Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

Louis floated down to the fireplace, bending down to watch the flames. The light flickered through his factory uniform, giving his gray tones a warmer quality. I’d noticed that he and Randy in particular didn’t interact much, and I wondered if it was because of some kind of segregation they’d had as humans.

Randy added, “All I have to do is find her letter, and…”

“Then you can be with her,” Scott said, clearly by rote. But then his tone gentled. “We can only hope, Rand.”

From the way no one else said anything, I knew that every ghost present realized that Randy’s letter would never be found. No delusions here. So why did Randy continue, day after day?

Boredom, I thought. And a weird kind of optimism that kept ghosts like him going.

From the socket in the corner, Twyla took too much of an electric hit, and she squealed.

Cassie the housewife gave her a chiding glance. “How many times do I have to tell you to slow down, honey?”

As everyone laughed, seconding Cassie’s comment, I looked around at my new friends, seeing in their faces a reminder of my old buds—the people I’d partied with, the ones who’d been like anesthetic to my sorrows when they’d shared beer and smokes with me.

Were we bound to repeat our pasts, even as ghosts? I wasn’t in any time loop, but I told myself that I wouldn’t fall into a useless trap again, wasting my life away and sitting around, new friends or not. I was going to do what I needed to do, no matter how nice it felt being around them.

I rose from my stair. “Well, guys, sorry to run, but I’ve got a full night.”

Louis looked up at me. He had a middle-age-dad vibe about him. I’d also found out that he had a college degree but had considered it his patriotic duty to work for the wartime effort after he’d been turned down for military duty because of a bad heart.

“You going off to do your haunting?” he asked.

Naturally, they’d all been filled in, courtesy of Randy.

“I was planning on it,” I said.

Louis stood, brushing off his uniform pants. “Not to overstep, Miss Jensen, but you could use more thinking time on this.”

Man, I’d asked him not to call me “miss” already. It made me feel uncomfortable, but it seemed to be a habit for him.

I said, “Twyla and Randy already warned me about cleaners and all the things that go bump in the night for a ghost. I’ll be okay.”

“I’m not just talking about cleaners. I mean you’re rushing into haunting. Unless you’re planning to throw some music at this Gavin and hope that does the job.”

Next to me, Randy was stoically watching him, making me wonder where he’d come from—a small Southern town where he would drink at one water fountain while Louis would drink at another?

“It’s okay,” I said to Louis. “I already did some decent tricks to the hauntee. I re-created his possible victim’s perfume, whispered to him…”

Scott used a hand to slick back his hair. “Haunting. I haven’t fiddled with a human in a while.”

Randy grinned, then said, “I favor givin’ a welt or two to the jerks downtown. That and a good hallucinazion”—as always, the word was barely recognizable—“always does the trick.”

“Welts?” I asked.

A human voice from the corner spoke up.

“That’d scare me to death,” McGlinn said, his long, face-obscuring hair moving over his words.

He speaks. But I guess Gramps and Gran, who were sitting on the couch quietly, would’ve chased us out of here by now if their grandson had passed out or fallen asleep.

Twyla got up from her electrical socket, floating Cassie the cord she’d been sucking on. The housewife shrugged, double-fisted, then sucked on them both.

“Pinches, scratches, welts… ,” Twyla said. “Humans tend to shit a glazed donut when you use any of those tricks. All you have to do is—”

Suddenly, she flew at McGlinn, motioning out to pinch him. He jumped in his lounger, then settled back, sticking his middle finger up at her. When she bent down to plant an air-kiss on his head, he shivered. Nearby, Old Seth chuckled and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt as he leaned against the wall.

Did they have a teasing thing going on that I wasn’t a part of yet?

Anyway, I wasn’t a fan of the pinching, scratching, and welts idea—those were poltergeist territory.

“I’d like to stick to the mind games,” I said. “My hauntee’s a tough guy, and scratches would probably just annoy him.”

Twyla rolled her eyes as she sat on McGlinn’s armrest. “Jen, if you’re going to haunt, commit to it.”

Louis merely turned to the fire again, so I couldn’t see his face. Scott nodded his agreement with Twyla.

She continued. “Come on, just, like, go all out. You know that if anything went wrong, we’d back you up, right?”

I almost choked on my invisible tongue as Randy stood. Twyla was offering support?

“What Twyla means,” he said lightly, “is that humans ain’t any more powerful ’n we are, and we could take ’em.”

“Does the same go for bad spirits?” I asked, thinking of one of the concerns Amanda Lee had shared with me about the dangers of haunting Gavin. “You know what I’m talking about—the entities that a human could summon to fight me?”

Louis talked over his shoulder. “That’s a rare scenario. I’d be more concerned with cleaners. But you do have friends. All you have to do is shout our names, and if we’re in range, we’ll hear.”

Very cool.

I smiled at him, and he did the same before going back to the fire, alone as usual. I was starting to think that he just liked being around the noise in this house. I’d been like that, too, when I lived by myself in my apartment after Dean had gone off to college. I would put on the TV for white noise all the time, because it made me think that I was a part of something.

Without any more debate on the subject, I said my good-byes, promising I’d be back to hang out someday soon. Randy walked me to the door, and on the way, we passed Gramps and Gran on the couch, where they were sitting and holding hands, watching their grandson across the room, just like kind sentinels.

“Will he be okay?” I asked Randy when we got to the door.

“He always is. McGlinn can recover from a wild day like nobody’s business.”

Randy slid through the door and to the porch with me. It was a chillier than usual night with wood smoke from McGlinn’s fire on the breeze.

“So… you’re off to that mansion?” asked Randy.

“Well, I’m sure not going back to Amanda Lee’s.” I chased the bitterness from my tone. “There’s just a lot to get done with Gavin Edgett, and I want to see it through.”

Randy laid a hand on my shoulder, even though I couldn’t feel much but a hmmzt . “We all need independence, so good on you for not goin’ back to your human like a puppy.”

“I know.” I nodded. “I’m so over her.”

So why did I feel like shit about staying away? It sucked to think of Amanda Lee still crying in the pool house, especially because it’d sounded like she’d been pinning her final hopes on me, and I wasn’t sure what my absence would do to her.

“’Kay, kid,” Randy said, making a chipper clicking sound with the side of his mouth while winking at me one more time. “Be careful out there.”

“And you don’t work too hard with that letter.”

When he smiled, I saw the recognition of futility in his gaze.

Ouch.

Still, I winked back at him, then conjured a travel tunnel and dove into it.

As I tumbled through, I was in a sentimental mood. It could’ve been because of Randy, or because of seeing Gramps and Gran watching McGlinn. It even could’ve been the comradeship of being with friends again.