N.E. White's Blog, page 11

ARC for You Are Here

Wanna free e-book?

All I ask is that you consider reviewing it.

You don’t have to, of course, but if you did…I’ll send you a box of chocolates. No joke.

If you’re interested, drop me a line in the comment section. I’ll email you an advance reader copy of You Are Here – Tales of Cartographic Wonders featuring Lindsay Buroker, Jason W. LaPier, Charlotte Ashley, and many more great authors.

Here’s what you’ll find behind the gorgeous cover:

Maps define our lives as they define our world. 
 
What were once the priceless resources of a brave and lonely few as they set off into the unknown are now carried in the pockets of billions around the globe. But they were never merely lines on paper – while depicting our geography we infused them with our intelligence, our desires, our imagination, and our memories.
 
Yesterday, we mapped the world only after we discovered its secrets. Today we map the mind and the body, and slowly unveil the universe before we set off into its infinite domains. Maps may have changed, but they are also changeless: they will always guide us.
 
This anthology charts eighteen worlds which are beautiful, frightening, alien, familiar – sometimes none of these, sometimes all. These stories cover every corner of the speculative map, featuring horror, science fiction, steampunk, high fantasy and more, in styles ranging from the literary and the lyrical to the pulpy and the thrilling.
 
Wherever you find yourself, there’s only one thing you can ever know for sure: 
 
YOU ARE HERE
 
Now go explore…
Filed under: Monday Minutes, Reading Tagged: ARC, review request, You Are Here

NaNoWriMo 2016 – Day 7

I am woefully behind. So much, I am tempted to quit NaNoWriMo 2016.

I know I know. We’ve just begun! How can I abandon my efforts so early?

When I look at how many words I have to complete, it is just depressing.

By the end of today, I should have completed roughly 11,669 words. Doesn’t seem like much when I can easily churn out 2-3k a night if I’m really motivated. But…

I’m not motivated.

I can look on the positive side. I’ve written for seven days straight. Woohoo!

And I’ve managed to write 7,219 words. That’s nothing to sniff at. It is a fair amount and I’m quite proud of it.

But it is less than 11,669 words.

How you doing?

Filed under: NaNoWriMo, writing Tagged: NaNoWriMo 2016, word count

Final Cover — You Are Here

Hey World! That’s our final cover. In all its glory. Isn’t it pretty? In addition to being a great writer, Andrew Leon Hudson also designs book covers. I thought I would pin him down long enough to ask three questions… YAH: Are you formerly trained in the graphic arts or did you just pick it […]

via Final Cover — You Are Here

Filed under: writing

NaNoWriMo 2016 – Day 1

Have you started yet?

I have.

I wrote 303 words this morning and will finish up my daily quota later tonight at:

6:30pm Pacific Time

Catch me on MyWriteClub.

Filed under: NaNoWriMo, writing Tagged: NaNoWriMo 2016

Ghost Stories – Possession – Part 7

This is the last part of Ghost Stories – Possession. Just finding it? You can start at the beginning here.

NOTE: Adult situations and language.

Part 7

We ride Bly’s silk parachute for some time before I start to wonder why they would want a demon so badly they were willing to give up their kid’s soul for it.

Because information is power.

The thought is just in my head. Or, more accurately, I was in Bly’s head and that must have been its thought.

And that’s what you give them, I think back at Bly. Information? What do you get out of it?

I get to live, it says.

Since I don’t really know what it is like to be a demon, there’s not much arguing to that.

Well, I start, thinking on my toes, or hardened appendages, you can go back to living as soon as you show me where Niki is.

If you insist, it says.

Without warning, Bly takes over its body from me. I can sense that if I wanted, I could force the demon back into a corner of its being as I did when I first ate it, but I release my hold, allowing it to shift my physical body in its grip, freeing its hindmost legs.

With them, Bly takes hold of its silk parachute, pulling and canting on the threads. Soon, the creature manages to float us over downtown Oakland, its lights obscured by a dense fog.

Across the dark bay, the glow of San Francisco orients me. We’re making our way northwest. After a moment, I hear the roar of Highway 80 beneath us.

A shudder runs through Bly’s demonic body and it groans involuntary. Actinic lights dance at the edge of my vision and for a moment, I see the world directly beneath us through my own eyes.

What the hell was that! I think.

Bly doesn’t answer. The shuddering through its body continues and the silk parachute detaches, sending us into an out-of-control spiral.

If Bly had anything in it to throw up, I would have chucked into the bay’s waters.

Taking control, I gather up my body close to Bly’s prickly belly and roll as we make impact with a wooden deck. The blow knocks me back into my body and I lay for a moment wondering what the hell just happened. Am I still dreaming?

Water slaps the boards beneath me and the scent of brine and bird poop prompts me to focus on the lights above me. There’s a sign on the nearest lamppost. I can’t make out the text, but there’s no mistaking the logo. We’re at the Berkeley Marina.

Hadn’t McLean said something about Lou Jing having a boat here? And hadn’t McLean already checked it out?

Getting up on my own two feet, I notice Bly a few feet down the pier. It’s curled up on itself and its skin has turned the color of ash and is more transparent than a new ghost.

I walk over to it. It’s shivering, beak clacking against its pathetic, bristly hide. Resisting the urge to kick it over the edge of the pier, I ask it what’s wrong.

Again, it doesn’t answer, but it slowly unfurls and heads down the pier. I follow the dog-sized, phantom arachnid until it stops at a blue and white yacht. Bly points one of its limbs.

“He’s in there?” I ask.

Bly has gone mute and simply turns away from me and goes to the edge of the pier. It lifts its spectral ass over the water, and I see its abdomen working, like something is trying to get out. After a moment, it poops out some more silk and Bly is in the foggy sky before I can do anything to stop it.

Shit. Now what?

The boat rocks gently as someone inside moves and my hand goes to the butt of my gun. Releasing it from the holster, I thumb the safety before I make myself relax.

I don’t know if Lou Jing is in there. There’s no reason to believe he is other than some demon indicating that he, or Niki, was in there.

And just what was all that that just happened? Had I dreamt it? Or had I just wandered the streets of Oakland and Berkeley before my feet found their way to Lou Jing’s slip that should have been empty?

My head is spinning and it takes me a moment to realize the boat has settled. It couldn’t hurt to find out who’s in there, right?

But with no backup, I can’t face Jing. Not yet, at least.

The boat is one of those hefty yachts on which men in mid-thigh shorts and women in bikinis drape themselves over its decks as the wind careens them through crashing waves. The sails and ropes are neatly stowed so I don’t have a problem easing myself on a side deck, trying not to make a sound.

It’s a slow process.

For a moment, I kind of wish I was back in Bly’s body. I shiver at the greasy thought and slide on my belly, putting my face level with one of the larger side-deck windows. Curtains block my view, but I’m thankful for that. Otherwise, whoever was inside would have seen someone in a hoodie with a gun creeping along their boat.

Scooting forward on my elbow and knees, I finally find a break in the curtains and peer inside. There’s only dim floor lights and I can’t make out shit. I’m about to get up, resolved to the fact I would have to come back when I was sober. Or maybe I could convince Reyes to check it out. She’d probably tell me to stay away while she and McLean got all the glory of finding little Niki just in time.

Just in time for what? I think.

In all likelihood, despite what Reyes might think, Lou Jing probably killed his wife, thinking he’d take their son before she and her boyfriend took his son from him. When parent’s kids were on the line, they never acted with any sort of sense. Lou might have had it in for the kid’s mom, but I was sure Niki was fine. If the kid was on the boat, he was probably safer there than in the system.

Something dark with glowing red eyes strikes at the window so hard, it cracks. I jump up and am over the side of the boat so fast, I’m sure Bly would have had trouble keeping up.

The harbor’s water is colder than I expect and I gulp down a mouthful. I force myself to blow it out and not sputter up to the surface.

I can hear and feel staccato thrumming coursing through the boat’s hull, following me as I swim away. Whatever was in that boat, it wasn’t human.

And it wanted out.

* * *

Reyes’ voice comes over the payphone breathless, husky and deep.

“Reyes,” I say, my voice taking on the same timbre even though I’m shivering in the pre-dawn cold.

“Speaking,” she says.

“I found Niki,” I lie. If I tell her the truth, she would just hang up on me.

“What? Where are you?”

I fill her in. Give her some bullshit line about not trusting McLean’s work and how I just had a gut feeling about Lou Jing’s boat. She says she’ll be over and though I don’t say it, I’m hoping she doesn’t bring McLean.

But she does.

And his face goes a dark red when I tell them I’m not really sure if the boy is in the boat.

