Akilah is a wealth of story ideas. I wrote about this another time that sometimes it takes a while for one of her story ideas to fully germinate into something I can put on paper. This one… might not have sprouted quite so fully, but it’s fun! So, shake it like a Polaroid picture!

Alan didn’t like being dead. Well, he would have preferred to have just faded out – that’s what he had expected would happen. No fluffy clouds and harps. No damnation and fire. Just fade to black. But that’s not what happened. He didn’t know why, didn’t know who to file a complaint with, didn’t know how long this would last.

He did know he could control the weather. Well, to an extent…

In the darkness he felt his way around the village by feel. Sure, he could walk right through them, but this was habit. He peered into the darkness and there it was, a light came on in the distance – far, but bright and flickering. He thought he could make out images…

Alan preferred his village stay dark.

He raised his hands and sent energy coursing out of him. Snow erupted around him, blocking out the light. No, not blocking it out. Refracting it off the little crystals so that his village sparkled.

..

“Look! It’s doing it again?”

“Honey, what?”

“LOOK! At the snow globe you brought back from Lausanne, Switzerland!”

“Huh,” she said. “You didn’t shake it up?”

“No. And you didn’t either…”

“No, I didn’t,” she said watching the little drifting fake snowflakes in the little globe gently float down through the liquid trapped inside the tiny dome and around the small gingerbread-like Alpine village. “What do you think it is?”

“Heh, maybe it’s haunted!”

“A haunted snow globe? That sounds like pure hell,” she said.

..

Alan sat on the roof of one of the buildings and watched as the last bit of snow settle on the white covered ground and let out a contented sigh. He didn’t like being dead, but this beat fading to black.

Yeah, I’m back-dating this one. This concludes the story started with “Bloody Mary.” I’m not sure you need to have read that one to get this one, but you probably should read the story before this one, “Old Friend, New Places“. Well, this might conclude the storyline… Or we might meet Alora again… Who knows?!

Effie and Alora set out the next day in their Honda Fit. “Okay, this is weird with you in the rear-view mirror,” Effie said.

“This whole thing is weird,” Tracy agreed from the mirror.

They started in front of Madison’s house. “So, this is what the place looks like on the outside! Sure as shit better than that shack of a place Trenton lived in…” 

“Sometimes gentrification has its benefits,” Effie looked around at the nearly identical two-story houses.

“Whole bunch of Stepford Wives here,” Alora said.

“How do you even know about Stepford wives?” 

“I watched it with you!”

“Oh… yeah…”

“Wait,” Tracy said, “Original or the one with Nicole Kidman?”

“Original,” Alora said.

“You’re a good mom,” Tracy approved. “Let me get my bearings here… everything looked so different…” in the mirror she turned around as if looking out the windshield. “Okay, yeah, let’s head out towards 99.” 

“North or south?” 

“South.”

They drove in silence until the perfectly manicured HOA’d suburbs gave way to low-slug houses with overgrown yards and then finally the houses disappeared completely as grazing land swapped with geometrically lined fields of lettuce, and fruit trees. After half an hour Tracy broke the silence saying, “Here! This exit! Then go left!”

Effie took the off ramp and then back over the freeway. They followed the road as it meandered into forestland, the trees rising up around them as the road followed the serpentine of a small river.  “Here,” Tracy said in a serious and low tone. “That dirt road on the right.”

“Yikes,” Effie said turning down the rutted road. They didn’t make it more than a few hundred meters before the Fit groaned as the ridge of a deep rut scraped along the underside of the sedan. Effie slowly backed up and surveyed the road ahead of them which only looked worse. “I think we’re going to have to hike it from here,” she said. “How far is it, Tracy?”

“Not too far,” Tracy said standing outside the drivers side door.

“Holy crap!” Effie started. “Tracy… you’re… not in a mirror!”

Tracy gave them a wan smile, “No, there’s a lot of energy here. I can manifest on my own here.”

“I like you better in 3D,” Alora said.

“Thanks, Al. This way,” Tracy started deeper into the trees.

Effie could hear the creek getting closer. Suddenly there was a rustling and Alora grabbed her mom’s hand as they both froze as a voice came angrily from the bushes ahead of them. 

“I swear to god, if that’s that damn racoon again I’m going to slap it so hard it’s going to have an ectoplasm tattoo!”

Tracy giggled. “Tina! It’s me!”

“Tracy? Hey! I thought you were haunting Jerkface’s house.”

“I was. Well, it turns out his house was torn down. I was haunting the house that’s there now. It’s a long story, but I got in touch with friends,” she gestured to Effie and Alora. 

“Hi,” Effie started nervously, “I’m Effie and this is my daughter Alora.” 

“You can call me Al,” Alora told her. 

“Really?” Effie asked her daughter.

