Ghosts of Halloween: A Dark Why Choose Romance

Two years ago

I wake up with an overwhelming sense of wrongness. I’m disoriented, thinking maybe I’m drunk or high, but even through the confusion, I can tell that it’s even worse than that.

My eyes don’t work properly. Everything seems kinda gray, as if something bleached the colors out of the world. When I try to blink, my eyes stay open. I see where I am—still in this cursed house at 12 Sycamore Street—but I don’t seem to have control over my eyelids. I don’t feel them.

It’s light out, weak discolored sunlight falling in through the grimy windows, and for a moment, I wonder if the dirty glass is the reason why everything looks so odd. But then, I notice something else. Every object I see has a kind of vague, shaky afterimage. Like a darker, discolored outline. Something like smoke or a shade that moves gently, like the shadows of naked tree boughs in the wind.

I make to blink again, but I can’t, so I just stand up. Or—I think I do. I can’t feel my legs. But somehow, I’m upright and moving through the room.

Flashing lights stream in through the window, and I come closer, looking out. There are three police cars and an ambulance out there, and I mutter under my breath. “Shit.”

If the police are here, we have to go. I have to find Caden and Jack and make a run for it, or they’ll question us about Noah’s death, and what can we tell them to assuage all suspicion? Nothing, and the truth won’t cut it. I’ve already done a stint in prison. And fuck, but I’m not going back. No way.

Jolted by that thought, I stop moving and just focus on my body. Something inside me lurches, tipping precariously in shock. Because I should feel my heart hammering in my chest right now. I should feel my blood pumping, adrenaline like a cool, electric shot in my veins, my gut tight with urgency, hands clammy with cold sweat.

I feel fear and uncertainty, but they are displaced. Disembodied, floating feelings, like a cloud of shadow around me, and not the physical reactions I’m used to.

There’s something wrong with me. Seriously wrong.

I make for the door to the hallway, moving fast in my haste. There’s an ambulance outside, and in the face of my illness, I don’t even care about the police. I’m seriously sick or injured, and fixing that is more important than worrying about potential jail time. Anyway, I’ll figure something out. It’s not like I have blood on my hands.

I just have to get out there and ask for help.

On my way, I notice stuff on the floor, discolored tape clinging to the floorboards and little placards with numbers among the trash, but I somehow manage not to knock anything aside even though I move unsteadily. I don’t feel my legs, but somehow, they carry my weight just fine.

Before I notice the police tape strung across the doorway, I’m through, not even realizing I ripped it off.

Then I freeze. I look back.

The tape’s still there. Even though I just walked through that fucking door.

I try to blink again, then I raise my hands up to rub my eyes when I don’t feel them reacting. But my hands don’t make it up to my face. I freeze, staring.

I don’t see my palms. Just a faint, blurry outline that vaguely looks like my fingers but… It’s just smoke.

Panic rising, I lurch to the exit, and even though I should stumble and fall, I glide through the air easily until I reach the front door and make to step through. Just one step will take me out onto the porch, and then a small jog down the stairs and the driveway, and I’ll reach the ambulance. They will help me.

Propelled by that hope, I speed up—and stop suddenly when my foot almost passes the threshold. My entire being jolts with a juddering pain when I slam into something that feels like a spiky wall.

I shake myself off, looking out at the ambulance and men in black jackets rolling a gurney with a body bag through the gate. “Help!” I scream, my voice coming out distorted and whispery, more a shadow than a sound. I try to clear my throat, not feeling if it works, and try again to the same effect.

Seriously freaking out, I try to step outside. Everything inside me rattles hard as I push into a grinding barrier that pushes back until I’m farther down the entrance hall, staring without comprehension as the gurney’s loaded into the car.

I can’t go out there. It’s like there’s a wall holding me back. Trapping me here.

