The Almost Rock Star (A Ghost Story) (DRAFT)

The Almost Rock Star (A Ghost Story) 10, Pall Mall

Chapter Ten

Pall Mall

I had walked slower than Aja. He was already there, staring at my body.

I looked at it, too. I saw a slender looking pair of blue jeans, pulled down to the knees of a mostly decomposed body. My favorite white lace panties, pulled down that far, too. A lacy eyelet white cotton top, pushed up toward where my face had been. Long brunette hair splayed all around the girl’s head. I could barely consider it mine. My head. My pretty face. It was all rotted, teeth completely exposed and my eyeballs gone. My blue eyes and dark hair, my beauty, was erased by the horror of what I had become. 

A grotesque, half-skull, half-rotting flesh mess covered with large black flies.

“Maybe you should stay back,” Aja said, looking at the ground where my feet had pushed down into the pine needles and needlelike cypress leaves.  I was still invisible. For some reason, I seemed to have more weight in the real world when I was upset.

I stepped back a little.

“More. This is no place for a woman,” Aja said. “Go back to the trail. I will come back soon.”

I walked back to the trail, and turned around and watched him. He was bent over. I couldn’t see the body from where I stood, and I could barely see Aja’s back. But I could clearly see the corpse in my mind. The picture wouldn’t leave. 

I realized the black blood I had seen earlier wasn’t black blood. It was some sort of stain or liquid around the rotting body. It maybe was from my bleeding. Or maybe it was something else. I didn’t know. I had never seen a human corpse except in horror movies.

The picture flashed in my mind again. I realized there was something else around my body I hadn’t noticed before. I must have looked at it all those days I stood there. Empty cigarette boxes. I ran down to Aja, who was still on one knee, staring at my corpse.

“Aja! The cigarette packets! The killer left them!”

“I know, Cara Mia. They’re Pall Malls.” His voice was quiet. 

“Well, the police can track him through a DNA sample, right? They can find my killer easily now, right?”

Aja didn’t answer right away. He was still staring at the red boxes with the white lettering on them.

I looked at the two empty cigarette boxes. One looked soiled. The other was brighter, almost new-looking. Both looked as carelessly strewn as my body. One was open at the top, and had two burned cigarettes next to it. 

“Allie, let’s go. This last box has never been wet. It just rained two nights ago.”