Till Death Do Us Part

Chapter 4: Persistent

When I walked into the empty house it was dead quiet. I went up to my room slowly, looking around the house carefully for any unexpected visitors before I finally made it to my room. I closed the door behind me and started on my math homework with a groan. Sometimes being alive and having responsibilities sucked.

“I knew you wouldn’t die,” came an annoyed voice.

I stiffened, and then relaxed, focusing on my homework.

“You’re like a weed, no matter how many times we try to kill you, you just keep coming back,” the voice continued.

I got up silently, looking at my stereo as I ignored Lily. I walked towards it, facing straight ahead before turning the Hollywood Undead CD on, blasting it as loud as I dared without hurting my own ears.

There was a snarl and then silence as I took a careful look around. Lily was gone.

I exhaled in relief, sitting down again to do my homework.

There were several ghosts that haunted me, but none as persistent as Mrs. Ulderman and Lily.

Mrs. Ulderman was a ghost I’d known for years, but I’d hated her for every single day that I’d known her. The way she died was simple; she caught her husband cheating on her with a younger woman, so she shot herself in the chest…but not until after she shot her husband and the woman he was cheating on her with.

She was a total lunatic and usually I was used to it, but some days she got worse than usual and it was hard to take.

Lily, on the other hand, was more complicated. She only hated me because of Penn. When Lily died in a car accident, she’d been a really friendly person and ghost. Penn, Lily and I actually all used to be friends, even if they were dead. But when Lily kept trying to hook up with Penn and he kept rejecting her she began to wonder why. She needed look no further than myself. Realizing Penn didn’t like her at all, she turned bitter and joined Mrs. Ulderman’s ranks as one of those nasty, bitter ghosts who would love nothing more than to see me dead.

Lily still wanted Penn, but he was still true to me. I didn’t mean that we were dating or anything. Being friends with a ghost was okay, being boyfriend/girlfriend with a ghost though? Not so okay. I had to draw the line there. I mean, what could you do with a ghost anyways? That was another reason why I tried to kill myself yesterday; I just wanted to get away from Mrs. Ulderman and Lily and all them and just be with Penn…forever.

He didn’t like the idea at all. He wanted me to die when it was my own time and not just because I felt like dying one particular day. I, on the other hand, begged to differ. I mean come on! What if I only died when I was like…fifty? I’d be an old and grey ghost and he'd still be hot and young. That was gross.

I glared at my math book. “Penn!” I called, and he appeared at my shoulder almost immediately.

“Yes?” he arched an eyebrow at me.

“Can you help me? I don’t get this problem,” I sighed, pointing to the problem.

He chuckled, drawing his ghostly finger along the diagram as he explained how to do it. A few minutes later, I understood it. I thanked Penn and he pulled himself up so he was sitting on my desk next to my homework.

“So?” he said after a moment.

“So…what?” I asked, giving him a weird look before turning my attention back to my homework.

“What the hell was going on with you and that old man this morning?”

“You make it sound dirty.”