A Triple Scoop of I Scream (2 page)

Each time the man thrust into his lover, Toni’s pussy throbbed in empathy, as if she were the one being screwed against the brick wall The man’s tempo increased and Toni thought the woman’s back must have been scraped raw by the rough brick. The thought of that sting heightening the pleasure was surprisingly enticing. The woman broke free of the kiss and, with her eyes still squeezed shut, she laid her cheek against her lover’s and opened her mouth wide. Toni’s breath quickened as she watched the woman in the throes of orgasm.

“My God!” Toni gasped.

The woman’s eyes flew open and locked on Toni’s.

“Can you see me?”

The woman’s lips hadn’t moved and the words seemed muffled, but the question had clearly come from her. The man did not respond at all to Toni’s presence and kept thrusting away.

Toni was frozen with fear. She realised instantly that these were not actual people. These must be ‘residuals’, ghost events that had generated so much energy in their first instance that they replayed themselves far into the future. Her ghost-hunting friends had told her all about these apparitions, but she had thought they were just like movies playing on a loop—not conscious spirits who could ask questions of the living.

“Well, fuck me,” Toni muttered.

“Language, please!” the ghost woman communicated.

“Really?” Toni asked, pumping as much sarcasm as possible into her voice.

Then they were gone. There was no fanfare. There was no blinding flash of light. They didn’t dissolve away or get swallowed up in an ethereal puff of smoke. They were just no longer there.

“Who are you talking to?”

Mike walked up the alley towards her, spinning a key ring on his index finger.

“Hm?” Toni asked, stalling for time.

“Just now, you said, ‘Really?’ Who were you talking to?”

Just tell him! He’s a ghost hunter for Christ’s sake!

Toni ignored her inner sane person and lied.

“Oh, that? I was talking to myself. I was like, ‘Really? It’s a hundred degrees in the shade and ninety-five per cent humidity and you’re taking your own sweet time getting the fucking keys to the fucking upstairs apartment so I can get into this wreck of a building and out of this hellacious heat. Really?’”

Mike’s forehead scrunched so hard that his eyebrows nearly met in the middle.

“Uh. Okay. Sorry to keep you waiting. The apartment keys were stuck down between the seats of the truck. It took me a while to find them.”

Toni nodded and was fully aware that her nod was far too exaggerated, cartoonish even, but she was already committed to this crazy approach and she was going to see it through.

“Well, all right, Mike. You know how I get when I’m overheated. Let’s just get inside and get cooled off.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Mike’s patronising tone wasn’t lost on Toni. She followed him up the rickety staircase and stole a glance down the boxes while he worked the key in the lock.

Why had the woman, but not the man, responded to Toni? Was he a residual and she…something else?

The chill from the shock of the ghost encounter had left her and Toni could think only about getting out of the heat. She hoped that the darkened brick and stone building would offer some respite. She let out a sigh of relief when Mike turned the key and she heard the
thunk
of the deadbolt sliding open. She followed him into the upstairs corridor and blinked to adjust to the dim interior. A sheet hung across the window at the far end of the hallway, letting in diffused light. Her shoulders sagged when she realised that it was actually hotter inside than out.

“The utilities should have been turned back on yesterday,” Mike said, patting the wall beside the door.

He flicked the light switch and bare bulbs illuminated the narrow hallway. A layer of dust covered the worn pine planks on the floor and cobwebs formed a canopy between the grimy walls and ceiling. Toni closed the door behind her and peered down the dark stairway to her left. She reached out and tried the switch. The stairway remained dark. They peeked into each of the four open doorways to the right. The rooms all overlooked State Street. The first two held bedroom furniture. The third looked like a catch-all for junk, stuffed with haphazardly stacked boxes and mysterious piles covered with yellowed sheets. At the end of the hall was a large, dingy bathroom. Mike switched on the lights as Toni pulled the sheet from the window across from the doorway and looked down onto State Street. On the adjacent wall a window over the tub overlooked Main.

Mike opened the taps at the sink and tub. The pipes gurgled before spewing out a gush of rusty water.

As if he could feel Toni’s glare boring into the back of his head, he muttered, “It’s been vacant for a while. Just give it a minute.”