“Silas?” a whispering, uncertain voice pulses behind me, and I turn fast, relief washing over me. It’s short-lived, though. Because when I see Caden, I know without a shadow of a doubt what happened to us. What we are.

It doesn’t shock me, because the moment I see him, the memories of last night come crashing back, and suddenly, I know everything.

Caden’s insubstantial, the contours of his body shivering and washed out, going in and out of focus like a shape made out of smoke or a cloud. He looks wispy, gray and translucent, his terror-filled eyes lackluster, his body somehow flat like in a photograph. He moves toward me, shaking, and I watch in horror as his body glides, his legs staying just as they are—with the tips of his shoes trailing soundlessly over the floor.

“Cay,” I choke out, my throat not working even as my whispery, utterly wrong voice projects toward him. “Fuck, Cay.”

“I saw them roll your body out,” he says, eyes huge in his discolored, transparent face. “You’re fucking dead. We all are.”

He’s right. I know he is. And as soon as I think about it without a shadow of a doubt, as soon as I think, I’m dead, it’s like a switch flips in my mind. Suddenly, I know why we’re dead. Who is to blame. And why we can’t leave.

It’s like the awareness just waited in the corner of my mind, like a memory needing the right trigger to unlock. Except, this is no memory. I don’t remember anyone telling me this, but with every incorporeal piece of my being, I know.

“Harlow,” I say, my voice shaky and unsteady, somehow audible and yet not. “We swore.”

Caden nods, coming closer, still not moving his legs. He just glides through the air, insubstantial and feathery, and suddenly, I’m terrified a gust of wind from the open door will make him dissipate, scattering pieces of him all over the room. But somehow, he stays put together, the faint image of him clear enough in the shadowy presence.

“We have to protect her,” he says, his eyes so sad, so utterly defeated, I suddenly burn with hate.

She did this.

“He found us because of her,” I snarl, the rage I feel flooding my being with something hot and heavy, until I almost feel the soles of my feet pressing into the ground, my fists clenching in anger. “She fucked some guy and told him all about how she got her precious bionic arm. That’s how Vladimir knew it was Noah. And us.”

Caden’s shape shimmers, getting fuzzy around the edges. His face twists, but his features are blurry, and the effect is creepy as fuck. I keep myself still, knowing there’s more to it. The awareness of what happened, of the trap we fell into, makes me vibrate with rage.

“You’re… You’re getting solid,” Caden whispers, the fuzziness receding until a clear, black-and-white image of him stands there, watching me warily.

“I’m pissed,” I grit out, noting with gratification my voice sounds almost normal. Just a faint echo of the whispery shadowiness remains. “We’re trapped here. Fuck! We swore to protect that bitch, and it’s forcing us to do just that! She’ll be back here at some point, her life in danger. And we can’t leave until we save her.”

I know this with complete certainty. It’s like this awareness of why we stayed behind is branded into my mind. Our only purpose. Our curse.

My fury taking over, I make to kick the wall and grunt in alarm when my foot goes right through, seemingly getting stuck inside before I lurch back, and it comes out, reappearing like nothing happened.

“Oh, shit. But yeah,” Caden confirms, his forehead twitching into something akin to his usual frown. “But… How do you know that? How do I know that?”

“We just do,” I mutter, almost feeling my frantic heart, almost feeling the rage pumping through my veins. “Fuck!”

“Noah’s not here,” Caden adds, and I nod, not even wondering how I know that. I just do. Just like I know the pathetic vow I made to my dying friend is the thing that keeps me from passing on to wherever it is souls go after death.

“And we’re just fucking supposed to wait?” I snarl, my anger making the house flash around me, as if someone’s rapidly turning on and off the lights, even though I know there is no electricity here. “For how long?”

Caden shakes his head, his mouth in a grim line, and then, suddenly, Jack falls through the ceiling, landing in a shaking heap on the floor between us.

