Page 6 of The Spirit Key
Those four days went by quickly, and each time I opened my eyes, I expected to see the ghosts. But nothing happened. I started to believe that I was finally free and thought maybe I could have a life again.
So, I got myself a job. It was a shitty one, flipping burgers at a dive restaurant, but it paid decent—and the boss, Mitch, paid me in cash, which let me work a lot of hours. The nice thing was the money kept me in a room at the motel until I was able to rent my first apartment. Even if it was nothing more than a hole-in-the-wall, it was mine. And each day that passed ghost-free? That was a bonus in my book.
After thirty-one days straight, I decided I needed a better job. I started looking at ads, and to be fair to my boss, I told him I was applying at other places. He sat me down, looked me square in the eye, and said, “What are you running from?”
How the hell was I supposed to answer that question? The obvious answer was to lie. I spun a tale of being on the outs with my family and needing to get away. He nodded sagely, said uh-huh in all the right places, then dropped a bombshell on me.
“You know they can track you by your credit cards and social security number, right?”
Now you’d think, with all the television I watched, I’d know these things. Nope. Never even occurred to me. But he told me he knew a guy who could help, if I was willing to pay for it. That’s how I met Eddie Rivers. When Mitch told me the guy could get me any kind of ID and set me up with a new identity, I was figuring some sleazy, smoke-filled bar. The address Mitch gave me? Yeah, no bar here. In fact, Eddie turned out to be a seventeen-year-old who lived in his parents’ basement. He had an enormous computer system setup, and with it, he assured me, he could recreate me.
He warned me that a falsified social security number could land me in trouble, but then added with a laugh that the whole thing was such a gray area, and I was probably going to be okay, because he hadn’t made a fake name, just remade my old one.
Still, he swore they wouldn’t be able to track me down easily.
It took him a couple of weeks, but when he was done, I was Scott Fogel again, and Eddie had created a whole persona for me, including a social security number, school transcripts, which he copied from my old ones—the works. And yes, it was not cheap. I ended up working at the restaurant for three more months just to be able to pay him off. Once I was done, though, the world was my proverbial oyster.
I took online courses and got my GED. It wasn’t the diploma I wanted, but it opened new opportunities for me in my job search. Eventually I landed a part-time gig in an advertising firm, doing whatever they needed. Some days I answered phones; others I would deal with email correspondence. I loved working there, because it meant dealing with live people.
Of course, the live people who had been in my life? I missed the hell out of them. I kept telling myself that when I was stronger, had better control over things, I could reach out to them. But I’d fucked up their lives already and feared I would somehow drag them back down into the cesspool my life had been. So I left them alone.
Unfortunately, they didn’t return the favor.
One night, after dragging my ass home from a grueling twelve-hour shift, I flipped the switch on the air conditioner, sighing when the cool breeze drifted through the room, displacing the heat and humidity from a balmy day. I poured myself a glass of iced tea, then swiped the condensation from the cool glass across my forehead, groaning at the refreshing chill.
“So, this is where you ended up. Not too bad. Nice view at least.”
I leaped out of my chair, dropping the glass to the floor with a thump. I spun to confront whoever was in my apartment and came face-to… well, face, with someone I used to think of as my second mom. She looked old, weary. The lines in her face were etched deeply, no longer the softness I remembered at all.
I was instantly transported back in time to the day I walked into her house while she was on the phone. She’d said hello and I replied. Whoever was on the other end must have asked who it was, because her reply tickled me to this day. “It’s Scotty, Tim’s boyfriend.” My face had heated because she had no idea how true I wanted that to be.
Now she stood in my apartment, crackling with energy that I knew far too well, but I didn’t want to believe it was true.
“Mrs. Jennesee?”
She gestured toward the apartment. “Seems like you did pretty good for yourself. Was it worth it?”
I shivered, knowing it had nothing to do with the AC or the tea. The truth was there, obvious for me to see. “You’re dead.”
“And you’re a genius,” she exclaimed with a shrug of her shoulder. “Or, you know, not.”
“You can’t be here.” I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted this to be another one of my hallucinations. Rebecca Jennesee was important to me, and the thought of her not being alive? It crushed me.
Her eyes opened wide. “Sweetie, I can pretty much go anywhere I want. Dying can be pretty liberating, but I think you know that already.”
I shook my head harshly. “Ghosts can’t leave the area they died in.” There wasn’t much I was certain of when it came to ghosts, but that one was on the money. I thought. I mean, it explained why the ghost from school never followed me home, right?
“Yes and no,” she replied, a grin on her face. “You were like a son to me. When you left, a part of my heart went with you. When I… you know, died, I could feel the connection still there. The bond between us, and the bond between you and Tim.”
Acid churned in my stomach when she mentioned my best friend. My first crush. The boy I never told I loved him.
“Is Tim okay?” I whispered, afraid she would tell me something horrible had happened to him.
Thatseemed to piss her off. Her energy flared a ruby red as she glared at me. When I was a kid, that stare made me want to piss my pants, and things hadn’t changed now that I was an adult. Fortunately I had better control of my bladder now. Mostly.
“Now you care? Now you want to know? You’ve been gone years, you never called, you never wrote. Hell, you never even showed up at my funeral.” Her aura faded back to the muted gray I’d seen when she first appeared. It was weird seeing a ghost’s tears, but they tore at my heart anyway.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
