Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.


He was right there. Standing behind Sam, off to his right. Sam felt the breath of the male creature on his right ear, which gave him chills starting at his neck, racing down his back, to his right arm, and cooling that arm as if doused in ice water.

The first time the male figure appeared, Sam instinctively elbowed him before he whirled around to confront him face-to-face.

His elbow went right through him.

Horrified, Sam tried to shove the eyeless naked man.

Again...he made no contact with whateverinthehellitwas.

"WHAT the holy HELL?!"

That had been two days ago. Since then, the eyeless apparition with the bald head had been following him, always behind him, at his right side, always breathing on Sam's neck, making his hair stand on end, making his skin crawl.

Sam wondered constantly how a specter that he could not touch could produce breath that could chill him? 

He managed to find a bit of escape from his ghost by sleeping on his right side. And he made a point of doing so. Sometimes he leaned his right side against a wall just to catch a break...or he'd try anything that involved covering that particular side of his body.

But when Sam drove his car, when he sat at his desk at work, the being crouched behind him and breathed down his neck.

Sam leaned forward in his seat, but the bastard followed, always followed, that breath making contact with his skin, skin that was constantly raised, constantly in a state of gooseflesh. Sam was always rubbing and pinching and scratching the right side of his neck to impose a reprieve of the chill factor.

But, the fucker was always there. Always looming. And breathing. It drove him mad.

The apparition was the same height as Sam. While Sam had the body of Bruce Lee, the spirit had the body of a diseased Bruce Lee... His bones protruded from his flesh like a starvation victim and his wrinkled skin had the yellow hue of a jaundice patient.

But who was he? Why didn't he have eyes, didn't even have eye sockets? Why did he always stand on the right side? Why was he haunting Sam?!

So many questions and no fucking answers. He knew of only one person who could help him.

Sam called his most recent ex-girlfriend.

                                                                    ***

Angie opened the door and instantly gasped when she saw Sam. "You weren't kidding."

Shocked, Sam replied, "You see him?"

She nodded, then took Sam's left arm and led him to the patio and forced him to sit at the marble table.

She sat across from him, keeping her gaze on Sam's right shoulder. "Mother fucker. He just positions himself so that he can breathe on your neck."

"Tell me about it."

She turned to look at her ex. "How long has he been there?"

"Four days."

Angie held Sam's shaking hands in hers. She closed her eyes, took in a long breath, and slowly exhaled. Sam watched her expression change and didn't like what he saw.

"I feel...his breathing...it's a warning."

"Perfect. I Can never get enough of those."

"I'm serious. You're going to have to make a choice." She opened her eyes.

They stared at each other in silence. Sam kept waiting for her to say more.

"So what kind of choice?" He shouted.

She shrugged. "I don't know! A choice. You're gonna have to make one."

"Well, la dee da. That doesn't tell me much. When do I have to make this choice?"

"Soon. Like, very soon."

"And what does his breathing on me have to do with anything?"

"I'm sure you'll know when the time comes. And I'm sure it plays a major part."

Sam rolled his eyes, then buried his face in his hands. He imagined a plethora of scenarios where a choice would have to be made involving breath and none of them were pleasurable.

"Jesus Christ...I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

Sam felt Angie's embrace. "No, you're not. Not if you take this warning seriously."

After a brief silence, Sam asked, "Why is he naked? I really don't like his junk hanging so close to me. It doesn't matter that it won't actually touch me. It's just... You know..."

"All apparitions are naked. They take nothing into the afterlife with them when they die."

"So this guy is a freaking ghost."

"Definitely."

"Is he someone I know?"

Angie replied, "I do feel...you did know him at some point."

"Seriously?"

Another moment of silence.

"Why doesn't he have eyes?" Sam asked.

"I believe he did have eyes at one point...but they were taken."

Sam pulled out of her arms to look at her. "Taken? What does that mean?"

"I'm not quite sure."

"That's really morbid."

"And sad."

Sitting across from each other, holding hands, Sam was reminded of why they were once a couple, and why they had broken up.

Sam slipped his hands from her grasp. "You have an amazing gift."

"I know. And now you owe me three hundred dollars."

"Oh, hell, no, I don't."

She smiled. "Yeah...you do."