“Let me get this straight,” he says. “You got us up before dawn because your gut told you to?”

He’s not joking and his gaze goes to my mid-section again and I pull in my stomach muscles in a vain attempt to keep my budding beer belly and drinking habits out of this.

“You said his boat wasn’t in the harbor,” I say. “That it had been in some warehouse pending a leak repair, but there it is.”

I point across the road towards the bramble of masts coming into view in the morning light.

After I had pulled myself out on to pier on the other side of the harbor, I had tried calling Reyes on my cell phone, but my dip into the bay had fried its circuits. The nearest payphone was across the street in a parking lot, but still in view of the Berkeley Marina.

Reyes, McLean and I huddle around it. My wet clothes create a dark spot on the pavement. When they first got here, it seemed as if McLean would do a chivalrous thing and hand me his jacket, but he hadn’t.

“So,” Reyes says, “because the boat is now there, you think Jing and his son are in there, too?”

I shrug.

“It was probably repaired and returned to the slip by the boathouse,” McLean says, rubbing the sleep from his face. There’s a dark bruise on his chin where I punched him.

A part of me wishes I hadn’t hit him. And I have to admit, he’s probably right. That did seem likely.

But what about the monster?

Reyes and McLean give each other a look before scanning the horizon, probably wondering what they should do with me. McLean coughs into his hand, his other going for his pockets. For some zip ties? Are they gonna take me in? For what?

Reyes is kicking at the asphalt, concentrating at my feet and the dark stain beneath me.

I clench my fists. I would fight them if they tried to take me in. Tooth and nail.

“Tesserak,” Reyes starts, “how did you get all wet–”

A brown sedan squeals on the street between the parking lot and the marina. Its driver must have stomped on the gas pedal because it accelerates much too quickly, burning rubber and fishtailing as it makes for the marina driveway.

I can’t say for certain, but I’m guessing that it’s Lou Jing. Where had he been that it had taken him so long to get whatever warning the monster sent?

He crashes through the flimsy marina security gate and screeches to a halt in front of the nearest piers. What I take for a crowbar precedes Lou Jing as he busts out of the car. He’s wearing pajamas, bare feet.

Even from this distance, we can hear the studs as his footfalls pound the pier.

Without giving me a chance to say I told you so, Reyes and McLean sprint across the road at the same time a security guard materializes from a small shack adjacent to the gate. He probably just woke up.

I follow Reyes and McLean, wishing I had had a chance to tell them about the monster.

Passing the abandoned car, I note the security guard is staring at the damage it has caused, completely oblivious that the perp might still be on site.

I flash my badge at him, sure that Reyes and McLean have done the same thing. They are running down the center pier, heading for the branch that Lou’s boat is housed in. But they’re not going to make it.

A boat’s engine roars to life, breaking the pre-dawn quiet. They’ll be other boaters soon and I can’t imagine what we’ll do if that monster is released and I can only hope it’s not in Niki.

Lou’s blue yacht begins to back out of its slip. Reyes continues while McLean backtracks. I dart for the main pier. It’s longer and Lou would have to maneuver the boat past its tip to get out of the harbor. It would be my only chance.

My feet slap wood, shuddering through the boats moored to it. I force air deep into my lungs, and something pulls in my thigh but I push through it. The world slows around me, my focus a pinprick ahead of me.

There are five boats moored on four pier extenders. An over-sized catamaran juts out into the harbor channel. It sits high, but its low tide and I vault on to its deck.

My gaze tracks the mast of Lou’s boat as it goes by and for a second I think he’s gotten away, but my feet are still moving, fast as lightning. I launch myself from the catamaran’s back platform and thud into the side of the boat, my hands catching the side railing.

A holler of pain tears through my throat and it feels like my arms are going to pop out of their sockets.

“Halt,” I scream. “Oakland PD!”

Hey – you never know, it might work.

Something slams into my fingertips. Another howl escapes me, but I don’t let go. Tensing my core, I throw my legs over the side, kicking out as I go over.

My heel finds something soft and yielding. Someone grunts.

Spinning on my knees to face Lou, my gun is in my battered hands. Slick with my blood, I train the muzzle on him.

“Stop the boat, Lou,” I say.

He throws the crowbar at me, turns, and runs.

I duck, but the end catches on my back, tearing a hole through my sweatshirt and skin.

I scream and follow around the bulkhead.

The door down into the cabin is open.

With my back against the side, I wipe as much blood off my hands as possible, but they are leaking like a sieve. The boat’s engine is still running, but we’ve stalled in the middle of the channel. The only way Reyes or McLean can get to us was if they commandeered a boat. That could take hours.

I take a deep breath and enter, gun out before me.

The door slams shut behind me, cutting off all light. It was like someone closed my eyes. No, worse. I can’t even remember what light is.

My finger slips on the trigger and a shot lights the interior of the cabin.

In that instance, I see a dark stain, vaguely humanoid with red burning eyes. Its straddled over Lou, its clawed hands deep inside Lou’s neck and spine.

Niki is there, too. Bound and strapped into a corner. His eyes are wide, but glazed, as if he hadn’t seen the sun for the last couple of days.

That demon is about to possess Lou, giving him the strength of a thousand souls. A possessed person doesn’t feel pain. A demon doesn’t care what damage it does to the possessed, so long as it gets what it wants. And I’m guessing, killing me was a top priority.

I almost turn to claw my way out of there, but my experience with Bly the Fly makes me think I can do this. I can take it on. I don’t have to let these bastards eat away at me or anyone else. Especially not a kid.

Something crashes into me hard enough to drive me through the door and half way across the boat’s deck. My gun clatters over the side of the boat. The world spins around me.

Lou is on top of me, clawing at my throat with one hand, cutting off my air, while the other is pounding into my side. He cracks a few ribs. He’s got a fist of steel hammering at me over and over. I can’t breathe. Bright spots obscure my vision and something warm spurts from my lips.

I have nothing to lose, so I reach into Lou’s belly.

Electricity courses through me, making me bite my tongue. I’m about to black out, but I have a hold of the demon inside of Lou. It’s slick at shit and pulses as if a thousand worms with razor-sharp teeth are eating at the edges of my skin. I’m vaguely aware that Lou has gone limp on top of me and my feet pound the boat in some sort of epileptic fit.

Inside, my hands wrap around the demon’s throat, but it’s too big. It’s as big as the boat or maybe the ocean. There’s no way I can even get a good enough purchase on the fucker, let alone get it in my mouth.

But I dig my fingernails into it anyway and pull it close. If I couldn’t eat it whole, I would take a bite out of it.

But then it’s gone. I gasp a breath. Lights swirl, flashing across my vision.

Something wet, salty, and cold splashes my face. Sputtering, I jump up and lash out at the same time, clipping something.

“Tesserak!” someone says.

My eyes focus on Reyes. For a second, there’s murder in her eyes, but when our gazes meet, a look of relief comes over her.

McLean is bent over, nursing his chin – again.

“Oh, shit,” I mumble. “I’m sorry.”

Pain lances up my side and my tongue feels like it’s torn in two.

Wincing, I add, “Where’s Lou?”

Reyes steps aside, revealing Lou passed out and zipped tied on the deck of his boat.

“And Niki?”

Both Reyes and McLean stare at each other, as if they hadn’t really expected to find the kid.

Reyes moves first, but I move faster.

Inside the cabin, Niki is where I last saw him. Tears fill his dark eyes and he doesn’t take them off his father, even after we pile into the cabin.

When I remove the gag over his mouth and touch his shoulder, he looks up at me.

There’s a fear there I know all too well. How many times had I looked at my father like that after he’d beat me for being less than perfect?

Niki mouths something.

I can’t hear him.

“It’s okay, kid,” I say, my tongue swelling and making me sound like I’m five years old. “It’s gonna be okay.”

But he tries again.

So, I bend over, putting my ear near his mouth.

He says, “My mother said to say thank you.”

I tilt my head. The kid is looking straight at me. For a moment, we just stare. There’s tears in his eyes and before them jump into mine, I give him a small nod and stand up.

“Shit!” I say, turning to Reyes and McLean, pushing on my battered body to get past me. “Anyone gonna call an ambulance?”

* * *

Later that afternoon, I lay on my couch, nursing my cracked ribs and soaking my tongue in alcohol – the Rum variety.

McLean is on the tiny screen on my phone, a bubble of ocean water obscuring one side of his face. But the audio is working again and I hear him say how SPI saved Niki Jing-Merryweather from his deranged father. Reyes is standing next to him, her tired gaze fixed on something behind the camera. It seems to me like the weight of all the world’s missing children stand on her shoulders. The announcer says some bullshit that through the hard work of official paranormal entity sensors and with the assistance of the boy’s ghostly mother, the boy was found before his father could take him out of the country.

