Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
“Bro,” Poe called as he turned away.
When he looked back, he saw something new in Poe’s expression. Now, in addition to the concern he tried to hide, Edgar recognized something he thought might be pride.
“I love you,” Poe said.
Then he screeched away before Edgar could respond.
Edgar tried to hold on to the positive feeling as he turned toward the cemetery. The air had cooled a touch. Lights were on in the houses that faced the cemetery, but the streets around Lafayette No. 1 were quiet.
The breeze rocked the skeletal branches that reached above him into the sky, making them sway. Edgar knew he’d find a ghost near the cemetery as surely as he knew how he felt about Jamie. Just like those feelings, he didn’t know how he knew, but he was certain.
He turned the corner as a peal of laughter rang out from a balcony nearby. He hoped Jamie was managing to have a good time with their family. He hoped he hadn’t ruined that for them.
Click clack, click clack, his heels drummed as he walked the second block that surrounded the cemetery. He’d walk the perimeter as many times as it took until he found one.
He put his hands in his pockets and whistled, pretending not to have a care in the world. It seemed that ghosts appeared to him more when he was least expecting it. Here, wearing a suit and strolling slowly, he had to seem like the perfect mark. One of them would find him.
His footsteps echoed even louder around the next corner. Maybe it was in his head? No. There it was, the familiar sensation of sounds swelling and then bleeding together right before—
A cold, viscous sensation prickled at the back of his neck and slid down his spine.
There it was. Somewhere up there.
Edgar forced himself to keep walking even as he started to tremble and sweat. He got halfway down the block when it oozed out of the cemetery and stopped in the glow of the streetlight before him.
Edgar froze.
The ghost had once been a young man, perhaps around his own age. But now, what had been a slicked-back coiffure was mangled and bloody. What had once been broad shoulders were twisted strangely in on themselves.
Edgar shuddered as the thing turned blank bluish-gray eyes toward him. They quivered like jelly.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Edgar chanted.
He told his foot to lift off the ground and move forward, but it didn’t obey him.
He sucked in a breath through his nose and blew it out slowly through his mouth, attempting to get his body under control. Every single instinct he had was screaming at him to turn and run. To get as far as possible from this unnatural creature that caused nothing but terror.
Can you describe it? Jamie had asked when they were planning the makeup they would use to transform Edgar into a ghost for Amelia’s film. And when Edgar had said he usually tried not to look, Jamie had asked questions. Can you tell how it died? Can you tell when it was from? What does their skin look like? Their hair? Their fingernails?
Now, Edgar risked a look at the ghost in front of him and began with the smallest details. He wasn’t close enough to see the ghost’s fingernails. He took a step closer. The ghost didn’t move. Another step closer, and now he could see in the glow of the streetlight. Its nails were buffed to a smooth shine. In fact, its hands could have been living hands if they hadn’t been so pale, so still.
It wore a gold band on its ring finger, polished to a twinkle.
Edgar frowned and took another step forward, eyes on the ring. The ghost had been married. When he’d died, someone had mourned him, as Edgar had mourned Antoine. There had probably been a funeral, maybe a second line. The man’s family and friends would have gathered to comfort one another in their loss.
Edgar imagined how he would feel if he lost Jamie. If it was Jamie whose fragile human body had been torn apart by violence.
He choked on it.
The ghost’s head swung in Edgar’s direction, as if it could sense his sadness. But still, it didn’t move toward him.
Edgar’s gaze followed its hand up its arm to its shoulders. They had been crushed toward each other somehow, giving the ghost a hunched silhouette. It must have been excruciating, whatever had caused such strong bones to crunch. Edgar winced, imagining what it might have been: a car accident, mishandled farming equipment, a plane crash? He took another step toward it, trying to find answers.
Wondering slowed his heart and made his breath come easier. When he looked for answers, he focused on details. It was the opposite of focusing on what his own body was doing in response.
Curiosity was the opposite of fear.