Cemetery Tours (20 page)

“His real name is Eugene Brinkley but he’ll throw a temper tantrum if you call him that,” Michael told her as he unlocked his door.  Glancing around the apartment, he wished he’d taken the time to tidy up.  It wasn’t as horrible as it could have been, but with the wastebasket full of clean clothes waiting to be folded, the shoes kicked aimlessly to the side, and his laptop still sitting on the couch where he’d left it, it could have been a lot better.  “Sorry it’s so messy in here,” he apologized.

“Woah!” Brink appeared suddenly, gawking at Kate.
  “There’s a girl here!” 

“Michael, I live with my brother.
  My apartment is always messy,” Kate reminded him.  

“What is she doing here?
  Is this a hook-up?” 

“What?
  No!” Michael cried.  Kate looked alarmed.

“No what?” she asked.

“Sorry, not you.”  Michael apologized.  Brink was visibly confused.

“Wait, did you tell her?”
     

“Oh, Brink?”
  Kate asked at the same time.  Brink stared at Kate like she’d just sprouted a second head. 

“She knows my name?
  How did this happen?  Did you mean to tell her?  How did she react?”

“Yeah, he’s here,” Michael told Kate.
  “But he just said that he would clear out to give us some
privacy
.”   

“Yeah, yeah, get lost.
  I get it.  But she’s really okay with it?  Does that mean you guys are dating?  Is she gong to be here a lot now?  Did you tell her about that guy in her apartment yet?” 

“Brink...” Michael cast him a warning glance.

“One more thing.  Can you ask her to say my name again?  It’s been so long since I’ve heard a cute girl say it - ”

“No.
  Get out,” Michael cut him off.  

“You know, I’m still going to listen in - ”

“Out!” 

Brink heaved a dramatic sigh, but finally disappeared.
  Meanwhile, Michael could feel Kate’s curious eyes watching him.  He looked at her and was relieved to see she was smiling. 

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said.

“Not weird?”

“It’s a little weird,” Kate acknowledged, taking a seat on the couch.  “I mean, of all the things that guys don’t tell you in the beginning, having a ghost for a roommate is one you really don’t expect.”  Michael grinned, thankful that she was trying her best to act nonchalant.  He sat down next to her.  “Do they scare you?”

“No,” Michael replied.
  “They startle me from time to time, but they’re not at all the way horror films would have you believe.” 

“So is that the reason this building is cursed?
  Because you have all these ghosts following you around?” 

“Pretty much.”

“Why don’t you talk to them?  Try to help them move on?”  Michael took a deep breath.

“That’s... a really long story,” he told her.
 

“I’ve got time if you do.”
 

Michael remained silent for a moment, trying to organize his thoughts.
  Although Brink had heard bits and pieces over the years, Michael had never told anyone the whole tale.  Truth be told, he wasn’t quite sure where to begin.  

“There are a lot of reasons I don’t talk to them anymore, and most of them are the same reasons I’ve never told anyone that I see them.
  The first and I guess the most obvious reason is that I didn’t think people would believe me.  Or worse, they’d think I was crazy, or making it all up to get attention.  I didn’t want any of that.  I wanted people to think that I was normal, that I was just like everybody else.”

“That’s funny,” Kate remarked, looking pensive.
 

“Why?”

“Well, most people would say that they don’t want to be normal.  They want to stand out.  So the fact that you wanted to be like everyone else, in a strange way, kind of sets you apart.” 

“Huh.
  Never really thought of that,” Michael murmured.

“Don’t worry, it’s a good thing,” Kate smiled.

“Maybe.  But when you’re a kid, you’ll do pretty much anything to be accepted, or at least to not have people look at you like a freak.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

“Not as much as you’d think.  Mostly, they just avoided me.  It was like they knew there was something weird, but they couldn’t pinpoint it,” he explained.  “The second reason, the personal one, was my brother, Jonathan.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Kate said.

“He was a few years older than me, but he had a lot of problems; depression, bipolar-disorder, schizophrenia, you name it.  By the time I was old enough to realize that no one else could see all the extra people living in our house, my dad had already left.  I saw what Jonathan’s disease did to my family.  I tried so hard to be normal for my mother, to give her some sense of stability.  She didn’t need another son hearing voices that no one else could hear.” 

Kate’s expression grew somber while she waited silently for him to continue.

“Against my better judgment, I did try to help some of the spirits I encountered.  There was one who wanted me to deliver a message to her five-year-old daughter, another who wanted me to tell his wife where she’d be able to find the pearl earrings he’d been planning on giving her for her birthday.  

“Then, during my senior year of high school, a guy followed me home from school.
  He’d been murdered in the alley behind his house and he told me that he was going to terrorize my family unless I helped him.  So I started investigating.  I stopped by the library almost every day after school to research it.  He told me it wasn’t enough.  Finally, I decided to take a trip to the neighborhood where he’d been killed.  Dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”  

“What happened?”

