The Ghost, the Girl, and the Gold

by Scott William Carter

  It would not open even using the shovels to work at the crack. One of twins tossed me the crowbar. I worked it into the crack on the latch side, opposite the hinges, and lunged down on it. The wood or resin or whatever it was creaked like someone yelping in pain, but didn't give much. I tried again in the same spot, and this time the lid trembled. Encouraged, I worked my way down the line.

  When I reached the end, it was clear the lid would rise if pushed hard enough. I turned to Alesha and she nodded.

  Above us, Gath said, "Nothing foolish now. What's in there is mine, don't forget."

  Together, Alesha and I pushed open the lid. I realized, doing so, that I was crossing another threshold, another first in life I could check off the list. Not many people could say they'd dug up a grave. My heart thrumming in my ears, the taste of dirt in my mouth, my toes numb and wet from the cold and the snow, I lifted the lid all the way up.

  The darkness within the coffin was so deep that at first I thought it was empty, but then a foul stench wafted out to greet me, the pungent odor of decaying flesh. I gagged and had to fight back the bile in my throat. Alesha covered her mouth. My eyes, adjusting, began to pick out the details of a corpse, the slope of large hips, the edge of wide shoulders, a square face—and then, farther up where the face would be, a distinctive glint in the moonlight.

  Glass.

  My heart kicked into a higher gear. Was it what I hoped it was? Finally, as Felicity's big, blocky face came into view, not quite as big as when she was alive, not quite as blocky, the shadows deep where the face had sunken in on itself, I saw that it was—the glasses, with thick lenses and thick black frames. I reached for them.

  "No!"

  It was Felicity Langford. For just a moment, I was sure the voice had come from within the coffin, and I felt a cold prickle run down my spine. Her corpse—speaking? This was a first. Alesha, however, did not react at all, and I realized it was only the echo within the grave that had made the sound seem as if it had come from the coffin. Felicity, the ghost Felicity, stood at the rim of the grave glaring down at us through glasses that matched the ones in the grave. She wore the same blue sweatshirt over a Minnie Mouse T-shirt as before, the wrinkle in the shirt making the mouse's ordinarily happy grin appear sinister.

  "Myron!" she said. "Don't!"

  Alesha grabbed my arm. "What are you looking at?"

  "It's Felicity," Gath replied, stepping closer to the grave on the other side. "Go away, you fat fool. This doesn't concern you."

  "Those are mine," Felicity said. The size of her clenched fists dispelled any notion that this woman was soft. She hovered over us like an enraged soccer mom, one who'd seen her child trampled by a bully on the field. "They were given to me, and I'm keeping them. I need them."

  "Boss?" one of the twins said. "You talking to one of us?"

  "No, you idiot," Gath said. "It's her ghost."

  "Ghost?" Alesha said.

  I focused my attention on Felicity. "But why did you even tell me the story about the Blind Man's Gold? You didn't have to tell me anything. Did you think I wouldn't figure out how you lied about the glasses?"

  "I didn't lie," Felicity said. "I said the gold was something you wear. And you were so insistent, I thought if I just—just omitted that part, maybe you wouldn't come back to me. It was a mistake. I panicked. I shouldn't have told you anything. I just … in the moment—but you can't take them. You can't. I won't let you."

  "We're so glad you helped Myron," Gath said, "but your feelings on this matter are immaterial. You need to leave. Now."

  "You leave!" Felicity shot back.

  Gath's chiding laughter sounded like the clucking of a hen. "What a brilliant riposte. Now, as much as I enjoy a battle of wits with a woman who is surely my intellectual equal, the night is drawing short. Myron, hand the glasses to my associate."

  "No!" Felicity cried.

  "Myron," Gath said.

  The twin without his arm in the sling extended his hand to me. I removed the glasses from Felicity's physical body, my fingers brushing against the cold, lifeless skin. Above, Felicity emitted a low whine, like an animal in pain. The glasses felt light and cheap, the black frames worn from years of handling, the paint uneven, full of ridges and scratches. These had the power to take away someone's second sight? If I'd seen them on a table at a garage sale, I would have passed over them without a second glance.