                                                                    ***

Sam prefered to drive the winding country roads instead of on the highway because, hey, he had a deluxe sports car and, hey, deluxe sports cars were fun to drive on winding county roads. But those roads wound through forests and deer lived in those forests and, hey, they sometimes tried to cross those winding roads.

And so a deer did cross in front of Sam as he drove along one of those winding county roads. He veered left to avoid the doe. The car hit the guardrail of a bridge, flipped once, and flew into a lake.

The car sank like a safe full of gold bars. Sam unhooked his seatbelt as water rushed into the car. Then he opened his window and exited the vehicle. But Jesus, the car had sunk so fast and the lake was so deep and Sam couldn't swim for shit.

Spotting a downed tree, off to his right, its branches poking through the surface of the lake, he headed for that instead of going straight up, as he should have done, but he was so terrified, he wasn't sure what in the hell he should do.

The branches were within reach. Just one more kick and he could grab one of them with his right hand. But he didn't have the breath or the strength in his legs to accomplish such a feat. The water was so cold. So very cold. His clothes provided no protection. He may as well be naked.

There he was, suspended motionless in the water. Holding his breath. His lungs heavy and panicked for air.

You did know him at some point.

Holy Shit. 

Sam didn't have to look to his right to know that his ghost...his brother...was there.

And he made his choice.

Sam's brother entered his body. He found that one bit of calm, concealed breath that he needed, and with a kick, he latched onto the end of the branch with his right hand, yanked himself straight up to the surface of the icy water, and welcomed air into his tight, aching lungs.

But there was one problem.

                                                                    ***

A few days later, Sam found himself at his parent's house, sitting in a recliner, listening to the television. The story his parents had told him kept repeating in his head, drowning out the voices coming from the TV.

Sam had been a twin. He'd absorbed his brother in the womb. Just as he'd absorbed him once more in the lake.

The price of doing so had been a high one. But if he hadn't done so, he'd be dead.

Sam righted the recliner to a seated position and searched for his cane with his hands. Once he had a hold of it, he swished the tip of it back and forth along the carpet as he made his way to the kitchen. He knew where it was, but the dog left toys all over the place. Didn't want to step on one and lose his balance.

His brother would have been named Marcus if he'd lived. Although Sam had allowed Marcus to give him the breath his lungs needed to reach that branch and exit the lake, Sam had also accepted Marcus's sightless eyes as the cost for that breath. 


                                                                💀💀💀

Laura Shell has been published in Maudlin House, Citron Review, and many others. Her first anthology of paranormal stories titled The Canine Collection was released this year. If she isn't writing, reading, or submitting short fiction, she's slinging snarky jabs at her husband of 35 years. You can find out more about her at https://laurashellhorror.wordpress.com.

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.
 

​I materialized as the clock in reception struck twelve.

Elliot, the late chief information officer, considered me through the wavy lenses of his glasses. “You made it, Sylvia.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Not even the next one?”

On Friday nights, after the offices and cubicles emptied and the janitorial crew arrived, our shades, reflections of our former bodies, convened in Tellurian’s executive boardroom to discuss the week’s observations.

Marshall, the late founder of Tellurian Industries, called the meeting to order. “It has come to my attention—”

I cleared my throat. I needed to speak up if I wanted credit for my discovery.

Marshall continued. “Sylvia believes she’s stumbled upon a case of embezzlement.”

Beside me, the former general counsel’s diaphanous shade expanded until it loomed over the table. Her outraged roar filled the narrow room. “Who? Who is stealing from my company?”

“Let’s remain calm,” Marshall said.

Elizabeth retracted to her usual elegant proportions.

I leaned into the polished mahogany table, letting my elbows sink into the creamy wood. “Marshall assigned me to watch over the mailroom. The staff is exceptional. No worries there. However, the new operations director is behaving oddly.”

“What is the Ops Director even doing in the mailroom?” Elliot asked.

“Raymond Drury has his assistant collect the mail every morning, but on Fridays, Drury gets there bright and early to collect the overnight deliveries of credit memos from Tellurian’s business units across the country.”

The room remained eerily silent.

Marshall’s head detached from his body and floated until his face hovered four feet above my form. “Why is the operations director interested in credit memos?”

