Justin tried to keep up with his friend’s swift, floating gait as he glided across the parking lot, but he had always had a hard time keeping up with Zane – in every sense.
“Doesn’t a night like this just make you feel alive?” Zane exclaimed, spinning until he was a blur of lanky limbs and curly hair.
Justin sighed.
“I guess,” he said, “but can’t we just go back to the dance?”
Zane skidded to a stop so he could scoff at his friend.
“Booooring,” he answered, “aren’t you tired of creeping around in there? I’m sure we can figure out something much more interesting to do.”
Justin cast a wistful glance back toward the school gymnasium, where he could still hear the distant muffle of pop songs floating on the air through the open door. He and Zane often had very different ideas of what was fun, and he wished he was better at putting his foot down. But just like it used to be with his own family, Justin was the quiet one, the go-along. He just didn’t have the energy to stand up to a stronger personality.
“I just don’t want to do anything weird tonight.” He managed to shrug out. This earned him another scoffing noise from Zane.
“Weird is kind of our thing now, if you hadn’t noticed,” he soliloquized as he strutted across the moonlit blacktop, head high and shoulders back in a peacock-ish stance, “we weren’t meant for the mundane, for the prepackaged entertainments of the common man.”
Zane had wanted to be a writer when he grew up.
“No, my friend, for you and I, it is the strange, the macabre. We are the kings of the night, the rulers of the immortal planes.”
Justin rolled his eyes.
“That’s a very fancy way of saying ‘dead’.”
Zane spun on his heels and laughed.
“Yes, and I am a very fancy man,” he replied, striking a pose as he ran his fingers across his chest coquettishly, pulling at the edges of his open, button-down shirt.
Though it wasn’t just a shirt that he pulled away.
It was the flesh beneath it as well, skin and muscles rippling asunder beneath his fingertips, veins and connective tissue curling away like graceful vines, baring the ghastly pale cage of his ribs. The organs within, the unmoving heart and lungs, shone bright – not with the reflected moonlight, but with a pale, eerie blue light that emanated from somewhere deep inside of him.
Justin couldn’t suppress another irritated sigh.
“Jeez, Zane. You’re so dramatic.”
“I was born for the theater,” Zane replied dryly, as his hands fell to his sides and the diaphanous flesh of his body came together again like a flower blooming in reverse, “just like you were born for…I dunno, doing taxes, or something.”
“Can we just go back to the dance now?” Justin huffed.
“I think I want to haunt a car.”
“Do we have to?”
“C’mon, it’s fun! And we haven’t done it in forever.”
‘Forever’ was, true to Zane’s style, very dramatic. It had been as recently as three weeks ago that they had played his favorite prank on some unsuspecting victim – and Justin hadn’t enjoyed it then, either. Justin had always hated being scared himself – back when he was alive – and he never found it funny to frighten somebody else. It felt cheap and mean, and not a little exploitative of the strange powers which they now possessed.
Zane, of course, had a different viewpoint. In his mind, they were doing people a favor by haunting them. Sure, they got a little scared – but then they had a cool story to tell. The story of the two boys who had drowned in Blackwater Creek was the best-loved lore of the whole school. Anyone who caught a sighting should count themselves lucky that they had been given this gift, this sort of cheat code to never being boring at parties again. And of course, those sightings were often printed in the school paper, which Zane and Justin would peruse together in the school library afterward – once thoroughly spooking the lone librarian who thought she had been sitting in an empty library when she heard rowdy laughter rippling from somewhere behind the study desks.
But they never did anything too terrible, they never haunted old people or little kids, they never put anyone in danger – and besides, what else were you supposed to do as a ghost? It was kind of the job description.
Still, Justin had mixed feelings about it.
“Fine,” he said, “but if we do a car haunt, can we go back to the party after that?”
Zane considered this for a moment, then nodded.
“It’s a deal.” He said, before spinning again on his heel as he began to search the lot for the perfect car.
“This one,” he said after a little while, stepping up to a silvery Honda Accord. A strawberry-shaped air freshener hung from the rearview mirror, and there was a Hello Kitty plush toy propped up in the corner of the dash.
“Hey, I think this is Ella Andric’s car,” Justin said.
Haunt the same place for long enough, and you start to get to know everyone pretty well. And North Cross High School wasn’t very big, anyway. It was easy to recognize the girl with the Hello Kitty on her dashboard.
"Maybe let’s pick another one,” Justin said, “Ella’s nice…I’d feel bad scaring her.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be nice,” Zane assured him, as he climbed inside the car.
Maybe ‘climbed’ wasn’t the right verb. Dissolved, maybe? Shifted his ghost molecules around until all his edges blurred and suddenly he was inside, with his body taking on its usual, more defined shape. Reluctantly, Justin followed.
“We’ll just be quick, and then we’ll leave,” Zane said as he craned his neck to check out his reflection in the rearview mirror. He hooked his cheek with a finger, punching a hole through the flesh, exposing molars draped in hanging flaps of skin.
