Kendare Blake

“You know what you are, don’t you?” she asks. “You’re my salvation. My way to atone. To pay for everything I’ve done."“Anna,” I say. “Don’t ask me to do this.”

“Land of the Dead? Is that what you dream about?” she asks. “Boy who kills ghosts for a living?” “No. I dream about penguins doing bridge construction. Don’t ask why.”

“I come in all big and bad, and you use me for a game of handball.” I grin. “Makes a guy feel damn manly. She grins back. “It made me feel pretty manly.”

“I knew they were cruel. Maybe I felt … sorry for him.” I snort. “Sorry for me? I could’ve handled those guys.” “They smashed the back of your head in with a board from my house.”

“Bad girls are as useless as they are stupid…”

“Carmel’s a very pretty girl,” she says hopefully. “Thomas seems to think so.” She sighs, then smiles. “Good. He could use a woman’s touch.” “Mom,” I groan. “Gross.” “Not that kind of touch,” she laughs.”

“I’m dead. I can’t be all right any more than I can be not all right.”

“I get to be Peter Venkman,” says Thomas. “Nobody gets to be anybody,” I snap. “We are not ghostbusters. I’ve got the knife, and I kill the ghosts, and I can’t be tripping over you the whole time. Besides, it’s obvious that I would be Peter Venkman.” I look sharply at Thomas. “You would be Egon.”

“I sigh. “So now what? Can I possibly tell you to go home and forget about this? Is there any way that I can avoid us forming some peppy group of—” Before my mouth can finish, I lean forward and groan into my hands. Carmel gets it first, and laughs. “A peppy group of ghostbusters?” she asks.”

“When he realizes that Carmel’s standing behind me, he quickly checks his face for drool and tries to smooth his hair down. Unsuccessfully.”

“He says you kill ghosts for a living. Like you’re a ghostbuster or something.” “I’m not a ghostbuster.”

“Why are you here? Did you come to try to kill me again?” “Oddly enough, no. I—I had a bad dream. I needed to talk to someone.”

“You do know what we’re dealing with here, don’t you?” I ask. “She’s not just a ghost. She’s a hurricane. Overkill is fine by me.”

“She’s no ordinary ghost, that seems certain,” he says. “I know. Something’s made her stronger.” “The way she died?” he asks. “I’m not sure. From what I’ve heard, she was just murdered like so many others. Throat slit. But now she’s haunting her old house, killing whoever steps inside, like some goddamn spider.”

“Just let me kill you,” I mutter in frustration.”

“Sweetheart, my father and I have put more ghosts in the ground than you can count.”

“What is the truth?” Carmel asks. “What happened in that house? Am I really supposed to believe that Mike was murdered by a ghost?”

“You guys didn’t try to do anything to me,” I say honestly. “You brought me to a house because you wanted to freak me out. You didn’t know that your friend would wind up getting torn in half and disemboweled.”

“He really is alive.” “No thanks to you dicks.”

“I hit him with a board; of course he’s got a concussion. Don’t be an idiot.”

“… you’ll need some help getting acquainted. I’m Carmel Jones.” “Theseus Cassio Lowood. What kind of a parent names their kid Carmel?” She laughs. “What kind of a parent names their kid Theseus Cassio?” “Hippies,” I reply. “Exactly.”

“Would you rather be a Trojan or a tiger?”… “Now what’s this about condoms or tigers?”

“I’m not a superhero,” I say. It’s an awful tag. It’s egotistical, and it doesn’t fit. I don’t parade around in spandex.”

“Will Carmel eventually forget about this adventurous time with us? Will she shun Thomas and go back to being the center of SWC? She wouldn’t do that, would she? I mean, she did just compare me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My opinion of her isn’t the highest right now.”

“But somewhere out there is the one that matters. Somewhere out there is the one that I came for, one who is strong enough to squeeze the breath out of living throats.I think of her again. Anna. Anna Dressed in Blood.”

“It's like I'm trapped in one of those omniscient dreams where you just watch yourself do stupid shit, yelling at yourself about how stupid it is, and your dream-self just keeps doing what it's doing anyway.”

“Cross the threshold, beauty girl," he says."You cross mine," she says back.”

“Anna, my strong, terrifying Anna.”

“By the time I had gotten off the phone, I knew that I was going after Anna. My gut told me that she wasn't just a story. And besides, I wanted to see her, dressed in blood.”

“I think of her again. Anna. Anna Dressed in Blood. I wonder what tricks she'll try. I wonder if she'll be clever. Will she float? Will she laugh or scream?How will she try to kill me?”

“If people knew what I was up to, they'd probably try to stop me. The idiots would take Casper's side, and then I'd have to kill Casper and them after Casper bit their throats out. I'm no superhero.”

“You’re … what was it Carmel said earlier?” She looks down, then back at me. “An ass.”

“I should've known Gideon would spill. He's like a surrogate parent. Not like a stepfather, exactly - more like a godfather, or a sea horse who wants to stuff me into his pouch.”

“Anna's eyes soften, and the stubborn tears begin to recede. The way she stands, the way she breathes, I know she wants to come closer. New knowledge fills up the air between us and neither of us wants to breathe it in.”

“Over the course of my life I've been to lots of places. Shadowed places where things have gone wrong. Sinister places where things still are. I always hate the sunlit towns, full of newly built developments with double-car garages in shades of pale eggshell, surrounded by green lawns and dotted with laughing children. Those towns aren't any less haunted than the others. They're just better liars.”

“I jerk my head toward Thomas and immediately curse myself for trying to be a smartass. My head is not healthy enough for smartassery.”

“You wouldn't think that people would believe that we all got so incredibly beat up—in so many interesting ways—from a bear attack. Especially not when Carmel is sporting a bite mark that is a spot-on match for wounds found at one of the most horrifying crime scenes in recent history. But I never fail to be surprised by what people will believe.”

“If this is mytstical, what the heck is Advil going to do about it?”

“The rhythm of the footsteps, the sound of whatever is coming down the ladder is driving both me and my mom steadily toward peeing our pants.”

“Fucking nightmares.My heart starts to slow down. Glancing down at the floor, I see Tybalt, who is glaring at me with a puffed-up tail. I wonder if he had been sleeping on my chest and I catapulted him off when I woke up. I don't remember, but I wish that I did, because it would've been hilarious.”

“God, living people are irritating.”

“She doesn't like to talk about him, and I know that she hasn't been the same since he died. She's not quite here anymore; there's something missing in all of her smiles, like a blurry spot or a camera lens out of focus. Part of her followed him, wherever it was he went.”

“The state of shock is losing itscharm. I want my brain back. Can’t it just shake itself off likea dog already and get back to work?”

“I’ve seen most of whatthere is to be afraid of in this world, and to tell you the truth,the worst of them are the ones that make you afraid in thelight. The things that your eyes see plainly and can’t forgetare worse than huddled black figures left to the imagination.Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goesblurry. Eyes remember for much longer.”

“And it's beyond my energy to explain why I don't think that four-letter word that everyone's so obsessed over and that gets everyone into so much trouble and pretty much makes everyone behave like an ass can live in a place like this. Somewhere during dry cleaning, details, and missed meals, it flakes away and what you're left with is married people with a tolerable affinity for each other. That little four-letter word can exist only in poetry, or movies of 2 to 3 hours in length. Maybe in a mini-series.This place of dull details and irksome obligations is a home only to other four-letter words, which are used much more frequently.”