Page 2 of Hot Ghoul Summer (Pine Ridge Universe)

Chapter Two:

Never, ever unblock creeps

I’M GREEDY.

Not like, obscenely greedy, but I just graduated from college with my nursing degree, which means I’m older and broker than a lot of other people just entering the full-time workforce. It also means I’m fast-tracked to get any job I want, but...

Yeah. May and June were a whirl of applications, interviews, and getting gift cards and checks in the mail as graduation presents. My mom, bless her Chardonnay-soaked brain, got plastered one weekend and insisted I unblock my dad and my step-dad, Loser One and Loser Two, because she had sent them graduation announcements and Loser One and Loser Two both promised they would send money to my QuikCash app.

I have a feeling Mom badgered them into that.

The point is, I should have said no, I don’t need the money. I should have said, “Mom, you’re two bottles deep, and you’re not thinking right. You told me to avoid both of those deadbeats like the plague.”

But I’m greedy. I thought about how Dad caused me a fortune in therapy bills and how Gary was just a general lecherous cretin who owed me way more than fifteen bucks and a “Congrats!” text for making my teenage years awkward and uncomfortable.

So, I let her unblock their numbers and... lo and behold!

A big fat nothing.

That’s probably because neither man would ever try to contact me, even if I was elected President of the United States.

I take that back. They both would. They’d want to cash in on my success and see if I could erase their parking tickets or something.

But, since I didn’t hear from Loser One or Loser Two, I never thought to remove their numbers from my phone or block them again. Mom went off on a cruise with Aunt Gail and Aunt Sherry, and June rolled into July.

And Loser Two, Gary, called me.

“Molly! Molly, my sweet baby girl, how are you?”

His sweet baby girl? He’d been in my life from ages thirteen to seventeen, and there was something decidedly unfatherly about the way Gary used to look at me. My nose wrinkled in disgust, but the nurse in me was struck by something. Gary’s voice, which I hadn’t heard in six years, was different. It wasn’t just older with age or slurred with drink. His breathing was labored, and there was a peculiar whistling noise after every breath. “Hi... Uh. How are you?”

“Well, honestly, Molly, not too good. I was in a nasty car accident. Broken ribs. Broken nose. Smashed up my hand real good. Did you get the money I sent you?”

“No.” I arched my eyebrows.

“Huh. Stupid app. My phone got smashed up, too. I bet it didn’t send with my cracked screen.”

Sure. Like you couldn’t tell if money left your account, shattered screen or not? “Well, I didn’t get it. You don’t need to worry about it. Sounds like you should take care of yourself instead, Gary.”

“Heh, that’d be good. So.”

Oh, boy. Here it comes .

“Your mom says you’re gonna be a nurse.”

“I am a nurse. I just graduated with my nursing degree.” I didn’t bother to tell him that I did the five-year program or that I got my masters in nursing and a minor in public health policy.

“Oh! You’re over eighteen now, right?”

“What does— Yes. Yes, I’m well over eighteen.”

“You drive?”

“What??”

“Come see me. I need to see you. You’re practically a stranger to me!”

“Not practically a stranger, I’m an actual stranger! I haven’t seen you since I was seventeen! We don’t know anything about each other. You didn’t even know how old I was.”

“The accident. Concussion.”

Empathy and bedside manner tried to push to the front. The Nightingale Pledge. The Hippocratic Oath—I know that’s just for doctors but I know it and nurses do as much as doctors to help people heal if you ask me! I had pledged to take care of the vilest diseases, the dregs of humanity, the burned, the disfigured, the criminals, the young, the old. Everyone deserves compassion and care.

But he tried to walk in on me while I was in the shower one too many times for it to be an accident.

He’s not my patient. Patients deserve my compassion. He deserves a boot in his ass.

“Molly, Molly... You’re the only child I’ll ever have—”

“I’m not your kid! You were a creepy-ass stepdad!”

“I’m not proud of how I acted, Molly, but I’ve changed so much in the last ten years.”

“Six.”

“Whatever. That accident cleared my head!”

“You just said it made you fuzzy!”

“Well... Some things are fuzzy, but not my regrets about how I ruined the only chance I’ll ever have to be a father. I know I messed up, big time. But I almost died, and I can see that it’s not too late to change! Swear to God, I almost died. The guy with me on the pier—he died.”

Trauma. Survivor guilt. Many people who have near-death experiences have these big “Come to Jesus” and “Turning over a new leaf” moments.

Nursing gets in your bloodstream like an IV.

I was wavering. “I appreciate that. I’m just not—”

“I did well for myself, Molly. Got a big beach house out on Lake Erie now. I want to leave it to you. I want you to have it, now, so I can see you enjoy it. Maybe I can even come visit you sometime?”

“M-me? You want me to have your big beach house?”

How did Gary end up with a big beach house? When he was married to my mom, he was in and out of work so often we had the unemployment office on our speed dial.

He was charming though, Mom always believed it wasn’t his fault that he got fired or laid off. Maybe he finally charmed some old rich widow, or he found a job where they need someone to spin bullshit and flattery for eight hours a day.

