The Ghost Files (2 page)

Since day one, Sam and I disliked each other. She’s a snob and I’m a smartass. Put us in a ring and I’d knock her on her snotty arse in 2.5 seconds. Does she honestly think I’m gonna tell her what I’m doing? But… considering that I’m standing with people who are nearly drunk or well past that state, she probably assumes I am, too.

“Sure I do,” I tell her, “but
you’ll
have to wait until Friday to hear it.” I smile sweetly at her and snuggle under Jake’s arm. Sam has a huge crush on Jake. This I discovered from her friend Mimi. The snuggling only makes her mad and she stomps off. Good riddance. I so don’t want to get into a cat fight tonight.

“You know that spot is yours,” Jake whispers in my ear. “I’ve heard you practicing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Do I look worried?” I breathe in Jake’s rich scent. He smells clean and woodsy. I’m not sure what kind of cologne he uses, but it’s addictive. I could stand here forever basking in the warmth of the fire, enjoying Jake’s arms around me. This is as close as I’ve ever come to being well, maybe
not
so much happy, but I guess maybe content is the right word. It’s another new feeling for me, but it’s one I sorta like.

“No,” Jake grins down at me, “but you do look very, very kissable.”

I smile as he lowers his head and kisses me until my toes curl. Jake kisses better than any boy I’ve ever met. Not that I’m a slut, mind you; I don’t sleep around. I’m still a virgin, but do enjoy the whole kissing aspect of dating. Jake’s kisses make me want to rethink the whole not-sleeping-around thing, which worries me. Not that he’s even said anything, but if he did, I’d have to think really, really hard and I don’t know what my answer would be. It’s always been ‘no’ before, but I’ve never met a guy I liked
this
much, either.

“Get a room,” Tommy grouches, breaking up our little interlude.

Jake and I both laugh at Tommy’s obvious disgust. He’d hit on me not more than an hour after I’d arrived at school my first day. Tommy has never understood why I didn’t jump at the chance to let him in my pants. Why does Meg put up with his crap? Again, not my business.

The joke rattling on my tongue dies as a girl steps into the firelight. She’s turned away from me, dressed in a bummy-looking gray nightshirt, hands bound behind her back. Long, stringy brown hair is matted with a dark sticky substance.

Not here. Oh, please, oh please, oh please, not here.

I want to avert my eyes, but can’t. She’s turned to face me; her eyes are so lost and scared. There’s a small bullet hole in her head, almost exactly where it was on the other dead kid I saw earlier. Her mouth is covered in duct tape, so she can’t speak, but I don’t need her to. I know her.

It’s Sally.

Chapter Two

“Take me home. Now.”

Jake and Tommy stop their sports talk mid-sentence and stare at me.

“It’s only been two ho–” Jake shuts up when he no doubt sees the shock, worry, and anger in my expression.

It’s wrong for Sally to end up murdered and I could care less if Jake’s upset about leaving early.  I gotta get home.

“Mattie…”

“Now, Jake,” I cut him off. “You either drive me home or I’m walking.” He frowns and I stalk away. I hear his sigh behind me and then a muffled “Sorry,” before he hurries to catch up.

“What’s going on?” he demands.

“I just gotta get home.” No way can I say that I’ve just seen my foster sister’s ghost, bound and gagged. My face is stone; I suspect my eyes are, too.

“Fine,” he sighs.  “I’ll drive you.”

Yeah, he’s irritated. Too bad. He’s nice and all and I
really
like him, but he’d best not be thinking I owe him anything. If he insists, he’ll learn Mattie-move number 1: Hit first, ask questions later. But when I wanna go, I just go. He’ll deal or move on.

The ride is tense and I can feel Jake’s stare. He’s no doubt sure I’ve gone nuts… but I refuse to explain. I turn my attention to the more serious problem —
what will I do at home? It’s not like I can say, “Hey, I just saw Sally’s ghost!” I have to
do
something.

As we pull up, the house is quiet and dark. No lights, no movement. Nobody knows Sally’s gone, maybe? Not good. I don’t even give Jake time to stop the car before I’m out and running up the porch steps, yelling, “I’ll call you tomorrow!” I guess he drives away, but don’t bother turning around to find out.

