The In-Betweener's

Chapter Two - This Girl Is a Ghost

"Pfft." It called to me.

I turned quickly, startled.

A feminine voice laughed. "There's no need to be scared. Besides, I mean, you're dead, what could I even do?"

"Ally, come on." Another not so feminine voice plead.

I looked up, immediately grimacing as I took a look at the woman standing before me. She saw my reaction and instinctively touched her head.

"Oh, yeah. I mean after you get past the initial shock of the gaping hole in my forehead, there's no need to be scared."

I let out a low chuckle at this, before standing up to eye up my two visitors properly. Ally, I believe is what the boy called her, looked to be around my age. She had dark, tanned skin and incredibly curly black hair. Her eyes were a chocolate brown and despite my initial reaction, plus the looked to be bullet hole in her forehead, she was very pretty. She was dressed in a red plaid shirt, accompanied by black ripped skinny jeans.

Wait. I immediately looked down at my own attire. A black t-shirt with the words, "Nama-stay in bed" inscribed in bold white print, with a pair of red plaid PJ pants. But unlike Ally, there wasn't any physical injuries that I could see displayed on my body.

"As you can probably tell, we appear with the injuries we sustained and the clothes we died in. I'm Josh, by the way."

A hand was extended toward me, and I took in hesitantly, remembering my past encounters with human contact in the afterlife so far. But to my surprise, we shook hands as two regular people would do.

Hm. Must be a ghost thing.

I looked up at Josh, and was surprised to see no physical trauma on him, either. Instead, it was his outfit that caught me off guard. He was wearing a hospital gown and bracelet. He had black shaggy hair, with a pointed nose and sharp jaw. Freckles decorated his cheeks and he too had chocolate brown eyes. He was definitely younger, looking to be about 16-18.

He saw me, pretty blatantly checking him out for wounds and he smiled sadly. "Cancer, stage four in the brain. Very invasive, and inoperable, so they couldn't do much. Hence while I still have my hair. According to the docs I had a few months left, and chemo or radiation wasn't going to really change that. Just put me in more pain. Though of course they didn't word it quite like that."

I looked down in shame, "I'm sorry."

I peered up toward Ally, and she also came forward. "You probably have a lot of questions. So how about you take us to your favourite place and we can tell you what you want to know."

I didn't know what they meant by that. Do we walk, run, fly? Until I looked up and realized that we were here. It was a small, two sided park in my hometown of Almonte, Ontario, about an hour from where I moved to Ottawa for college. I rented a small apartment there, as I had been for the five years since I moved there.

I'm surprised we didn't go there, or to Bath and Body Works, but I guess a piece of my heart will always be here, as this is where I came to play and get away for years during my childhood.

It also answered my question, I guess teleporting was how we'd get here. Bethany, the not so friendly, teleporting ghost. Casper is going to have to watch his back, apparently.

Ally and Josh smiled in unison as they took in our location. The sound of the stream which decided the park in two just as calming as I remember. No one was here, which wasn't unusual, as the sun had set about ten minutes ago, and I went over to take a seat on one of the four swings. Ally taking the one next to me while Josh went beside her.

So," She started. "You have questions."

I nodded, and looked down at the sand beneath my converse covered feet. "But it will probably be easier if you just explained what's going on first, as that will probably eliminate quite a few of my questions."

Josh nodded in understanding, giving me a sympathetic smile. "Okay, well for starters, you're dead, but haven't moved on."

I gave him a dumb look, and he held up a finger as if to silence me. "The reason you're here is because we all come here if there's someone we need to help move on. Someone we need to assist in moving on from our death so we can move on too. To whatever that is."

"But why isn't there more of us? Aren't there many people tragically hurt by their loved one dying?"

Ally nodded. "Yes, but from what we've gathered there's a spectrum of pain felt by the loss of someone significant. But we're here if there's someone beyond that spectrum. Someone so pained, someone in need of our assistance and comfort. Someone who could be a potential risk to themselves, because they can't handle the lose the way most people are eventually able too."

I nodded, "Well, how do we know who that is?"

"You're drawn to them, you'll feel a pull and ultimately be drawn to their location." Josh smiled.

"Who was yours?" I asked him.

Ally sucked in a breath, making me instantly regret asking.