Brush With Death (7 page)

T
he collapsible
stool I brought with me felt like it was becoming a permanent part of my butt
and my right foot had fallen asleep.  I should probably get up and stretch my
legs, but I didn’t know how long the ghost would remain positioned by the stone
wall.

I leaned down to reach into the satchel holding my art
supplies where it sat beside the stool and pulled out more paint.  I grabbed
the palette knife with tired, aching fingers and scraped the colors together
until I had more of the red needed to finish painting the scarlet roses that
climbed the stone wall.

I squinted at the ghost’s golden aura.  That was strange.  I
pinched the bridge of my nose and rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands. 
The ghost seemed to be glowing brighter.

Blinking, I examined the colors on the canvas and compared
them to the scene in front of me.  Oh, the ghost wasn’t glowing brighter.  The
clearing where I sat was getting darker.  I looked up above the treetops and
confirmed that the sun was sitting lower in the sky.  I’d have to work more
quickly if I wanted to complete the painting before dark.

I didn’t really want to be out in these woods after
nightfall.  I was a long way from the well-groomed trails near the park
entrance.  Riding my bike on these trails would be foolish in the dark.  With
my luck, I’d end up head first in a thorn bush or hit in the face by a low
branch.

At least I’d brought flashlights.  Ever since our adventure
in the caves, looking for a missing werewolf, I never left home without one, or
three.  That night still gave me nightmares.  The caves were dark and
confusing, but we eventually found the missing teen, and a psychotic werewolf
killer.  A chill crept up my spine making me shiver. 

I grabbed a flashlight from my bag and held it tight in my
fist.

We had helped bring the killer into custody.  He remained a
ward of a pack therapist, living in the werewolf equivalent of a halfway
house.  There was nothing to be afraid of.  No psychotic werewolves out here. 

Just me and a smelly ghost.

“T
roublesome
girl,” I muttered. 

I wiped a piece of stinking refuse off my custom leather
boots and dropped the soiled handkerchief into a dumpster.  Most werewolves
disdained material things, preferring a simple back-to-nature lifestyle.  I
shuddered at the thought.  I may enjoy a good run through the woods while in
wolf form, but as a man I appreciated the nicer things in life. 

Unfortunately, the residents of this street seemed to have
an overzealous appreciation for cheap wine and fast food.  The place reeked of
grease and garbage.

I was in another alley.  This one ran behind the Gas N Gulp,
Douggie’s Fried Chicken, and Wok On In, a Chinese takeaway.  I searched beneath
the piles of damp cardboard boxes and plastic milk crates, but all I found was
a cockroach and an old coat soaked in urine.

No Yuki.  For that, I was grateful.  I may be mad at the
girl, but I didn’t want to find her here in the alley strung out on drugs or
the latest victim of the Graduation Grabber.

I was, however irritated that while I searched for Yuki,
Emma was left unprotected.  I wanted to be by her side, keeping her safe from
this killer.  But Calvin had requested my help in the search for Yuki, and Emma
had insisted on looking for her in the library. 

At least Emma wasn’t alone.

 I had waited for her to meet up with Gordy and Katie before
beginning my search for Yuki.  They promised to stick together.  I had to trust
that there was safety in numbers.  Otherwise I’d become insane with worry.

I swallowed the howl that rose up in my throat.

Emma would never forgive me if I let her best friend die
because I was too worried about her own safety.  They may be fighting at the
moment, but Emma’s worry for Yuki was real.  I suspected that if something
happened to Yuki now, Emma would never forgive herself for allowing her friend
to suffer the after effects of her abduction alone.

No, I had to find Yuki before anything dire could happen to
the girl.  Knowing Yuki’s luck, I better hurry.  That girl attracts trouble
like I attract women.

I exited the alley and ran to my motorcycle.  I needed to
ride to the outskirts of town where I could shift into wolf form.  Trying to
catch Yuki’s scent in a sea of sweating humans, vehicle exhaust, and rotting
garbage was getting me nowhere.

I kicked the bike into gear and hit the throttle.  It roared
and jumped out into traffic, leaving a strip of black rubber behind.  I wove
between cars and around trucks hauling boats and campers.  I cursed at the
summer traffic that came early with this week’s heat wave.