“You deserve it. I’m so proud of you. You’re a good girl. A girl only good things should happen to and... and I’m really sorry. I’m so sorry, Molly. Moll, I’m sorry, I wish I... I wish everything was different. Wish this had never happened.” He was crying.

There was true grief in his voice.

Something was still off, but...

Well, fuck it, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t admit that his tearful words and labored breathing did something to me, as a nurse and as the naive teenager who had once begged Gary to take me to the Father Daughter Dance at my junior high.

“I’d love to, but I can’t. It doesn’t feel right.”

A pause. A frantic breath. “Molly. I’m not going to make it. Please. Please, will you come see the house? Come see an old man before it’s too late?”

I frowned. How old was Gary? “How bad was the accident? You said you have broken ribs, and I know they hurt a lot, but they’re not fatal.”

“I didn’t tell you. They don’t think I’m going to make it to tomorrow. Maybe not even until midnight. I told them I didn’t want to croak in a hospital. I’m at my beautiful beach house, the beach house I’m going to leave to my daughter. My Molly. My only hope. Please. Please .”

My gut tingled in a bad way, and my brain, my stupid, stupid brain suddenly whispered, Hey, if you sell that beach house, you could pay off your student loans in a heartbeat. Or, you could live there. You can get a nursing job anywhere. Living rent-free in a big beach house—you could rent out the rooms, too.

I’m greedy. Did I mention that?

“What’s the address?”

“34 Silverlake Way, Erie, PA.”

“I’ll be there soon.” I was already looking at the GPS app on my phone. “About three hours.”

“You gotta leave now, then,” he whispered, that whistling, huffing noise growing worse. “Before midnight!”

“Okay, okay. Shh, the more you upset yourself, the harder it is for your body to heal. I know you said they’re not giving much hope, but you sound like you’re holding your own. I’m going to talk to your doctor. There might be another hospital that has—”

“Fine, fine, but please come see me first! Promise you’ll go straight to that—to my beach house.”

“I promise.”

“Your mom—your mom would hate to see me like this. Maybe she shouldn’t come,” Gary suddenly said, voice increasingly frantic.

“Mom can’t come even if she wanted to, Gary. She’s on the second week of a three-week cruise. Her fiftieth birthday present from her sisters.”

“Oh, good. Good. That’s good. She deserves nice things, too.”

Yeah, something was off, but—

Reminder, your Federal Student Loan payment is due in three days. Pay now?

An email notification briefly obscured my screen.

What the heck? Money is money.

I COULDN’T FIND 34 Silverlake Way. I could find 32, 33, and 35. I wondered if Gary had been more out of it than I thought or if my GPS was being stupid. Maybe it took the address of an intersecting road? Whatever. If I could find 32 and 33, I could find 34 or ask the neighbors.

The digital clock on my dashboard says 9:30. That’s not too late to knock on someone’s door. Is it?

“Geez...” I rub my neck, squeezing the knots of tension that have grown along my spine and shoulders for the last three years—endless clinicals, exams, part-time nursing-home work, studying, studying, studying, stress, stress, stress. “Call Mom.”

My phone does its thing, but Mom is probably sprawled out under a limbo pole on the Lido Deck. I just hope to God she’s not sprawled under Loser Number Three. She met Gary on a pub crawl for Aunt Gail’s fortieth birthday, after all.

“Mom, you’ll never believe what happened. Gary called. He’s giving me one hell of a graduation gift—a beach house. I’m sure it’s full of black mold and directly in the path of lake effect blizzards or something, but—” My mouth dries out as I turn onto Silverlake Way. Two normal Cape Cod houses flank a fucking mansion.

That can’t be mine. That can’t be his!

“Uh. Sorry! Sorry, Mom, I was just saying, he wants to give me this beach house. But, he also had a car accident, and he’s pretty banged up. He thinks he’s dying. He’ll probably recover and change his mind. Who knows? Anyway, he sounded like a decent human being for a few minutes, and I decided to go up to Lake Erie and see him on his supposed deathbed, ‘cause, y’know. I’m a nurse who can’t resist playing the hero in someone’s hour of need, and I’m a sucker. Not to mention,” I drop my voice, eyes scanning the first small house I see, “if this is legit, I might be able to sell the place and pay off my student loans. Or hey, home ownership! Love you, Mom. Call me when you get signal, or send me an email.”

I hang up. My mother probably hasn’t figured out how to use the ship’s WiFi, and I don’t know if I really want her to. I know she’s been done with Gary for a long time, but she loved him once. This news could ruin her vacation.

Shit, why did I call her? I should have waited.

I peer at the house past the mansion. The lighthouse-shaped mailbox bears the number 36. I just passed 32 at the bottom of the little sandy lane. The misty lake air blankets the cream-colored Victorianesque mansion that must be number 34.

My stomach suddenly knots. I don’t think it’s nerves about seeing Gary. If he really changed, I’ll be shocked. A little nugget of determination sits in my subconscious, telling me I want him to put it in writing that I get this place—I think.

I ease my car up to the mansion. I don’t see any numbers on it, but it has to be the right place.

And that feels wrong. This whole thing feels wrong. I creep up the driveway, mist suddenly hanging like a cloud across my windshield.

