H A U N T E D

t h i r t y - o n e

t h i r t y - o n e

Dabbing softly at the corners of my face, I make sure that the concealer covers the blue bruises underneath my eyes. Last night, my grandmother visited again and even though she is blood-related, I don't trust dead souls any less than I trust living souls. I had to lay there, my muscles tight and frigid as I held my body still and forced my eyelids to stay close. Finally, the weight from where she sat, lifted off the bed and icy lips touched the feverish skin of my forehead. I should head to my Math classroom, but right now, making sure I don't look like a forgotten Halloween decoration, seems a bit more important.

"Late night?"

In the mirror of the school bathroom, Steve stares back at me, grinning as he leans against a closed stall door with folded arms. I know no one else is in the stalls, but I double-check before I reply.

"One of you kept me awake", I grumble with exhausted vexation. Steve scoffs with an offended stare in his murky eyes, clearly not impressed with the way I stated my reason for being tired.

"One of us? Are there other dead Steve's keeping you awake at night? More like dead Jack's, I'd bet", the ghost grins with crude amusement. My cheeks take aflame, and I shake my head hastily, not daring to give him the satisfaction of the idea that Jack and I being together like...that. I don't know what he does in his free time, which is all the time, except coming to taunt me.

"No, you pervert. And it will never happen, either. Not that it has anything to do with you, and I don't know why I told you any of this", I mentally facepalm that I continue to give Steve more ammunition than he needs. It seems like I am in the business of embarrassing myself. The spirit's grin grows cheeky, and he pushes himself off from the wall, moving closer to me.

"Oh, yes, I forgot. He's a vampire, and he'll probably eat you up, and not in the way you'd like it", he laughs at my humiliation. I ball my hands into fists, careful not to walk into the trap he's set for me. Instead, I skip over it and continue to another pressing question of my own.

"How did you even know? They wouldn't have been dumb enough to expose themselves, and you can't follow them home, since you can't leave school property", I demand and fold my arms in front of my chest. Even on that first day, Steve kept warning me that they were dangerous, and when I confronted them, he encouraged me to tell them. How would he have known they were dangerous?

"How do you know I can't leave school property?"

I wave off his concern with a meaningless shrug, as if this is obvious knowledge.

"You would've followed me home and annoyed me there. Now, how did you know?"

The ghost's eyes squint together in annoyance and anger, at the fact that I so easily turned the tables on him and forced him into a corner. Steve is used to having the upper hand, but now I took that advantage away from him. I have him at his throat, metaphorically, and it makes him uncomfortable. That is when I realize something, from a memory tucked away at the pure disgust I felt at it when it happened. My smug smile falls as I come to the horrifying realization.

"Wait", I start. I can still feel the hot, slimy wound in between my fingernails, even though it's no longer there.

"You died because someone slit your throat...or because someone bit you?"

Instinctively, Steve raises his hand up to his throat, where I know his jugular was ripped out. He now hides it with a dirty white shirt and a loose tie, but it's something he'll have to live with the rest of his life. The way that humans die, is the way they'll be represented in the afterlife. For example, if I had to die due to drowning, I'd be pale with blue and purple veins sticking out against the pallor of my skin, and wide eyes that were bloodshot from blood vessels that had burst. Sometimes, water still drips off from these spirits, as they walked around with no aim. I have a theory it's because their bodies haven't been discovered, but I digress.