“Or kill him,” I say aloud, but then regret it as my tongue sends a sharp pain through the base of my throat.

The news program flashes to some PES expert who explains that we were not ghost-busters. And how we weren’t exactly part of the police force but a vital part of paranormal investigations since the solar flares of 2020. The piece changes to a recorded interview with the grandparents from both sides, thanking SPI for bringing back their grandson.

There’s wetness on my cheeks and I wipe at it.

Looking at my tear-stained fingers, I mumble to an empty room, “Not completely useless.”

It’s then I remember my father and his naked ghost. A moan escapes me. How am I gonna explain that one to Reyes and McLean?

The End

Thank you for reading Ghost Stories – Possession.

What did you think? Should I continue the story?

I have three more ghost stories with Tesserak, Reyes and McLean. None of which are as complete as this one. I’d like to finish Lorena’s tale, but not sure it is worth it.

Anyway, thanks again for making it this far.

Filed under: Fiction Tagged: fiction, Ghost Stories, ghost story, ghosts, Oakland, Urban Fantasy

Dragons

Holy Dragon-bait, People!

NaNoWriMo is less than four days away.

I know I know just breathe just breathe calm down stop pacing QUIT HYPERVENTILATING!

Oh, that’s me. Sorry.

So, if you are plugged into the whole NaNoWriMo media machine (they are impressive, aren’t they?), then you must know on Tuesday of next week, start writing.

Writing a novel in a month can seem…daunting, to say the least. And it is. Most of us do not have time to pound out 1,667 words in a day, day after day, for 30 days. I mean, there’s Thanksgiving in there. And weekends. Oh, and weekdays, too!

But that’s the thing, isn’t it?

If you never get started, never push yourself to face that dragon, well, you never will.

My NaNoWriMo goal this year is to finish my current work in progress: The Map Maker’s Dragon.

I write about dragons a lot. I have a short story about a princess and a dragon. (Her father decides to sell her to a local dragon, but she joins up with him instead and kills her father to gain the crown.) I started a novel about a woman who carves out a dragon’s heart to save her child. I have a smattering of flash pieces about with various types of dragons – all of them fierce. Oh, and The Map Maker’s Dragon is about a winged cartographer who lost her wings and must now rely on a dragon who has anything but her best interest in mind.

So, I’m on familiar ground and I have about 50,000 words of my Map Maker’s story already written. I’m pretty sure I have at least that many more words to go until I reach the end.

I’ve declared myself a NaNo Rebel, which means I will *not* be starting a new novel like most of you. But I still have the same goal – 1,667 words a day.

We Can Do It.

But not without a plan.

Here’s my plan:

Write everyday. Seems so simply, doesn’t it? Ha! We all know how untrue that is.
When I can’t write everyday, make up for it the next day I can. This is important. Often times, I go for long stretches without writing. I figure, that’s okay because I know eventually I’ll get back to it. But then I only write a paltry few words, pad out a scene, or fiddle with an outline. But that’s just treading water. I need to push through and get those words down, make up for lost time, because though it may seem like there’ll always be a tomorrow to do so – our weeks on this planet are finite. Don’t waste them.
Utilize MyWriteClub (here’s where I’ll be sprinting), Twitter, and this here blog to hold myself accountable. Hound me, people. If you don’t see progress anywhere we might hook up, shoot me a message or email. If we’re hooked up on NaNoWriMo, I’ll pester you, too.

Okay, I think that’s it. Simple plans are more effective, right? Right. Let’s believe that.

Catch ya on the other side.

Filed under: inspiration, NaNoWriMo, writing Tagged: dragons, NaNoWriMo 2016, writing preparation

Ghost Stories – Possession – Part 6

Looking for the start of this story? Start here.

NOTE: Adult situations and language.

Part 6

The AC Trans all-nighter, the 822, gets me close, but I still have to run the last few miles to Bly the Fly’s place. With my head and hand both throbbing, I wonder what state I’ll be in when I get there, but I can’t let that stop me.

The demon knew something, but didn’t want to tell Reyes because of me. I had to fix that. How I was going to do that I have no idea, but I’ll figure it out.

A couple of blocks away from the demon’s house, I slow my pace.

It’s dark as shit. Even the stars have disappeared. I scan the heavens. Fog from the bay rolls up the hills, over-topping the entire neighborhood. By morning, it’ll hug the ground tight, but now, it looks like the wings of a massive angel of death.

Down the hill, I can see the city’s orange light reflecting off its underbelly, but right here, it’s pitch black as if the electricity was out.

When I round the corner, I skitter to a stop.

Lanterns hang from the tips of tree branches, setting Blyrthek’s house ablaze. Bright, hanging globes line the path up to the front door. A doorman, in coattails, tall hat, and swank leather boots, motions for me to come forward. He’s the Hungarian dude that gave Reyes the evil eye the day before.

I blink and something clicks near my left shoulder. I look, but there’s nothing there. When I turn back, the doorman is gone and the front door is open.

Was he real or had I imagined him?

Without giving it another thought, I run up the steps, my feet skimming over the stone as if I’m in a dream. Am I?

Inside, the house is so bright I have to squint. Pulling down the hood of my sweater to shade my eyes, I swear under my breath that this is a different house. Like a snake shedding its old skin, the furniture’s reds and golds nearly glow.

Someone in a feathered mask stands at the bottom of the staircase, pointing up the stairs. I know she’s the girl who led us in the first time because she’s sporting a black dress with a neck line so low and wide, she might as well just put her boobs on a shelf. I get moist thinking about what I can do with her when she gets old enough, but that clicking noise interrupts my day-dream.

I give the girl a nod and wink on my way up the stairs.

In the hallway, the adjacent rooms are open. As I pass, I peak in. One has an old couple, leering at me as if they know what I was planning to do to their granddaughter. Another room has a teenage boy reading from a book. He presses his finger to his lips when he sees me staring and gives me a wink. He likes his cousin, too. He doesn’t say it, but somehow I know he brushes his groin up against her every chance he gets. The next room has a man screwing a woman who looks like me. He resembles the teenager in the next room, but ten years older. The woman is bent over the edge of the bed, bottom lip pinched between her teeth, her pale-brown ass rippling with each hip thrust. He looks over his shoulder at me. Sweat runs down the side of his face and his dark eyes ask me whether I want to be fucked or do the fucking?

Am I in the teenager’s dream or mine?

I can only nod my head and move on.

When I get to the possessed girl’s closed bedroom at the end of the hall, I’m not sure what to expect, but open the door anyway and walk in.

I jump in my skin when the door slams shut behind me.

The room is dark. I give myself a moment to let my eyes adjust to the gloom. When they do, I see a small lump under the covers of the bed. The sound of the girl’s steady breathing reaches my ears.

Without making a sound, I’m at the side of her bed, peering down at her. The girl’s eyes are closed and the slow and steady rise of her chest confirms the kid is fast asleep despite the asshole who shut the door. It makes me wonder if the door had really slammed shut or if I had imagined it.

Something clicks over my left shoulder and I look up into the corner of the ceiling.

Blyrthek is up there in a nest of dreams and lies, bloated and ugly as sin. Clicks and groans come out of its beak-like mouth, and I shake my head. I don’t know demon-speak.

Spindle legs ratchet out from its core black body. It skitters across and down the wall until it hovers over the girl’s bed.

I draw back. A part of me wants to swat the thing away, make it stop feeding off her soul. But I need it to tell me where Niki is.

The demon seems to sense my intentions because it stops, suspending its bristle-covered bloated belly over the girl’s head, as if preparing itself to scurry away like a cockroach caught in the light.

I notice its dull red eyes staring at me and I look away in disgust.

I can hear it enter the girl. It clicks and clacks its way into her ears, nose and mouth. A shaking grips me. It’s all I can do to keep my hands in my pockets instead of smashing the thing against the wall.

After a moment, the girl wakes, her inky eyes threatening to swallow me whole as she sits up in bed. She doesn’t bother to wipe the sleep from her eyes because she’s not really awake, is she? It’s the demon controller her now.

“What do you want,” Blyrthek says.

The girl’s voice is like any other; sweet and innocent.

“You know where Niki is,” I say.

I don’t really know that, but it’s worth a shot. I’ve got nothing else.

“No, but you do,” the demon says.

I arch an eyebrow. Do I?

I think back on everything I know about Merryweather, what McLean dug up on her and Lou Jing, but nothing comes up.

“Maybe we should compare notes?” I say.

