The Ghost Files

Chapter Four

I nearly break my neck trying to dodge my desk chair as I fumble for the lamp switch. Bright light blinds me while I search the room with my eyes. I knew this was going to happen. Talk to one ghost and the whole lot of them come out. So not fair.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm creeping myself out for no reason. It takes me a second to remember what I was doing. The laptop. That's what I was going to do. I need to contact the police and I'll do it via Google Talk. Thank you, Google.

Shaking my head, I turn around and come face-to-face with the little girl I'd seen in the bathroom earlier tonight. She's sitting on my bed!  ON MY FREAKIN' BED!

Come on! This is my room for cripes' sake. Can't they stay in the bathroom or somewhere that's not my room?

"Can you help me, please?" Her puppy-dog eyes plead with me. Why am I sucker for puppy-dog eyes? She looks so normal compared to the little boy. At least she wasn't mangled, just shot.

They all have a bullet wound in almost the exact same place. I know, I know. That doesn't signify a lead, but it's all I have to go on. Detective Stabler wouldn't dismiss it and neither will I.

"Look, kid, I don't know if I can help or not."

"I just want my Mommy," she says. "She told me to stay by the swings and I didn't. I wanted to see the balloons."

"The balloons?"

"They were floating," she whispers. "Red balloons just floating in the wind. They were pretty and I wanted one. I asked Mommy to buy me a balloon and she wouldn't. I just wanted a balloon."

"Did you get a balloon?" I ask her, afraid of the answer. Hmm...lured away from her mom with balloons? The kid was at least nine or ten – old enough to know better than to go off by herself. I knew that even before entering the foster care system at five years old! Really, how stupid can you be?

"I don't remember," she shakes her head. "I woke up and it was cold and dark and...and..."

"And what?"

"I don't know!" she wails. Tears, real tears, make wet tracks down her face. "It hurt and then I was in the dark place. Please, please, just find my mommy! I want to go home."

The pain and confusion in her voice twists my stomach. I know how that feels. No, no, can't go there. Just push those feelings aside. I need her help. "Do you remember my friend Sally? She came into the bathroom when I left."

Her eyes go wide and she nods.

"Did you see where she went?"

The room takes an even worse temperature dive and I start to shiver. The kid is shrinking in on herself. She's drawing away from me, fading I guess you could say. She looks terrified.

"She's in the dark with us."

That much I already know, but I need to know the location. "Where is the dark place?"

"Can't tell," she shakes her head. "Can't ever tell."

"What's your name?" I change tactics, not wanting a repeat of what happened with the little boy. I don't want her running away from me just yet.

"Emma."

"That's a pretty name, Emma." I smile at her. "You want me to find your mommy and bring her to you?"

She nods, her face brightening.

"I can't do that if I don't know where you are. I need to know where the dark place is so I can show her where you are."

An ugly rattle floods the room and the little girl jumps off the bed, terrified. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no..."

The lights flicker and the temperature plummets past freezing. Oh, this can't be at all good. The rattle seems to be everywhere, coming from nowhere, but surrounding us in its awful gurgles. Emma is crying and I almost feel like doing the same thing. I haven't been scared since that awful day with my mom. I hate the feeling and as usual, when I get scared, I get mad.

"Emma, what is that?" I demand.

"I won't tell," she whispers. "I promise I won't tell."

Something's not right. The kid's not talking to me. That much I know because she's not even looking my direction. She's looking in the mirror. My eyes focus on the mirror and I fall backwards trying to get away from the image there. Bloody, broken bits of flesh make up what I think is a face, but it's hard to tell. It looks like someone carved it up with a cleaver. I don't even know if it's a boy or a girl staring at me and I'm not sure I want to know, either. The bullet hole in its head is there, but it blends in with the sticky black and red of the shredded face. Whatever got Emma got this... person, too.  But why is it stopping her from telling me where they are?

"Look here buster," I fume, working hard to sound confident and angry. "I'm trying to help. I can't do that if I can't find you!"

I blink and that bloody mess of ragged flesh is now standing in front of me, breathing heavily. I can smell its hot, putrid breath in my nostrils. For the first time in ten years, I know true terror. If it touches me, all bets are off. I'll scream like a girl and run.

"No."

The sound of its voice is painful; the screech is soft, but intense. Cold grips me and I want to run, but can't. This broken mess of flesh, one eye missing, and the other bloodshot-blue, now towers over me. I feel so much anger rolling off it:  anger at me, anger at whoever hurt it, and anger towards everything in general. Oh, crap. If a ghost could actually hurt a person, it would be this one. Not that I begrudge it the anger part, I just don't want it this up close and personal with me.

"Back off, ghostie," I snarl and hope anger masks my fear.

"You first."

Pain explodes in my head and my hands automatically cover my ears. As I fall to my knees, the screeching intensifies with the cold burning all the way to the bone. Make it stop! The screech is even louder, like a power saw cutting through a wall of nails, each one twisting and screaming as they die. It's what I'd imagine a banshee to sound like. I can't see and can't breathe past the pain grinding away at my ears. Only then did I hear myself screaming.

Somehow I feel the vibrations of feet thudding on the floor, but that's it.  Shapes blur as I try to blink away the tears.  It hurts so much! I just want it to stop.  Please, please make the pain stop.  Hands shake me, but I can't talk.

The mutilated mess of flesh swims up in front of my face and it's the only thing I can see clearly.  Its death rattle is the last thing I hear before a white-hot pain rockets through my head and I fall into a dark pit, screaming as I go.