Page 11

Ghost: An apparition that appears in one’s mind. Some believe it is a true entity of the supernatural.

W hy the fuck was I being haunted, and how soon could I exorcise their ass out of my head?

I yawned, reaching for my phone that was playing an annoying loud ass sound in my ear. Slapping my side table, I found nothing.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Where the fuck had I left it? Quickly searching my room, I found that there were about six pairs of pants strewn across the floor. It was probably in a pants pocket.

Fucking fantastic.

Sitting fully up, I waited for the—

Ding! Ding! Ding!

“Fuck…obnoxious damn device.”

I rolled out of bed and padded over in the direction of the high-pitched ringing.

“Ouch! Who put the damn closet door there?” Rubbing my head, I winced. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

Ding! Ding! Ding!

The glow of the phone illuminated the pants pocket, and I followed that beacon of light. Finally making it to the correct pair of pants, I grabbed the cell out of the pocket.

“Masters,” I answered.

Silence hit my ear, making my gut sink. I hated this feeling. The phone went dead, the empty line buzzing in my ear.

“Long time…no see, Pretty Boy.” The words chilled my body, so I moved only my eyes toward that voice.

There, near my window, I could see his sickening body. His gray hair was sticking up like he’d licked a sparking socket plug, his beady black eyes swaying like a clock back and forth.

He wasn’t real.

He couldn’t be.

I watched my brother Judas shoot him point-blank in the face last year. He was dead and buried in his victims’ unmarked graves underneath the collapsed ruins of Hospital Twelve and all its dirty secrets.

They had built another asylum. This one was being held together by my other brother, Goliath, and his pipsqueak girlfriend, Ezello. They made a pair of love-sick puppies. I swear everyone around me was getting hitched.

Quinn was ‘picket-fencing it’ with a woman he’d saved on duty and even had a rugrat now. Goliath and Zee were busy making the new hospital livable and finding a way to free Judes.

I still felt so fucking guilty about leaving Judes. He was all alone now, and Goliath was too busy with his feisty midget to really give our brother quality time.

“It’s because you’re a fraud, and you know it. You’re the reason your precious wife and daughter are dead.”

I growled and threw my phone at him. It smashed through the window, going right through his wispy form.

“Maybe just kill yourself now. Make it easy on those pretty girls so they can drag your sorry ass to hell where you belong.”

I ignored him, his voice haunting me in the dark now that the phone’s flashlight went with it out the window. I didn’t want to see his ugly ass.

“Don’t shoot the messenger, kid. Oh wait, your brother did that for ya’.”

He laughed. It was eerie and raspy. He sounded more like a dying old smoker now than the cracked-out whacko he was in the asylum.

“Thought you only spoke in fucked up nursery rhymes,” I said, getting off the floor and kicking the remaining pants into the corner.

“Your dumbass couldn’t understand my clear warnings then, and you won’t now,” he said, and I frowned.

“What warnings?”

He laughed again, this time sounding every bit like the nutball we killed. “Sleeping doll, Tick-Tock. Sleeping doll, tick-tock you, sleeping doll, tick-tock soldier, too. Tick-tock, another drops. Tick-tick, tock-tock.”

I dragged my hand down my face, the confusion of his words making me every bit as annoyed and angry as he’d predicted.

He laughed, turning back into Joe, the smoker, and leaving Tick-Tock Joe behind.

“Maybe if you used your brain more, you’d stop losing your girls, you idiot.”

I frowned.

Shit, I wondered if Fallon had gotten home all right.

I looked at the clock on the nightstand and saw it was about three in the morning. I doubted she was doing anything and just sleeping, but I needed a run to get my head cleared before I had to wake up in a few hours and teach.

I sniffed the gym clothes from yesterday, shrugged, threw them on, and saluted the apparition of Tick-Tock Joe as I jogged out the door. The air was still wet, and the moisture in the atmosphere made it feel sticky with the combination of Texas heat.

The sun wouldn’t be up for a few more hours, and I could keep to the shadows. I didn’t exactly know where Fallon lived. I only knew she wasn’t far from the school.