At the next light, I used the empty turning lane to pass half
a dozen vehicles waiting their turn.  Horns blared and more than one driver
sent up a one fingered salute.  I rode on without responding in kind. 

I didn’t have time to waste.

T
he library is
my favorite place in Wakefield, but today the shadows between shelving, and
behind desks and work tables, felt ominous.  I never realized just how many
places there were to hide, or disappear. 

“OhmygoshIcan’tbelieveit,” Katie said, for the thousandth
time.

I liked Katie, but her nervous tendency for rapid speech was
making me twitchy.  I jumped as an older man turned the page of his newspaper. 

“Believe it,” I said. 

Great, that sounded bitchy.  I pinched the bridge of my
nose, wincing at a growing headache and took a deep breath.  I didn’t mean to
take my frustrations out on Katie.  Her babbling was annoying, but it wasn’t really
her fault.  We were all worried.  Katie just showed her emotions more than the
rest of us.

And if Yuki had worn her feelings on her sleeve like Katie,
we probably wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

“Look, Yuki’s gone AWOL and the Grabber’s probably in town,
but that doesn’t mean she’s in trouble,” I said.  I ignored my racing pulse and
forced a smile.  “She’s probably hanging out in one of the study cubicles with
her iPod and a stack of books.”

“You really think so?” Katie asked.

“I know so,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. 
“We’re just dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s.  It’s good to know where your
friends are, especially when there’s trouble in town.”

Gordy nodded in agreement, or approval.  He had been trying
to comfort Katie by remaining calm, but I saw his mask slip when a petite girl
dressed all in black rounded the corner. 

Gordy started forward, raising his hand to get her
attention, but when she lowered her stack of books onto a low rolling cart, the
almond-shaped eyes and small mouth weren’t Yuki’s and her petite feet were
strapped into shiny red sandals, not boots.  Gordy’s face fell and the color
drained from his lips.

He reached up to smooth his asymmetrical bangs, covering his
disappointment, but I’d seen the frightened face behind his calm exterior. 
Gordy was trying to hold it together, for Katie’s sake, but underneath that
cool façade was a guy in turmoil.  Gordy had come to the same conclusion that I
had—Yuki had a knack for trouble, and her disappearance had tragic outcome
written all over it.

“That’s Rin from my history class,” I said.  “I’ll go ask if
she’s seen Yuki.”

“Okay,” Gordy said around a mouthful of hair. 

He was chewing his bangs again.

“OhmygoshIcan’tbelieveshe’sreallymissing,” Katie said.

Katie reached for Gordy with a shaking hand and he put his
arm around her, pulling her close.  I felt a pang of jealousy.  I wished that
Simon could be here right now, but we needed his tracking skills to find Yuki. 
I hoped that he was having more luck in his search than the three of us.

I was beginning to suspect that Yuki wasn’t here in the
safety of the library.  But if she wasn’t here, then where could she be? 

I didn’t like the answers my brain conjured in reply.

T
he west side
of town turned up nothing.  I wasn’t as skilled at tracking as Simon, but I
could often feel Yuki through our bond.  So far I sensed nothing.

I tried to take that as a good sign.

If Yuki was in trouble, I’d know it, right?  I sure hoped
that was true.  Yuki had mentioned feeling a strange tingling beneath the skin,
where her spirit tattoo twines around her ankle, when we needed each other in
the past.  I rubbed my arm, but my tattoo felt normal. 

I also tried reaching out to Yuki with my wolf spirit, but
the search was fruitless.  No matter how hard I concentrated, I couldn’t sense
Yuki’s presence.  Was she too far away, or had our bond grown weak? 

Simon’s words returned to me, as they had numerous times
since our argument.  Was I really bad for Yuki? 

I drove slowly past the flea market on Elm Street, but
couldn’t feel Yuki’s presence.  Last autumn, I found the perfect gift for Yuki
in one of these market stalls.  Amidst disembodied doll heads, Beatles
memorabilia, and old issues of TV Guide, an antique compass had lain buried.