  I put them on.

  I had to know what they could do. It wasn't part of any grand plan. After everything that had happened, I simply had to know. Felicity gasped. I didn't think the world looked any different—the lenses seemed to be nothing but clear glass—but when I looked up at her, in the direction of the sound, Felicity wasn't there. I saw nothing but the snow-topped edge of the grave and the wisps of clouds trailing past the moon.

  "You don't see me," Felicity said, and her voice was right there, right where she was standing before. "Now you know. Now you know."

  "Myron?" Alesha said.

  I looked at her. She was still there—eyebrows raised in curiosity, not understanding just what I was doing, but still there, same old Alesha. So it was true. I saw the living, but not the dead. The glasses truly did take away my second sight. Now my heart raced for another reason—not out of dread but excitement, the good kind of excitement. The glasses could change everything for me. I'd be able to function as a normal person in the world.

  "Take them off!" Gath cried.

  I turned in the direction of her voice, expecting what had happened with Felicity to happen with Gath, that she would be completely invisible to me, and was stunned when Gath was still there. Blood-red trench coat, pale white skin, long black hair blowing across her neck—she seemed just as real as ever. Nothing had changed except those piercing black eyes were filled with rage.

  "You're alive," I said.

  "Of course I'm alive!" she said. "What else would I be? Now take off those glasses and give them to me."

  "Put them back!" Felicity protested. "They're mine. I need them and they're mine."

  The twin with his arm in the sling stretched out his hand to me. I was still grappling with the fact that Victoria Gath was a flesh-and-blood person. She'd seemed to be doing so much to avoid physical contact, having the twins hold the guns or reach for the glasses, that I'd begun to accept that she was a ghost. Or was it the glasses? Did they not work on her? I needed some way to know for sure. Then an idea came to me.

  "Now, Myron," Gath said. "Or Alesha will be the second corpse occupying that grave. Hand them over."

  "Fine," I said, and tossed the glasses at her.

  I aimed for the center of her chest, making sure to keep them as far from the twin's outstretched hand as I could. They spun end over end, moonlight sparkling on the glass, right on target. Felicity screamed. The twin with the sling lunged, nearly getting his fingers on the frames, but he was too late. The glasses sailed right past him. Gath brought her arms up as if to shield herself, which, a moment later, seemed very strange—because the glasses passed right through and landed with a soft plop on the snow behind her.

  She was a ghost after all.

  There wasn't time for me to process what this meant. A lot happened in the next few seconds, and I was fully engaged with taking advantage of the opportunity. The twin who'd tried to grab the glasses fell hard on his bad arm. Shrieking, full of spittle and rage, no longer wearing the glasses because her physical body no longer wore them, the ghost of Felicity threw herself at Gath like a giant cannon ball, propelling herself over the grave in the most inhuman of ways. I'd seen it before: sometimes ghosts, momentarily forgetting their earthly beginnings, could easily defy all the natural laws of the universe.

  She plowed into Gath but went right through, which was usually what happened when two ghosts made contact. Unless they wanted to touch—or whatever sensation it was they felt when they simulated physical contact—they generally could avoid it unless one of them had some kind of extraordinary power, or they were making use of s
ome of the means that the Department of Souls had when they wanted to sequester bad ghosts away where they couldn't hurt anyone.

  The other twin, the one who'd been training his Ruger on me, did not see Felicity's form hurtling through the air, but he did see what was happening with his boss and his brother, and it was enough to draw his attention away from me for half a second. I lost part of that time when I instinctively ducked under Felicity, and it was time that might have made a difference, might have allowed me to get to him before he got off a shot, but I was already committed to my course of action.

  I scrambled out of the grave. He was already turning back, the gun, which had strayed away from me, coming to bear. That was when I took the handful of dirt I'd scooped up when I'd been leaning down to the coffin and tossed it at him.

