Andy

My fingers inch over his, curling around the palm of his hand as I hesitantly grab it. He stands still as stone, regretful tears in his eyes.

Despite everything we've been through, all the bad, I still cannot say no to him. I am not ready to call it quits yet.

I close the small gap separating us, and wrap my arms tightly around his ribs, burying my face in his worn out leather jacket. He takes a small step backward in surprise, and hesitantly returns the embrace, wrapping his arms around my back. His leather jacket squeaks at the movement.

I don't have anything to say, and everything I come up with doesn't feel monumental enough to cover it. All that comes to mind is an assortment of apologies and promises, but I can't make myself form them.

I take a deep breath, and live in the quiet moment while it lasts, making a mental note of how everything feels. Hugging him is the equivalent of hugging a stone carving, because he is cold to the touch and stiff in pose. He smells of so many different things that I can't find a distinct one. Cigarette smoke is certainly one, though. A remanent of his past life, the smell of how he lived his life clinging to the fabric of his sleeveless Misfits shirt and jacket.

The wind picks up a little, and brushes my hair back from my eyes. I feel cold tears staining the shoulder of my hoodie where his face is buried, and I rub his back a bit. I'm not stellar at comforting people, I'm the kind of person who suggests ways to fix the problem instead of offering kind words and hugs. But this just feels different, I guess. He's so much more fragile than anyone else I know. He hangs on a noose between two sides of his brain: accepting the terrible things that are happening to him with grace and fighting for a reason to smile, or succumbing to it all, recoiling into himself.

"Hey," I murmur though it feels like I can't breathe. My throat is tightening with a swell of emotions I do not know how to process. I hook my arms under his and drape my hands over his shoulders, pulling away from him enough to see his face. He looks distraught and on the verge of panicking.

His eyes dart around the clearing, blue eyes wild like he'll take off like a shot at any moment. He winces, and looks down, curling his fingers in the loose fabric of the back of my hoodie.

"I don't know what I would do if I chased you away." He whimpers, voice shot through with pain, guilt, and regret, unlike anything I have ever heard. "You're the reason I stayed, and if I ruined it all, there's no way out."

I realize the weight of what he is saying... If we were to split, he'd be stuck in this form, unable to find comfort and solace in anyone else because they cannot see him or interact with him. He'd be stuck to roam the earth endlessly with nothing to really do. Suicide wouldn't be an option, he'd just be stuck this time to face everything.

It also makes me realize how reliant he his on me. He doesn't stay with me because he pities me or because he needs someone to pass time with making stupid jokes and playing pranks on people... He stays with me because he's terrified of what will happen to him if he ends up alone again. He will surely blame himself for it the way he's blamed himself for Patricia over the years, never able to escape what he's done.

There isn't even an option here, anymore. Even if I decided that I couldn't take him anymore, I really couldn't do that to him knowing I'd be destroying his soul. His last possession that is truly his to keep.

... I will not do that. Not ever, I can't. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I did.

"I will stay." I promise him with a shaking voice, feeling more confidence in that statement than I've felt in months.

He opens his mouth to say something, but looks up and scans the treeline behind me, and he stops. His eyes freeze on something standing nearby, and he instinctively tightens his grip on my back. I turn halfway towards the direction he is facing, seeing nothing.

"What is it?"

He grits his teeth, wiping his tears away quickly, shaking his head to clear it before glaring back at the figure.

"No." He says firmly, anger in his voice. "I won't be needing your services anymore... No, I've got it handled now. I appreciated the help at the time, but you're not getting..."

His gaze falters and he looks at me, fear in his eyes.

"You never said that that was part of the deal. This is not a contract. I owe you nothing now, I've fulfilled my part."

He shakes his head quickly as the invisible being suggests something he is firmly against. "You cannot show your true self. She does not need to see you."

I see a flicker in the trees, almost like a hologram, but it's gone before I can make out what it is. Before I can examine it too much, Andy swiftly turns towards me again, and scoops me up in his arms like before, and makes a break in the direction of my house. The trees rush by, and the forest floor moves beneath us like a movie. I pull up on his shoulder a bit, looking behind us as he runs, and I can see the low bushes, grass, and ferns swaying as something else pushes through them after us.

"Look out!" I scream, and the grass moves faster as it closes the distance between us. Andy is shoved forward, and my grip on his shoulder is pried loose as I'm sent flying through the air, hitting the ground hard, and rolling four times to a stop. I push up from the grainy dirt to search for our attacker, but there's nothing to be seen.

Andy gets up from the ground and is straight into attack mode. He whips around and swings a punch, and a kick at what I guess is a knee. I want to help, but I can't see his attacker. How the hell am I supposed to fight something I cannot even see.?!

Andy is ripped around to face me, his jaw is pulled upwards, like it's trying to pry off his skull. Panic courses through my veins, and even though it's complete suicide to do so, I push up from the ground and charge them, ducking low when my instincts scream at me that something is wrong, and sure enough, a broken chunk of hollowed out log soars through the air, shattering on the tree behind me.

He jabs his elbow back, and pulls himself free.