Making my way over to the ground under my window, I found my phone in some trash. Picking up the infernal device, I swiped to a search engine and typed in her name. I didn’t find anything, and I cursed, irritation lacing around me like a poisoned glove.

Tick-Tock Joe was jogging around me, his jeers and taunts giving me a headache.

“You can’t even stalk a bitch right. How pathetic, Pharaoh.”

I typed in other names and tried to get a bead on her location. The only thing that came up was some boating houses off the pier. Fuck, these places were big enough and gaudy enough for the high-prized dick bag owners to have sold their firstborn to buy them.

Could Fallon be this wealthy?

Why would she be going to a community college? Wouldn’t this type of money demand the Ivy League?

I searched the dude’s name on the boating website. Sure enough, a little strawberry blonde-haired girl stood awkwardly beside her older sister, who looked like her. Also, a blond-haired boy smirked at the camera with a winning smile. Under their photos, read “Fallon, Francis, and Noah.”

So my Little Voyeur was loaded after all. She even had a boat called The Legacy. Why did she act like all the other kids in the college? And why didn’t she have a damn pen the first day of my class?

“Not all rich people are snobs.” Joe laughed, pulling up some tube socks on his bony legs. “But all poor people are idiots.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why are they idiots, Joe?”

He snickered like a creepy pervert. “Because they aren’t rich, duh. Boy, you’re stupid like the rest of them.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Then get the fuck out of my head.”

“Awe, and miss all the fun? Nah. I’m good.”

I sighed and set my destination for the mansion the boat company’s family owned. It wasn’t far.

I couldn’t make Joe disappear, so I decided to drown out his mindless chattering and grunting from running by turning up my device all the way and blasting the music in my ears.

It was the song I played for Fallon on my guitar, the one I used to sing to Xenia at night.

The beauty of the night was peaceful, and eventually, I tired myself out so much from my run that Joe evaporated back to his hellscape.

I noted that exhausting myself seemed to cull my delusions.

I got to the fancy ass gates and peered through the wrought-iron metal. There was a single light on in the center of the house. I couldn’t see shit else, but something told me that was Fallon’s room.

I snuck around the back, listening for any dog that might take a bite out of my ass, and inspected the walls, ground, light fixtures, and doors for cameras. They didn’t deserve to see my pretty mug.

Ah-ha…there’s a camera!

I pulled a small round device out of the ground and inspected it. Well, fuck. As rich as these folks were, the cameras on their lawn were well-paid knockoffs with stickers taped to the ends.

But I wasn’t complaining.

I hopped over the hedges and made my way to the shining light in the center of the big ass house.

Fallon was there. She was standing in the window with a nightgown on. There was an asshole talking to her. She didn’t look very happy. Her arms crisscrossed over her chest, and she looked out the window. The man was pointing at her and clearly yelling about something.

She had her hand against the glass, staring out into the night and, unknown to her, directly at me.

I moved my fingers to trace hers in the distance. Her soft skin felt too good in my imaginary grip. That guy was too close to her for my comfort. He’d better walk away before I sought him out and shoved him into the drainage pipe in their pool.

The pompous prick had an ascot wrapped around his neck and his button-up all the way buttoned.

“What a nerd,” Tick-Tock, Joe said, making me jump at the sudden intrusion.

“Fucking hell, Joe. Don’t make me shoot you again,” I warned, clutching my racing heart.

He chuckled and waggled his bushy eyebrows at me. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, big boy.”

I fought the urge to gag and moved to a different section of the hedges. Fallon had moved, and I needed to see her. The guy had left, lucky for him, and now she was sitting in a big bed wiping at her cheeks.

Had that fuck hurt her?

Rage simmered in my gut, encouraging the urge to stalk into their house. Finding this neckerchief man had become the next on my ‘To-Do ’ list after seeing Fallon. Making him mop up his blood from her floor after I beat him senseless would be a lovely treat.

“Cool it, Rocky,” Joe warned, tsking at me. “Your princess is asleep. Go home, ya’ nut.”

Peering back into the window, I saw that Fallon had laid on the bed, and her eyes were closed.

I needed to see her, make sure with my own eyes that she was all right.

Joe shook his head at me. “You belong back in the nuthouse more than your brother does, and you know it.”