  He jerked his head to the side, trying to avoid it, but most of the dirt hit him squarely in the face.

  It created the window I needed to get my legs under me and launch myself at him, but my delay with Felicity did allow him to squeeze off one shot. I felt the bullet buzz by my ear before I heard the telltale crack.

  A near miss. A miracle miss. Later, I'd wonder if Gath's warning about me, about what I might become if killed, had caused enough doubt to cloud his aim, but right then I was wholly focused on subduing him.

  He still probably would have the upper hand if not for one more thing—the crows. They buzzed past his face in a fury of squawking and fluttering feathers. I hadn't played any football since my freshman year of high school, and it had been a disaster that relegated me to the far end of the bench, but I'd learned how to tackle. As the crows departed, I came in low and hard, just about his center of gravity, plowing into him with enough force to send both of us toppling to the snow. He landed with a whoomph, the air knocked out of him, stunning him long enough that I was able to get my hands on the Ruger.

  We grappled for it. He swung an elbow that clipped my nose, blurring my vision. I brought my knee up into his gut. The whole time, I never let go of the Ruger. Snow stuck to my eyelids, filled my shoes, rolled down my back.

  He tried to bite my cheek. I dodged just in time, and landed a vicious uppercut squarely in the middle of his chin. That did the trick, hurtling him backward, loosening his grip on the Ruger enough that I was able to pry it away.

  "Stop!" the other twin shouted.

  But I had no intention of stopping. The Ruger in hand, I rolled off the other twin and squeezed off two shots. The snow in my eyes turned my target into hardly more than a watery blur of a man on his knees, but it was a blur I could hit.

  And I hit it.

  Maybe he wasn't much of a quick draw, or maybe he was worried about hitting his brother, but he didn't even fire.

  He took one shot in the middle of his chest, the other in the middle of his neck, and tumbled backward, already as still and silent as a sack of potatoes if not for the shower of blood spurting out of his neck wound. It didn't often work like that, but it sometimes did, a bullet severing the spinal column and resulting in instant death. In the darkness, the blood that speckled the snow appeared as black as oil.

  Felicity, undaunted by her inability to physically hurt Gath, was still flailing away and shrieking, her arms constantly passing through Gath's body. I turned back to the other twin, who'd recovered and was crawling toward where I assumed my Glock and Alesha's Glock were buried in the snow. I fired a shot just to his left, warning him. He heeded my warning and fled, limping into the darkness.

  I was three steps in pursuit when I heard Alesha moan.

  It was the kind of moan, the way the sound was squeezed out of a tightened windpipe, the anguish and the pain, that caused a cold, vicious clench in the middle of my stomach. I knew, right away, that she'd been shot. My friend. My partner. Dying. No—I held on to my hope. I didn't know how bad it was, not yet, but all thoughts of pursuing the twin or finding some way to stop Gath were gone. I turned back and saw Alesha crumpled by the grave, grasping her left shoulder with a blood-soaked hand.

  In less than a second, I was at her side. Kneeling in the snow. Behind me, I heard Felicity screaming in rage, but the sound was now like a distant tornado.

  "You're shot," I said.

  Alesha glared up at me. "No shit, dickweed."

  "Let me see."

  "It's all right. Just winged me, though it—it hurts like a motherfucker."

  "Move your hand and let me see."

  Gritting her teeth, she lifted her hand. With the darkness and all the blood, it was difficult to see, but the way the bullet had shredded the fringes of her jacket sleeve made me think Alesha was right. She'd gotten lucky—if getting shot by a gun at all could be called lucky.

  All at once, Felicity's screaming stopped. I turned and looked. For a moment, it seemed as if Felicity had swallowed Gath's hand, but then I realized that Gath was actually reaching inside Felicity's head, her whole hand disappearing. The act had rendered Felicity completely mute and immobile.

  Grimacing, Gath retracted her hand as if she'd just pulled her flesh from a pool of sewage, inspecting her fingers as if she expected some of the muck to still be attached. Felicity did not recover. She remained frozen in place, as still as a mannequin. Gath, finally seeing the dead twin, searched until she saw the other twin fleeing across the snowy field—and screamed after him.