"Ash, give me your crucifix!"

"My what?!" I shout back in panic.

"Your cross! Give me your Goddamned cross!"

I reach up, fumbling with the chain, ripping it from my neck, tossing it towards him. He snatches it out of the air and curb stomps something lying low in the trampled grass, he holds the small cross out, pinching the charm between his thumb and index finger.

"Our father that art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done-" He stops the prayer, his eyes stunned as he watches something rise off the ground.

"Ash! You have to do it! You're religious, I have no belief. You're the only one who can do it. Just finish the prayer."

He slaps the cross into my hand, and I fight past the numbness in my head and force my fingers to cooperate, fumbling with it to get it upright when Andy is slammed from my side against another tree, his neck pinned firmly to the wood.

"Uh.. Uh, give us this day our daily bread-" I stutter, the prayer almost blanking from my mind. "and forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Andy's hands are pushing up against the face of it, and I realize with a cold chill down my spine that whatever it is, it is not human. His hands conform to the grooves of its face, fingers spread over deep eyesockets and a long snout.

"For thine is the kingdom!" I shout with as much energy and force as I can, "The power and the glory, for now and forever."

The movements that made Andy's back bow against the tree slow, and I think it's over.

"Finish it!" Andy shouts through a locked jaw, his head being pushed up again. "You have to finish the prayer."

"What? What does that mea..."

I look up in revelation. "The power and the glory, for now and forever, amen!"

Nothing remarkable happens... I guess I was expecting a burst of flames or something, maybe even a demonic yell as whatever the hell it was was dragged back to hell. In fact, the only way I could tell that it was over was because Andy peeled himself off the tree and took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling quickly.

"Hot damn, it actually worked."

"You mean you didn't know if it would?!" I demand, shaking my cross at him. He laughs nervously, leaning forward on his knees for a few moments. "I honestly thought that that would be the end of me."

"You can't die. You've got nothing to worry about." I laugh, but his expression grows serious and I stop. "What?"

"You didn't notice how intent it was on ripping off my skull?" He raises his eyebrows a bit, straightening out his back and stretching his arms.

"I did notice that... Why?"

"Other ghosts can draw energy from each other... But ah, it's not a give and take process. If one of them attacks you, it 'kills' you, and I mean, it sends you straight to Hell if the spirit succeeds, then they grow stronger. Why else do you think in ghost documentaries that there's always a poltergeist keeping the other spirits in line?"

He takes one last deep breath, and seems to have recovered from his attack.

"Oh, okay. So... If clones, and possibly disappearing and all the unspoken rules of being dead weren't enough, we now have to be alert for someone trying to rip your head off?!"

He smiles sheepishly, "Yeah... I guess so."

"Where did that thing even come from? We're far from the Dead Zone."

He shrugs, looking genuinely baffled. "I'm not sure, but I think they're branching out a bit."

"Why would they do that? All the spirits they need are right there in that cemetery." I wave my hand dismissively. He gets a weird look in his eyes.

"What?"

"I'm going to tell you something, and I need you to listen very carefully, okay?" His tone is low and serious. I nod, and wait warily for him to speak.

"They're not branching out because they need more spirits... They're growing tired of living the way they are. If they could just get their hands on a human vessel, then they could walk among humans again."

I stare at him, processing what he's just shared. "You mean... Like possession?"

"Exactly like that. And the longer they can maintain the body as theirs, the more it will adapt to them until they become themselves again."

"That day... That your clone took us deep into the woods? It took us straight to that cemetery, it was trying to get me and CC killed!"

He nods sagely, biting his lower lip. "I wonder why it decided to bring you home, though. The spirits in these woods are cunning creatures. They'll make you feel anything they want you to, and make you believe any lie."

I cross my arms and frown, looking around us. As a child, playing in the woods was a welcomed event. I'd spend hours out here with my Dad, sometimes alone, venturing deep into the trees, coming up with some fantasy plot where I was the princess of the forest protecting my loyal subjects.

Looking around now, knowing what waits to pounce, the haunting faces peeking out from behind trees, waiting to attack us at any given moment, well, that's enough to make it feel more like a nightmare than a fantasy dream.

"I'm ready to go home now..."

He nods in agreement, taking a step towards me, "Do you want me to carry you again?"

I test my weight on my ankle, and it's actually not too bad now. "I mean, you can if you want to..."

"I didn't ask if you needed me to, I asked if you wanted me to." His smile is crooked and kind

I sigh in amusement, feeling too tired and stressed to give a genuine laugh, and I reach for him. He smiles and scoops me back up for the third time, and finally, we head home.

I feel something is coming, a change, maybe... I'm hopeful that we can at least make it to prom with nothing happening. Fingers crossed that the dead have had their fun, and are done with us now.

There are hundreds of them waiting in the woods. The watch you, and listen to you. I'm sure they heard our argument, and watched me walk alone - an easy target for any one of them. Let's pray that there's more ghosts with good minds than bad, because if the punishment of getting caught by a bad one is having your skull ripped off, you do not want to get caught by one.