“What do you think, should I go for the zombie look?”
“No,” Justin answered, “you said you were gonna be nice. Just do a quick jumpscare in the rearview mirror, and then we get out of here.”
“Fine,” Zane huffed, as his face wove itself together again, and he slumped back into his seat. A few minutes later he was sitting up straight again, pointing across the parking lot. A girl was coming towards them at a brisk pace, her hands clutching tightly to her purse. Justin could tell from her dark mop of hair, that this was Ella. Zane had gained a sort of sixth sense as a ghost, which is why he had known which car to pick. Justin had to admit, he was a little jealous of that talent.
“Almost showtime,” Zane whispered, rubbing his hands together. Justin slumped further in his seat. At least they could do something else after Zane got this out of his system.
Ella came to an abrupt stop when she reached the car and fished her keys from her purse. She fumbled and dropped them – barking a word that Justin had never heard sweet, shy Ella utter – then picked them up off the ground and unlocked the car. She hurled her purse to the floor of the passenger’s side, gripped the steering wheel tightly in both hands – and started to cry.
Zane and Justin exchanged confused glances but had little time to react. In the next moment, Ella was angrily swiping away tears, and just as angrily jamming the keys into the ignition, throwing the car into drive. She took off through the parking lot with only the briefest glance into her rearview mirror – and let out the most ear-piercing scream that Justin had ever heard in his life or after.
******
When it came to Zane’s Safety Rules for Haunting, car haunts had a very specific one – never haunt while the car is moving. That would have just been reckless, scaring people half to death while they were flying down the highway or something. The car haunt was simple; stay invisible until the hauntee was securely seated inside the car and – ideally while they were adjusting their mirrors, or doing the head-over-shoulder checking of blind spots – poof, visibility. For a ghost, it was just like turning on and off a light switch. That ease of switching back and forth from unseen specter to ghoulish apparition was ideal for getting the perfectly timed fright – but it had its downside. Because it was so easy to switch back and forth, sometimes you’d forget which one you had set – like forgetting to turn off the light when you left a room. And in this unfortunate moment, Zane had forgotten he was, well, on.
The car swerved sharply to the left, and if Zane had still had a living body, he probably would have ended up with a new hole in his head. Ella did have a living body, which felt every ounce of force as the side of her head bounced against the driver’s side window. She managed to bring the car to a stop, sliding it into another parking spot at an odd angle. She slumped over the steering wheel, and the look of horror that Zane now wore on his face was nearly identical to the one that had been on Ella’s as she had seen those two ghostly eyes staring back at her from the rearview mirror.
In that moment, Zane must have forgotten he was dead.
“Ella? Ella, are you ok? Can you hear me?”
He climbed into the front seat (again, ‘climb’ was probably the wrong word, more like ‘shifted’), and without thinking, he placed a hand on her shoulder.
Ella recoiled from the sudden cold of his touch with a start. But she didn’t look at Zane. She pressed her hands tightly over her eyes and shook, trembling like a leaf in the wind. The sight of her caused a deep rage to boil over in Justin.
“Look what you did, you asshole!” he through gritted teeth, leaning over the center console so he could get into Zane’s face, “I told you this wasn’t a good idea!”
“I’m sorry, ok! I didn’t mean to scare her like that.”
“But you did mean to scare her.”
“Well…yeah.”
Zane slumped in his seat, looking chagrined – a look that Justin couldn’t recall ever seeing on his friend’s face.
“I’m really, really, sorry Ella,” he said gently, refraining this time from touching her shoulder, “but I promise you’re ok. We’re not going to hurt you.”
Ella very slowly and carefully spread her fingers wide enough that she could see through the gap. Then even more slowly, she lowered her hands, confusion contorting her brow.
“Who…what are you?” She managed to squeak out.
“My name’s Zane,” he answered, “and that’s Justin.”
Ella swung towards the back seat where Zane was pointing, before facing him again in confusion.
“What are you pointing at?”
Zane rolled his eyes.
“Dude, she can’t see you. Do the thing.”
Reluctantly, Justin obliged – and from Ella’s viewpoint, another seventeen-year-old had just materialized in the backseat of her Honda. He was much like the other one, nearly normal aside from the slight translucence of his body and that weird blue glow. She blinked rapidly, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to form a sentence.
“You’re – you’re dead. You’re the Blackwater Creek boys, aren’t you?”
“We are,” Justin answered.
“What are you doing in my car?”
Justin shot an accusatory look at Zane, but Zane deflected.
“Trust me, Ella, it’s not important. What’s important is, are you ok?”
Ella looked away, as tears sprang into her eyes again.
“No,” she said, blinking them away as she took a steadying breath, “I am absolutely not ok. If you can believe it, having two dead guys in my car isn’t the worst thing to happen tonight.”
Zane was about to ask her what was the worst thing to happen that night, but he figured she’d get to that. He and Justin waited silently while she composed herself enough to speak again.