“I’m… trying it on.” 

“Looks good on you, kid,” Tracy winked.

“Hi,” Tina said gaping. “Sorry, I’m just… I can’t believe you got two living people out here, Tracy.” She blinked back tears. “We’ve been guarding you for so long.”

“Guarding?” Alora asked.

Tina sniffled and nodded. “We’ve been taking turns.”

“We who?” Effie asked.

“You remember how you said the FBI were asking about Trenton?” Tracy asked. “He’s a serial killer. I was the first, but he killed eight more women after me.” 

“I was the third,” Tina said.

Effie stared trying to figure out what to say. Finally, “I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Tina said. “It was a long time ago. My sister and I still get to hang out.” 

“Was she killed too?” 

“No, thankfully. She can see ghosts.” 

“Convenient!” Alora said.

“Right?!”

“Take turns?” Effie brought the conversation back around.

“The other women. We call ourselves the ‘A-Force’,” Tracy said.

“Well, some of us call ourselves the ‘A-Force,’” Tina corrected.

“What’s the A-Force?” Effie asked.

“It’s the female version of Marvel’s Avengers, mom,” Alora said.

“Yeah,” Tracy said. “You need to meet Samantha. She’s a big comic book nerd. She suggested the name.”

“Do we really need a name?” Tina asked. “I just see us as… family.”

“Yeah…” Tracy said. “That too,” she smiled.

“Our found family,” Tina smiled at Tracy, “take turns watching over Tracy’s body.”

“Watching over?” 

“Yeah,” Tracy knelt down to a slight bulge in the dirt. “Trenton buried my body here. Pretty shallow, too – a couple feet is all. I don’t know if he wanted animals to get to me or what, but that’s what would have happened. I kept them away for the first few months. Until I got… company…”

Tina knelt next to Tracy and rubbed her back supportively. “Trenton got more methodical starting with Sarah. He didn’t bother burying the bodies. He actually staged us to be found. He’d pose us in the hotel rooms he tortured us in with an unlit cigarette in our mouth.” 

“What a sick motherf…” 

“Alora!”

“Am I wrong?” Her mom shook her head sadly. “Wait, this Trenton guy is the cigarette slayer?”

Tina sighed. “I hate that name, but yeah.”

“Why do you hate it?”

“Because it reduces him to a caricature,” Tina said. “It gives him one of the things he wants – infamy.”

“What should we call him?” 

“Nothing. Talk about us who are gone,” Tracy said.

Everyone stood silent. 

“Better yet,” Tina said, “Let’s nail this bastard!”

“How?” Effie asked.

“Get the cops.” She pointed to the dirt. “We’ve been protecting Tracy’s body because it’s the key.”

“I don’t understand…”

“She was the first…”

“I prefer ‘prototype,’” Tracy smiled.

 “Heh, sure, Tracy,” Tina laughed. “After he killed Sarah, she haunted him. I met Sarah after I was killed and we all kind of… bonded. Trenton came out here once when he was in town…”

“Creepy,” Alora said.

“Girl, you don’t know the half of it. Anyway, that’s when we met Tracy and we figured out this killing is different. She’s got a cigarette in her mouth, too – inside the garbage bag under here – but where ours were unlit cigarettes, this is one he smoked and put in her mouth still lit.”

“It’s got his DNA on it!” Alora said.

“Girl’s good,” Tina said to Tracy.

“We’re so going to Small Town Murder when they come around, Mom!”

Effie smiled at her daughter, then to Tina, “But she’s been here, what, fifteen years?”

“Fifteen years, three months, two weeks, five days, and seven hours,” Tracy said. “But, you know, who’s counting?” 

“I don’t mean to be macabre,” Effie started.

“You’re in a forest talking to two ghosts standing over a shallow grave and now you’re worried about macabre?” Tracy asked.

“Okay, you’re right. But… is there anything left but bones down there?” she gestured to the ground.

“That’s why we take turns,” Tina pointed to Effie. “We’re keeping the critters away.”

“Like the racoon you were going to slap?” Alora asked.

“Like all the critters. This ground is deader than Tracy.” 

“Hey!” 

“Well, it’s true.”

“Holy crap,” Effie said in understanding. She reached for her phone, “No signal.” She looked back towards the car. “We’re going to go drive until we get signal and get the cops out here. Alora, let’s go.”

“Mom,” Alora said, “I want to stay here with Tina and Tracy.

“I’m not going to leave you in a creepy forest, Alora.” She looked up at Tina, “No offense.” 

“Look,” Tracy said, I’ll go with you. Al can chill with Tina. Tina will kick the ass of anything that could  hurt Al.” 

“I am a ferocious babysitter,” Tina said with a gleam in her eyes.

“Okay, I guess.” Effie said reluctantly. “I’ll be back shortly.” 

