Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

When I got to the line, I shriveled into the tiniest thread I could, and that made me dizzy, even nauseated. But it didn’t matter. All I saw was that light from the lamp outside.

Gotta get there…

It was like trying to squeeze into a pair of jeans that didn’t fit anymore, but I was making it.

I didn’t know what I’d do on the other side yet. First things first. But at least I wouldn’t have a cleaner’s iron dagger in my belly.

I oozed through, slipping down the door on the other side, using gravity to pull me through the slit. An hour seemed to pass. Maybe one had passed. But I made it. I couldn’t move as I lay on the stoop and my essence sucked back into its regular form, yet at least I was out of that mansion.

Nearby, power lines stood against the night sky, but I couldn’t reach them.

Minute by minute, I waited for my energy to return, but I realized it wasn’t happening. I probably even looked as gray as smog. Hell, I could even feel myself flickering.

I tucked into a ball, not knowing what to do, until Louis the ghost’s words came back to me from the night of the party in the cabin.

“You’re rushing into haunting,” he had said.

Maybe I’d needed more help.

Louis, I thought, feeling drowsy, disconnected from the sound of the driveway’s fountain, the near-distant hiss of waves climbing back from the beach, the pound of new surf on the sand, each wave taking the place of the one before it.

He’d told me something else important. But what? Why was it so hard to remember right now?

But then I did remember.

“All you have to do is shout our names, and if we’re in range, we’ll hear . ”

I wanted to cry. I didn’t have the strength to shout.

I was barely able to roll to my side, locking my gaze on the fountain and the water that played out of it. And there was a funny, cartoonish white car in back of it that resembled a bubble.

The future, I thought dizzily. Jetson cars, Logan’s Run , Star Wars Land Cruisers.

And I had hardly seen any of this future yet. I hadn’t gotten to live this second life that’d been given to me.

The thought shook me. God, I couldn’t let myself go back into a time loop. There was too much to see, so much to explore in this new chance at existing…

“Louis,” I moaned. “Twyla.”

Was she still on the beach, or had her ghost ADD carried her to another place way earlier in the day, after she’d left me?

I flickered brutally, my sight stuck on that strange car. Battery. That thing had to have a battery…

With one last zipt , my sight went still.

• • •

“Oh, this is some double doo-doo.”

In the gray matter of my mind, I heard a voice. Young. Worried.

Then another voice. Older. Wiser.

“She’s sure in a bad way.”

It took me a sec, but… Louis?

Whoever it was continued, his voice clearer now, and I’d never heard anything so wonderful.

“Give her some room, Scott.”

I groaned, trying to make my eyes work again. I barely could, only seeing the world through a frozen picture, like I was a zombie and I couldn’t move. But it was enough to see Louis come into my view in his ’forties factory worker uniform, plus Scott, the nineteen fifties greased-up kid. They both were bending down to peer at me while they kneeled.

I wanted to tell them I loved them, that I would marry them and have their ghosty babies if they wanted me to. But I couldn’t utter a word.

“She’s so gray,” Scott said.

I gave it the All-American try. “Bat… ter… y…”

Scott grinned as Louis stood, glancing at that space-age car behind the fountain. “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking since we landed. What we have there is an electric car, and it’s got a huge battery pack to propel the engine.”

I imagined Scott probably had a hot rod when he was alive, and he’d probably been lusting after every car model that had come along for decades, wishing he could go to one last drive-in movie with a girl in each one of them.

Louis shook his head. “We can’t take her over there ourselves.”

Scott proved that point when he tried to grab my arm. His hand went straight through with a faint buzz.

Louis sighed. “You know better than that. She doesn’t have the energy to harden herself.”

Huh?

“This is my first rescue, so cut me a break,” Scott said. “All these years, and I’ve never seen something like this.” This close, Scott had long lashes, big blue eyes, and a full mouth. “What’re we gonna do? She’s a nice chick. I don’t wanna see her in an imprint.”

Louis smiled down at me, like he had an idea. Next thing I knew, I heard a car starting up, quietlike, not like a regular engine, and Scott and Louis weren’t next to me anymore.

Now I was flickering every few seconds, coming to a bad end, getting colder and colder, like I was freezing up.

I was barely aware of the Jetson car rolling to a stop by the steps.

When Louis materialized from under the hood and Scott seeped out of the crack in the driver’s-side window, I laughed in my head. I couldn’t manage to do anything more.

Ghosts in the machine.

“Jen,” Louis said, bending down to me. He seemed winded, his essence blipping. “You’re going to have to take it from here. Slide under the hood, just like I did, and you’ll find the promised land.”

“A battery pack really is in there,” Scott said, equally weakened. “I don’t know who drives this turd, but I’ve got the feeling they won’t be able to leave after you’ve sucked out this thing’s energy source.”

A cleaner owns it, I wanted to tell them, warning them. But I couldn’t.

Maybe the danger nearby gave me extra incentive. I’d pulled them into a dangerous place, and they’d come. I owed them.

“Come on, Jen,” Scott said, his essence getting grayer. “Moving this car took a lot out of us. Get your keister under the hood so Louis and I can take a sit on those power lines.”

I could feel the buzz of those batteries so close that I could almost taste the charge in them. I strained, making it an inch off the stoop.

“That’s the way,” Louis said, waving me on. “A little more.”

Another inch.

They encouraged me all the way, until I’d slithered up the car and, after making myself into a Slim Jen again, in between the crack of the hood to the battery pack.

Lying on it, feeling the zmmmmmm of energy, I sighed. I was pretty sure I passed out again, too, because the next thing I knew, I was awake and ready to rock.

This time, when I made myself thready enough to slip through that hood crack again, it didn’t take much out of me, and I came to stand by the car, looking up at the nearby power lines to find Louis and Scott balanced on them. As they sent me chipper waves, I saw they weren’t alone now.

Twyla was there, too, her petticoats hanging down. Just in time for the party, huh?

They all flew to me, checking me out on the way.

Louis said, “You look right as rain. You gave us a scare, Miss Jensen.”

“I didn’t mean to. God, I owe you everything for coming. If it wasn’t for you guys…”

“We were at a bash nearby,” Scott said. “No big thing.”

Twyla snorted. “You are sooooo lame. Total amateur move, Jen.”

Scott didn’t look at her as he threw out an insult. “And who was the flake who needed Cassie’s help once upon a time?”

“Oh yeah.”

Airhead. Twyla must’ve just remembered that she’d told me about her embarrassing possession screwup earlier in the day.

Then she gave me a sassy glance. “Were you doing what I think you were doing in that mansion? Is that why you almost went imprint again, because you overhaunted?”