Page 1 of Halfway to the Grave

Chapter 1

Sekani Aelor

We don’t ask for happiness, just a little less pain.

— CHARLES BUKOWSKI, “LETTER TO WILLIAM PACKARD,” JULY 1985

S even letters. Two words.

It’s surprising how easily a person can get used to telling a ghost to fuck off .

And how quickly it gets old.

Once they know you can see them, hear them—unlike everyone else—they tend not to listen.

After twenty years of being harassed by the dead, I’m not surprised by much anymore. Certainly not by how rude and pushy they can be. I suppose they have good reasons. Most of them want peace—or at least some form of resolution—and until they achieve it, they’re stuck here with the rest of us sorry sons of bitches.

And I couldn’t give less of a fuck.

Just because I can see the dead doesn’t mean I have to help them. Been there. Done that. Never again.

This guy was persistent as hell though.

Three weeks ago, I made the mistake of speaking to him. In my defense, I’d thought he knew he was dead.

Nope.

Freshly dead.

Just how freshly, I didn’t know; I was ignoring him. He was not the first ghost to go all poltergeist on my ass.

But seriously, fucking with my coffee machine was a new low.

I hit the button again and—again—nothing happened.

No hot brown bean water to perk me up before work.

At five in the morning .

This is why I preferred the dead dead . As soon as they started walking and talking and fucking around in my life, things went south fast—like super fast.

A man could live without a lot of things. But coffee?

No.

Reaching behind the machine, I unplugged it on the off chance this wasn’t his doing. Have you tried turning it off and on again. I plugged it back in and hit the button.

A whole lot of nothing happened. Was I surprised?

Nope.

I glared at my unwelcome house guest. He’d been haunting me long enough to know just how much I depended on coffee to get through my day.

“Isn’t it your job to guide lost souls?” he asked.

I snagged my keys off the counter, checked my pockets to be sure I had my phone and wallet, and headed for the door. He was hot on my heels, as he had been for the last twenty-three days. Eventually, he’d get tired of following me around. It wasn’t as if I did anything interesting.

“Do you have any idea how frustrating this is?” He phased through my door as I turned the lock and shut it behind myself. “I know you can hear me!”

If he expected an answer, he was shit out of luck. I’d already opened Pandora’s box once. I wasn’t going to do it again. If I engaged with him in any way, it would just make him stick around longer. “This isn’t fair. You’re so mean!”

Life wasn’t fair. And he was very dead—technically, not a part of life. And no one said I was a nice person.

I headed towards the elevators but paused when a soft cry reached me.

It was coming from the stairwell, and it sounded disturbingly familiar.

My heart squeezed and my stomach cramped. I spun, skipping around ghost boy, and pushed on a heavy metal door with my shoulder. It popped open with a rusty groan to reveal the source of the sobbing.

Isla. My next-door neighbor’s three-year-old daughter.

“Hey, sweetie,” I cooed.

She waddled towards me, full diaper banging against her knees. Her cheeks were flushed red and fat tears dripped from her chin. I scooped down, gathering her against my chest.

“Shh. Shh. You’re alright.” I rubbed her back; she flopped her head down on my shoulder. Her frizzy blonde curls were encrusted with filth. If the smell was any indication, it wasn’t just urine soaking her diaper either.

She popped her thumb in her mouth as I pushed out of the stairwell.

How had she even got in there?

Of course, the better question was how did she even get out of her apartment?

“There, there.” I bounced her when she started to sniffle against my shoulder.

“So you do have a heart,” Ghost Boy muttered, following me back down the hall. I ignored him.

“Mrs. Taffett!” I banged on the wooden door of apartment C6 and waited a moment. No answer. “Mrs. Taffett!” I tried again; once more, my efforts went unanswered which wasn’t really surprising. This wasn’t the first time I’d found Isla in the hallway and her mother unaware she was gone.

“For fuck’s sake.” I tried the knob and it turned under my hand. I stepped into the apartment and gagged. It was a cesspool.

There was dirty laundry spilling out of the laundry room. Unwashed dishes covered the counters. The trash was overflowing with dirty diapers. Roaches scurried into the darkness. A fly landed on Isla’s cheek and I blew it away as she gave a sleepy yawn.

“Gross. Who lives like this?” Ghost Boy asked as he looked around.

At least I never saw drugs during these unannounced visits.

“Mrs. Taffett!” I walked deeper into the apartment, kicking toys out of the way. “It’s Sekani! I found Isla—again.”

No answer.

Was the woman dead? Or just not here?

“Mrs. Taff—” There was a thump, then a door swung open.

A young woman in a dirty t-shirt and panties stumbled down the hallway. “Isla!” She tripped over her own feet and banged her knee on the secondhand coffee table, but didn’t slow down in her bid to get to her daughter. “Oh God. Did she get out again? I don’t know how. I must’ve fallen asleep.” She reached for Isla, who went into her arms easily.

“She wasn’t tired from all the cleaning up she was doing,” Ghost Boy said from my side. It wasn’t as if I disagreed with him. This place hadn’t been cleaned in weeks.

“I’ve told you, you have to lock your door, Mrs. Taffett,” I said as she sniffed at Isla’s ass then yanked her back, gagging.

“I know. I do. I mean . . . I thought I did.” She snagged a diaper from the pile on the sofa and a pack of wet wipes. Isla lay across a sofa cushion, her thumb still in her mouth, as Mrs. Taffett began to change her. “She just keeps getting out.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose; the space behind my eyes began to throb. “I found her in the stairwell, Mrs. Taffett. She could have fallen.”

She sniffed, turning and rubbing her nose against her shoulder as she wiped shit from Isla’s ass. “I’ll do better. I’m trying,” she said, her voice cracking.

Her effort sucked.

But she loved Isla. I knew that much. The fact she was trying at all was the only reason I hadn’t called CPS. If this kept up though, I was going to have to. It was the last thing I wanted to do. The system wasn’t kind to kids—even cute ones with blonde curls and blue eyes.

“Lock the door behind me,” I told her as I turned away. My gaze drifted to her trashcan and I stopped beside it, giving it a hard kick to shake the bag loose. I tied it and yanked it out.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Taffett said.

I turned the lock on her door—because she probably wouldn’t remember to do it—and took her trash with me, closing the door firmly on my way out.

“So now that you’ve saved a little girl, save a lost soul.”

“There is no saving the dead.” I headed towards the elevator. “Pop off through your door and let the living get on with their lives.”

“My door?”

I glanced at him and frowned. He’d been following me for three weeks and . . . only now did I realize, not once had I seen a door— his door. At least, none of the doors I saw clearly belonged to him.

Shit.