"Where are you, you fuckin' rat bastard?" he shouted, scanning the parking lot with his furious gaze. He cocked the shotgun, the cha-chick noise it made sounding like certain death. "I'm gonna blow your fuckin' head off!"
I looked at Joe—he was motioning with his hand and mouthing the words, "Stay down."
Like he needed to tell me that.
"Don't worry about the shotgun," Michelle said calmly. "That thing is old, and he didn't take care of it. His first shot will blow it to pieces—I dropped an extra shell down the barrel."
I was dying to know how she'd managed that when she hadn't even been able to take a piece of toilet paper from my hand earlier in the day, but now was hardly the time to ask.
"Anger gives me strength," she said, as though reading my mind. "I didn't know it earlier. I went to his room while you were getting ready, and when I saw him passed out on the bed where he—" she paused, obviously reluctant to finish that particular sentence. "I wanted to kill him." She looked at her hands. "I couldn't pick up the gun, but I saw the loose shotgun shells laying there on the table. I had to concentrate really hard, but I managed to pick one up and drop it down the barrel." She looked at me, and her face was hard. "My granddaddy taught me about guns. That one is a rusty piece of crap."
All I could do was stare at her, dumbfounded. And hugely relieved.
"I couldn't let him hurt you," she said.
"Come on out, you motherfucker! I know you're here!" Randy pointed the shotgun toward the sky and fired. There was a deafening explosion, then Randy screamed and fell backward, clawing at his face. The shotgun fell to the ground. The stream of obscenities that poured from his lips would've made the devil himself blush.
I couldn't help but smile with grim satisfaction, and when I looked at Joe, he was doing the same.
Randy's foul language slowed down some, and I watched as he tentatively lowered his hands, staring at the blood on them, then touching the skin of his cheek gingerly.
"Shrapnel from the barrel," Michelle said. "I hope it hurts like hell." Then, to my surprise, she walked toward Randy.
He, of course, couldn't see her, and he was so focused on the injuries to his face that I doubt he would've noticed if he could.
When she got closer, she kicked out at the shotgun. To my surprise, and to Randy's, the gun actually moved several feet away.
Randy eyed it warily, keeping a hand to his cheek. To him, it would've appeared to move all by itself. He moved toward it, reaching out slowly to pick it up.
Michelle kicked it again, sending the shotgun skittering across the dirt parking lot, and Randy jerked his hand away.
He stood up straight, scanning the parking lot nervously.
Michelle walked behind him, entering the open door of the garage. Within seconds, it slammed shut, causing Randy to flinch. He swiveled, reaching for the door handle. The click it made as Michelle locked it from the inside was loud in the stillness.
Unless Randy wanted to climb through the broken front window, he was locked out, and he knew it. What he obviously didn't know was how he'd been locked out. He scrubbed a bloody palm over his buzz-cut hair, clearly unnerved.
Now it was my turn.
From my hiding place behind the bushes, I let out a breathy sigh, as though I'd just run a marathon and was exhausted.
"Who's there?" Randy pivoted in my direction so fast it startled me.
Steeling my nerves, I let out another sigh, adding a slight moan on the end for good measure.
"Goddammit, I said who's there?" he roared, taking a few steps toward the pond.
Instead of answering, I dropped to my hands and knees, breathing hard, and began to crawl backward toward the pond.
I was afraid to look at Joe. We hadn't discussed the particulars of what I'd do to convince Randy that I was the spirit of Michelle, but my instincts told me that the more freaked out Randy was, the better.
What would freak out a guy who'd drowned somebody more than seeing that somebody come crawling out of the water? I prayed that between the freak-out, the darkness and the mud on my face, I'd look enough like Michelle to fool him.
Not that I was going to get all the way into that nasty black pond, of course—that would be too gross—but being all wet and muddy and having my feet in the water would give the illusion that I was dragging myself onto the bank.
And it worked.
Randy took a few more steps toward the pond, and then the bushes were no longer in his line of sight.
I was.
He staggered, visibly shocked. I wasn't sure which one of us looked scarier—him with his blood-streaked face, or me with my mud-covered one. I borrowed a page from all the bad zombie movies I'd ever seen, and twisted my lips into a sneer, glaring at him beneath my lashes. Saying nothing, I let my eyes do the talking as I started crawling slowly toward him, digging my nails into the muddy grass surrounding the pond.
Chapter 6
"Wha…wha…" Randy was momentarily speechless. His fear did my heart good, and almost made up for the scrapes I was gonna have on my knees.
"Randy," I whispered hoarsely, giving my voice a coarse, guttural quality that strained my vocal cords. I drew out his name as I kept crawling, very slowly. "Raaaannnndddyyy…did you miss me, lover?"
"You're not real." Randy started backing up, away from me.
"He raped me," Michelle said. I hadn't seen her reappear since she'd slammed and locked the door, but my eyes had been trained on Randy. "He had me follow him here to the garage, saying he'd patch my tire, but when I got out of the car he dragged me in the back and threw me down on the bed. I screamed and cried, but there was nobody here to hear me."
"That was so sweet of you to offer to fix my tire," I rasped to Randy, not having to fake the hatred I was feeling. I didn't want to come any closer to him, so I slowly stood up, never taking my eyes from his. Joe's formerly white t-shirt clung to me, hanging to my knees, heavy with mud and water. "Did you like the way I screamed when you raped me?" I bared my teeth in a ghoulish grin. "Was it good for you?"
Randy was paler than any ghost. He shook his head, wordlessly, eyes as big as saucers.
"When he was done he got off me, and told me to get dressed," Michelle's voice was shaking. "I thought he was going to let me go—I was so stupid!" A sob broke from her throat.
I didn't dare look at her, but every word she said left its mark on my heart.
Poor girl. Poor Michelle.
"I'm never going to leave you, you know," I rasped maliciously to Randy, wishing I had a shotgun of my own. "Real men like you are so hard to come by."
"I turned toward the door, and he hit me in the back of the head." Michelle hadn't finished her story. "Everything went black. I dreamed about being back in my car and watching it fill with water—I thought it was just a nightmare, a horrible nightmare, until that day at the bridal shop."
Oh, how I hated being the one who'd woken Michelle from her nightmare. Sometimes the spirits I met knew full well they were dead, sometimes they didn't; it was definitely easier if they knew, but either way, it was never any fun for me.
But I had more bad news to deliver, and this time I didn't mind it so much.
"You're the man of my dreams, Randy," I lied, holding out my muddy arms. "Now we can be together forever."
A wet stain appeared on Randy's jeans, just below his giant belt buckle. I'd never known how satisfying making someone pee his pants could be. I didn't have much time to enjoy it, though, because Randy turned and ran for the parking lot.
"Raannndddy," I rasped loudly, taking a few steps in his direction. "Don't leave me here, Randy!" I looked frantically at Joe, where he crouched behind the section of tumbledown fence. My vague plan had been to get Randy to confess his crime, but if he took off, this whole muddy episode would have been for nothing.