I was the newest specter to join the department, and in life, I had been the lowest ranking, rising only to the supervisor level, while the others had been in corporate management. In Marshall’s opinion, while I was a skilled observer, interpreting observations was best left to seasoned professionals.

I elongated my neck until my eyes drew level with his. “When a customer gives the branch a cash payment, the unit manager can snag it, then issue a credit memo against the account, reducing the customer’s balance by the stolen amount.”

Elliot pushed his immovable glasses up his nose, a nervous gesture left over from life. “Sounds like an invitation to steal.”

“It’s not that easy,” I said. “Too many credit memos issued for one customer would kick off an audit, and credit memos must be approved in advance by someone outside the business unit.”

“Someone here at HQ?” Elliot asked.

“Usually, a manager in the operations department reviews them before sending them to accounts payable. I suspect Raymond is splitting the stolen payments with a local manager in the field. Since the thief has already pocketed the cash payment, Raymond needs to get to those credit memos and approve them before they reach the accounting department.”

Marshall’s floating head nodded, then retreated to his body. “Which unit manager is his co-conspirator?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Elliot said. “As specters, we can only influence the people working on these premises. I’ve tested the theory many times. Our spiritual connection is restricted to the people here in the corporate headquarters and the places they frequent. We can’t project to a branch office. I’ve tried.”

Elizabeth tapped a blood-red nail through the table’s glossy surface. “Unmasking the co-conspirator will help our living counterparts uncover the scheme.”

“To do that, we’ll have to observe Raymond. I suspect he reviews the memos from his partner’s branch first,” I said. “I’ll hover and try to identify his accomplice. Once we confirm he’s embezzling, I believe the ultimate solution is to force a confession via a haunting.”

Ghostly eyes widened at my audacity. Haunting was way outside my former pay grade.

Marshall gave his mane of wavy white hair a slow shake, but, to my surprise, he didn’t dismiss my suggestion. “Let’s put it to a vote. All in favor of haunting Raymond Drury, Operations Director, signify by saying ‘ahh.’”

A faint moan filled the boardroom. Marshall sniffed. He hadn’t expected unanimous agreement.

Silence reclaimed the room as our forms winked out.

***

Time, as measured by the living, means little to the dead.

According to Elliot, ghosts appear where they want and when they want, restricted by vague, poorly understood parameters. We had the run of the Tellurian HQ. We could even visit employees at their homes, but we couldn’t so much as peek inside the corner coffee shop unless a Tellurian employee was inside.

Though we have limits, we’re far from weak. Consider the strength of will it takes to remain in the earthly realm. Most shades welcome the progression to the great beyond. However, like the other Department of Spectral Affairs members at Tellurian Industries, my devotion to the job anchored me at corporate HQ.

In life, I’d been Sylvia Morse, Supervisor of Tax Accounting. It took a teenager texting her BFF from behind the wheel of a new BMW to knock me into the next world. Once dead, I understood taxes didn’t matter. People mattered. Life mattered.
After being ground into the pavement by The Great Red Beamer, I drifted toward the celestial light. But before my soul could take its place in its eternal glow, I crashed my memorial service.

Avoiding the urn containing my earthly remains, I hovered near the buffet in the adjacent reception hall. Co-workers outnumbered family three-to-one, and for the first time, I saw everyone’s true essence. My former co-workers weren’t merely genial people. Despite busy lives, family illness, and personal turmoil, they came to work devoted to the company and each other. They had listened to my troubles while neck-deep in their own. Most bent over backward (something I could now do) to help each other get through the day. They deserved so much more than I’d given in life that I compelled my shade to remain at Tellurian to help them where I could. After all, the hereafter wasn’t going anywhere.

When I returned to Tellurian’s familiar corridors, a stoop-shouldered, white-haired man in an old-fashioned three-piece suit coalesced at my cubicle. I shot to him so fast I passed right through him, getting my first unsettling taste of intermingling my shade within the soul of another being. Within Marshall, I experienced the loneliness of a cold fireplace, the oaky flavor of bourbon, and the blandness of indifferently prepared meals for one.

After our spirits disengaged, Marshall led me to the lunchroom, where he introduced me to the other ghosts who made the headquarters of Tellurian Industries their home in the afterlife. As an icebreaker, each shared how they passed.