The demon makes the girl laugh. It almost sounds right, but there’s an edge of hysteria that raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

“You want me to tell you what I know?” she asks. “That will cost you.”

Of course, everything has a price. But what the hell would a ghost want?

A ghost’s words have the power to put their souls to rest. What if they held that in? Does it grow more powerful with each passing year? What power did Blyrthek hold?

For a moment I wonder why Merryweather told me her story. There was nothing to it. She could have held it in, waited for someone worthy. All she did was tell me to find her son.

My heart skips a beat when I realize I blew it. I ruined Merryweather’s chance to change things. A ghost’s story isn’t just about what it has to say, but who’s doing the listening.

I should have asked different questions; should have focused on Merryweather’s words, her concern. Instead, I asked for her address.

But she had chosen to tell me her story. She could have went with Reyes or McLean, but she chose me.

Would Merryweather’s trust in me cost her son’s life?

“Name your price,” I say, knowing that I’ll regret it.

“Protection,” the demon says in that little girl voice that breaks my heart.

“From who?”

“You,” the demon says. “Who else?”

I don’t know what to say to that.

Something in my head clicks and I swear the room got brighter.

I remember that the girl’s mother had said she was afraid of me. At the time, I thought the mother had meant the girl was afraid of me. Reyes had thought it was Blyrthek.

If Bly the Fly was afraid of me, there had to be a reason.

Moving on instinct, I reach out, plunging my hand into the girl’s chest. The sensation is cloy and warm and so many levels of wrong I almost pull out. But then I feel it – the demon. There’s a slight static shock and it fights me, but I wrestle the monster out of that little girl’s body.

The demon’s body is thick and moist. It bugles between my fingers, trying to get away. Its bristle hairs lining its bulbous belly and long limbs claw at my skin. Its eyes stare at me as it struggles to get away, but it can’t. I know it can’t.

I hold it between my hands, close to my chest and stare at the essence of Blyrthek the demon. Its as big as a small dog, but not nearly as cute.

How does one possess a demon?

I shrug and stuff it into my mouth. It doesn’t go down easy. It claws at my throat and guts. Good thing I’m used to things burning me from the inside out. I just hope I can hold the beast down long enough to find out what I need.

Turning away from the girl, prone on the bed now, I take one step towards the door and collapse. Convulsions rack my body. I bite my tongue, blood fills my mouth, and my head pounds on the hardwood floors. Boils and fissures sprout along my arms and body, and I figure Bly is about to tear me apart to get out.

Instead, I come out.

At least, I think I’m me. But I can’t be because I’m looking down at my empty body. It looks like a deflated blow-up doll wearing dark clothing and a gun.

It’s a good thing I had put on my badge, else I’m sure one of my colleagues would have put a bullet through me if they had seen me dressed like that.

I snort a sarcastic laugh and a clicking noise fills the room.

Hell – is that me?

A quick glance around shows I’m on the wall, at an angle that could only mean I’m in Bly the Fly’s corner nest.

Holy shit! I possessed a demon?

How is that even possible? The massive solar flares thinned the veil between the living and dead, but this?

No. I’m dreaming. This is all a dream. Or a nightmare.

I think back on the man and woman screwing in the other room and I add: Wet-dream.

But this is some seriously fucked up wet-dream. More like a nightmare.

There are more clicks and groans filling the room, and I realize I’m talking out loud through the demon’s voice-box or whatever it is that this creature has.

The girl is prone on the bed, but she’s stirring, as if she really is waking up now.

But it’s a dream, right? I’m not really in her house, am I?

Footsteps pound on the stairs below, sending small tremors through the walls. When they reach the hallway, real or not, I can’t risk them finding my body in its present state. They would probably burn it.

In a flash, I scuttle down the wall, across the floor, and slide under the bed, taking my deflated body with me. It’s mushy and a lot heavier than I figured. I wrap Bly’s hairy legs around it and crouch beneath the bed as someone opens the door.

It’s just as dark in the hallway as it is in the girl’s bedroom. Wasn’t it just brighter than a desert day in there a moment ago?

I can’t explain it, and when whoever comes in sits at the edge of the bed, I wrap Bly around my body in a protective, bristly cocoon.

A woman speaks in low tones to the girl. Shushing sounds meant to sooth. But the girl is crying now, saying something in what I think is Hungarian. Or sometime Slavic, at least.

The bed rocks a bit and I imagine the girl’s mother hugging the poor girl’s nightmares away.

As the girl mutters into her mother’s chest, I feel a pressure building in the pit of Bly’s distended belly. No one had ever hugged my fears away, or the bruises my father gave me. Not for the first time I wondered what my life would have been like had I not killed my mother.

This kid had it easy. All she had to do was put up with having Bly the Fly take over her body every now and then. As far as I could tell, the demon treated her fairly well. The little bitch didn’t know how good she had it.

I tensed Bly’s leg muscles, readying to shake the bed out from under the sniveling kid, when the mother abruptly gets up. She asks the kid something in an un-mother-like tone.

The girl answers, her voice an octave higher than it should have been. She ends in English, saying she’s sorry over and over.

Sorry for what?

The girl’s mother bolts from the room.

Huh, maybe it wasn’t the demon keeping the girl, but the girl keeping the demon?

Shit.

The patter of the little girl’s feet makes Bly’s heart go a thousand beats per minute.

The girl goes to the closet and opens it up. She’s looking for something and it’s only a matter of seconds before she finds us under the bed: Bly with a mushed-up human doll with a gun and badge strapped to it.

What would they do if they found us?

I don’t even know how to get back into my body and I sure as shit didn’t want them to take it from me-in-Bly-the-Fly. I have to get out of here.

With her back to me, I scramble out, dragging my body against the wood floor. Hoisting it over my shoulder, I don’t dare look at the girl in case she feels my gaze – our gaze.

With a deftness one could only muster when one has eight legs, I slide open the bedroom window, tuck my human body in a cage of extra limbs, and vault over the sill.

I allow Bly’s body to take over. On instinct, it scurries up the side of the house until it finds the highest peak. A light wind batters fog around the house and tree tops. Bly extends her ass up into the air and I think it pees into the wind. But I can feel something tugging at its hindquarters and before I know it, we’re airborne.

In a panic, with two free limbs I reach for the wood shingles, springing a few free of their moorings with a squeal. The sound echoes through the night and then I hear a shout.

The whole family is outside, the dim glow from the open front door showing disbelief and anger on their faces. The Hungarian dude waves his fist at me.

I bark a laugh through Bly’s esophagus.

Fucking hell. I stole their demon.

Now what is Tesserak gonna do? Find out on Halloween in the final part of Ghost Stories – Possession.

Filed under: Fiction, Friday Fiction Tagged: fiction, Ghost Stories, ghost story, ghosts, Oakland, Urban Fantasy

Ghost Stories – Possession – Part 5

Need to catch up on Ghost Stories – Possession? Start here.

NOTE: Adult situations and language.

Part 5

I run down Grand until I catch up with a bus heading to the north side of I-980. It’s near empty and I flash my badge instead of paying. The bus driver gives me a look, but says nothing as I ease into a seat. She keeps an eye on me in that big rear view mirror, but she’s speeding through her stops like she’s late for something so I can’t complain.

When I get near my old neighborhood, I disembark and jog the few blocks to my father’s place. There are two unmarked cruisers out front, blocking the driveway. An ambulance is in the middle of the street, its back door open. I glance inside as I walk by and do a double take.

There’s someone strapped to a gurney, but there are no paramedics around.

I jump in.

It couldn’t be Diego – he called me. Jules? He always did what father said. It couldn’t possibly be him.

I snap away a thermal blanket covering the person’s face.

It’s David, the pool boy.

He’s as pale as a ghost. His long, blond locks are dark with moisture and plastered away from his face.

When dry, they curl into beautiful shapes and bounce as he works. Back when I lived at home, I admired how they fell across his muscled neck and shoulders, and would often daydream of having the nerve to kiss him.

There’s a smudge of blood beneath his left ear and bruising around his neck.

Damn. He’d been working for my father for going on six or seven years. We were about the same age, and I always thought my father liked him. At least, better than he liked me.

I leave the ambulance and jog up to the front door. It’s open. Muffled voices come from within. When I get to the kitchen, I find two paramedics and my brothers huddled over my father. He’s on the tile floor, flat on his back, eyes closed.

“What happened?” I say.

I glance out the sliding glass door and notice two men in suits taping off the pool in the back yard. There’s a bright red stain near the lip.

Diego and one of the paramedics jump at my voice. Jules shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything, and the other paramedic stands up.

“Officer Tesserak?” he says.

