Walking With a Ghost

I couldn't sleep. The scene in my room with Bo kept repeating itself in my mind. The eyes. The charred, dismembered, bloodied, pale, shot, dead people staring at me. Mom's blue-violet eyes...staring. The plum colored bruises upon the flesh of her neck...

"Can't sleep?"

I shot up in bed and gasped. I choked on the quick intake of breath and coughed violently, unable to catch my breath. I flailed for my inhaler.

"Need this?" The same voice asked, a pale hand out-stretched, my inhaler in his palm. Bo?

"Tate, stop torturing our new guest." A new voice appeared. "She's dying. Give her the inhaler."

"I am, I am."

The inhaler was thrust into my grasp. Puff. Inhale. Shake. Puff, inhale, shake. Puffinhaleshake. Man, asthma sucks. I can't get scared without getting winded.

"Who are you?" I asked, gasping for air.

"Ah, well, I'm Tate."

I searched through the blinding darkness for the light switch. When I found it, the bulbs bathed the room in a bright halo of light. At the end of the bed, a teenage boy with curly blonde hair was smiling up at me. He was one of the faces I recognized earlier.

He's dead, I thought to myself. He can't hurt you.

"This is the part where you introduce yourself," Tate the ghost kid urged me to speak.

"You're a ghost, shouldn't you already know that?" I asked. I kept my back pressed to the wall precautiously.

"I'm dead, not clairvoyant."

Oh. "Oh, right. I-I'm Lita. Are you, like, a bad ghost?"

Tate frowned at me. I snapped my mouth shut and swallowed a rising lump in my throat. Sweat broke out on my forehead, neck, armpits, and palms.

Wrong question, I thought and mentally slapped myself. I'd just shot myself in the foot on my first night in Murder House.

"Your opinion is your own. Don't let me influence yours," Tate replied, the smile returning to his face.

"Um," I couldn't calm my breathing which made my stutter even worse. "C-c-can you l-leave. I need to sleep."

"Didn't look like you were doing much sleeping to me..." Tate said matter-of-factly, raising an eyebrow.

"Would you be able to sleep with a bunch of dead people watching you?" I asked.

Tate stood and took a couple careful steps toward me. "No one else was watching you. Just me."

"Gee, th-that makes me feel so m-much better." I replied sarcastically.

"I used to have a girlfriend," Tate changed the subject. "This was her room. She died in this house, too, ya know."

"Er, please s-stop. I don't want to talk to y-y-you anymore."

Tate chuckled. "You stutter a lot." Then he got serious. "Are you scared?" He cocked his head to the side and stared at me with wide eyes. Shiver.

"Bo!" I called, my eyes not leaving Tate for a second.

"Don't be scared, Lita, I won't hurt you." Tate begged, his hands squeezing my wrists with a death grip.

His knuckles bone white...plum colored bruises...blue-violet eyes—

"Bo!" I screamed, shutting my eyes and ducking my head.

The sound of the bedroom door swinging open startled me and a new pair of hands held my wrists- just not tightly.

"Lita, open your eyes. Look at me." Bo's groggy voice pierced the darkness in my mind.

Sure, Bo, I thought quietly. Anything to look into those ocean colored eyes of yours. I lifted my head and looked into Bo's eyes. He wasn't wearing his glasses, his short hair was sticking up on one side, and his eyes red-rimmed from sleep.

I was gasping again and didn't notice until now. I was choking and scanning the floor for my inhaler, wondering if I dropped it when Tate grabbed me.

"What's wrong, Lita? What'd you lose?" Bo asked in panic.

"My sanity," I wanted to answer. Instead I flailed across the floor and struggled to breathe, feeling like a fish out of water.

"Oh, my God, why're you panting like that? Are you having an asthma attack?"

I nodded like a bobble head dashboard ornament going over speed bumps.

"Shit!" he whispered, getting on all fours and searching for my inhaler.

"It was just here!" I wanted to exclaim. My throat was constricting and I could feel my lungs spasming in my chest. Oh, no. I was going to die.

Hands around my neck...

"Found it!" Bo exclaimed, jumping to his feet and waving the inhaler over his head. Then, he got down on his knees beside me, shook the asthma inhaler and pumped the medicine down my windpipe.

I could feel everything opening up a little. I met eyes with Bo and breathlessly said, "Two more."

He shook it again and fed me the medicine. Once I caught my breath, Bo helped me into bed.

"Your parent's sleep heavily," I said pointedly.

"They're not my parents." Bo corrected. "And, yeah, they practically sleep through everything." He paused and thought for a couple seconds before asking, "Who did you see?"

