Page 23 of Haunting Phantom
My hands pound on the barrier separating me from Phantom, and I start getting pissed.“Bitch! Let me in. Invite me. What the fuck are you doing? You can’t just take my man and expect me to sit out here waiting for you two to have dinner.”
Autumn saunters over to the door, looking too damn smug as she quietly says,“I need some time with him alone, Eve. Hope you understand.”
Then the door shuts, and my patience snaps.
“Bitch. Whore. Goddamn stupid Cu—”
“Your mouth is angelic,”Angus exclaims, grinning a little too wide for my liking.
“Shut up, Toothless Joe. I’m pissed. Did you see what she just did? She purposely kept me out of her place. Now she has my boyfriend in there doing God knows what, and I’m out here, chilling on the stoop with you.”
In a huff, I sit down on one of the steps and sigh. Angus keeps his distance but moves close enough to have a chat. An unwelcomed chat.
“Is he your unfinished business?”
I shrug.“I guess so. I’m tethered to him.”
He nods.“Ah, so you promised him you wouldn’t leave him.”
My head shoots up to look at him.“How did you know that?”
“There’s a girl near 45B that haunts around. She made the same promise to her lover too. But her lover stopped connecting with her a few years back, after he found someone new, and now she just wanders around the complex aimlessly, slowly forgetting why she’s even here and why she can’t seem to go too far from a man she barely recognizes anymore.”
“That’s… sad,”I mutter, throwing my head in my hands.“I don’t want Blake to forget me. That’s why I keep reminding him that I’m still here.”
Angus shifts a little closer, his withered face holding more age than it should after dying. He’s at least forever in his seventies, with reddish hair streaked with gray, and eyes too blue to be real. He has a beard which is scraggily and gross, and besides his missing teeth, I guess his smile isn’t unpleasant, but I still don’t like the unwanted conversation he’s forcing me to have, it makes eavesdropping almost impossible through Autumn’s metal door.
“So, what’s your poison? Are you a throw something at their head to grab their attention type of ghost?”He laughs when he sees my surprise.
“I do like a good empty bottle throwing. The glass shards add a little oomph to the throw afterward. I call it mosaic chaos.”
He laughs a little louder.“The bad part of mosaic chaos is that it scares the living.”
“Well, the living are a bunch of pussies and wimps.”
If he’s offended, he doesn’t show it.“Some are, that’s for sure.”He takes a cautious step closer, before resting on the steps across from me, making sure to keep his distance.
“So, what makes your living boyfriend so special?”
“He’s the only guy that’s ever meant something to me. I’d be lost without him.”
He nods.“I felt the same way about my wife when I passed away. Losing someone is never easy, but it’s even harder when you have to watch them live on without you. When she passed away, I lost my reason for sticking around, but she didn’t know I was waiting for her out here, and walked into the light, leaving me alone to wander without her…”
“Does that mean she wasn’t your unfinished business?”
He shrugs.“Guess not. That’s why I keep trying to get Autumn’s attention, but she has a clearing ritual when she leaves her house.”
“Ritual?”
“Yeah, she comes out with headphones in her ears. It plays the same thing over and over again, just to block out the voices in her head. I can’t leave the apartment grounds, so chasing her beyond it is impossible for me. I was hoping she could help me figure out why I haven’t crossed over yet. But I don’t know how to get her attention without shouting her name, and my voice isn’t what it used to be.”
God, why am I sorta feeling sorry for the old guy? This isn’t like me. Get yourself together, Eve!
Frowning, I say,“Well, I don’t know how to help you, Old Timer. At the moment, they got me shut out and I have nothing to throw.”
There’s a strange twinkle in his eye.“Have you ever tried other forms of communication other than throwing things around?”
“No, throwing things has always worked for me.”
