Finally! A new chapter. Sorry for the delay, folks, but life keeps interfering with my writing

Sharla sat at the edge of the porch’s rocking chair and watched Kenny walk around the man-made pond, head down, hands in his pockets. Too much weighed on his shoulders for such a young man. It bothered her because she wasn’t at all sure he’d be okay after everything was said and done.

 

What doesn’t kill you makes you as tough as outhouse flies.

 

Sure thing Grandma.

 

Greg touched her sleeve, and she turned to him. “He’ll be fine.”

 

Sharla glanced at Kenny. “Maybe.”

 

A sudden wind blasted through the yard, kicking up dust and overturning the aluminum garbage can she’d bought last week at Wal-Mart. The teen cashier had leaned over and whispered for her to get out of town while she could. It wasn’t enough that ghosts were telling her to leave, but now the living were doing the same thing.

 

Greg glanced toward the sky. “Storm coming in.”

 

“So—Elizabeth is your friend’s sister?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What do you think happened to her?”

 

“Hard to say, but I don’t think the men took her.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because, they would have killed her and left her body in the church.”

 

“You don’t know that. Maybe they wanted her baby for some whacked out reason.”

 

“This isn’t a horror movie, Sharla. Things like that don’t happen in the real world.”

 

“Are you kidding me? The world can be a lot scarier than any old book or movie.”

 

Greg shifted, rubbed the short bristles on his head and blew out a mouthful of air. “You’re right. But something just doesn’t fit.”

 

Across the pond, Kenny knelt and pulled weeds from around a picnic table, and then hopped up on it and sat starring into nothing, hands clasped together.

 

A shape moved in the trees behind Kenny and Sharla stood, eased to the end of the porch, avoiding big moves incase it scared off the presence in the shadows. She stared until her sight went blurry, blinked, and scanned the trees again.

 

Where did it go?

 

Greg rose and stood behind her, his breath sending erotic chills across the bare skin of her neck. “What is it?”

 

“I thought I saw something out there. Must have been tree limbs waving in the wind.”

 

“No,” Greg whispered. “Someone’s watching Kenny.” Greg stepped closer, putting a hand on her hip. “Look to the left, about ten feet back into the forest. See the dark-haired woman?” He pointed in the general direction.

 

“Yeah,” Sharla said on a breathless exhale.

 

“Who is she?” Greg asked.

 

“I think she’s the ghost who keeps telling me to leave.”

 

“Why is she watching Kenny?”

 

Kenny glanced behind him, lingered, and then hopped off the table, and headed their way.

 

The spirit in the trees turned and glided away, fading from sight before she vanished into the forest.

 

“Yo. What’s up with you two?” Kenny asked and glanced over his shoulder again. “See something?”

 

“Not sure,” Sharla said and moved away from the heat of Greg’s body.

 

“I’m going home.”

 

“Is that wise with your father and all?” Greg asked.

 

“My father won’t hurt me—at least not yet.” Kenny straddled his bike and shoved off.

 

 

* * *

Later that evening, just as the light had begun to fade from the sky, and thunder grumbled in the distance, Kenny decided to head out and look for Tommy and Johnny. Maybe they could catch the nine o’clock movie and get their minds off the weirdness around them.

 

He pulled a clean shirt over his head and left the house as quietly as possible. He’d rather stick his dick in a light socket than wake his dad, especially when he’d drank a bottle of whiskey. Sometimes he wished his dad would never wake up, but then shame and guilt would immediately follow such a thought. How could he wish for anyone’s death, let alone his father’s?

 

Leaving his bike at home this time, he walked down the street toward Tommy’s. A sudden chill slid down his back, and the hairs prickled at the base of his neck. He whipped around, certain something or someone followed him. The temperature around him grew colder by the second. The wind brought whispers on the air, but he couldn’t make out the words.

 

When he turned around to resume his journey, he came face to face with Mary Beth Blakely. “Holy mother of Moses,” he yelped and stumbled back a step.

 

When he could find his voice again, he said, “Aren’t you supposed to be haunting Tommy?”

 

Mary Beth swayed toward him, her hair a tangled mess, her lip split and trailing a line of blood from the corner of her mouth down her chin and along her neck. She looked as if she’d been struggling in the leaves beneath someone much stronger than her.

 

Eyes, as dead as those in a body on an embalming table, looked into his. She opened her mouth and a breath of misty air escaped between her lips and floated toward him. Ice cold air—air from a ghost’s lungs.

 

Kenny backed up another step.

 

“Kenny.” The word sounded as if it came from a great distance—from a grave maybe? Where the hell is her grave?

 

“Mary Beth, what happened to you?”

 

She let out an evil giggle and circled him. “Your father.” Breath rattled from her chest—impossible since she was dead, but happening all the same.

 

A cold sweat coated his body. He should have guessed his father would have had something to do with her disappearance. Maybe she had tried to leave town. “Look, you want revenge, go after my father and leave me the hell alone.” He turned in a circle with her, not wanting her at his back. “And stay away from Tommy.”

 

“Tommy.” She smiled and something other than death flickered in her eyes. “Tommy,” she repeated.

 

Jesus! What did she want with Tommy?

 

Mary Beth clutched his arm, her fingers blue and bloated with decay, sending a freezing numbness straight to his bones. She caught his gaze again, her eyes glistening, mesmerizing him, and flickering to life. That scared him more than her frozen, dead hand on his skin.

 

Kenny waited. For what, he didn’t know.

 

“Kill them all.” She stretched the word all until it seemed to echo off the houses surrounding them.

 

A crack of thunder split the night.

 

Kenny jerked away from her.

 

She glanced around in that slow, disjointed way ghosts seemed to move. “Kill them all.”

 

“I’m not killing anyone.” Unless I have no other choice. But he’d damn sure kill for Lizzie.

 

The ghost zoomed out, and then in until she stood a hair’s width from him. “Take your friends and leave this place. Leave before we kill them all.”

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