I fumble my keys, but finally open the front door.  My feet pound up the stairs, thumping in concert with the rapid beating of my heart.

“MRS. OLSON!” I bellow and burst into Sally’s room. The door bounces off the wall.

The bed is rumpled, like she’s just gotten up to go to the bathroom or the kitchen for a snack. Her shoes lay haphazardly in front of the bed, and her robe is in a puddle on the bedspread. The lamp is still on. Sally always sleeps with it on so that she’ll know where she is when she wakes up
and
that she’s safe. But not this time.

Where is she? I rip open the closet door, half expecting to see her there. There’s no way she could have gotten far. I’d only been gone a little over two hours. I circle the room looking for anything to tell me where she is. Nothing is out of place here.  I want to scream.

“What is it?” Mrs. Olson staggers into the room, wiping sleep from her eyes and blinking like an owl.

“Where’s Sally?” I demand; my voice is a little too shrill.  

“She went to a party,” Mrs. Olson yawns and pulls muddy brown hair out of its elastic band. “Why all the fuss, Mattie? She said she was going to meet you.”

“No way. She wasn’t invited, and had no way to get there, even if she was crashing it.” My mind flitted anxiously. Sally had been wearing her night clothes! That means whatever happened to her started
here.
“We have to call the police,” I mumble, still trying to see something in the room that could give me a clue.

“The police?” Mrs. Olson groans. “Mattie, she’s at a party. Why would we call the police?”

“Because I already told you she wasn’t at the party!” I shout.

Mrs. Olson stares at me like I sprouted horns. “If she’s not home in a couple hours, then we’ll call the police, honey. You need to calm down.”

I growl through my teeth. Why won’t she listen to me?  Just because I don’t have the magical number eighteen attached to me doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about! Arghhhh.

Mrs. Olson is shaking her head at me and I throw up my hands. To heck with this. I stomp down the stairs and pick up the phone.

“Mathilda Louise Hathaway, just what do you think you’re doing?” She thuds down the steps right behind me.

“I’m calling the cops since
you
won’t.”

She takes the phone from me. “No you
won’t
call the police. Sally went to a party and whether you saw her there or not, that is where she is. I am sure she’ll be home soon.”

“Really? So when she doesn’t come home and we end up calling the cops, what are you gonna say when they ask you, why didn’t you call sooner?” I spit out. “You’re supposed to be taking care of us!”

Mrs. Olson’s pale gray eyes turn steely.
That
hit a nerve.

“I
do
take care of you—better than most, Mattie. You have no right to say that.”

“Then call the cops! She’s not at the party! She’s dressed in her night clothes for crying out loud!”

Mrs. Olson’s eyes turn sharper. “I thought you said you didn’t see her, Mattie. How do you know what she’s wearing?”

Fudgepops, I shouldn’t have said that. Think fast, Mattie-girl. “Because… when I left, she had on her nightshirt and her fluffy gorilla house shoes. She was getting ready for bed.”

“Then she changed her mind,” Mrs. Olson replies. “Sally told Larry she was going to a party.”

Wait,
Mr. Olson
said Sally went to the party? And just where is
he
now? Why isn’t he out here to see what the shouting’s about? Everybody else is up; doors are opening and closing upstairs. “Where’s Mr. Olson?”

“He got called into work.” Mrs. Olson runs a hand through her hair again. “Mattie, I promise you if she’s not home in a few hours, we’ll call the police. Can you wait that long?”

“Okay,” I hold back a sigh. She really believes Sally is at the party. Sally’s already dead so technically finding her won’t help, but I don’t want her to be just another kid marked as a runaway. She deserves better than that. She deserves justice.

Mrs. Olson smiles tiredly at me. “Go fix yourself a cup of tea, dear. There are plenty of cold-cuts in the fridge if you want a sandwich.” She heads back upstairs, cordless phone in hand.

Great… what to do now? There’s only one thing to do — the one thing I swore I’d never do. I can talk to the dead kid in the bathroom. Sally can’t talk even if she shows up; her mouth is taped over, but the little girl in the bathroom can.

I so don’t want to do this, but it’s not about me, it’s about Sally.

I steel myself and head towards the bathroom. 

Time to talk to the dead kid.

