Page 8 of Ghoul Me, Maybe

ELIAS

L owtide Bluffs feels like a fever dream.

It smells the same—salt and mildew, rot and rust—but now it hums under my feet with things I don’t understand. Buzzing wires, glowing signs, tiny machines that sing in people’s pockets and light up their faces like fireflies.

I don’t belong here.

But I can’t seem to leave.

Every step I take away from her, the world gets grainy. Like I’m walking backward through a half-finished painting. Colors fade. Sound warps. The town turns into ghosts worse than me.

So I stick close.

She doesn’t know I’m following. Not all the time. I don’t mean to, exactly. But when the bond tugs like a shipline in a storm, I follow the pull.

I’ve taken to wandering the town when she sleeps.

It’s easier at night. Fewer eyes. Less noise.

Tonight, I slip through the alley near the bait shop, where the tide reaches under the boardwalk and whispers secrets in sea foam. I pause to listen. Not to the ocean—but to the madman who lives two doors down from the post office.

“Ley lines, I’m telling you! They crisscross right under the chapel. That’s why the crows won’t land there!”

That’s Lyle Brightwater.

Tall. Wiry. Wearing three different plaids and no socks. He’s got a chalkboard propped against a cracked flower cart and he’s drawing circles like he’s planning a ritual or a conspiracy. Possibly both.

I watch him for a while, curious despite myself. He mutters to himself like someone’s answering back. Then, suddenly, he freezes and turns toward me.

And stares.

Not through me.

At me.

“Well, helloooo there,” he says. “You’re new.”

My heart—or whatever’s left of it—jerks.

He shouldn’t see me.

“Don’t be shy,” Lyle says, stepping forward. “You’re one of the old ones, aren’t you?”

I say nothing.

He leans in, eyes wide. “You’re tied to her.”

That gets my attention. “What do you know about her?”

His grin is wide and wild. “She’s got storm threads woven through her aura. Pulled from the wreck, bound to the moon. Someone stitched you two together like a bad patchwork spell.”

He’s insane.

But also… not wrong.

I tilt my head. “How do you see me?”

“Oh, I’ve seen worse,” he shrugs. “You’re not even top five most haunted things I’ve tripped over.”

He turns and waves for me to follow. “Come on. I’ll show you my vault.”

I almost laugh. The last time someone said that to me, it ended with knives and a mutiny.

Still. I follow.

He leads me down into the basement of what used to be the town’s barbershop. Now it’s cluttered with mason jars full of glowing liquids, broken mirrors, and what I think might be a taxidermied frog wearing a monocle.

“This,” Lyle says proudly, “is my collection.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Of what?”

“Truths.”

He pulls out a drawer and reveals a handful of copper discs etched with strange runes. “Every piece resonates with a ley crossing. This one?” He taps a coin. “This one hummed like a tuning fork when she walked past.”

“She?” I ask.

“The girl. The one who brought you back.”

I say nothing.

Lyle grins. “It’s always a woman. They’re the ones who stir up the ghosts. Men just complain about it.”

I can’t argue.

“Why are you helping me?” I ask.

“Because I don’t believe in coincidence. And because it’s fun ,” he says, waggling his brows. “Plus, you’re the only dead guy I’ve met who doesn’t reek of sulfur.”

I glance at a dusty porcelain sink in the corner. The pipes rattle. Water drips.

“You lot have… plumbing now?”

Lyle beams. “Buddy. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

He drags me up the stairs and into the actual bathroom of his building. The tiles are cracked. The wallpaper’s peeling. But it’s got a toilet, a tub, and—most amazing of all—a faucet.

He turns the handle.

Water gushes out.

I take a step back, blinking.

Lyle laughs. “You’re afraid of it?”

“I spent a century drying out beside a wreck. Forgive me if indoor plumbing feels like sorcery.”

He slaps the sink. “Everything’s sorcery until you learn how it works.”

I lean in and touch the water.

It’s warm.

Clean.

Gods, I miss being alive.

“You okay, Captain?” Lyle asks, suddenly serious.

“I don’t know.”

He nods like that makes sense.

“I’m not here to stay,” I say.

“None of us are. But while you’re here… maybe stir up some dust.”

I glance out the window.

Lowtide Bluffs is sleeping.

But the relic’s awake.

And so am I.