Toni was relieved when the stream turned clear.

He turned off the taps and faced Toni with a satisfied grin. “See?”

Toni put her hands on her hips. “Great, Mike, it has indoor plumbing and running water. Shall we head downstairs and see what other wonders this place holds?”

* * * *

Mike and Toni navigated the dark stairway down to the small, commercial kitchen. Rather than searching for the kitchen light switch, the two followed the glow of sunlight coming through the open doorway between the kitchen and the shop. It was cooler downstairs, but only marginally so. Toni waited in the doorway while Mike picked his way towards the front door. A cloud of unwelcomed aromas assaulted Toni’s senses and she reflexively covered her nose.

“Oh my… What the… Good gawd, Mike! What is that smell?”

Toni blinked to adjust her pupils to the dim interior. The windows overlooking Main Street and State Street had been covered with brown paper and in the dim light she was able to make out a soda fountain to her left. The low counter ran most of the length of the room and was topped with a wide slab of white marble. It was divided with a walk-through between the two halves. Six stools were bolted to the floor in the front of each section.

Mike flipped a switch near the entrance, lighting the front of the shop and the area behind the soda fountain. Toni fought the urge to tell him to turn it back off. The shop looked as if it had been hastily deserted and the effect was eerily disturbing. Chairs were pushed haphazardly away from the small bistro tables. On one of the tables a grey bus tub overflowed with crumpled napkins and mouldy coffee cups and plates of rotting food. A mop leaned against the counter with its head submerged in a bucket of putrid water. A large round carton of ice cream had been overturned near the walk-through and a flow of pink goo ran across the tile floor.

Mike strode to the middle of the space, widened his stance, planted his hands on his hips, and pivoted his head as if he were master of all that he surveyed.

“Is this place great or what?” he asked.

“Or what,” Toni answered.

Mike tilted his head at Toni. “Aw, c’mon, Bianchi. Where’s your imagination—your pioneer spirit?”

“I left it at that rundown B & B in Iowa—along with a good chunk of my retirement fund.”

Mike walked over to Toni, scooped up her hand and pulled her farther into the building.

“You gotta see this place, Toni. It’s got some really cool stuff! There’s a big freezer for dipping ice cream and old dispensers for chocolate sauce and—”

Toni let herself be led across the black and white tile floor, weaving in and out between the tiny tables. As they passed near the long counter, Toni’s sandal landed on the slick of pink slime and slid along the surface, breaking through the outer film and releasing the sickeningly sweet aroma of long-melted ice cream. Toni’s mind briefly registered
strawberry
before her foot shot out from under her body and kicked the mop bucket, sending swampy water gushing across the floor. She tried to break her fall by grabbing hold of a table, but it teetered immediately, sending the bus tub—and its disgusting contents—raining down upon her. Toni didn’t realise that Mike still had a grip on her hand until he landed beside her—belly-flopping in the sticky goo.

Toni lay still for a moment then began checking herself for injury. She bent her knees and elbows and rotated her wrists and ankles. Satisfied that her joints and limbs were performing as designed, she turned to face Mike. She cringed at the feeling of her hair sticking to the floor. Mike had turned over onto his back and swiped melted strawberry ice cream from his cheek. He stared blankly upward.

“You okay?” she asked

Mike shook his head.

“Is something broken? Did you hit your head on the way down?”

Mike reached up and laced his fingers behind his head, seemingly mindless of the sticky mess. He crossed his legs and stared upward, looking for all the world like he was lying in a meadow contemplating the clouds. He let out a soft whistle. “Wow! Look at the detail in that tin ceiling. They just don’t make things like that anymore.”

Finally he turned to face Toni, his hair plastered to the side of his face with months-old ice cream. “Is this place great or what?”

Chapter Two

Toni struggled to her feet and slogged through the puddle of melted ice cream to the sink behind the soda fountain. She opened the taps and began to scrub her hands and forearms as she looked out over the shop. The place really was charming. It was twice as long as it was wide. A row of booths with tall backs stood against the State Street windows. And she supposed the little bistro tables arranged in the centre of the space wouldn’t be so bad once they’d been scrubbed down.