We freak out together, comparing notes. Each of us has the same awareness branded into our minds—we are here because we swore to protect Harlow, and at some point in the future, her life will be in danger. In this very house. We’re not trapped here because it’s where we died. We’re stuck because this is where we’re supposed to fulfill our vow.

As we slowly come to terms with our freaky reality, I explain what I heard when I lay on the floor, bleeding my guts out after being shot. We’re trapped because of Harlow, yes, but that’s on us. We promised.

But we’re dead because of her, too, and it’s purely her fault.

“Fuck,” Jack groans, his voice as creepy as Caden’s as he paces, his feet an inch above the floor. “I’ll kill that bitch. I’ll fucking kill her the moment she comes here so I can leave this fucking place.”

His fury soothes mine, and I feel myself becoming more smoky, body growing vague, sensations smoother and less immediate.

“No,” Caden says. When I look over, intending to argue with him, the hungry glint in his eye stops me. It’s his turn to become more solid, the smoke fluttering around his edges curling in, until a discolored and half-transparent, but otherwise normal, version of Caden stands before me. “She’s our unfinished business. I say we finish it. On our terms. I’ll take it all out of her body when she comes here. No brakes.”

Jack rounds on him, somehow less smoky than us, his determined expression clear as he scowls at Caden.

“You’re nuts if you think I’ll share.”

“No one wants to fuck your girlfriend,” I cut in mockingly, sending Caden a furious look when it seems like he’s about to fight Jack on this. Caden’s mine. I’m not sharing him. “We’ll fucking kill her so we can leave this place. So we can move on. You feel this, don’t you? As long as she’s alive, we’re tied to her. She must be cut loose. That’s how we’ll get free.”

Anger and uncertainty flit over Jack’s face, and Caden gives me a wolfish grin, a bit of color rushing into his form until he looks like a sepia photograph.

“Let’s make a plan, gentlemen,” he says, growing more solid with every word. “We’ll deal with our unfinished business. On our fucking terms.”

The look on his face, that cunning, amused twist of his gorgeous mouth, stabs me like a knife. The pain I feel is overwhelming when I realize that I’ll never get to touch Caden again. I’ll never be able to kiss him. We’ll never cuddle under the covers, pretending nothing exists but us. I’ll never fall asleep soothed by his gentle, caring fingers. He’ll never kiss my knuckles and press me close when no one watches.

We’re dead and bodiless. And after we deal with our unfinished business… we’ll be gone. Because wherever we go, it will never be back to life. Back to our bodies that fit so perfectly together.

I feel my entire being wavering and growing looser when pathetic misery twists me into pieces. Fuck. I’ll never hold his hand. We’ll never kiss again.

“Silas?” Caden asks, his voice coming from afar. “Fuck, baby. What’s wrong? You’re disappearing.”

I force my pain down, looking up just in time to see Caden crashing into me. I fully expect him to go through me, our bodies flowing past each other like smoke, insubstantial and unable to touch, but that’s not what happens.

I feel phantom fingers pressing to my cheeks. Echoes of Caden’s touch, at once hot and cold, fly over my chin and the back of my head, and then, his transparent mouth crashes into mine, his taste distorted, yet just as I remember it when our tongues meet in a frantic, desperate kiss.

So at least I have this, I think as I let go of everything, getting lost in the sensation of Caden’s spirit pressing into mine. It’s not as good as the real thing. Not even half as good. But I’ll take it.

We kiss until Jack makes a disgruntled noise, and we break apart. Then all three of us glide to the open door to watch as the ambulance and police cars drive away, taking our bodies and leaving our souls behind.

A cold, powerful hunger for Harlow’s blood settles in my stomach as I reach for Caden again, his fingers not as warm as they used to be, his mouth not as soft, his smell not as familiar. Caden’s ghost is a poor substitution for his living body, and I struggle with my grief before it overtakes me. I lost almost everything last night, only echoes of my happiness remaining, and it’s all Harlow’s fault.

She’ll pay for everything I lost because of her.