Dead Men Dancing - A collection of short stories

The Seance

"Well.....you are being extremely difficult here."

The apparition in front of me folded her arms, stubbornly avoiding my eyes. I sighed, absolutely done with her, myself and life in general. 

"Come on, Mira. I can't help you if you don't talk to me."

"Maybe I don't need your help."

It took a lot of effort for me to not throw my crystal ball at her. In all of my two years experience of working as a medium, this was the most frustrating spirit I'd ever seen, and believe me, I've dealt with some super irritating ones. There was a spirit that refused to talk to me unless I bought a Gucci purse for it. I mean, how would it even use the damn purse? What was the point? To annoy the only living person on earth who could talk to it?

The cop sitting beside me tapped me on my shoulder, instantly infuriating me. 

"What's she saying?"

I turned to him so slowly that I could hear my neck creak like a door hinge. "You wanna know what she's saying? Let me tell you what she's saying. She's telling you to go shove your questions up your-"

"I did not say that," interjected the spirit, raising a finger like a middle school teacher who had just recently started teaching kids and had not gone dead inside yet. "I was thinking it though."

My eye twitched. "Good to know," I muttered, adjusting my crystal ball.

We had been at this for literal hours. The spirit of sixteen year old Mira was quite........wow, I couldn't even think of anything nice to say about her. She was an absolute pain in the butt. Completely useless, considering that we were trying so hard to help her.

I sighed again, perhaps for the hundredth time that day. Perhaps becoming a medium was a bad idea. I mean, the hours were pretty good, and talking to dead people did have its perks, but once the cops got wind of my abilities, they figured that I would be oh-so-useful in solving cold cases, and my carefree life went down the shitter just like that. 

Sure, it did prove to be helpful in a lot of cases. Once, I had summoned the spirit of some guy who had been hacked to death on the highway, and he was just ITCHING to point out his killer. See, it wasn't all that bad when the ghosts were ready to lend a hand. Of course, I would get a couple of ghosts here and there that were so confused as to how they died, and were generally unhelpful. However, they were at least willing to be of some use, unlike this brat who had kicked the bucket before she even grew out of puberty.  

The cop and I were sitting in her family's living room, and I was doing my best to get something out of this seance. Her parents and her sister were staring holes into the back of my head with tear-filled eyes and hope in their hearts, and I simply couldn't find it in me to tell them that their currently dead daughter who was now standing in front of me as a spirit was being an uncooperative bitch who called me a voodoo dumbass just five minutes ago.

I rubbed my temples. "Mira," I ventured again, exhausted by the constant teenage mocking that I had been subjected to for the past hour. "The police can't find your body. We don't even know who killed you. Why won't you tell us who did it?"

She turned her nose up against me as though she was a princess with a sinus problem. "I don't have to tell you anything. Just go and bother some other jobless ghost like the busy body that you are."

As she was talking, I realised that she was glancing at the cop sitting beside me. There was a subtle look of uneasiness as she did so. 

I turned to the cop. "Why don't you leave the room for a bit? In fact," I looked at her family, who were now openly weeping into each other's shoulders.