He must recognize me from my year as a beat cop, but I don’t know him. I’m tempted to correct him. I’m Detective Tesserak now, but that won’t last long, so I don’t.

The paramedic tells me that my father suffered an anxiety attack and passed out. They planned on taking him in for monitoring when another ambulance arrives to transport him.

No one mentions anything about the dead pool boy.

The paramedics bustle out without any more explanation.

“He’s not being arrested?” I ask.

I’m hoping Jules will answer, because Diego will probably lose it.

“Who?” Diego asks at the same time Jules says, “Are you nuts?”

“So dad didn’t kill David?” I ask.

“It was an accident,” Jules says.

But I know my brother. He’s not looking at me and the muscles in his jaw are working up a cramp.

He’s lying.

And Diego is shaking.

I’ll have to get their story later because the suits walk in. I know them. Never worked directly with either of them, wrong beat, but in the past eighteen months, I’ve definitely crossed paths with both of ‘em at headquarters at one point or another. But if I remember right, they handled internal affairs.

They fill me in on what they think happened. A simple accident: David slipped into the pool and hit his head on the concrete edge. My father woke to find him, called an ambulance, and then fainted when he found out he was dead.

They gave some bullshit line that David worked around pools practically all his life, and today was his unlucky day. It’s always the ones who are over-confident, they say, that end up in the worst accidents.

But I know otherwise.

David was like a cat. I’ve seen him do somersaults mid-stride, snapping a towel at me or my brothers while executing a perfect porpoise dive. He was all muscle. If he had slipped, he would have saved himself.

Besides, didn’t they see the body? The bruise on his neck probably didn’t come from slipping and hitting his skull.

And what the hell were they doing here? They handled internal affairs, not house calls.

I’m nodding at their lies, wondering whether I just entered the twilight zone when David’s ghost walks into the room.

The bright sun outside must have obscured the ghost from my view. But how on this blue-green planet I could have missed it I have no idea, because though I can see through it, it’s completely naked and its penis – emitting a dull, throbbing red – is fully aroused.

The ghost is staring down at my father, ethereal tears streaming down its face. It must sense my staring somehow because it turns towards me; eyes bulging, mouth opened in an ‘O’ so wide, I think I might fall in.

I suck in my breath and wait for it to start raising hell.

But David’s ghost doesn’t do anything and no one else notices, of course.

And that’s when father wakes up.

“Get that useless cunt out of here!” he says.

My shoulders scrunch up and I duck my head. Heat rises to my ears. Why do I feel embarrassed when he’s the one being the asshole?

Neither Jules or Diego say anything, but Diego’s dark brown skin takes on a hint of flushed red.

The suits glance at each other, then at me. I don’t know what to say. Before I can think of anything, my father repeats himself, struggling to get up. His voice is getting louder and is slurred as all hell. One side of his face is drooping, like melted wax.

Both Jules and Diego try to calm him down. I move to help, but one of the suits beats me to it. The other grabs my arm and whispers that maybe I should leave.

I glance at the ghost’s penis before forcing my eyes up to its hollow eyes. It’s waving its hands as if to shoo me away, too. There’s concern and anger on its face, as if I’m the one responsible for my father’s condition and should just get the hell out.

Shit. Looks like no one wants me around today. So I leave.

* * *

The blonde chick wasn’t at the bar. I wait until close to midnight; the naked ghost’s penis, my father’s voice, and my new suspension preying on me the entire time.

An image of Merryweather’s body swinging slowly from a rope cuts through my thoughts and I think of her kid. Didn’t I promise to find him? What was his name?

Niki.

Did a promise to a ghost matter?

Even if it did, I doubted Reyes or McLean wanted me on their team. I’m a useless cunt after all, right?

I roll the last dram of amber around the bottom of my glass.

The Asian waitress keeps looking my way and the next time she comes to fill me up, I ask if she’d like to come to my place for the night. She lets me down easy, but my chest gets tight anyway. I give her a strained smile and ask for the bill.

Walking home, I’m tempting to hike the fifteen blocks or so uptown to hit a hetero bar. This time of the night, there’s bound to be a guy desperate enough to go out with a tall, thick woman with biceps larger than their own. But I can’t be bothered.

Walking into my apartment building, a fetid stench assaults me. In the darkened foyer, I see a mass of rags in one corner. For a moment, I consider inviting the bum up to my apartment, but I don’t want to deal with lice or worse.

My lonely bed beckons and before I know it, I’m half undressed and in it, staring up at the ceiling. A bottle of tequila nestled in the crock of my arm. I keep sipping until oblivion takes me.

* * *

Merryweather’s moaning wakes me up.

Something is pounding between my temples and I can barely crack my eyes open. It’s still dark, but light from an outside streetlight filters into my room, piercing my retinas as if someone was shining a 10,000-watt bulb directly in my face.

A glance at my bedside clock tells me I’ve only been asleep for less than an hour.

My gut lurches. The toilet bowl is before me before I know what’s going on, my body reacting out of months of practice. Hot liquid and bile sputter out of me. I turn on the light and cry out.

When my retinas recover, I can just make out a bleary version of myself in the bathroom mirror.

When did I get so fucked up? I think.

My reflection morphs into Merryweather’s forlorn face. She’s all sparkly, as if someone hung tiny white lights at the edges of her phantasmal being.

I know it’s not real. Once a ghost tells her story, that’s it. They go on to where ever it is they go. But I can’t help but feel guilty about her kid.

Her lips are moving, as if she’s saying something. I move closer to the mirror, my breath frosting the surface, and for a second, I think we’ll kiss.

USELESS CUNT!

I jump back, crashing into the bathtub glass doors behind me. They clang together, but manage to hold my heavy frame.

In the mirror is an image of my father. Rage distorts his face. Whether he’s mad at the world or me, I don’t know. But I know what I want to do. Something I should have done the first time he hit a defenseless little girl.

My fist slams into his face.

Shards of glass cut my knuckles and his shattered image falls around me feet.

“I’m not a useless cunt,” I say to his fading image.

My blood drips on the glass and I vow to prove that true.

Dressing in running dark pants and a hoodie, I strap my holster over my black sweater. When I pin my badge to my left shoulder strap, I’m ready to find Niki.

But now that she’s ready, is it too late?

Find out in Part 6, coming up on Friday.

Filed under: Fiction Tagged: fiction, Ghost Stories, ghost story, ghosts, Oakland, Urban Fantasy

Ghost Stories – Possession – Part 4

Just discovering this web series? Check out Part 1 here, Part 2 there, and Part 3 right here.

Part 4

Reyes sends McLean out to the boyfriend’s house, see if he can catch the guy off guard. She sends me home with an assignment. She wants me to read up on a few other unsolved child abduction cases the department has had from the past year. She sends the files to my email, then tells me I need some rest. I’m guessing I look like a turd warmed over. My chest burns a little where the demon touched me and then I remember I had puked all over the playground. Reyes remains in the SPI cave, preparing the reports that will undoubtedly be handed over to the special victims division.

My apartment isn’t too far from the station, next to the BART station on 19th and the Oaksterdam University. Not the best of neighborhoods, but it’s within walking distance of headquarters. Can’t afford a car with all the money my father is forcing me to pay back. He figured since I threw away the military career he had bought me, I should pay him back for it.

When I enter my building, the stench of urine assaults my nostrils and I sneeze. Reminding myself to complain that someone is letting in the homeless, I climb the stairs to the third floor. The wide hall is quiet on a Sunday afternoon; everyone is out enjoying another sunny autumn day.

Taking off my holster, I fall on my couch as soon as I lock the door behind me and close my eyes, trying to forget the two ghosts I’d seen that day. My hand gropes through the trash beneath the coffee table. When my fingers find the cool neck of a half-finished Tequila bottle, my muscles relax and I finish off the amber liquor as fast as I can. It burns the demon’s touch off my chest and I can breathe again.

My phone buzzes in my pant pocket and I remember that Reyes sent me those files. Groaning, I fish it out. The text is a little blurry, but as far as I was concerned, not blurry enough.

It’s my brother, Diego, wondering where I was at.

I was about to text back that I was at home where I intended to get drunk and maybe a little stoned, too, when I remember – it’s my father’s birthday.

“Shit,” I say to my empty apartment.

* * *

I show up late and pound on the door before I fumble with the doorbell. I’d never used it before. This is my home.

Was my home.

Someone decorated the stoop with a plastic Halloween globe, its electric glow spilling on my scuffed dress shoes, reminding me that I hadn’t polished them in days.

Everyone had to have one of those damn things now. Since the solar storm, and all the ghost came out, having a night lantern on your doorstep during this time of year actually meant something.