Toni turned to locate a towel and was startled by her reflection. The enormous mirror behind the counter was the centrepiece of a bank of dark-stained wood shelves that extended wall to wall and nearly to the ceiling. The base cabinets were fitted with brass hardware and topped with the same white marble as the counter. She found a stack of bar rags folded on a shelf, and, as she dried her hands, she read the labels on the pump dispensers under the mirror—‘fudge’, ‘caramel’, ‘chocolate’. She caught movement in the reflective glass. Toni jerked up her head in time to watch the reflection of a man in a white shirt cross slowly out of view towards the back of the shop. A prickling tingle zipped up her throat and over her scalp.

She wheeled around, hoping to see Mike standing behind her, but no one was in her line of vision. She leaned over the counter and found her real estate agent still lying on his back in the sugary muck, ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ over the tin ceiling. He turned to look at her and his smile faded. He jumped to his feet.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.

Toni’s gaze slid from Mike to the rear of the shop and back again.

“Toni?
Have
you seen a ghost?”

She could only point in response. Mike followed her fingertip and hurried to the back of the shop, dodging the overturned table and bus tray as he went. Mike slowed as he reached the shadowed back wall, finally stopping when he was within a few feet of the darkened kitchen doorway. He bent sideways at the waist and peered into the opening.

“Mike, don’t go back there,” Toni said.

Mike straightened and turned to look at Toni, but Toni’s eyes were fixed on the tall figure that had appeared in the doorway. Her eyes stretched wide and her mouth dropped open, but she couldn’t make a sound.

Toni watched as Mike grimaced, pulled his shoulders up around his ears, and slowly turned to see what had caused her reaction. She focused her attention on the apparition behind him. Male—definitely male. Tall—if Mike was six feet, then the intruder had to be six foot six. Lanky, but not skinny, long legs.

“Look out!” Toni shouted as the apparition reached out from the doorway.

Mike—quite inexplicably—covered his head and squatted where he stood as if dodging swooping vampire bats.

The ghost groped around the door frame and Toni’s skin prickled. In a flash, the back of the room was illuminated, revealing shelves lined with apothecary jars behind a lighted display case.

Mike peered up from his crouched position.

Toni scrunched up her forehead and frowned.

The ghost slowly raised his hand…and said, “How ya doin’?”

* * * *

Light switch. The ghost had been groping for the light switch. You’d think ghosts could see in the dark.

Toni took a moment to regain her equilibrium. Mike had straightened up and Toni watched him reach out towards the ghost’s chest. Toni half expected Mike’s hand to pass right through the spectre. Instead, it stopped, apparently meeting with solid flesh.

“Everything okay in here?” it—he—asked, taking a step backward and grasping Mike’s outstretched hand in a handshake.

“You’re a real man,” Mike observed.

I’ll say, Toni thought.

The real man was six and a half feet of long-legged good looks. He was dressed entirely in black, which had helped to reinforce the previous assumption of walking death. Heavy black biker boots—big ones at that. Just-tight-enough black jeans. A black T-shirt stretched over a broad chest. His wavy hair was just a shade lighter than his clothes and a shade darker than his shadow of a beard.

The real human extricated his hand and nodded. “Liam Greco. I own the Ex Libris Bookshop next door. I went out back to sweep the alley and I heard a ruckus.”

That’s what he looks like when he sweeps?

“Mike Briggs, real estate agent and ruckus-maker. Pleased to meet you.”

Mike reached out for a second, more appropriate greeting. Liam returned Mike’s handshake, but his eyes were locked on Toni.

He smiled and a thrill tingled over Toni’s scalp.

Wow.

“How about you?” Liam asked, raising a thick, black eyebrow. “Did you play any part in the ruckus-making?”

Liam pulled away from Mike and was across the room in a few long strides. He laid his palms on the marble counter and pinned Toni with his big black-brown eyes. He winked and the tingle moved between her legs.

Uh-oh.

“Well? Ruckus-maker or not?”

Toni felt her mouth twitch. She narrowed her eyes, but the smile won out. She pulled in a deep breath and his attention turned to her rising breasts. She set her fists on her hips. His gaze slid down the outline of her curves and then back to her face. He winked again.