Page 11 of Are You Scared, Krowe?

There's nothing left inside of me. No blood, no vomit, no heartbeat. No pain, no fear, no cold or hunger.

But there is something that was left in the wake of all of that disappearing... something that fills my veins where my blood used to flow, that pulses in place of my heart, that fills me more than anything ever has.

Rage.

I'm dead, and I'm fucking pissed.

Waking up dead was not on my BINGO card for this year, but I could have gotten over it if I accidentally dropped a toaster in the bathtub or walked off a cliff thinking there was ground beneath me.

I could have lived with being dead, metaphorically speaking, if it had happened in a different way.

Fuck, I've thought of all the ways to die, considered doing it myself more than once, catalogued what would be worse from decompression sickness, to burning alive, to being shredded by a woodchipper.

Morbid thoughts, maybe, but don't deny you've never had them.

Of all the painful, quick, painless, violent, peaceful deaths that I could have had, I got this?

If I could feel anything past the rage, it would probably be humiliation.

I remember every detail of what they did to me.

I remember how it felt; the pain and the injustice, the fear and the sickness, the hope that they'd have some compassion and put an end to it rather than letting it continue to the point it did.

But humiliation is a human emotion.

And whatever the fuck I am now, it's not human. I was, before I died... before they killed me.

Now, I'm fucking wrath.

Spade watches me with wide eyes as I pace the floor, my shoulders heaving with ragged breaths that I don't know why I'm taking if I’m dead and don’t need to breathe. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

I don't know exactly when I died.

The last thing I remember is telling Krowe my name, how he kept calling me new girl, Jackson's hand inside of me... I think that was my tipping point. I blacked out after that, because I don't remember anything before waking up— dead— in bed next to a fucking ghost who didn't realize he's a ghost.

"Tell me how you found me." I say again. "Every detail, this time."

Spade lets out a sigh. He’s already told me multiple times, but I need to be able to see how he found me. I want to know how I died, and that means I need to know everything he witnessed.

"Tied to the stake with rope. You were naked... covered in vomit and dirt, blood and cum, straw and piss and..."

He stops talking to swallow his words before he can let them out.

"What?" I prompt him.

"I... think maybe feces, too."

"What?" I blink. "Shit?"

He cringes, and I realize I'm in his face. I don't know what he thinks I'm going to do; it's not like it would hurt if I punched him. Besides, I asked him to tell me.

I take a small breath, then laugh when I realize it's irrelevant.

How the fuck do you calm yourself down when you're a ghost? I guess meditation is out.

"I think it was yours, if that helps."

"No." I tell him coldly. "It absolutely doesn't."

Spade nods. "You were so cold that I knew I had to warm you quickly. But when I was going to the house, I heard a guy say something, and I turned and saw him, and I knew he played a part."

"And you did what with him?"

Spade presses his lips together.

"Bludgeoned him with the garden hoe." He doesn't sound the least bit remorseful; in fact, the corner of his mouth tips up into a smile as he confesses. "And tied him up where I took you down from."

"Seems fair." I shrug. "What did he look like?"

Spade considers that. "Like a nerd? I can say that because I am one. Was one..." He sighs. "I can't believe we're dead."

"Can't you?" I laugh. "This doesn't feel like life to me."

"I just... always thought there would be something more. Something... beyond this."

"Well, this sure isn't heaven." I laugh again, imagining the preacher spouting off his scripture on Sundays at the church just down the road from where his son had a hand in my rape and murder.

"Maybe not for you." Spade says quietly. "But maybe you're my heaven."

I stare at him, disarmed by the devotion in his voice. It's not a throw-away comment, not an attempt at flirtation. It seems genuine, almost raw.

I laugh it off. "If your heaven is me, you must have done something shitty in life."

"Do you think? Maybe that's why we're still here?"

I turn to face him, sitting with his legs in a crisscross on his mattress. No part of me believes he could have done anything bad in life. And me? What the hell did I do to deserve to be trapped here? I've never killed anyone, never stolen, never assaulted anyone, never done anything bad.