Chapter Three

My insides churn like I’m gonna upchuck at any second. I’ve worked so hard to deny this part of myself. It’s terrifying to own up to it now, but I have to. It’s for Sally. I can speak for her; find out what happened. My best chance is the kid. She had a wound similar to Sally’s and even if the same person didn’t kill them both, maybe she saw what happened to Sally. It’s a place to start.

The door to the downstairs bathroom beckons me, but I hesitate. What if this starts something I can’t stop again? What if they never leave me alone? This could be the beginning of the end of my sanity.

Stop, stop, stop
,
I say to myself.
It’s not about you, Mattie Louise
. Sure, Sally and I have only known each other a month, but foster kids are different. We know what it’s like to be dumped and abandoned. We’re tough as nails, but we stick together to survive. Finding her body is important to me and maybe to her too.

I take another step and stop again. I really, really don’t want to do this. The cold is what bothers me the most. I’ve never been able to get warm, not really. And the cold I’m feeling really hurts – it burns right through me. Especially right now. Deciding I should talk to the kid opened a door I’m not sure can be closed again.
I feel the locks opening and the cold is already snaking into my bones. By the time I reach the door, I’m shivering. But I can’t back out now. Time to own up to my weirdness. This is for Sally.

Resolved, I push open the door and go in. The light switch is beside the door and I waste no time flipping it on. The harsh white tile greets me, but there’s no dead kid. But, then, I’ve never tried to find a ghost before, either. They usually find
me
. Well, Mattie, do something. Standing here like an idiot isn’t helping. “Um… hello?”

Silence.

Nada. No surprise there. I close my eyes and think of the kid, picturing her the way I remembered from before and concentrate really hard on that image. “Look kid, I’m sorry I ignored you earlier. Will you come out?” How stupid does that sound, right?

Well dang it. Maybe I need to concentrate harder. I close my eyes so tight they hurt and whisper, “Come out, come out, come out.” All I need now are red shoes, a blue checkered dress and a little dog named Toto. I feel
really
stupid.

A giggle breaks the silence behind me. I whirl around, but the only thing that greets me is the towel rack over the toilet.

“Hello? Little girl?”

“You’re silly.”

It’s not my dead kid from before, but a little boy. He’s sitting on the bathtub and looks about nine. Floppy brown curls tickle his ears and eyes as blue as a cloudless summer sky stare at me from a bruised and smashed face. Dear God, it looks like someone caved in half of it. The left side of his face is sunken in, bones sticking out of the skin in a random pattern. His clothes are torn and muddy and he only has on one sneaker. His shoeless foot has been butchered. But it’s the bullet hole in his head that catches my attention.

“Hello,” I whisper.

“You can see me?”
He jumps down and moves closer, forcing me to back up until I hit the door. My hand grabs the knob, ready to bolt if he gets too close.

“Yes.”

“Can you help me?”
Those big blue eyes bore into me and the cold intensifies.

“What happened to you?”

“I don’t know.”

He sounds so lost and alone. I remember sounding like that after the whole Mom incident. It’s the worst feeling in the world. I probably looked about as bad as this kid, too. I’d been scared and alone with no one to tell me everything was gonna be okay. It’s a lesson we all learn, but to learn it like
this
is cruel. He’s just a little boy.

“Do you know the little girl that was in here before?” I ask him softly. After all, I don’t want to scare him.

“Can you find my mommy for me?”
he asks
. “She’s gonna be so mad. I wasn’t supposed to leave the playground, but I did, and now I can’t find her. Please, can you take me to my mommy?”

Oh, crap. I feel his pain and fear inside me. Why can’t the kid just shut up? I don’t like feeling sorry for him. It makes me vulnerable and I don’t do vulnerable. Ever. Best defense is always a good offense. Focus, Mattie. “Look kid, I’m trying to find my friend Sally. Have you seen her?  She’s tall, about my age with brown hair and brown eyes? She’s wearing a Mickey Mouse nightshirt.”

He backs away from me, his eyes going round with fear and horror. His poor face becomes even more bruised-looking if that’s possible, now taking on a purplish hue.

“It’s dark there,”
he whispers
. “And cold.”

“Where?”

He shakes his head no.
“I can’t tell,”
the little boy says
. “Not ever.”

The lights in the bathroom dim, almost going out, and the temperature drops to freezing.