Page 2

Kali

H e was back.

And he wasn’t alone.

The girl was limp as he dragged her unconscious form out of the trunk, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of rotten potatoes rather than a human being. An innocent woman who had never once asked to cross paths with the evil that was my husband.

Or was it ex -husband now? ‘Til death do us part, right?

My untethered form glided behind him, and I enjoyed the chill my presence sent down his spine. I watched as the little hairs at the base of his neck rose, fascinated, yet frustrated that it was all I could manage. I couldn’t influence the living world the way I did when I was alive, no longer able to touch and manipulate my surroundings, but that chill was a hard-won victory. A few months ago, I couldn’t even manage that, but I’d been practising.

I’d take the win wherever I could get it.

I didn’t know how long it would take me until I could actually start to make enough progress to go forward with my plans. I wasn’t even sure if my plans would be possible to enact, let alone carry out, but that was the only thing keeping me going. The waiting. The planning. The practising. It was all for one purpose.

Vengeance.

I was going to make him pay for all the horrors he had inflicted on so many unwitting innocents. I was going to make him suffer for his crimes, for the lives he’s so selfishly taken. And I was going to make sure the world saw him for the devil he truly was.

His mask was near perfect. I had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. He was the ideal man, and I’d been so proud to call him mine. My wonderful, loving, hardworking, compassionate husband.

But it was all a lie.

Every word. Every promise. Every touch. Every kiss. All of it was a carefully cultivated facade that I had been so willing to believe. That everyone believed.

There was no sign of that man now. His sunny smile I had loved so much, the one that crinkled in the corners of his eyes and revealed a single dimple in his right cheek, was replaced by a blank, cold stare. There was nothing human about it. No emotion. Not even anticipation of the horrendous act he was about to commit. Just… nothing .

Nothing but the darkness that swirled inside him like a living, breathing, malignant entity.

His name brought a stab of dark humour into my existence. The irony in it was no longer lost on me. It was like his parents foreshadowed his true personality before he was even born. Blake meant black, just like his soul. Withered and rotten, not a glimmer of light to be seen.

A scourge in our midst that had remained hidden so well we hadn’t even realised it was sucking our souls right out of us and then giving it a fucking hug.

If my body wasn’t decomposing beneath the dirt he’d shovelled on top of it, I would have tried to bleach every inch of myself clean, strip every layer of skin from my body that he could have possibly touched.

Not for the first time since I’d died was I grateful that our attempts to have a child were unsuccessful. I didn’t even want to imagine…

The door to the basement squeaked open on rusty hinges, the sound creepy and foreboding, just like in every horror movie ever made. The ones I used to love watching, especially with his brother, Chance, came to visit, his obsession with all things ghostly and paranormal ensuring he only picked the best, most realistic movies. It was because of him that I wasn’t surprised that I’d come back as a ghost. He hunted them, after all, and published his evidence for the world to see. Not that everyone believed it, though no one had been able to debunk him, much to their frustration. Chance was the real deal.

I wondered if his obsession with death and the unknown was an indication that he was just like Blake, but there was no way for me to find out. Not unless he showed up here one day, which didn’t seem likely. He hadn’t so far, and I’d been dead for quite some time now. I didn’t know exactly how long. Time moved differently for me than it had when I was alive. I didn’t age. There was nowhere for me to be. I simply existed, floating in the aether of the veil of death.

I wasn’t alone, either. The souls of the other girls Blake had killed and buried here haunted this place just as I did, though their focus remained on staying as far away from the man who had murdered them. Scared, even in death, like he could somehow still hurt them.

It was ridiculous. He was unaware that we still lingered.

I often wondered if there was some way to move on to a better place, to find peace and comfort in the afterlife. I didn’t think so, though. If so, why were we still here? What was our purpose, other than to watch as life moved on without us? But no matter how many times I asked the question, nobody answered.

Blake’s boots echoed off the concrete steps that led down to his murder room, the girl’s hair swinging in matted clumps down his back. Those boots were the catalyst to my demise. I hadn’t noticed them before, and suddenly they were sitting behind some boxes in the garage, covered in mud and blood. When I’d asked Blake about them, he’d simply looked at me strangely as if I was imagining things, and when I tried to show him, they were gone.

If I hadn’t caught that small smirk as he’d turned away, convinced he’d successfully gaslighted me into believing it was all in my head, I would have believed him.

His smug pride got him caught.

My lack of discretion got me killed.

The thud of the new girl’s body hitting the thin, lumpy mattress jolted me from my memories and back to the present. I watched, unable to do anything to help her, as he cuffed her wrists and ankles to a chain connected to the concrete wall. It was a position I was familiar with in more ways than one. It was how I found the victim that I’d tried to save. It was also how he’d held me captive for four whole days before finally ending my misery. Or so he’d thought. I was still here, still miserable, only now I had a deep-seated hunger for revenge.

One day, I assured myself. One day, he would experience the same pain and suffering he’d caused us all, and everyone would know what a monster he was.

But something was different this time. Something that froze me where I hovered over them. The glint of a ring on his left hand, right where I had put one all those years ago. This one was gold instead of silver, with an inscription on it that I couldn’t read from here, so I floated closer.

If I’d had working lungs, it would have knocked the breath right out of me.

Always and forever.

The bastard had gotten married.

A hurricane of emotions raged within me as that information sank in.