I'm fucking dead, and my spirit is trapped in the place it happened.

That's fucked.

"No." I say gently this time. "No, I don't think any of us were bad people. Not you, or me, or any of the rest of them." I think of his roommates, the family that we left downstairs after Natalie made us all lunch.

They were the ones who had to break the news that I died because Spade didn't even realize it himself.

I remember Rhodes telling me the story about the Hollow Fields Scarecrow right before I started to get sick, when I was drinking my cider.

I could feel a sense of trepidation; I knew something was coming, but I never could have imagined it to be something so vicious.

He said that there was a family who lived in the old farmhouse on the hill, that they were brutally slain while they slept.

I know now that family is still here... clinging to the place their lives ended.

It’s sad, and I don’t understand. I tried asking Natalie why we were all still here if we were dead, but she didn’t have an answer for me.

"What do you think keeps us good?" I ask suddenly. "You know, what keeps us from doing what we want? Rules? Laws? The threat of hell?"

Clearly, none of those things mattered to the fuckers who are responsible for my death.

The family's murders, at least, you can say were a product of mental illness. There's no support for it nowadays, which I know firsthand thanks to my mother, and there was even less of it fifty years ago.

Even Spade's death was an accident... it's why he forgets he's dead, Natalie said. He had a bad heart, and it gave out on him when he got scared. It could be classified as negligent homicide, depending on how you look at it.

But my death? Mine was brutal, savage, unfair.

And it happened for no reason other than they thought they could take what they wanted without consequence.

They thought they could do whatever they wanted to me, get their fill of debauchery, and then intimidate me into silence. I have no doubt that was the plan.

They wouldn't have killed me on purpose, because that will draw attention. But knowing their fathers run the town— the sheriff, the mayor, the preacher, even the damn doctor— there was no way they thought I'd go to the authorities about it.

"Not wanting to hurt other people." Spade says simply.

"I want to hurt people." I confess without missing a beat.

When my eyes land on him, he narrows his a little, searching for more. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning I want to hurt them all. Every one of them who hurt me... who killed me."

"Okay." He grins easily, and fuck, if he's not beautiful.

Most of his face is obscured by paint that makes him look like a skeleton, but it accentuates his sharp cheekbones, his strong jaw, and it makes his eyes dazzle. His dark hair falls into his eyes just slightly, and his body? It’s fucking powerful.

He was the school quarterback. It’s a miracle his heart condition didn’t get set off on the football field or in the gym, because he clearly spent a lot of time working on his physique.

"It would be my honor to help you pick them all off."

"Okay. Now." I say, striding toward the door decisively.

There's a little laugh from Spade as he slides in front of me at the last minute, clearly attempting to bar my exit. But he forgot, again, that he's a fucking ghost... that I am, too. So instead of boxing me in, I walk through him.

I shiver as the sensation of being touched rolls through me. It feels like fingertips grazing my flesh, everywhere all at once with reverence, devotion, worship.

I feel my nipples draw tight and my body clench with arousal I don't understand, not only because I don't understand how I can feel it, but because I don't understand how my body can react. I've looked in the mirror, and I'm still me, but also... not.

"Fuck." Spade groans. "What did you do to me?"

"Me?" I scoff. "You stepped in my way."

"I'm not complaining." He huffs, striding away from me to put some space between us before turning back to face me. "That was the most I've felt in ages." He drops his head to run his hand through his hair, and I hear him mutter, "Now I know why."

"I can relate." I tell him. "All I feel is anger."

It's an anger so potent I can't even put it into words. It feels like there's a black hole where my heart used to be, like I'll devour everything left in this world with this rage.

"Oh," he swallows, turning back to me. "I didn't mean emotionally. I meant physically. I thought it was just depression, that I just couldn’t feel the sun because I was so numb. But when I found you, I was furious. That was the most emotion I've felt in... however long I've been dead, I guess."

I laugh, because it's really so absurd. And also, sort of sad.

I've been dead for a day; he's been this way for twenty years.