When Marshall shuffled off some sixty years previously, his wife and child had been dead for decades. Work was his only solace, so he returned to Tellurian, floating its halls alone for thirty years before Elliot, a former head of information services, met his untimely end via a heart attack at forty-nine. Elliot was always disinterested in the world outside his office and quite satisfied to spend the afterlife at his desk.

A former General Counsel, Elizabeth arrived several years after Elliot and boasted the most entertaining farewell story. Her husband’s lover murdered her.

“I hung around to see his face when they read my will.” The former redhead heaved a profound sigh that startled a help desk worker making tea. “After seeing his reaction to losing over a million thanks to his fling with the chick who shot me, heaven would have been a letdown, so I returned to Tellurian to deal with unfinished business.”

The group called itself the Department of Spectral Affairs and met daily in Tellurian’s lunchroom. The life force of humans gathering there for the midday break drew us shades like Las Vegas tourists to a free buffet.

“What’s your plan to get the goods on Raymond Drury?” Elizabeth asked.

“Once he collects the credit memos on Friday morning, I’ll inhabit him to see which ones he focuses on.”

Elizabeth’s eyes stretched, elongating into slits. “Inhuman Resources frowns on human inhabitation.”

I shrugged off her concerns. “Only if I linger. I know the rules.”

“Too risky,” Marshall said. “Leave human inhabitation to more experienced shades.”

“How do I become experienced if I don’t practice?” I countered. “I can make this work.”

“Give her a chance,” Elliot said. “Everyone has to start somewhere.”

***

I coalesced outside the mailroom door on Friday morning as Raymond Drury accepted the overnight packages. Once in his office, I released my essence, surrounding him with the invisible mist containing my spirit.

When he sat at his desk, I was already in the chair. The operations director slid deep into me, and I again experienced human sight, smell, and sound. Inhabiting Drury filled me with sensations, but my visitation deprived him of all I experienced. To my host, lights dimmed, and chatter from beyond his office door grew faint.

Restless, Raymond rose, spun, then plopped in his seat like an egg into boiling water. He squirmed and fidgeted, but I held tight. Thick fingers trembled as he tore open the overnight envelopes. Stacks of credit memos tumbled onto his desk. As he shoved them around, I felt the sweat of his palms, tasted his morning latte, and smelled fresh pine body wash. I wallowed in Raymond’s senses until he found the stack from Tucson.

Marshall materialized in front of the desk, and I willed Raymond to raise his head.
“Tucson,” Drury muttered.

Elizabeth winked into existence, then Elliot beside her.

“Well done,” Marshall said. “I’ll whisper in the ear of the chief financial officer that an audit and inventory of the Tucson operation is overdue.”

“I’ll suggest the chief information officer assign someone to rummage through Raymond’s emails,” Elliot said.

“When the CFO and CIO bring their findings to the general counsel, I’ll encourage her to start a fraud investigation,” Elizabeth said. “But we need to nip this in the bud before more money goes missing.”

Marshall studied Raymond with a concerned frown. “You’ve unsettled him, Sylvia. Get out of there before Inhuman Resources gets a whiff.”

Like all things ghostly, human inhabitation is a gray area. Possessing the living is like a narcotic to the sensory-deprived. A quick check-in is permitted, but hanging out isn’t.

I popped out of Raymond and reeled like a drunk. Beside me, my victim shook his head as if clearing it of a bad dream.

“Everyone to your duties,” Marshall said. “The haunting begins at midnight.”

***

At midnight, each member of the team focused on Raymond Drury and materialized at the foot of his bed.

Before we began, Marshall asked for updates.

“The general counsel is reading up on past internal fraud cases.” Elizabeth wiggled the fingers of one hand. “I tickled her curiosity, hinting the company had been it with credit memo scams in the past.”

“The chief information officer is curious about unit manager calls and emails to private cell phone numbers belonging to management,” Elliot said. “With all the free communication tools Tellurian offers, calls to a director’s private cell phone will stand out.”

Marshall released his head, allowing it to float over the sleeping couple. Raymond’s wife didn’t snuggle close, but was near enough to be disturbed by a loud noise or sudden movement.

“What can we do that won’t alarm his wife? Inhuman Resources forbids haunting the innocent,” Marshall said.

“I could inhabit him, see what he’s dreaming about,” I said. “Then you could each twist the dream to his guilty secret.”