“It turned out that he wasn’t the only guy killed in that neighborhood, so the local police had asked for FBI assistance in the case.  They’d profiled that the suspect would return to the scene to try to relive his crime.  When they caught me sneaking around in the dead of night...” 

“They though
t it was you,” Kate concluded.

“That was the absolute worst night of my life.
  The look on my mother’s face when she arrived at the station to take me home... I’ll never forget it.  She looked so tired and confused.  To this day, I’ve never felt as guilty as I did on that night.”

“Did that guy finally leave you alone after that?”
 

“Not until they caught the real killer about a week later.”
 

“My God...”
  Kate breathed.  “I can’t even imagine.  That must have been so hard for you.”

“It wasn’t fun,” Michael conceded.
   

“But you never thought that telling someone may have made things easier?
  What about your mother?”

“There were times I got real close to telling her, but something always held me back.
  Then, the summer after my freshmen year of college, Jonathan got a lot worse.  He started neglecting his meds and he cut off all contact with us.”  Kate seemed to know where the story was going.

“Oh no...” she muttered.

“We got the phone call right before I began my sophomore year.  My mother was devastated.  And of course, she blamed herself for everything.  She should have gotten him better help, she should have tried harder, she should never have let him out of her sight...”

“Oh Michael, I’m sorry,” Kate whispered, tears pooling in her pretty eyes.
  “I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that.”

“I am too.
  But sometimes things happen.  You can’t really control it.”  

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure.” 

“After all that happened, why didn’t you tell your mother then?
  Maybe it would have brought her some peace.”  Michael shook his head.

“It would have done the exact opposite.”

“Why?”

“Because I never saw him.
  After he died, my mother was terrified that because he’d committed suicide, his soul might not be saved.  If I’d told her then that I could see the spirit of everyone she’d ever loved except for him... I just don’t know what that would have done to her.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?
  That he would be damned because he killed himself?”

“No.
  I think the reason he moved on so quickly is because he chose to die.  It was what he wanted.  He had nothing left on Earth to stick around for, no unfinished business.”

“I think that makes a lot of sense,” Kate told him.
  Just then, the clock on the wall chimed three times, marking a quarter till two.  Kate sighed.  “I hope Gavin didn’t wait up for me.  He’ll be pitching a fit wondering where the hell I’ve been.”  Her face suddenly broke into a wry grin.  “At least he trusts you more than Luke.”

“I’ll walk you back,” Michael offered.

They walked the few meters to Kate’s door in a comfortable silence.  When they reached her apartment, she stopped and looked at him.    

“You know Michael, I’m really glad you told me,” Kate said.
   

“I am too,” Michael replied.
  And he was.  As much as he hated to admit that Luke had been right about something, he did feel that a huge weight had just been lifted off his shoulders.  

“I do have one more question though.”

“Okay.”  

“Do you want to go out with me?
  Maybe tomorrow around lunch time?” 

For a moment, Michael’s mind went blank.
  The next thing he knew, he was tripping over his words, trying and failing to come up with a simple “Sure, I’d love to,” or “That sounds great.”  But Kate seemed to understand what he was trying to say.  With a coy smile, she took a step toward him, rose up on her tiptoes, and kissed him swiftly on the mouth.     

“I’ll take that as a yes.”
   

Then, with one last grin, she opened the door and disappeared into her apartment.

There was music playing.  Kate knew she’d heard the song before, but for some reason, she couldn’t name the title or the artist.  It was a catchy tune, lively and upbeat, exactly the kind of song she enjoyed listening to in the car.  

Then suddenly, the music stopped.
  Everything stopped.  With a flash of light and the screech of skidding tires, Kate felt the very air being sucked away from her lungs as her head struck something cold and metallic.      

The next thing she knew, she was standing on the side of a road, watching snow fall in flurries around her.
  In the distance, she saw the flashing lights of a firetruck, or maybe an ambulance, gathered around a tall tree.  She was too far away to make out what was happening, but she knew from the approaching wail of yet another siren, it wasn’t good.  

Where was she, exactly?
  Wherever it was, it was very bright.  And very cold.

Or at least, it should have been cold.
  With nothing but snow as far as the eye could see, she should have been freezing.  But she wasn’t.  She wasn’t warm either.  She simply felt... nothing.  

Only slightly worried, she wracked her memory, desperately trying to remember where she was supposed to be.
  Where would she usually go in a snowstorm?  

An instant later, she was standing in the middle of a very busy Starbucks.
  She scanned the room for a familiar face.  Was she supposed to meet someone here?  She didn’t see anyone she recognized.  Maybe they hadn’t arrived yet.  

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a large man walking directly toward her.
  She expected him to maneuver his way around her, but when he didn’t alter his course, she had to dive out of the way in order to avoid a collision.  

“Hey!” she cried.
  He ignored her.  As if almost running her over wasn’t rude enough.  She hoped he spilled coffee all over his extra-large T-shirt.  

That is, if he even ordered coffee.
  From the lack of smell in the usually potent coffee house, everyone in the entire room had ordered odorless tea.