For a minute, I just sit, my foot on the brake.

How did Gary get this place?

Why did he call me?

Did he say the guy on the pier died? How do you have a car accident on the pier?

I guess someone could have careened off of it...

I know why I called my mom. I wanted someone to know where I went because I don’t trust my creepy ex-stepfather.

But I trust my nurse’s instincts. I think about Gary’s voice during the call—the whistling sound of a broken nose and badly deviated septum combined with the careful labored breathing that accompanies multiple broken ribs. No one could fake those sounds so consistently without the actual injuries, especially through the range of emotions Gary displayed. Whether trying to be upbeat or tearful begging, his breathing and voice stayed the same.

He’s hurt—and he can’t hurt me.

I’m still in my car. My gut is screaming at me.

He never laid a hand on me.

No. Not in a violent way. Not in a sexual way.

But his eyes...

Stop it. Near-death experience. He wants to turn over a new leaf.

Crippling loans.

I look up at the house. There are lights on in the upper rooms, but none on the ground floor.

Well, maybe he can’t do the stairs. Maybe he’s comfortable in bed, recuperating.

But if he’s supposed to be dying, where are the people to take care of him? Nurses? Family?

Oh. Duh. Me. I’m probably the only nurse-family member he has. Probably the only one dumb enough to give his sorry ass a second chance.

As I slowly step out of the car, I recall that Gary’s sister and brother never came to visit after he married Mom. I used to think it was because they didn’t like us, but Mom told me it was because he’d borrowed so much money from both of his siblings and never paid it back.

A sudden shiver races up my back, like someone ran an ice cube along my spine.

You know what? If I’m not comfortable, I’ll just leave. I pat the pepper spray in my pocket and think of the medical teams in Doctors without Borders, those brave men and women going into disaster areas and war zones for the greater good. Here I am, afraid to walk into a house in a nice neighborhood in a sweet little beach town.

Shame. You’re not worthy of your nursing pin.

I push the car door shut with a bang, march across the gravel drive, and stomp up the stairs to the wrap-around porch. Ooh. Wrap-around porch.

Besides, I took self-defense classes, and I have pepper spray. I’ll be fine. If I could handle that drunk linebacker during practicum, I can handle severely injured Gary.

With false bravery, I pound on the door. “Gary! Can I come in?” I figure he won’t be moving around much.

I don’t figure on the door opening and a burst of wind from inside the house sucking me into a huge, dark entryway. Yes. It came from the inside . Like a giant invisible vacuum that pulls me in and slams the door shut behind me with a slam that echoes.

“Hi, you must be Molly.”

A man in a dark hoodie is suddenly in front of me, and I know he wasn’t there a second ago.

I blink. I back up.

And the door is gone.

Just— gone . My back hits a solid wall. “Ow!” The noise is more a gasp of surprise and fear than pain.

“Oh, careful, love! Sorry about that. I... I sort of made a trade for you, and I can’t really let you leave at the moment.”

The man’s voice is soft and apologetic, with a trace of an accent I can’t place. Like Cockney but more refined.

“What’s going on? Where’s Gary?” Hand in purse. Pepper spray in palm.

“Hmm. Hang on.” The man closes his eyes, and I stare at him in the darkness. His skin is so pale that it illuminates the room.

Like he’s glowing.

Humans don’t glow. There are no bioluminescent humans.

Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm...

“He’s driving a stolen Toyota down the PA Turnpike. Hm. As if I wouldn’t catch him just because he’s in a different vehicle.” There’s a mocking little chuckle in his tone, one that sends bile burning the back of my throat.

This glowing psycho is not going to be the reason I end up on the true crime channel—unless it’s as the survivor who tells her story, the one who gets away.

“Creep!” I screech and lunge forward, pepper spray shooting in a targeted stream for his eyes and mouth. I want him blind and gasping on the floor.

Well. I’m just not getting anything I want tonight.

Mr. Pale blinks at me with an apologetic wince, spray sliding down his face like raindrops. Meanwhile, I’m over here gasping and choking just from the fumes.

“Molly, maybe I could just take you through to the kitchen and—” Pale guy reaches for my elbow, and I use my free hand to claw for his face.

And connect with nothing.

What? Does not compute. I can feel a solid hand on my arm, pushing me along, but my attempts to strike back only meet emptiness.

“Who are you? Do you—Did you do something to Gary? What do you want with me?” I’m struggling and using every move I know, and he just evades them like they’re nothing, forcing me into a large, dark kitchen.

“Shh, good girl, I’ll explain everything.”

“Do not shush me! I’m not a dog!” I growl between gags. The pepper spray didn’t hurt him, but it’s choking me.

Suddenly, my stomach is slammed against something hard and metal—a sink. He’s behind me, chest to my back, hands scrabbling over my arms to pin them to my sides.

“No!” It’s one word with a whole world of anger and regret.

How did I end up like this? How is Gary involved?

There’s a glint of silver in the corner of my watering eyes. Knives. Counter. Over the sink. His body is crushing mine even though he’s barely bigger than me. I guess I’m not getting away. I don’t even know why. “Please...”