“And if he wakes?” Elliot asked.

“I’ll manifest and give him a final jolt,” I suggested.

He frowned. “Manifesting weakens a spirit.”

“Then Sylvia’s the perfect candidate,” Elizabeth said. Meaning, as the newcomer, I was so unimportant it didn’t matter if I languished in the gray twilight for weeks.

Marshall nodded his agreement, and I lowered myself into Raymond Drury as he lay sleeping.

Dreams are hybrid things—part ghost world, part human world, and tough to interpret. Raymond dreamed of a woman, but not the one sleeping beside him. His dream companion had no face, but her body was crystal clear. Lean legs stretched on a boat deck, and her slender hand extended a beer toward Raymond. Though waves pounded the vessel as it cut through rough seas, the woman’s position remained fixed.

Raymond aimed an eager smile at the woman, or perhaps the beer, while he operated an old-fashioned adding machine, the kind with a lever. He split his attention between the motionless female, his calculations, and angry waves breaking over the bow.

I popped out of Raymond’s dream. “He dreams of escape, a new life. Once he steals enough, he’ll run somewhere, buy a boat, and find a woman to co-captain for him.”

Elliot snorted. “Which woman?”

“Not his wife.” I described the dream in more detail and suggested we rachet up the tension. “Raymond already feels time is running out. That’s what the waves are about: pressure from all sides.”

Marshall tented his fingers and drew them to his lips. “Well done, Sylvia. We’ll turn those waves into a storm of worries, with each of us our own twist.”

I sunk into Raymond Drury again.

The faceless woman hadn’t moved, but the adding machine tape had built into a waist-high pile at Raymond’s side.

A wave crashed against the boat. Raymond staggered, and Marshall’s voice boomed like thunder. “Audits!”

Raymond’s alarmed gaze shot to the woman on the deck. His wife had replaced the babe.

Another wave smashed over the bow, flooding the deck and sending Raymond staggering.

Elliot’s thin voice was the gale of tropical winds. “Emails!”

Soaked and dripping with seaweed, Raymond spun, searching for the source of the threat. He staggered again, slamming into his immobile wife, who was now dressed. Instead of a beer, a suitcase hung from her extended hand.

A deafening whoosh of water gathering into a gigantic wave pulled Raymond’s eyes from his wife to a towering wall of seawater looming above the boat.

Elizabeth’s voice screeched like the call of a million seagulls. “Lawsuits!”

The wave crashed over the craft, capsizing it and dumping Raymond into the sea.
Light-headed and weak, I rose from Raymond.

He jerked upright in bed, breathing in heavy gasps.

“You were in there too long,” Marshall admonished.

Elizabeth reminded me to manifest as they both winked out.

“See you on the other side,” Elliot said, then he also puffed away.

Our victim pressed his hands to his chest until his breathing calmed.

I needed to add more substance to my form to be seen by the living. I began by exhaling all my will, then inhaled the crumbs of life force emanating from Raymond, his sleeping wife, and the cat watching warily from a bookcase.

My mist coalesced into the shape I’d worn in life: a short woman, slightly dumpy but well-dressed. Tendrils of hair the color of mud-covered earthworms framed round cheeks and cat-like green eyes.

The bed creaked as Raymond slid his feet to the floor. “Who…” 

I let the earthworm tendrils squirm and stretch to my cowering victim.

He crumbled to his knees.

The earthworms clutched at the sides of his head and squeezed.

I wagged a finger. “Naughty-naughty.”

With my last morsel of strength, I issued a hoarse cackle, then vanished.

***

After haunting Raymond Drury, my depleted spirit craved rest before passing on to the next adventure, but I dutifully appeared in the executive board room. The mahogany conference table was cluttered with drinks, cold pizza, and chip bags—the detritus of that day’s final human meeting.

“Ah, there you are,” Marshall snapped.

“How has it worked out with Raymond?” I asked.

“It hasn’t,” Elizabeth said. “You woke Drury’s wife. The Director of Inhuman Resources wants a word.”

The boardroom walls seemed to press in on me like the sides of a coffin, and what little light seeped in from under the door dimmed.

Elliot adjusted his immobile glasses, then ran a trembling hand over his bald brown dome. “He’ll force us to abandon Tellurian and take our places in the great beyond. I don’t want to go!”