My oldest brother, Julio, but we call him Jules, opens the door.

“What are you doing here?” Jules says.

The half-smile on my face disappears. “Diego told me–”

Jules’ nostrils flare and his frown deepens. “He shouldn’t have. Dad doesn’t want to see you.”

Diego appears behind Jules.

“You made it!” Diego says, pushing past Jules. He leans out as if to hug me, but father’s training kicks in, and he stands erect, waiting for me to say something.

Damn him for trying to get us all back together. I shove the gift I got for my father towards him.

“Take it,” I say. “Don’t tell him it’s from me.”

“No, come in,” Diego says. “You give it to him.”

“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” I say.

Diego grabs my arm, pulls me in. Jules moves out-of-the-way and the three of us fill the foyer, like wooden dolls packed in a closet.

Father is standing in the waiting room off to one side, a drink in his hand. His nose is beet-red, a sure sign he’s been hitting the bottle, probably since he got up this morning. I’m the apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.

“What are you doing here?” my father says, a sneer dancing on his lips.

I take a deep breath.

“I invited her,” Diego says.

“I only reserved a table for three people,” Jules says. “We’ll have to change it.” He’s already reaching for a cell phone.

“No, I’m not going to dinner,” I say, staring at my father. “I just wanted to say happy birthday,” I add and plaster a smile on my face.

“You’ve said it,” father says. “Now get out.”

I nod, forcing myself not to salute like he taught me since I could walk. Hell, probably before that. I didn’t know how else to move except like a soldier. Extending my present to him, I let it drop and spin on my heels to leave.

“No, wait!” Diego says, intercepting me. “Dad, I mean, she’s our sister–”

“Not anymore,” father says.

“It’s fine, Diego,” I say, wanting nothing else but to get out of there. This had been a mistake. How could I have thought dad had invited me? I should have known it was just Diego.

I grab Diego by his shoulders, the closest thing I would come to a hug.

“I said what I wanted to say,” I tell him. “I better go now. I have a lot of work to do anyway.” I give him an uncertain smile.

Father barks out a laugh.

“Work?” he sputters. “What kind of work will some piece of shit like you do? Huh? Answer me!”

I don’t turn around. My hands are shaking and I’m afraid the rest of me will soon follow. I always bring out the worst in him. Plus, I have no idea what he’s talking about. I hadn’t told him I was working for SPI. Wasn’t it bad enough I was a PES? I couldn’t tell him I was actually using that ability for work. That would make it too public. One thing he had stipulated when he had disowned me – I couldn’t tell a soul. Wouldn’t want to taint the family name, would I?

“What sort of work, eh?” my father continues. “The work of the Devil! You’ll go to hell, you know. Don’t you? You disgusting bitch!”

Father moved while yelling and is within striking distance now. I have to leave or turn around and defend myself.

Now that I wasn’t his daughter, would I defend myself? Or would I just let him beat me like always?

I say over my shoulder, “I work for Oakland PD. Remember? You got me the position.”

Maybe that would give him pause. He wouldn’t want to send his daughter bruised and bloodied to parade his handiwork. Not that anyone would do anything, but it would, at the very least, be unseemly proof of father’s bad behavior.

“You’re a spooooook!” he says, spittle landing on my chin.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Diego hang his head, and I remember I had mentioned I had gotten a “promotion”. But I hadn’t given any details. I didn’t tell Diego that my commanding officer hadn’t known what else to do with me after I came into work drunk one too many times, so he had to move me over to SPI, hoping to bury me since he couldn’t fire me. Diego must have told father I was promoted and father would have checked with the commissioner, who would have told him I worked for SPI now.

I turn to face my father. A vein on his forehead threatens to pop. It never does, no matter how hard he hits. I offer as neutral a face I can muster with my stomach roiling.

“I’m a detective now–”

“A spook detective!”

He spits on the hardwood floor.

“I have partners. Two, in fact. Detectives Sarita Reyes and Keith McLean. They are not spooks. Nor are they disgusting bitches.”

At my last word, his eyes go wide at my small jibe and his fist swings back. Diego steps between us, hands up.

A pent-up breath escapes me, and I cower behind my brother.

I don’t know what I hate more; that Diego has to protect me or that he has the power to protect me. Father would never hit his precious sons.

Before anyone can stop me, I leave. My feet tripping over themselves to get away.

I end up at Club 21 on Franklin and Broadway. It’s the closest bar to my place and it’s as gay as rainbows get. The Go-Go dancers are listless, but for a Sunday night, I’m surprised the place has as many twinks, lesbos, and daddies as they do. Not much, but enough to people watch.

The cockroaches always come out at night, don’t they? Me included.

I find an empty corner booth. A Pacific-Asian waitress with hip-hugging leather pants and a sequined shirt just as tight takes my order and I knock ‘em back as fast as she can saunter across the room. The entire time, my gaze flicks from the TV, showing news snippets of Merryweather’s parents pleading for information about their grandson, and the roll of fat that squeezes out over the lip of my waitress’ pants.

The thought that she should just get comfortable and walk around naked crosses my mind when someone slides into my booth. She’s older – mid-thirties, dirty-blond hair. She’s got on a halter top with a plunging v-neckline but there’s nothing there to show. Her arms are toned, though, and I like her shy smile.

I don’t tell her I’m not a lesbo and we talk a bit. While she flirts with me, I don’t think of my father, the job I just got kicked out of, and the next one I’m surely gonna lose. After a while, she and the alcohol even make me forget about those ghosts.

* * *

Pain behind my eyes wakes me the next morning. I groan and roll to one side, trying to figure out why my skull feels like it’s been used as an anvil. A pressure in my throat forces me a few inches over the edge of the bed and I vomit on the carpet.

With my eyes cracked just enough to keep me from banging into the bathroom door jamb, I get up. A sore groin forces me into a crab walk and I grab a towel. I mop up the mess, swearing to myself that I have to stop mixing my drinks. When I notice the bedside clock blazing a red, digital nine A.M., sweat breaks out on my hands and neck.

I’m an hour late for work.

Then I see a dirty-blond head poking out of my foul-smelling bed sheets. She’s got my dildo tucked under her pillow, one hand possessively laying atop it. Whoever she is, she’s still asleep and I don’t have time for this shit. In less than fifteen minutes, I shower, dress in the cleanest jeans and shirt I could find, and head for the door.

Before going, I leave a note on the frig: I’m not a lesbo. GET OUT.

I slam the door shut loud enough to wake the dead.

The only good thing about being late on a Monday morning is no Monday morning traffic. I run the few blocks down to headquarters. Each stride makes my head feel like it’s about to pop off my head, but even if my head doesn’t want to run, my body does. It feels good to get air deep into my lungs again.

On the way through the officer’s reception room, I grab a jumbo-sized bottle of water from a dispenser and head for the stairs. By the time I get to SPI’s floor, I’ve finished it off and think to check my phone. I pull it out as I rush down the hall.

There’s only one text from Reyes – an address on 7th. A low number, I’m guessing it was some place at the port. It was sent an hour ago. I doubt she’s still there and I expect both she and McLean to be in their office, but the door is locked when I get there. Even the light above the door is out.

Not knowing what else to do, I head back out, texting Reyes that I was on my way. Her response comes immediately, informing me to meet back at the Fairyland Playground.

Shit. That was back uptown. Farther than the port or my apartment. Since I didn’t have a car, and I doubt I would get issued one without Reyes’ approval, and I didn’t want to have to ask, I would have to use AC Transit. I swore when I reached into my pockets for change and came up near empty.

So, I ran.

Next time, I promised myself, I would wear running pants and a hoodie to work.

I get there to find McLean and Reyes squatting over the ground where Merryweather had been hung. I join them, forcing air through my lungs and wishing I had re-filled my water bottle. My head is about to explode.

“Did you run here?” McLean asks.

If I wasn’t hunched over about to puke again, I would have hit him. Instead, I give him a one-finger salute.

“You should have said something,” Reyes said. “I could have picked you up. We’re just about done here.”

“My fault…I’m late…” I try, but I don’t have enough air.

Wasn’t it just a few months ago I could outrun Diego or anyone else in my unit?

“Don’t worry about it,” Reyes says.

McLean rolls his eyes. “I know what you would say if I came in an hour late and hung-over.”

“I’m not hung over,” I say, but we all know that’s a lie.

“Drop it,” Reyes says. Thrusting her chin at McLean, she adds, “Fill her in.”

Looking at him expectantly, I try to exude a calm and competent curiosity. The kind that got me far with my trainers.

“Not much to tell,” he says. “Lou Jing had a boat. A yacht.”