First, how dare he? How dare he move on after killing me, after everything I had done for him, all the love I had given him? How dare he replace me so easily, like I meant nothing?

Second, fear for the woman he had managed to ensnare had the air around me swirling with a chill that took a lot of energy to create but only succeeded in ruffling Blake’s and the girl’s hair like a small, insignificant breeze.

Third, had it really been that long? Had enough time passed since I’d been gone that it was now socially acceptable for him to move on? Had I been forgotten, cast aside and relegated to nothing more than a memory?

The disgust I felt for myself over the feelings that still lingered for Blake was the worst, however. I didn’t know why I kept expecting him to feel some sort of remorse or grief over what he’d done to me. He wasn’t capable of human emotion. Yet, I still found myself wishing and waiting for a sign, any sign, that he had ever actually loved me.

And each time he failed to do so, I let myself down a little more with the disappointment and grief I felt over losing him. Not this creature born for the deepest pits of hell, but the man I had once known. The man I had loved and devoted my life to. Some part of me held on, refusing to believe he was a fictional character Blake had created to fool me. To fool us all.

But the evidence on the contrary was staggering.

Still, his actions continued to chip away at the tiny flicker of hope I just couldn’t seem to extinguish, no matter how many times I watched him kidnap, torture, and murder someone else.

And that, more than anything, was where most of my anger stemmed. I hated that he still had so much power over me. He didn’t deserve it. He certainly hadn’t earned it. I needed to know what it would take for me to finally acknowledge that my Blake had never existed in the first place. It was like I had fallen in love with a character from a movie, only that movie was my life, and it wasn’t supposed to be fake.

It made me question everything I had ever known. Everything I had ever felt.

Fuck him for that.

I watched, equal parts intrigued and repulsed as his hand hovered over the girl's head, like he couldn’t decide whether to stroke her hair or leave her alone.

‘It’s a bit late for that, honey,’ I spoke out loud, my voice nothing more than a mere echo that only I could hear. ‘You’ve already irrevocably violated her.’

As if my words reached him, he pulled away, wiping his hand on the front of his shirt like even the thought of touching her made him feel dirty. It was another contradiction about him that made no sense to me. I’d watched him carry countless girls into this very basement, tying them up and showing them a strange version of what could almost be described as affection, only to be repulsed by them a moment later.

Considering he dismembered the bodies when he was done with them, sometimes while they were still alive, it was yet another mystery that made up Blake Dodd.

His phone rang, cutting through the oppressive silence like one of the knives hanging on the far wall, gleaming with malicious promise. It seemed to take him aback, however. His thick, neatly trimmed blonde brows rose in a genuine display of surprise, but with one last glance at the unconscious girl, he accepted the call, moving the phone to his ear.

It was like watching a completely separate person. As soon as the decision was made to answer his mask fell back into place. The transition was so seamless that it even made me wonder if the man I’d just been looking at was the same.

If I needed confirmation that my Blake was nothing more than a character, then I was getting it right now.

‘Hi, honey,’ he spoke into the phone, his sunshine smile making an appearance. The same one that crinkled around his eyes and dimpled his cheeks. The one that used to make my heart go pitter-patter in my chest and butterflies swarm in my stomach.

All I felt now was an echo. It twisted inside me like a shadow. Mocking. Taunting. Begging for a reaction, one that it knew I couldn’t give.

‘What are you doing home so soon?’ he asked. If it weren’t for his clenched fists, I never would have recognised the frustration thrumming through him. It was a small concession that allowed his true self to peer through the facade. He thought no one was here to see it. Oh, how wrong he was.

‘I’m just out running an errand. Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon. I promise. You can tell me all about it then, okay, honey?’

If my stomach could have churned, it would have. The thought of him speaking that way to someone so ignorant of his true intentions was sickening. The fact that I was once that woman was even more so.

I followed him as he locked up the basement, jingled his keys, and got back behind the wheel of his car. His dream car. The car I’d bought him for our second anniversary.

If only I’d known why he wanted something with so much storage space…

He drove off, silver paint flashing, until the red of his taillights was all I could see. Eventually, he turned off at the intersection that led to the main road, beyond my sight and my ability to follow.

I wanted to. I strained to. But I couldn’t move. It was like there was some sort of barrier blocking me from moving too far away from my body. At first, it was so small I was restricted to my grave, then I managed to push it further and further until I was able to reach the cabin, then even further beyond that so I could wander the woods. Still, it wasn’t enough. I have to push harder. Faster. I need to break free from this prison.

I just didn’t know how.

I wasn’t strong enough. Not yet. I needed to figure out how to give myself enough power to move freely, to interact with the living realm.

To take everything from him, the way he did to me.

A low groan drifted on the breeze from inside the cabin. It was faint, but the silence allowed me to catch it. A second noise, louder this time, was followed by a whimper, and I floated back inside to keep her company. It was the least I could do, even if she couldn’t sense me.

I’d been where she was, once. I knew exactly what she was going through. The drugs running through her system were making her groggy. Her head would be pounding, her vision blurred, and her body wouldn’t respond. At least not right away, but it wouldn’t matter, regardless. When she finally figured out how to make her limbs move, they would be stuck by the shackles chaining her in place. The bed and the bucket beside it were the only things she would be able to reach.

And soon, she’d be dead. Just like me. Just like all the others. Just like all the ones still to find themselves trapped in this basement.

And there was nothing, not a single thing, that I could do about it.

For now.