As Effie and Tracy walked back to the car, Alora started, “So you still get to see your sister?”

“Yeah, she married this cop. You could say I set them up…” 

The headlights of the Fit shone into the darkening forest. “They’re back, Al,” Tina said sitting cross legged on the ground with Alora.

“And she’s got company,” Alora said pointing to the four police vehicles with their strobing blue and red lights casting weird shadows through the trees. She looked to her right and Tina was gone. “Tina?” 

“I’m here, Al. Just, you know, not visible.” 

Alora stood and hugged her mom when she showed up. To the lead officer with the Maglite behind her she said, “She’s here,” pointing to the ground. 

“So you’re daughter’s a psychic?” the tall officer said suspiciously.

“She is,” Effie said winking at Alora. 

“Not the strangest thing,” he said. “Dave?” he motioned to an officer behind him carrying a shovel. 

“Not too deep. Be careful,” Alora instructed. 

It didn’t take long. Alora and Effie were immediately led away and back to the station as the lead officer called the FBI.

“They arrested him,” Effie said to Alora at dinner. A month had passed, but Effie felt like it had been a year. Repeated police interrogations and depositions for both her and Alora. Alora as the “psychic” was grilled ceaselessly about how she knew what she knew. She had perfected her flat stare and perfect delivery of “I commune with the dead” with the perfect amount of gravitas. Effie told her repeatedly how proud she was at how Alora weathered it all. 

“I saw,” Alora said over a bite of orange chicken. “Rat bastard. What took them so long?”

“It took some time to get the DNA from that cigarette and ID him. And he’s a long-haul trucker. I think it just took them that long to just catch up with him.”

“I heard the medical examiner couldn’t believe how well Tina’s body was preserved.”

“Like medical-mystery couldn’t believe,” Effie said.

“What can I say,” Tracy said. “I aged well.”

“Well, you had some help from your family,” Alora said to the ghost sitting between her and her mom.

“A-Force,” Tracy smiled.

“Fair.”

“Is there any fear that Trenton is going to, you know…” Effie canted her head to the side and stuck out her tongue. 

“Pull an Epstein?” Alora finished.

“Let’s just say we’re taking turns watching him now,” Tracy said. 

“I’m glad you got to stick around, Tracy,” Alora said.

“Well, who’s going to help you with your whole communing with the dead thing?”

Alora blushed, “Yeah, well… it was a fun line to say.”

“Oh, no, I’m actually serious,” Tracy said. “Hanging around with Tina and me? If you start seeing people who aren’t really there… it’s a thing….”

I intended to finish the story tonight, but it got away from me. You don’t necessarily need to have read last night’s story in order to understand this one.

“Mom, promise you won’t be mad,” Alora said leading her mom down the hallway.

“Honey, I can’t promise that until I see what it is,” Effie said nervously.

“Okay, but just promise.”

“Alora, what’s going on?”

They reached the bathroom and Alora stood in front of the closed door. “Okay, just prepare yourself, mom…”

“Alora, did you flush those ‘flushable wipes’ again? I told you they’re not really flushable and the septic system will choke on those like a –

“Mom!” Alora interrupted. “Focus, okay?”

Effie took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, honey,” she said calmly, “What is it?”

Alora opened the door to the dark bathroom and stepped inside.

Effie peered around the bathroom. No puddling water on the floor. Sink looks empty… Did Alora actually pick up?

“Hi Effie,” came the voice from the mirror.

The voice cut through Effie to a part of her soul she’d buried so long ago. “Tracy?” She said turning towards the mirror. Seeing her face glowing in the mirror, Effie said, “Holy shit.”

“Heh, Al, I told you she’d swear! You owe me ten bucks!”

“You were right,” Alora told her.

“Wait,” Effie said suddenly overwhelmed with questions. “Tracy? You’re dead. Alora? How do you know Tracy? Or… Tracy’s ghost? Tracy, why are you in my bathroom mirror? Alora, why are you betting with ghosts. No… why are you betting at all? Jesus Christ…” she put her hand to the bridge of her nose.

Neither ghost nor girl said anything.

When she took her hand away from her face Alora could see tears streaming down her mom’s face. “Goddamnit, Tracy! What happened to you? I searched for you for years!”

“I know, Eff, I know you did. I couldn’t reach out.”

“How are you in my mirror?!” She turned to Alora, “Alora, why is my dead friend in the bathroom mirror?!”

“Mom,” Alora said patiently, “Just calm down…”

“Al’s right, Eff, just chill, okay?”

“You don’t get to disappear, show up fifteen years later in my fucking bathroom mirror and tell me to chill!” Effie pointed at the glowing figure in the mirror.

“Language, mom!” Alora reprimanded.