“Think maybe he could have taken the kid?” I ask.

If Jing got away by boat, out into the Pacific, they could be anywhere.

McLean shook his head. “It’s at a boat repair place,” he said. “He might be planning on leaving by boat, but he hasn’t yet.”

I rub my sternum. “That’s good, right?”

McLean shoots me a look as if I’m dumber than shit. To Reyes, he says, “Doesn’t Oakland PD have standards anymore?”

Reyes shakes her head. “Give her break. Blyrthek touched her.”

“What?” he says. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Believe it or not, I don’t tell you everything.”

“Apparently,” McLean says, shifting on his feet. “But I would have thought you’d tell me something like that. Why’d she do it?”

“Touch Tesserak?”

“Isn’t that what we’re talking about?” McLean shoots back.

“I’m right here,” I say.

“What’d you do?” McLean says.

There’s an accusation in his voice, but I can’t figure out why. I hold up my hands.

“I didn’t do anything,” I say at the same time Reyes says, “The girl’s mother said Blyrthek was afraid of Tesserak.”

McLean narrows his eyes at me and lets out a whistle of appreciation. He dips his head a little, and says, “Noted.” Then he’s back to scrutinizing the ground.

“I don’t think that’s what she meant,” I say. “The kid was afraid of me. It, I mean, Bly-, Blythe-, dammit, Bly the Fly never touched you all?”

“If she had,” Reyes says, “we’d probably be dead.”

I rub my chest again, where Bly the Fly touched me while I say, “There was a shock. Sort of like touching a live socket, but it wasn’t too bad. Maybe it was weak?”

Reyes doesn’t say anything. She’s just looking at me like I’m something that needs washing. She’s probably right. Sweat gleamed on my rosy, brown skin.

McLean snorts and says, “Maybe it’s all the alcohol in your system. Numbed you to the pain.”

I clench my fists and heat floods my face and ears. Before I know it, he’s flat on his back. My right hook landing neatly on his chin, thumping him on the playground mulch.

That was pure luck. I won’t have the surprise advantage next time.

Reyes shouts and sprints to McLean’s side. Helping him up a little, she says, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Why did I do that? I take a step back and my phone rings in my pocket. Fishing it out, I see that it’s Diego and I ignore it.

“I’m sorry,” I say to McLean.

He’s sitting up, cupping his chin. I want him to be mad at me, but instead the look he gives me is a mix of trepidation and, I think, fear.

Why is everyone afraid of me?

“Sorry is not going to cut it,” Reyes says. “You’re suspended.”

“No,” McLean says. “I deserved it. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

He gets to his feet with Reyes’ help.

“Apology accepted,” he says to me, hand extended out.

I know it’s a trick, but I take his hand anyway. The moment we touch, I flinch, but all he does is shake my hand. A sly smile spreads on his face and he laughs.

“Apology or not,” Reyes says, “That suspension still applies.”

My phone rings again. I glance down and it’s Diego.

I give Reyes’ an apologetic look and she waves me away. I can see on her face that she’s wondering how she’ll get rid of me permanently.

Stepping away, I take my brother’s call.

“You have to come,” he says.

“Where?” I say. “M.A.I.?”

Only 17, he was still at the Military Academy Institute, on Lusk and 39th.

“No,” he says, panic in his voice. “Dad did something.”

I can hear sirens in the background.

“What?” I say.

“You have to come,” he says. “The police will be here soon.”

Fuck. Father finally beat the shit out of someone who mattered.

“I’m on my way,” I say and hang up.

Reyes and McLean are conferring with each other, their heads close, concern marring Reyes’ normally smooth brow. Her hand is resting on McLean’s shoulder.

I don’t want to interrupt. And I can see they don’t need me. Besides, Reyes was likely to fire me at just about any moment. I might as well give her another reason to. So I leave.

What will Tesserak discover at her father’s place? Check back Wednesday for Part 5.

Filed under: Fiction Tagged: fiction, Ghost Stories, ghost story, ghosts, Oakland, Urban Fantasy

Ghost Stories – Possession – Part 3

Looking for the beginning of this ghost story? Check out Part 1 here and Part 2 there.

Part 3

On our way to the station, McLean and I put in some calls to Jing’s parent’s and closest family members. They claim they haven’t heard from Jing for some time. Overall, they seem forthright and cooperative, but we get nothing useful out of them. All were willing to come in for questioning.

When we get to headquarters on Clay and 14th, Reyes doesn’t get out of the car. She sends McLean to fetch a beat cop and a sedan so he could visit Jing’s parent’s place. If Jing was hiding somewhere in the city, it was most likely there. She also instructs him to file a Child Abduction Emergency (CAE) case so that an Amber alert could be issued.

As soon as he’s out of the car, she heads back out.

“Where to now?” I ask.

“How much do you know about demons?”

I stiffen. What’s this got to do with demons?

I squirm in my seat and finally decide not to say anything. What do I know about demons? Not much more than the average citizen, so just about nothing.

“Listen, Lorena,” she starts.

I almost jump at the name. No one calls me by my first name. It doesn’t fit. The name I chose for myself after my father disowned me does.

“I go by Tesserak,” I say.

She glances my way as she heads towards the I-980.

“Okay, Tesserak,” she starts again. “I know you were tested.”

My back muscles twitch and I find my hand on the door latch. What am I thinking? Jump from a moving car? I breathe in deep and my left calf cramps in response.

“It’s a terrible practice,” Reyes continues. “No one should be forced to endure a demon possession.”

Is that what she thinks the military PES test is?

It’s not. They just put you in a room with a demon. What happens between you and hell’s spawn depends on how much you can take. In less than a minute, if you start complaining about thoughts of murder and mayhem, they figure you’re not a spook and send you on your merry way.

The thinking being that the demon can influence your thoughts and, if given enough time, they would possess you and all hell, literally, would come loose. Only a spook can resist a demon.

But it is not easy.

Eight hours in that room, they found me curled up in the corner of the room gibbering like half my brain had rotted out. The bastards had wanted to see how long I could last.

Now I know I should have lied. I should have pounded on that door and screamed my throat raw to get out.

But I didn’t. Instead, I tried to ignore the demon, letting it wheedle and squirm its way into my head. Sometimes, I think it’s still there.

“This demon won’t try to possess you,” Reyes says. “I won’t let it.”

“I’m not afraid of demons,” I say.

We both know it’s a lie, but it leaves my lips before I can think better of it.

“You should be,” Reyes says. “They are evil creatures that will take everything from you.”

“Then why are we going to go see one?”

“All demons are evil,” Reyes affirms, “But some are more evil than others. And there are a few who will help – for a price. But don’t forget what they are. No matter what good deeds some might do, they’re parasites.”

She goes on to explain that this one, goes by the name of Blyrthek, has helped Reyes out in the past by providing information. Reyes thinks it’s a long shot, but seeing as there’s a missing kid involved, it’s worth a shot to ask the demon.

It’s got an ancient sounding name. I figure it must be European. Slavic maybe? Must have died at least a hundred years ago. As far as I understand, the longer a spirit resides between worlds, the stronger and deadlier they are. I’m not too sure what Reyes is getting me into.

We head east on the freeway and worm our way up to Claremont. It’s the sort of neighborhood my father always wanted to live in. Shit. That’s not going to happen. At least, not for me. It’s the sort of place I might be able to work at as a security guard.

We navigate through the hill homes, dense vegetation on either side of the road. We enter a neighborhood overgrown with Eucalyptus trees. The lots are larger up here with views of San Francisco and the bay bridge. While it is sunny and hot here, I can see thick, gray fog over the Marin Headlands. A shiver runs up my spine and Reyes parks the car in front of an empty lot. Blackberry snarls in clumps along a steep bank.

As we step out of the car, I say, “Let me guess. It lives in a tree.”

Reyes gives me a smirk but doesn’t answer. Instead, she goes back down the road a hundred feet and turns onto a path that leads up a steep hill. It’s not until I’m on it that I see a brick path beneath our feet. We climb up some pockmarked and ivy-covered steps to arrive at a gate. There’s an ornate, patina-green brass bell hanging on one side. Reyes rings it and we wait.

A teenage girl – black hair, pale skin, thick around the middle with knockers that would command attention from half the population – comes out of nowhere. It seems she just sprouted from the base of a tree, but when she opens the gate to let Reyes in, I see there’s another path around it.

Without a word, she leads us to a Victorian house that could use a coat of paint or two. The trees surrounding it dwarf the house, obscuring it from view and it from the view of the bay. The overgrown lot looks big enough to fit a small apartment complex or several high-end homes.