“It’s Brandon Morrison,” she said finally, “he asked me to the dance tonight and of course I went because who wouldn’t? And it’s not like someone like me gets asked out a lot. I didn’t think anyone was going to ask me, but Brandon? Everyone’s obsessed with him. But turns out he wasn’t that interested in dancing with me, all he really wanted to do was…”
And here she broke down again, burying her face in her hands as her shoulders started to shake.
“It’s ok,” Zane said gently, “you don’t have to say any more. I think…we get the picture.”
“I kept telling him ‘no’ and he wouldn’t stop,” she muffled from behind her hands, “and then when he was done he went back to the dance with Jessica like nothing even happened.”
“Are you gonna call the cops on him?” Justin asked.
“Right,” Ella scoffed, wiping her face with the sleeve of her sweater, “you know who his dad is? Chief of police. If I did anything, they’d come after my dad again.”
“What do you mean about your dad?” Zane asked.
Ella took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
“My dad’s Croatian. His English isn’t very good, and people think he’s stupid. Two years ago he got framed for something at work and lost his job since we couldn’t afford a good lawyer. Brandon’s dad hates immigrants and you know the cops can find anything if they want to. I can’t risk my dad getting in trouble again. Brandon’s gonna get away with it; people like him always do.”
Zane was staring out the window into the dark parking lot, his jaw clenched. Zane had two little sisters, something Justin almost forgot about at times because he tried not to bring it up. Thinking about his siblings was one of the few things that could get Zane down about being dead.
“He’s not going to get away with it,” then turning to Ella he said, “I’m not gonna let him hurt you again. In fact, me and Justin are both going to keep an eye on you from now on. We’ll be, like, your personal spooky guardian angels. If you want us to, that is.”
Ella laughed through her tears.
“I’d like that,” she said. Zane reached out to hug her, and this time she didn’t shudder at the cold of his touch.
*****
“Can you tell me about the accident?”
They were still in Ella’s car – she had wanted company on the drive home, and as her newly appointed guardian angels, the boys were basically obligated – and the front seat was now strewn with wrappers from their stop at Taco Bell.
“Our accident?” Justin asked, as Ella took a long sip from her cup of Baja Blast.
“Yeah, the one that made you ghosts. Unless – oh my gosh, was that totally insensitive of me? I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Zane laughed, waving her off, “I mean, we’re basically celebrities at this point. I don’t blame you for being curious.”
“I just – want to know your story,” she clarified, “you know how people are. They make up all kinds of crap and spread it around and you never know what’s actually true. It all depends on who’s telling the story.”
“You can say that again,” Justin piped in from the backseat.
“Well, it’s not as exciting as some people made it out to be,” Zane said, “it was dark, the roads were icy; I lost control of the car and into the water we went.”
“They put up a better guardrail on that road because of you guys,” Ella said, “did you know that?”
Zane nodded.
“Yeah; we like to keep up with the news. We’re pretty obsessed with ourselves.”
“Speak for yourself,” Justin said with an eye-roll, and Ella laughed.
“You know, this has probably been the worst night of my life. But you guys made it a little better. Thanks for that.”
“Don’t mention it,” Zane said, “but I’m glad we could.”
They sat in somber silence for the rest of the ride, until Ella’s wheels scraped on the gravel of her driveway.
“Well, this is me,” she said, gathering up her things, “I guess I’ll see you guys around.”
“We’ll be here,” Zane said.
“For as long as you need us,” Justin added.
Ella offered a parting smile as she shut the car door, then made her way up to the little mobile home at the end of the driveway.
They watched her go, waiting until she was safely inside. Zane cracked his knuckles and looked at Justin.
“Alright, you ready?” He asked.
“Ready for what?”
But Zane just grinned, the smile spreading and spreading until it split the skin of his face right up to his cheekbones.
*********
When the paramedics were called to Chief Morrison’s house in the small hours of the morning, they couldn’t have predicted what they’d see.
It must have been drugs, they concluded. What else would have caused the chief’s young son – a valedictorian and star athlete, no less – to destroy his own room in what seemed to be a fit of madness? Bedclothes had been strewn across the room, the dresser turned over, glass from the broken window was glittering on the floor; and the whole time he was howling in terror, backed against the wall and staring into horrors only he could see. It had taken the team of three EMTs to hold him down, and the whole time he continued to scream – mostly it was garbled nonsense, though he kept repeated something about their skin, their skin was falling off their bodies.
Though they had tried to be discreet – this was the chief’s son, after all – by the time they got the boy into the ambulance, there were already neighbors peeking through windows and standing on front porches, awoken by the screams of terror that had been emanating from that house.
And Brandon continued to scream as he was hustled across the front lawn towards the ambulance – the trees, can’t you see them, oh my God they’re in the trees – and Chief Morrison’s expression was blank as he held his wife close, the lights from the ambulance painting them in alternating red and blue.
And Justin thought – as he and Zane sat high in the branches of the tree outside of Brock’s house, where he could see them through the small window of the ambulance as they gave a little wave – that perhaps Zane had been right.
Haunting could be a lot of fun.