“And you,” Effie turned to Alora in full, raging Mom mode, “Please explain to me how you came to meet a ghost and how that ghost ended up in our bathroom!”

Alora stood rooted to the floor, searching for where to start. The silence was interrupted by a stifled laugh.

“What is so funny?” Effie turned back to the ghost in the mirror.

“Your mom voice,” she said, smiling. “It sounds funny, but I knew you’d make a good mom.”

Effie tried to take deep breaths to calm herself.

“Last night at Madison’s house we played ‘Bloody Mary’ up in their attic bathroom,” Alora explained. “Tracy showed up as this bloody skull. You should have seen Emma scream!” she laughed.

“Alora, that’s not nice…” her mom chided. Then under her breath, “I hope she wet herself.”

“Mom!”

Tracy laughed at the comment. “Eff, you should have seen your daughter. Those other girls scattered! Al here? Cool as a cucumber. She startled me, truth be told!”

“Nice, Alora! Wait, Tracy, what were you doing haunting the Rutherford’s place?”

“That place wasn’t there when I was killed.”

Effie thought to herself, “that’s true… that whole neighborhood is only about ten years old… Wait, you were killed?”

“Well, I’m not haunting your mirror because it’s more convenient!”

“Right, okay, but… How did you get here again?”

“I invited her,” Alora said.

“Oh,” her mom said nonchalantly, “You invited a ghost back to the house. Of course. Did you happen to invite any demons? Grim Reaper? Banshees? Should I check for a poltergeist in the garden?”

“Really, mom?”

“Seriously, Eff, why would a poltergeist be in the garden? What’s it going to do throw carrots at you?”

“It makes about as much goddamn sense as my dead friend showing up in my bathroom mirror, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, okay, you’ve got a point,” Tracy nodded.

“Tracy,” Effie turned to the mirror, “What happened to you?”

“I was killed.”

“Killed?”

“Yeah. That fucking weasel Trenton.”

“Trenton Gabriel?”

“Yeah.”

“He was investigated for a number of killings around the country…”

“Guess who killing numero uno was? Three guesses!”

“Wait, seriously? What happened?”

“Eff… it’s kinda heavy. Do you want to get into it with Al here?”

“It’s cool,” Al assured her, “I listen to a ton of true crime podcasts.”

“You do?” Tracy asked.

“You do?” Effie asked. Then amended, “Of course you do…”

“You did promise we could go see the ‘Small Town Murder’ guys when they start touring again, mom.”

“I thought they were a band.”

“Pretty good name for a band,” Tracy nodded.

Alora rolled her eyes.

“You know I wasn’t doing too well those last years,” Tracy started.

“I thought you were getting better. You were sober for… well, some of the time…”

Tracy gave her a sad smile. “I love you for that,” she said her eyes glassing over. She sniffled and started again, “I was really Jonesing that night. I went to the Pig Pen – that bar out on 99. Is that still there?”

Effie shook her head, “grease fire, I heard. Never reopened.”

“Shit place anyway. I was working this guy I knew was holding. He wasn’t giving up, though. I went to the bathroom and when I came out Trent stopped me and said he could help me out. He was a weird dude in high school and hadn’t improved any.”

“I never gave him a thought after we graduated until the FBI came around a couple years ago.”

“I wouldn’t have gone with him but, Eff…” Tracy’s eyes tracked to the floor. “I was in a bad way. Shit, Eff… I’m so sorry…”

“Tracy, it’s okay. What happened?”

“He said it was back at his house. I followed him outside into the parking lot and… he hit me. I was out. Next thing I know I’m tied up in what I assume was his house. He was going on about how he loved me in high school. He’d been keeping an eye on me since I came back after dropping out of college. How I wasn’t… what’d he say? I wasn’t pure. But…” she trailed off. “…He could save me.”

“Save you?” Effie said.

“She’s so getting killed here,” Alora said.

“Alora!”

“Sorry!” she held up her hands. “The killers always say something crazy like that before…”

“Yeah,” Tracy interrupted. She swallowed hard. “It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t pretty. I… I left my body before he was done. Hovered above. I could see myself screaming, but I wasn’t there anymore…”

“Shit, Tracy,” Effie said softly.

“File under: things you didn’t know human beings could do to other human beings,” Tracy said quietly.

Effie shook her head. Alora sat on the closed toilet.

“Tracy,” Effie started, “Do you know what happened to your body?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Can you take us there?”

“No, Eff, I can’t… I don’t want you to see…”

“Tracy, you’re my friend,” her voice broke and she let the tears fall uninterrupted. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you!”

“Oh Eff, no one could. You really tried….”

“But I didn’t succeed. Let me help you by getting your body proper rest. I promised your mom before she died I wouldn’t stop looking for you.”

Tracy was quiet for long moments. “Okay,” she said softly.