Hugs & Blows

Haunted

Odette believes in ghosts, she has for pretty much as long as she remembers,.despite her atheism. She thinks that it's impossible to grow up in the part of her home state she was raised in, and not believe. In Louisville, the closest city, is an old sanitarium Waverly Hills it was a tuberculosis hospital, the biggest on the east coast and it actually had a body chute. A lot of fictionalized haunted hospitals were based on it. Everyone said it was one of the most haunted places, anywhere.

She had been there a handful of times and once even spent the night, it was fun but nothing to spirited had happened. Odette could really only recall one ghostly experience she had thought she had, and it happened at Betsy's childhood home. They had been having a sleepover, and it was a night of sobriety, long before heroin coated the green veins that always Betsy's peaked out of her pale skin.

Betsy was fast asleep in the bed while Odette tossed and turned, it was almost three am when she heard the first hoarse shout begging "Help!". Odette tried to ignore it, but by half after the screams turned more blood curdling and were drawing closer. She could see the boy running and yelling up the street the words morphed from help to "Come here Luce."

Those words registered in her ears, and she recognized the voice. It was Stevens', the young boy down the lane who was in the awkward middle of puberty, his voice low with testosterone and fear, sniffling from worry and snow cold. Lucy was his little sister; she was mentally challenged, Odette couldn't remember if she had an extra chromosome or if she hadn't had enough air at birth, she figured it didn't matter if the girl had gotten out in the middle of the night and her family was searching for her.

Odette stood up and put on her pants and hoodie, she ran out into the snow that was more like rain and went to approach Steven, he looked at her painfully and yelled out "Help.", it was so loud that Odette was shocked and flinched blinking, by the time the lids of her eyes had parted he was gone, she stayed still, shocked until a brightly lit police car sped down the road, sirens blaring. She figured the neighbors had called the cops for the ruckus Steven had been making, she went back inside sure that they would help find Luce.

That morning she woke up and went into Betsy's kitchen to pretend to eat whatever breakfast Betsy's mom had prepared. She greedily chugged a glass of orange juice, she poured another and choked on her first sip with Betsy muttered "Shame about Steven, he was nice."

"What happened?" Odette asked, ready to be updated with the events of the early morning.

"He and his little sister, Lucy or something" Betsy's fathers stated before Odette interrupted him with the correct name,

"Luce."

"Yeah. Luce. Well they were in a car accident, Steven died instantly but the girl got out and was alright but another car rammed into her and killed her." He finished.

"Oh no, wait, when we they in a car accident?" Odette asked.

"Early last night, like ten or something." Betsy said.

"That can't be right, I swear I heard Steven shouting last night." Odette argued.

"There is no way you heard anything, it was on the bridge outside the neighborhood." Betsy defended.

"But the cops." Odette slurred sleepy with emotional distress.

"Went to notify the Roberts." Betsy said.

Odette believed them, and she believed what she had seen and heard that morning, it had further solidified her belief in ghosts.

But when, years later, she woke up in the weary arms of her lover, Ethan, and he with a childlike voice asked if she believed in ghosts she lied.

She said "No, when people die either nothing happens or they go someplace better." because he was exhausting himself with stress about his parents and she needed to comfort him, and not cause him to fret over souls trapped in the mortal plane.

He smiled and said "Heaven happens." before kissing her cheek and snuggling into the crook of her neck to go back to sleep.

Odette felt bad for lying but decided that because she was doing an act of kindness and out of love, that it was worth it.