s door.

  “You want some paper towels?” Stacey asked.

  He looked up, his face rueful. Still cute. He had wide cheek-bones and a firm chin, hazel eyes and straight brown hair that badly needed cutting. “I was thinking maybe a bath mat. Sop the whole mess up and throw it away.”

  “I don’t have a spare one of those. Oh, but I have a raggedy old beach towel I used to clean up my car when a friend of mine threw up in the back seat.”

  “Sounds perfect.” He glanced at the mess again, his face even more rueful. That’s when Stacey realized that the dark purple liquid was not, in fact, grape juice. “I’d offer you a glass of wine for your help but it seems like the wine is one of the items that did not survive the fall.” He gestured at his door. “I’ve got some Jack Daniel’s left over from a poker game the other night.”