The shade wasn't a blood-spattered apparition that Jia had become used to seeing, though what she and Izzy were staring at had a narrow band of bruising around its neck – a telltale sign of strangulation by some kind of ligature.
"Elly ... we can't help you," Izzy said, choking back tears. "I know you won't find peace until your killer meets his end, but this woman can't fight your battle today. I don't know if you can point me in the direction or not, but if you can then maybe I can help you find the peace you deserve."
"You can't put yourself out there, Izzy," Jia snapped, never once taking her eyes off the shade. "For all I know, if you kill her killer you're going to wind up like me with ghosts chasing your ass all over the fucking place."
Izzy wiped a tear from his eye with a tattooed forearm. "I'm an old man now, kid. Maybe if I do this for Elly, it will mean that I did one good thing in my life because I've done a hell of a lot of bad things. The kinds of things that might make you reconsider our friendship. She was the love of my life. I owe her this much since she never had much of a life, to begin with."
The figure twisted and churned as a light breeze kicked up dust devils at its feet. The camp fire spat out a series of loud sparks that hit the sandy ground and bounced a few inches as they glowed in the darkness. Jia ground them into ash beneath the heel of her boot.
She didn't like that her friend was offering to put himself in harm's way and she knew well enough that whoever killed the girl might have gone on to kill dozens of other women in the decades since. The murderer would be a skilled practitioner; someone who treated killing as if it was a craft. It could also be a person with enough skill to get the drop on Izzy – you don't remain hidden for decades without knowing who is coming after you or how to eliminate threats.
Jia lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply. She glanced at Izzy and then back at the shade standing only twenty feet away. "I don't like it, Izzy, but I understand why you need to do this. I'll help you because if I don't, you'll do something stupid like go in with both guns blazing once you find the killer."
"More like a flamethrower," the grizzled outlaw said menacingly. "You don't need to help me on this – I'm a big boy."
She rolled her eyes and said, "I know that it's my choice, old man, but this is important to you, so it's important to me."
"What about laying low after Millersville?"
"Don't think that hasn't been top of mind," she answered. "It will take some time to find the location of her killer. The guy might live clear across the country for all we know."
Izzy gazed out at the spirit of his former love. The stinging tang of loss and grief clawed at his heart, and a flash of anger radiated out from his chest. Someone killed the only woman he'd ever loved. Even though it was four decades ago, the pain of losing Elly still felt fresh in his soul no matter how much booze he'd consumed over the years to wash away his grief.
"How does this work?" he asked. "How do these ghosts led you to their killers?"
"It's different for each one," she replied, flicking some ash onto the ground. "Some beckon me to follow while others just disappear and it isn't until I go to sleep that I start to have the nightmares."
He blinked. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means that you get a front row seat to the murder itself in all its gruesome detail. You get to see it night after fucking night until you find the actual killer and bring closure to the dead."
Izzy gazed out at the vaporous figure of his long lost love and said, "Jesus – no wonder you're alone. I can't imagine how the hell anyone could deal with that kind of shit. So are you saying this is going to happen to me?"
Jia shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised ... I guess you'll find out when you go to sleep."
"Do you think she can tell us right now and I can avoid all that shit?"
Jia took another drag off her cigarette and tossed the butt into the campfire. "No harm in asking. Spirit! Tell us who did this to you and we'll put him down. Who killed you, Elly Manyberries?"
The temperature plummeted as the spirit disappeared into a wispy haze that glided around the pair in a slow moving arc. A plume of dust drifted off the ground in front of Izzy, and he looked down to see a series of scratches appear in the sand beneath his feet as the spirit of Elly Manyberries filled his mind with a vision that the biker wished he wasn't forced to see. It was Elly bent over a motorcycle in a dark garage.
The smell of motor oil and solvent filled Izzy's nostrils. His stomach pitched as he listened to the sound of Elly pleading, begging for her life as the faded image of a man forcing himself into the girl appeared. It barked obscenities at Elly in a voice that Izzy immediately recognized as being someone he's known for most of his adult life and his heart sank.
His mind flashed to an image of Elly choking; her face beet red and her once full lips as blue as pool chalk while the ligature tightened around her neck. Her terror gripped his heart tighter than any machine shop vice as she flailed, reaching out, grasping, trying desperately to find something she could use as a weapon against the man who was killing her by inches. Her vision slowly started to fade, and Izzy felt the life ebb out of Elly Manyberries all those years ago, and he dropped to his knees sobbing.
Izzy ran an arm across his eyes and stared down at the scratching in front of him. It was one word, and it hit him with a jolt of anger that he bit his tongue so hard it started to bleed inside his mouth.
F-O-R-D
"Jesus Christ, Izzy ... are you okay?" Jia choked as she knelt down beside him. She looked at the scratching on the ground then put a reassuring arm around the old man.
"I-I can't believe it," he said gasping. "It had to be him. It just had to be him ... fuck!"
Jia held a lighter over the scratching on the ground and squinted to see what Izzy was looking at. "Who is Ford?"
Izzy clenched his jaw tightly. His eyes narrowed as he ran his hand over the scratching, erasing the name the spirit had written as easily as the killer had erased any hope of life and love for Elly Manyberries.
"He's my best friend," the old biker said, spitting out the words.
YOU ARE READING
#GRUDGEGIRL
ParanormalMeet Jia Song. She kills the killers. At twenty one, she should be finishing university and entering a profession. That was her parent's plan for her life. That's how everything was supposed to be. Unfortunately nobody asked Jia what she wanted to d...