The girl leads us into the front door, the color of ash, and motions for us to wait in the foyer. The great room is to our right. There are a number of men seated around a coffee table. One looks over his shoulder at us and scowls when recognition washes over his face. He’s not happy to see Reyes.

Straight ahead of us is a short hallway that leads to a set of stairs. Beyond them is a dining room. The girl emerges from it with an older woman in tow.

“She’s been expecting you,” the woman says to Reyes.

The woman – older than the teenager, but not quite old enough to be her mother if she hadn’t started early enough – has dark circles under her eyes and a sharp aquiline nose. I’m thinking the family is Hungarian, but I’m not too sure.

“I promise we won’t be long,” Reyes says.

“She’s not invited,” the woman says.

Doesn’t even look at me. I can feel the waves of apprehension coming off her. It’s not hate. More like disgust. And maybe fear?

“Ma’am,” I say, “we’re just here to ask a few questions.”

Reyes shoots me a look that tells me to shut up. I do.

The woman of the house sneers at me and for a moment I think she may have growled.

“Detective Reyes!” a small voice says.

All eyes snap to a girl standing at the top of the stairs, top of her head level with the ceiling. She’s one of the clan – dark hair, pale skin. She’s got on a dress with a pink floral print that almost glows in the house’s interior gloom.

When she looks at me, my stomach drops and I have to clench my groin to keep from peeing on the floor.

Her eyes are blacker than sin.

The smile that breaks on her face shows the kid’s canines, which seem to grow as I watch the smile turn into a face-splitting grin. Hair sprouts on her cheeks, runs down her neck. Her shoulders hunch over and long, thin ears sprout from her head, ending into something like a bat’s.

Reyes touches my arm and the illusion fades. The girl is just a girl, but those eyes remain like two pools of oil.

“She can come up,” the girl says and turns around to climb up the steps.

A shudder passes through me and it takes all my concentration to follow Reyes up the stairs. The older woman comes hard on my heels. I hope she’s aiming to protect me, but I get a feeling she’s worried about whatever is in that kid.

Reyes leads us down a dark, narrow hallway. The walls are bare of pictures or any sort of decorations. There aren’t even any light fixtures. The girl disappears into an open doorway and we file in behind her. The room just fits a bed and us. There’s a window, but dark curtains keep any sunlight out. My hand goes to the butt on my gun. I release its safety, but I leave it holstered. What the hell do I think I’m gonna to do? Shoot the kid?

She’s standing on the bed so those dark orbs are level with mine and it makes my skin crawl.

“Thanks for seeing us,” Reyes starts.

I was hoping she would ask for a light.

A sigh as old as the wind comes out of that kid.

“We all do what is in our nature,” the girl says.

I’m not sure if she’s responding to Reyes’ statement or if that’s just a random piece of wisdom.

“There’s a boy–”

“Name’s Nicholas Merryweather-Jing,” I interject, my voice going up a notch on the last word.

My toes hurt. Looking down, Reyes’ foot is on mine. She presses down and I get it. She wants me to keep my mouth shut, but the kid’s eyes are driving me nuts.

“The boy is weak,” the girl, or Blyrthek says. “I don’t want him.”

“And we’d rather not give him to you,” Reyes says. “Do you know where he is?”

The girl shrugs and tilts her head to one side as if listening to something. Her neck is so smooth and thin, I could snap it with one hand. What would that do to the thing inside her? Would it just find another host?

The older woman moves from our side. She goes to the girl and frets with her dress, smoothing out the straight hem and plucking off imaginary lint.

“You’re taxing her,” she says.

“We just got here,” Reyes say, addressing her statement to the woman. Her voice is tight.

“The big one is scaring her,” the woman says, glancing at me.

I point at myself. Turning to Reyes, I mouth the word, moi.

Reyes motions for me to get out. I drop my shoulders in mock defeat and start to leave, and then stop when the girl says:

“You’ll find the boy when you accept your true nature.”

That face-splitting grin appears on the girl’s face again and for a moment, I can see the demon.

It’s huge. More insect, or maybe arachnid, than human. Eyes as big as saucers sit atop its bulbous head. Thin arms peppered with stiff, black hairs extend out towards me. A desiccated finger reaches for my chest. I want to move back but my feet are like stone. A shock of electricity jolts my body when it touches me.

The creature emits an ear-bleeding scream, shaking the bed and floor. The girl’s body is thrown into the air and flops onto the floor, spasms coursing through her tiny body. Her mother had tried to catch her, but they end up on the floor in a tangled heap.

“Get out!” she says. “Get the hell out of here!”

I look to Reyes.

“I didn’t do anything,” I whisper. “I swear.”

“Ma’am”, Reyes says to the woman, ignoring me. “Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

She already has her cell phone out. I can see the district’s dispatch number on its display. As Reyes moves the phone, it leaves light trails in the thick shadows. I blink and it clears my vision.

“Get the fuck out,” the woman snarls.

Her hands and arms are covered in blood and it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from the girl.

* * *

“Well,” I start, “that didn’t go well.”

We are almost back to headquarters before I even dared say anything. Reyes had slammed the door to her car so hard; it must have busted a sensor. I can see the symbol on the dash indicating the driver’s door was open.

“It was a bad idea to go there,” she says.

I don’t remind her that it was her idea.

“Should we send CPS?” I ask. “I mean, that’s not right, right? What they’re doing to that kid?”

“No,” Reyes says, and rubs her face with one hand while we wait at a light. “No, that’s not right. But the demon has been in that family for a long time. If we send CPS, they’ll find a perfect daughter in a perfect home. It’ll be my word against theirs.”

“You’ve already tried?”

Reyes nods. “I found the demon while we were investigating another child abduction. The victim had been the girl’s playmate.”

“You think that family is kidnapping kids?”

The slave trade was alive and well in the Bay Area. Even our own were guilty of dipping into the kiddie pool. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to deal with that kind of trash.

“No,” Reyes says. “It was just a coincidence, but I got to meet the demon and she helped with the case.”

“You found the kid?”

“We did,” she says. “I’ll let you read up on the case. McLean and I have a theory.”

“About what?”

We pull into Oakland PD’s underground parking lot and she says, “I’ll tell you after you read up on the cases.”

The State Paranormal Investigations office was a few floors down from where we parked the car. The elevators don’t go that far down so we take the stairs all the way past the six underground garage floors until finally we hit bottom. It smells of earth and damp concrete and something else I can’t put a finger on. I meant to ask Reyes if it was healthy but never got around to it.

Someone, probably McLean, has taped a hand-scrawled sign with ‘SPI’ on it and a thin arrow pointing the way down a corridor. A small light above a door was the only sign anyone works down here. When we get there, the door is open. McLean is at his desk next to an empty, water-stained aquarium on a bookshelf.

Reyes’ desk backs McLean’s and she goes to sit behind it. She boots up her computer while asking McLean if he’s found anything.

“Merryweather had a boyfriend,” McLean says, leaning back from his laptop. He glances at me. “What happened to you?”

“What?” I ask.

I pull in the slight beer gut I’ve developed over the past year and pass a hand over it, making sure my shirt is tucked in.

“You look like you seen a ghost,” he says, then slaps the top of his desk, laughing. “That’s a good one, huh?”

Reyes ignores him, concentrating on her computer screen.

I roll my eyes. “We got nothing,” I say. “How about you?”

“AMBER alert has been issued and the kid’s picture has been plastered on the usual channels and social media. I’ve called the extended family and friends. No one’s seen the boy or the father since Friday. I haven’t contacted the school since that won’t be open until tomorrow. Merriweather and Jing seemed to have been the perfect couple, but she had a boyfriend. He’s coming in for questioning.”

“Today?” Reyes asks.

“Tomorrow morning,” McLean answers. “Before his shift at the port.”

“Which terminal does he work at?”

“I don’t know,” McLean says. “Is that important?”

“I don’t know,” Reyes shot back. “We might want to visit, ask his mates some questions.”

“The Howard Terminal isn’t that far from Merryweather’s place,” I say.

“And what’s that got to do with anything,” McLean asks, leaning back in his chair and glaring at me.

I shrug, and Reyes shakes her head. She glances at her phone. “It’s been twenty-four hours.”

Now-a-days, most kids that go missing end up back home alive and well. But those that don’t get back in the first 48 hours generally don’t ever.

Half our time is up.

Thanks for reading thus far through ‘Possession’ of Ghost Stories.

Will the SPI detectives stop bickering long enough to find Niki? Find out in Part 4 – coming soon.

Filed under: Fiction, Friday Fiction Tagged: fiction, Ghost Stories, ghost story, ghosts, Oakland, Urban Fantasy