I had been shopping with Yuki.  She’d dragged me to the flea
market after sitting through a chakra clearing workshop I’d wanted to attend. 
She said that shopping was my penance for making her tap her face for
hours—which was, of course, an exaggeration.  But I tagged along anyway.

I didn’t share Yuki’s love of retro lunch boxes and vintage
clothing, but I dug through the detritus of people’s lives alongside her.  I
was looking for a small trinket to appease her, but found something more
romantic instead.

We had been dating for nearly a month and I had been
searching for a special gift to mark our one month anniversary.  The compass
was perfect.  It had brass knobs and screws. I thought Yuki would like the
steampunk look of it and the fact that it was a compass gave me an idea.  I
waited until the following day and gave it to her with a note that read, “so
that you may always find your way back to me.” I had wondered if my note was
too sappy, but Yuki has kept the compass with her ever since.

Gazing out the truck window as the flea market passed by, I
had to wonder if Yuki would ever find her way back to me…or if it was already
too late.

I
sat upright, giving
myself a dizzying head rush, as something brushed against my face.  I spied a
tall cluster of switchgrass waving in the air beside me and let out the breath
I was holding.  In my dream, the spindly grass that touched my face had been
replaced by skeletal fingers.  I was relieved to be rid of nightmare monsters,
but where had the tall grass come from?

And when had I fallen asleep?

I looked around and frowned.  I sat in a patch of dry grass
that whispered as it swung to and fro in the warm breeze.  The light wind made
my hair dance around my head, tickling the back of my neck.  Unable to see over
the giant vegetation, I dusted off my skirt and rose to my feet. 

“Oh,” I said, my words lost on a gust of wind.

I was standing in the dream world that exists between the
human realm and the ever-after, where spirits of the dead reside.  Well, most
spirits reside there.  Some souls become trapped on earth if they are the unfortunate
victim of tragic death or have unfinished business.  That’s where I come in. 
With my ability to smell the dead, I help to locate and communicate with those
spirits trapped on my plane of existence and lead them to the light.

Of course, it’s never that easy.  That part about unfinished
business?  Yeah, most ghosts are pretty insistent about wrapping up those loose
ends before departing my world. 

Like the ghost who smelled like roses, lanolin, and dark
room chemicals.

In fact, if I am here in the dream realm, then that means my
body is asleep back in the real world.  The thought of my body slumped over my
painting stool, helpless, on that remote stretch of park trail, gave me the
creeps.  It would be getting dark soon, if night hadn’t fallen already, and my
body was alone in the woods with only a strange ghost for company. 

I needed to find out why I’d been brought here, so I could
get back to my body.

Usually when I appear in this place, my dung beetle spirit
guide is nearby.  I spun in a slow circle, searching for my guide. 

“Where are you?” I muttered.

“I am here, child,”
a rasping voice echoed in my
head.

I felt something move behind my back and turned to see my
spirit guide looming over me.  I have no idea where a seven foot tall dung
beetle could have been hiding. 
I probably didn’t want to know.

“Um, hi,” I said lamely.  “Is everything okay?”  I hadn’t
tried to summon my spirit guide, and had, in fact, been working with a ghost
before I appeared in this place.  What other reason could explain this meeting? 
Had something terrible happened?  “Wait.  Is Cal hurt?”

I struggled to remain calm, but Cal had nearly died from a
head injury a few months ago and his spirit had ended up here.  Was that why I
was summoned?  Had Cal been in an accident? 

I felt like a frightened bird was caged in my chest. 

I had been in such a hurry to begin work on my painting
today after school that I’d jumped out of Cal’s truck without even asking where
he was going.  There were plenty of dangerous roads around Wakefield. 

“
Hush, child, your wolf is safe and sound in the human
realm,”
she said.

“Oh, okay,” I said, taking a deep breath.  “Then why am I
here?”

“I have a message for you,”
she said. 
“As you
know child, scarabs bury their eggs in the ground, but some humans dig into the
soil of Mother Earth for other purposes.  An evil man has hidden his secrets in
the ground.”

“So, I, like, need to dig a hole or something?” I asked.  I
bit my lip, feeling totally confused.  Why did my spirit guide always have to
speak in riddles?