  "Come back, you fool!" she cried. "We need the gold!"

  He didn't stop. She turned her attention to me, and her rage was so palpable I could almost feel it in the air, a smoldering wave of heat pressing against my skin. She looked at Alesha, cradled beneath me, crumpled and helpless, and I saw the corners of her lips curl up in a wicked smile. She advanced toward us, her intentions perfectly clear.

  She may have been hesitant to try her powers on me, but she had no such reluctance to take out her frustrations on Alesha.

  I fired two shots, but of course the bullets went right through and drilled into the snow behind her. She smiled wider, picking up her pace, reaching out her hand like the talons of a hawk zeroing in on its prey. Not sure what else to do, I shielded Alesha with my body. Maybe, if Gath had to go through me, it would at least give her pause. I looked up at Gath and saw no pause at all, only gleeful satisfaction, and braced myself for what was to come. She must have been so enraged that she'd forgotten the risk to herself.

  Then the crows returned.

  They swooped out of nowhere, darkness upon darkness, and beat at Gath with wings, beaks, and talons. They might not have been making actual contact, but if so, their struggle with Gath was quite the elaborate mime show. She swung her fists and beat at the air, swearing at them and trying to ward them off. I reached for her ankle, thinking maybe there was something to her fear of me, something justifiable, and she saw me just in time—leaping back a step.

  "Ah," she said, raising a finger in warning. "No, not now. I won't do this now. I still have her, you know. She obviously needs a few reminders about how I can hurt her, but I have her and you'll never find her. But I'll come for you soon enough. For you, for your friend here, for everyone you care about—I'll come for all of you. And you'll regret this."

  The crows flew at her. Before they got to her, she merely bowed her head … and vanished.

  Chapter 20

  Sirens, in the distance. I was still helping Alesha climb out of the grave when we heard the wail of approaching police sirens. Cringing, holding her bloodied arm hard against her side, she struggled to her feet. The crows were gone, having swooped high into the night sky and disappeared. Felicity had not moved an inch, as still as one of the Japanese maples and just as silent.

  "Somebody must have heard the shots and called 911," Alesha said. "We've got to get out of here."

  "We'll stay," I said. "They'll get you to a hospital."

  "Uh huh. And how are we going to explain the dead guy there? And the dug-up grave?"

  "I don't care. You need help."

  "It's not that bad. Really."

  "I don't believe you."


  "Myron, for once in your life, just shut the fuck up. I know you're going after that woman and I'm going to be there to help you whether you like it or not. Maybe we can talk our way out of this with the police, maybe not, but we don't have time for it. Now give me that piece."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm going to wipe off your fingerprints, dummy. Come on, come on, not much time."

  I handed her the Ruger. She wiped it off and tossed it next to the dead twin. Then the two of us retrieved our Glocks and I grabbed the glasses out of the snow. The sirens grew louder. I stopped in front of Felicity, who stared right through me as if I wasn't there. I said her name and she didn't answer. I snapped my fingers in front of her eyes and she didn't even blink. When Alesha gave me a quizzical look, I explained to her what Gath had done to Felicity, and how unresponsive she was. Alesha grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the far side of the cemetery, the opposite direction of the exit.

  "You can feel sorry for your dead ghost friend later," she said. "Right now you have to help me climb a fence."

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, after scaling a wrought iron fence, doubling back to my parked Prius, and carefully navigating the dark streets to avoid any encounter with the police, I helped her slump into one of oak chairs at my kitchen chairs. By the time I'd retrieved the first-aid kit and a couple of towels out of the bathroom, she'd managed to twist herself out of her leather jacket. She struggled with the gray cotton sweater she'd been wearing underneath, so I helped her with that too, leaving her dressed in a white tank top—which, I was relieved to see, was mostly free of blood.

  Dabbing at the wound on her shoulder, I was even more relieved. She'd been right. The bullet had merely winged her.