Elizabeth drew a finger to her eternally ruby lips. “Technically, only Sylvia violated the law. She’ll be the one sent up. The rest will get off with warnings.”

“I thought this was a team effort,” I said in a flat, deliberate tone.

“You’ll just have to take one for the team,” she said.

My spectral form expanded in anger, then retracted when Marshall announced, “The Director has arrived.”

We sank into the leather chairs and turned our attention to the opposite end of the conference table.

The Director’s mist was more defined than all of ours put together. I wondered if we could do that—put ourselves together — but ripples of terror shimmering through my companions forced my focus to the head of the table.

We were all long dead, but the Director appeared ancient. His essence smelled of leather-bound books and tasted of cigar smoke. The coal-blackened sky of a nineteenth-century industrial city gathered tight around him. A cravat encircled his throat, and he spoke in an oddly stilted manner.

“Who caused this breach of the realm’s peace?” he asked in the dry tone of a long-forgotten tomb.

My hand detached itself and rose three feet above the table.

“The haunting was an endeavor to prevent further pilferage from the company we dedicated our lives to,” Marshall said.

My hand retreated to my wrist.

“There was screaming.” The Director’s glowing red eyes landed on me. “You terrorized an innocent.”

“I’m sorry.” I used my most remorseful tone, the one I’d reserved in life for the Internal Revenue Service. “I wanted to make the thief feel guilty enough to confess. It was my first attempt at manifestation to the living. I overdid it. Won’t happen again.”

“You traumatized two people over the theft of money?” The Director rose until his head reached the room’s ceiling. He floated toward me, the toes of his sooty black boots dragging through the conference table’s smooth surface.

My mist recoiled until I was a trembling gray ball rolling in the seat of the black leather chair. I unwound enough to say, “Hundreds of thousands of dollars, Director, sir.”

“Thievery is a matter for the material world. You should have encouraged those whose job it is to discover these things.”

“We’ve done that, sir,” Marshall said.

“Then leave it!” The Director’s voice filled the boardroom. Beyond its doors, a cleaner yelped, and rapid footstep retreated down a corridor.

The Director’s looming form retreated to the opposite end of the table.

I expanded my mist to my former life-size. “The others tried to warn me. I was clumsy. If you must force anyone to move on to the next realm, it should be me.”

Elliot twisted his neck one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, considering me over the back of his shirt collar. “But you just arrived. You can’t leave so soon.”

I gave a nonchalant shrug. “What is soon to a shade?”

“I agree with Elliot,” Marshall said. “We’re a team, bound because we care about the living at Tellurian. That’s what keeps us here.” He released his head from the rest of him. It floated along the table to face the Director. “I promise that in the future, the innocent will remain undisturbed.” The head rotated to our end of the table. “Are we all agreed?”

We each murmured our understanding.

“Very well,” the Director said. “Final warning.” He blinked out.

A collective sigh of relief escaped us, and I thought we might discuss a new strategy, but a key rattled in the boardroom’s door.

Elizabeth whispered, “The living.”

We faded into a shadowed corner as the janitorial crew chief edged into the boardroom, followed by a trembling woman holding a duster at arm’s length.
Marshall muttered, “Damned Inhuman Resources,” sending them rushing back out the door.

***

The calendar in reception featured a kitten in pilgrim attire when we next convened in the lunchroom.

“The plan has collapsed over the last month,” Elizabeth reported. “A product liability suit is keeping the general counsel too busy to deal with unsubstantiated embezzlement allegations.”

“And the CIO has a job offer,” Elliot sulked. “He’s not interested in rummaging through emails.”

I rested my mist on the lunchroom floor, arms wrapped around my knees. “We need to make Raymond confess.”

“Why bother?” Elliot said. “Raymond’s already saved enough for a boat and the babe with the beer in the Bahamas. When he skips, the company will wise up to his fraud and make changes.”

“I refuse to let him get away with it,” Elizabeth objected. “But what can we do and remain within IR guidelines?”

“We have to get him alone and pull out all the stops,” I said. “No more half-remembered dreams.”

“Too risky,” Marshall said.

Elizabeth, as impatient in death as she was in life, disagreed. “We can’t let Drury get away with this. Not on my watch.”