I can't imagine going so long without feeling anything. It's kind of how I've felt since my dad died, and my mom turned into a drunk. I spent so long making myself invisible when I was still alive, and now I’m a goddamn ghost.

When Krowe paid attention to me, I fell for it like a goddamn fool.

It had felt so good, in those few hours when I thought his intentions were genuine, that his interest only amounted to the typical amount.

I knew he wanted me, but I didn't expect that to turn into what it did. The truth is, I was so starved for affection, I’d have probably given it up to him if he'd simply seduced me.

But I guess that's asking too much... I guess it takes away his control, his fun.

I'm at Spade's side in the next instant, reaching for him, only to watch him dance away from my touch, like he's worried it will harm him.

"Please don't."

I halt, the rejection freezing me as his words feel like a cold pane of glass suddenly thrown between us... one that I've smacked right into.

I'd be blushing if there was blood left inside of me to rush to my cheeks. As it is, my embarrassment curdles in my stomach.

"I'm sorry," I close my eyes to try and focus on something other than the rage, the humiliation. Of course, he's not interested in me... not after what he saw. I mean, how could he be? I can only imagine how disgusting I must have looked, given how disgusting I felt.

"No." He breathes the word, and I'm surprised by how raspy it is.

His voice got suddenly deeper, dangerous.

"It's not you. It's... well, it is." He laughs, like he's not saying that I'm a problem to him.

"It's just, I haven't felt anything in so long.

If you... if you touch me again, I don't know if I'll be able to control myself. "

Finally, I open my eyes to look at him again.

I can't help but laugh when I do, because he looks like he's in physical pain.

It's ridiculous, given that we are ghosts.

We're metaphysical incarnations of a physical trauma that kept us bound to the place we died.

.. or close by it. And yet, both of us are clinging to what it meant to be human. .. to be alive.

"What's the point of controlling yourself?" I shrug. "We died. I think we've earned the right to be a little out of control.”

He stares at me, his plush lips parted like he hadn't thought of that.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You can't hurt me." I'm confident in that. I'm dead, and the end of my life was a fucking nightmare. Nothing could hurt worse, mentally or otherwise, than what happened last night. "I mean, I can't feel anything at all."

It's kind of like being numb.

I had a tooth removed once, and they had to give me something to calm my nerves, which apparently worked too well.

Then, the Novocain they injected into my gums made my whole mouth and tongue numb.

It was weird to be aware of my body but also feel like I wasn't in it.

I think some people may call it dissociating; that's kind of what my afterlife feels like.

I'm here, but I'm not.

"When I stepped into you... you didn't...?" He clears his throat, thinking better of whatever he wants to know.

I don't know how to tell him I felt his presence, that I felt the arousal swelling, but that I didn't physically feel it... not the way I would feel hands on my skin.

"Try something with me?"

"Anything." He agrees easily.

"Don't move." I instruct him, watching his face as I approach him slowly.

His eyes hold mine, but I see something in them shift as I stand before him and stretch out my hands.

When my fingers fall upon his face, he swallows, like he's afraid of my touch.

But then his dark lashes flutter and the smallest sigh of contentment slips from him, so I pause, letting him soak in the feeling of me as I appraise him.

It's hard to see beneath the paint on his face, but it doesn't cover anything of his beauty. A chiseled jaw and full lips, cheekbones that look like they could cut glass. He's gorgeous.

I'd lose my nerve if it weren't for the longing in his eyes. The soft brown is swimming with desperation, like he's never wanted anything more than what I'm about to give him.

His lips are plush beneath mine when I place my mouth against him, waiting a moment to assess whether he feels it.

I do.

It's everything a first kiss should be, even before either of us moves. His mouth is warm, soft, velveteen. I groan, suddenly desperate to feel the rest of him.

"Gianna..."

My name from his lips sounds like praise, and it's single-handedly the most addictive thing I've ever heard. It sends a chill through me that's less of a chill and more of a full-body vibration.

I moan into his mouth, unable to stop myself.

And then, all bets are off, because whatever restraint he had, snaps.