Misery County

Chapter 9 - Part 3

Cassie pushed the back door of the formerly-haunted house open again. It was still barely hanging on its hinges, although she could have sworn she'd left it open when she left earlier that night.

"Come on. It's through here," she said.

"So what was the deal with the ghost?" Eric asked, following her in.

"Truthfully, I don't know. He or she or it or whatever it was didn't seem very talkative."

"Do ghosts normally converse with the living?"

"I don't know. I've only dealt with one ghost before this one, and like you said, I didn't do the bulk of the work, so I'm not the right person to ask. What about you? Have you dealt with any talking spirits?"

"No, I don't think so."

"You don't think so?"

"I mean, I've dealt with so many monsters that they all sort of blend into one at some point."

Cassie eyed him over her shoulder. "You've never dealt with a ghost before, have you?"

"Well, you see, I –"

"Eric, you fucking phoney! You were giving me so much shit at the bar for needing a priest's help with that other ghost, and here you were sitting all along with no experience at all."

"Just because I'd never dealt with a ghost, doesn't mean that –"

"And now I'm on two ghosts, and you're still on zero," Cassie interrupted.

"One and a half," Eric corrected.

"That's still one and a half more than you."

"I know what you want." Eric patted Cassie on the head. "Who's a good girl? Who's a clever girl?" he cooed.

Cassie swatted his hand away. "It amazes me how in spite of how wrong you are, you still act like you're top dog."

"And don't you forget it. Say, how did you get rid of the ghost without a priest anyway?"

"With an ofuda."

"With an old food what?"

"An ofuda. Here, I'll show you." Cassie pulled the talisman out of her handbag. The ornate characters on it seemed to almost shine in the dark.

"It's a piece of paper with Vietnamese characters on it," Eric said idly, completely unimpressed.

"I hope you're joking. For starters, the Vietnamese use the Latin alphabet."

"Fine, Malaysian then."

"It's called Malay, and they use the Latin alphabet too, you dingus."

"Indonesian?"

"OK, now I know you're fucking with me."

"Sure, let's go with that."

"It's Japanese," Cassie explained. "I got it from a Shinto shrine in Hawaii a while back. I never thought I'd get to use it. It was kind of exciting, to be honest."

"So how do you use it? Do you need to be able to speak Singaporean to read it?"

"Singaporean isn't even a language, and I told you, it's Japanese. You just hold it up to the ghost's forehead, and they get destroyed or sent to the great beyond or something."

"Sounds simple enough. What if they're floating above you, though?"

"Funny you should say. I had that problem. Running up and down the stairs seemed to help."

"With how you eat, you need to be running up and down the stairs."

"I still fit into the same clothes that I always have, which is more than I can say for you, Eric. You've gotten a bit soft around the edges since last time we were together."

"It's by choice. The ladies like having something to hold on to."

"You keep telling yourself that, partner. OK, enough chit-chat. It's just in this room here." She walked through the doorway of one of the front rooms.

Eric followed behind her. "Wow, an empty room. I'm so glad you pulled me away from my lovely evening to show me this."