With that, he poofed.

Why did seeing things that weren’t there need to be part of my family’s plight? Fuck! I tried so hard to pretend I wasn’t like Judas, but maybe I was only fooling myself.

I sighed in relief and made my way to the big ass tree, that was so conveniently located by her window.

Jumping up to climb was the easy part, but now I was at least fifteen minutes into this stupid idea. I was way too old for this shit, and my muscles were bitching at me as I made my way to the top of the branch. It swayed over like an arm extending an invite into the sleeping princess’s room.

I squeezed my ass inside the window, silently wondering why rich people seemed to think there were no bad guys who could climb trees and open windows.

Fallon’s chest was rising and falling. Her breasts were free of any damn bra, and the chill of the air made her nipples hard. My mouth watered at the sight, wanting to suck those damn buds into my mouth until she writhed under me, begging for more.

My cock hardened in my pants, and I stuck my hand inside them, freeing the length from the binds and looking at her beautiful face as I stroked myself.

I thought about her wet, hot mouth, how she choked on even the smallest amount of me. What would she do when I shoved my dick so far down her throat that she could taste my balls?

I shivered, the thought making me feel hot.

I stroked faster, the massive edging from earlier in the library making my nuts feel heavy and ready to bust. Frantically bouncing my eyes around the room, I realized I had nowhere to fucking come. There were blankets on the bed that were all black, but hardly anything else.

There were no tissues, extra clothing, or carpet on the floor. Only dark wood planks, an empty desk with a small chair tucked underneath, and one end table with a lamp on it. I didn’t even see a chest of drawers. Where were all her clothes, make-up, and girlie hair things?

Fuck, and I thought a jail cell was barren. This room was empty except a vanity in the bathroom.

I could come in her mouth, but if she woke up and saw me, I’d likely lose my dick to her teeth.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself.

Humming…I heard humming. Opening my peepers, I followed the sound, and there was a mini fridge tucked in the far left corner of the room.

Making my way over to the tiny, black box, I opened its door.

The illuminated light was bright in the space, so I moved my body in front of it…

light disturbing her right now, no fucking bueno.

She snorted and rolled over. I saw a lunch bag sitting on the shelf. Letting go of my dick, I quickly opened the bag.

Ho-oh! Look at that…there was a sandwich inside.

Scrawled writing on the top of the bag read ‘my lunch don’t touch, bitch’ and the date. A delicious idea corroded my mind, and my cock throbbed at the visceral feeling.

I wanted her to taste me.

I opened the box and laid it on top of the mini-fridge. I tossed off the top bun of the sandwich and angled myself over the salami.

“Eat up, baby,” I groaned in a whispered thrust.

I jerked myself hard and fast, listening to the sound of her breathing. My come shot out of me like a damn geyser. The velocity made me feel dizzy. It coated the meat on the bun. The white gave a mayo appearance.

Smirking at my homemade treat, I slapped the top bun back on, clicking the lid into place and sliding it into the bag like nothing ever happened.

I walked over to Fallon’s bed, my height leaving a shadow over her face. I leaned down and lightly kissed her lips.

“I’ll taste you soon, Little Voyeur, but for now, bon appétit.”

I looked out the window, realizing I didn’t want to leave her presence. What if that dickhead came back in? There was a small closet in the back, and I tried to gauge if my ass could fit. The wizard fit in the dwarf’s house, right?

Being careful to breathe silently, I bent down close to her face. She looked peaceful as she slept. Her face held this awed look that made me wonder about her dreams.

“Such a confusing little thing, aren’t you?” I mused, leaning down and leaving another soft kiss on her cheek.

She stirred slightly, a smile playing on her lips. It had been a while since I made any woman smile with a simple kiss, but this girl was always surprising me.

I made my way into the back near the closet and shoved my body inside the small space. Some hangers fell, and a few pairs of her flowery dresses laid over my head. I laughed at that and threw my hand over my big mouth.

When I didn’t hear her make any noises, I snuggled into the outfit and laid my head back against the wall, falling asleep to her rhythmic breathing and sweet scent. I had felt more at peace in this damn cramped closet than I had in that spacious bedroom I’d been sleeping in for a year.