“But make sure he’s alone.” Elliot brought a hand to his forehead. “I can’t handle another visit from IR.”

***

The following Friday, Raymond closed his office door and tossed the stack of credit memos on his desk. When he settled into his chair, we coalesced behind him.

Elliot squinted at the open laptop resting on the desk. “He records his larceny on a spreadsheet. What an idiot.”

While our victim sorted through the credit memos, Elizabeth and I pushed our forms to half-strength, appearing as mist in the guest chairs opposite our target.
Elizabeth’s husky “good morning” swirled through the room like a draft.

Raymond’s head shot up. He blinked, perhaps noticing he could see his office door through his guests. “How did you get in here?”

Elizabeth’s hair swirled around her head like a russet halo as I blew cold mist in Raymond’s face. He stood and staggered backward from the desk, knocking over his chair.

Elliot reached through the laptop’s screen and played with the spreadsheet. Nudging physical objects is challenging for ghosts, but manipulating virtual data is child’s play.

Raymond gaped at the screen as numbers danced until they spelled out “Thief.” The letters grew to fill the screen, pulsing blood red before flying off in multiple directions.

Elizabeth arched her brows at Elliot. “Show off.”

Drury slammed the laptop shut and reached for the cell phone on his desk.
Marshall, the strongest of us, slapped the phone to the floor.
Raymond squinted at me. “Did you do that?” His voice was a tremulous whisper.
I shook my head and faded. Raymond righted his chair and collapsed into it, mumbling, “No more vodka.”

I floated to the office door and braced myself. “Ready.”

Elliot and Marshall pressed their lips to Raymond’s ears and hissed, “Confess!”

Raymond sprang from his chair and made for the door. When he reached me, I clutched at his essence and held tight. Possessing him heightened every sense, and I laughed, giddy with sensations so real and so human that they tempted me to wrap myself in him forever. However, possession was frowned upon, and the Director of Inhuman Resources had made his point.

When I popped out, Raymond crumpled to the carpet, moaning as we each expelled our best ghostly sighs. “You’re not real,” he whimpered.

With my last bit of ghostly will, I manifested myself full strength and ripped off my head, clutching it by my hair. I dangled my disembodied face inches from his eyes. “Confess Raymond. Confess, and this will end!”

Raymond Drury screamed as our gray mists withdrew.

***

When my strength returned, I joined my friends at lunchtime. The breakroom buzzed with the shocking news about the director of operations.

Human Resources said he was on medical leave, but everyone knew that was corporate BS. Raymond Drury had been stealing and went mad with guilt. He confessed to the company lawyers, the CFO, his wife, the police—to anyone who would listen and promise to keep the ghosts away. Word was the insanity defense looked good in his case.

Marshall leaned through the table to pat my hand. “Congratulations, Sylvia. Your first haunting was a great success.”

Elliot removed his femurs and tapped them together in gruesome applause.
Elizabeth grimaced. “Stop that. It’s disgusting.”
Elliot reassembled himself. “It’s a joke. Sylvia’s made her bones. Get it? She’s a made shade.”

Marshall and Elizabeth shook their heads and faded. Elliot adjusted his immobile glasses and vanished. I allowed myself another moment among my living friends, then winked out, leaving only the ghost of a smile behind.

                                                                     💀​💀​💀


Kelly Zimmer bio: For most of my adult life, I’ve labored in the stifling corporate atmosphere of commercial real estate, finding escape in mysteries, thrillers, and horror novels. I also take a break from my number-intensive work life through biking, hiking, kayaking, and writing. With my husband and dog, Lydia, I do my best writing while exploring the natural side of Florida and beyond.
For most of my adult life, I’ve labored in the stifling corporate atmosphere of commercial real estate, finding escape in myst eries, thrillers, and horror novels. I also take a break from my number-intensive work life through biking, hiking, kayaking, and writing. With my husband and dog, Lydia, I do my best writing while exploring the natural side of Florida and beyond.For most of my adult life, I’ve labored in the stifling corporate atmosphere of commercial real estate, finding escape in mysteries, thrillers, and horror novels. I also take a break from my number-intensive work life through biking, hiking, kayaking, and writing. With my husband and dog, Lydia, I do my best writing while exploring the natural side of Florida and beyond.