“The answers you seek are beneath the earth,”
she
said.

My spirit guide lifted her arms above her head in a series
of bizarre motions, as if she were directing a plane to land.  The wind picked
up and lifted dry sand and red dust into mini-tornados all around me.  I closed
my eyes and slapped a hand over my face to cover my nose and mouth.

“Don’t forget child,”
she said. 
“The answers are
there for you to discover, if you take the time to look.”

*****

I woke with a gasp, returning to my body where it sat
sprawled over the small stool.  I sat upright and stretched, feeling stiff and
sore.  I shook the pins and needles sensation out of my foot and looked myself
over.  The front of my clothes felt damp, but it hadn’t rained while my spirit
was away. 
Son of dung beetle, rain would have ruined my painting.

I stood, checking for damage.  My painting sat safely on its
easel, but I couldn’t say the same for my clothes.

Paint covered my chest where I’d slouched over the palette,
and more shone wetly across my lap. 
Great, that’s never coming out.

I grabbed a rag and wiped away some of the paint, but gave
up.  My clothes would just have to wait.  It was getting dark, fast.  I started
packing up my things, careful to secure my new painting on the back of the
bicycle where nothing would touch the drying paint.  I’d have to be careful
while riding home in the dim light.  One spill on my bike would totally destroy
the work I completed today.

The sun was already setting, reminding me of the need to
leave and the fact that I had missed dinner.  My stomach growled its
displeasure.

I searched quickly through my backpack and retrieved a bag
of trail mix, skittles, and bottled water.  I gulped water and ate a few
mouthfuls of trail mix.  The ghost continued to hover beside the rose bush,
making me suddenly feel guilty about not sharing my food.  But ghosts can’t
eat, right?

Still it seemed rude not to share.

I approached the ghost with a handful of trail mix, trying
to figure out where to leave the offering.  A sun bleached rock peeked out of
the ground beneath the rose bush, presenting an unlikely place to dine, but it
was better than placing the food in a patch of grass. 

I knelt, not caring about my already ruined skirt, and
brushed off the rock with my hand.  Rain and wind had uncovered some of the
stone, but as I touched the dirt, clumps of soil and moss fell away in clumps.

My spirit guide was right—there really was something buried beneath
the ground.

And, unless it was just my imagination, this wasn’t a rock. 
I’d found a dead body.  I dropped the food to the ground, suddenly not feeling so
hungry.

Oh em gees, I just touched a dead person.  I wiped my hand
down my skirt and tried to stifle a scream that rose up from my toes to my
mouth.  I swallowed the scream, but my stomach churned loudly.  I was seriously
regretting eating that trail mix.

I squinted in the growing dark.  I’ve watched a lot of
horror movies and knew in my gut what I was looking at. 
Oh yeah, that’s a human
skull alright.

The twilit skull seemed to draw the final glow of light from
the fading day, casting the accusing eye sockets into shadow.  Even the
overhanging rose bush, which had looked so beautiful a few moments ago, now
seemed to reach its thorns ominously above my head. 

I crawled backward, distancing myself from the ghoulish
find.  Strands of hair had fallen loose and now hit my shoulders as I shook my
head in denial. 

“No, no, no,” I whispered.  “I didn’t just spend the day
with a dead body.”

Ghosts are spooky enough, but some poor person’s skull?—that
was just plain freaky.  I need to get out of here, now. 

I looked around making sure everything I had brought with me
was strapped securely to my bike.  I was painfully aware of how alone I was
here, just me and the ghost of the person buried beneath my feet. 

I dug my cell phone out of my backpack and speed-dialed
Cal.  My call went straight to voicemail.  It seemed like an eternity before
the phone beeped, allowing me to leave a message.

“Cal, please call me back” I said, voice going shrill.  “I’m
near the park, on some freaky old trail and…I, I found a ghost and its
b-b-body.”

I hung up feeling lightheaded.  Talking about the skeleton
only made my fear worse.  I needed to hear a person’s voice—someone alive—and I
wanted someone to know where I was.

I hit the second speed-dial on my phone.