"Tate." I answered, remembering his death grip on my wrists. I lifted my arms to inspect the damage. Bluish spots forming on my skin.

"Stay away from Tate." Bo said quickly.

"He came to me!" I replied.

"When you don't want the ghosts to leave you alone, just close your eyes and yell 'Go away!' and they'll never touch you."

"Who are all of the ghosts here?"

"We'll talk about it tomorrow. Get some sleep." Bo said as he stood to leave.

"Bo," I whispered before he walked out. He turned his head to me and lifted his eyebrows in question. "You saved my life. Thank you."

"I'm glad I could help," he replied smiling, and for the first time, I noticed Bo's dimples. I smiled back. "Goodnight, Lita."

"Goodnight, Bo."

It took me a couple of hours to finally sleep, but when I did, I dreamed of Tate, his hands squeezing my neck instead of my wrists.
~
The next morning, Dakota was jumping on my bed to wake me up for breakfast. I scooped her up in my arms and carried her down the stairs to the kitchen. There, I saw Alice and a small elderly woman in a maid uniform. She had fiery hair pinned to her head tightly, not one wisp of hair out of place. Her pale skin was wrinkled and sagging, her lips were small and puckered, and her eyebrows bunched together as she kneaded dough with her bare hands.

"What's for breakfast?" I asked Alice as I set Dakota in a high chair.

Alice and the maid looked up at me at the same time. Alice smiled. The maid just stared at me, a ghostly eye beside the living one. She was another face I recognized amongst the dead. As if she read my thoughts, she looked away from me and returned to working the dough.

"Waffles, bacon, hashbrowns, and omelets. Moira's preparing dessert for tonight." Alice explained and motioned to the maid on the last part.

"It's a traditional dessert my mother taught me to make. I do hope you aren't allergic to chocolate." Moira spoke to me without making eye contact.

"No, I'm not," I assured her. "I can't wait to try it." I slowly backed out of the kitchen area and wandered around. Finally, I came back and asked, "Where's Bo?"

"Probably in the basement. He spends too much time in there." Alice answered indifferently, flipping an omelet carefully.

"And the attic!" Dakota chimed in.

I went for the attic first. It was full of dusty boxes of antique junk. No Bo. In the basement, there was an abandoned bathtub and a series of pipes above my head.

"Bo?" I said, looking for a source of light. It was an old Victorian style home, so there was no chance at me finding a light switch in the basement. The small window above the abandoned bathtub wasn't much help either. "Bo?"

Tiny footsteps sounded all around me and peels of laughing girls came from behind me. I jumped at the ominous sounds and spun in circles. But I saw nothing. Of course.

"Where's me baby?" A woman screamed.

"Get out of my house!" A man hollered.

"You need to leave," A girl said in a low tone.

"I didn't do anything!"

"I don't belong here!"

"My baby!"

"Leave this house!"

Girls laughing, babies wailing, chains rattling, howls, screams. They all ran together all around me. I turned on my heels and made haste for the door. When I swung the door open, Tate was there, staring down at me with a dark scowl.

I shut my eyes and calmly said, "Go away." Just as Bo told me to do. When I opened my eyes, Tate was gone. I ran out of the basement and slammed the door shut.

"Lita?" Bo's voice behind me startled me.

I smacked my hand to my chest and spun around.

"What're you doing down there?" Bo asked.

"Looking for you." I replied.

"I was in my room. I just woke up and Mom said you were looking for me."

"She said you might have been in the basement or the attic."

"Yeah, I go to the basement and attic sometimes."

"I saw Tate again," I said idly picking at my chipped nail polish. When was the last time I painted my nails?

"Where?" Bo was tensed now, looking around for Tate.

"In the basement. But, I told him to go away. There were more in the basement but I didn't see them. They were just screaming at me and telling me to leave."

"They'll do that."

"I'll just have to learn to ignore them, I guess."

"No," he quickly retorted. "Do not ignore them. These people aren't just trapped spirits, they're poltergeists. They'll do anything they can to get your attention, even if that means pushing you down stairs or setting you on fire."

"They can do that?" My stomach fell out of my body and crawled into a dark hole in the wall. Not literally.

"Without hesitation."
~
After breakfast with Alice, Dakota, and Bo, Bo led me to the attic. Moira watched us over her steaming cup of tea.

"Is she a ghost?" I asked Bo once we were out of hearing distance.

Bo pulled down the latch and a door opened, along with a set of wooden steps to help us up. The dark opening above us gave me shivers.

"Who?" Bo asked in confusion.

"Moira. The maid with one eye."

"Yeah, she's dead," he replied, bowing his head for a moment of silence. "She's one of the good ones, though. Don't be afraid of her."