Sci Fi & Fantasy / The Ghost In Me Chapter 3 (Analysis)
“One thing is for sure, she wasn’t a neat freak,” Dougy said with a grimace as he took in the sight of my apartment. Okay, so I hadn’t picked up in a while. I work, or had worked, two different jobs and even so couldn’t afford a cleaning lady. Mom always did tell me that I should be more conscientious of my apartment, you never knew who would stop on by. Go figure…she was right yet again. Even dead, I hated that she was always right.
“Not everyone’s a neat freak like you Doug,” Mark said with a smirk. They both made their way through clothes that were strewn about the apartment, looking around. Dougy caught sight of my lap top and made his way to it. He put on a pair of gloves and proceeded to type a couple of buttons.
“John should be able to crack the passwords to her online account with no problem. We’ll have to take this with us,” Dougy paused as he took sight of something. I walked over and looked over his shoulder and shrieked in outrage. He was reading my personal writings.
“Looks like our girl was an aspiring writer,” Dougy told Mark with amazement filling his voice. “Some of this is actually pretty good.”
I hated admitting that I was an aspiring anything. My mother always said I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up. The problem was she thought I was completely immature and needed to actually grow up, which in my head meant as a child I can have dreams but as an adult, I had to just pay bills and taxes. I never told her I was still working towards my dream of being a writer, thus the two jobs to make ends meet.
I was trying to pay attention, but their voices began to fade out. I felt a funny pulling feeling from somewhere in my middle and suddenly I was floating away through the walls of my apartment. I squealed in frustration as I found myself back outside without knowing how the hell I had gotten there. Where the hell was an instruction manual when I needed one. I heard a chuckle from behind me and spun around to find a guy laughing at me, merriment sparkling in his eyes.
“There’s not really an instruction manual when you die honey,” he said with a slight smirk. He was actually quite a looker. Wavy brown hair and deep chocolate eyes. He was dressed in a black silk shirt with a flame design on it, tight black leather pants, and what looked like Gucci leather boots. Okay, I could admit it, he was freakin’ hot, as in Greek God make me drool. But still, pissed off here.
“Who the hell are you?” I fumed. “What the hell is going on?”
“You’re dead Sweets. Sorry about that by the way,” he told me. I growled and rolled my eyes.
“I got that memo already. But you haven’t answered my other question bozo. Who the hell are you?” Okay, okay, so I wasn’t being courteous. I was a bit frazzled after all. I could hear my mother chiding me inside my head.
“I’m Death, Sweets. At your service,” he said with a slight bow. I raised an eyebrow and then burst out laughing.
“Oh come on, Death? In leather pants? Are you kidding me?” I asked between snorts, as I shook my head in disbelief.
He raised an eyebrow and then with a spin, he was suddenly in dark robes and a hood. “Would this be better? Can you people be anymore cliché?” He shrugged his shoulders, spun again, and was back in the mouthwatering leather pants. “What can I say? I’ve gotten with the times.”
“Oh, come on, a lil’ costume change does not Death make. For all I know, you’re just a walking dead person, like me, with a complex.”
“Girl, you’ve got some serious trust issues. What would it take for you to believe that I’m Death?” he questioned, his smirk never leaving his face. I was just amusing the hell out of this guy.
“I don’t know, I’ve never met Death before. And I certainly wasn’t planning on meeting him this soon,” I replied with a sniff.
“When you were sixteen, you lost your virginity to a guy named Melbourne. You want to be a writer. You have trust issues with guys and are a relationship phobic. You’re a Pisces. You’re favorite food is Italian and you had an imaginary friend who was a koala until you were four who‘s name, and I quote was Booby because you couldn‘t pronounce Bobby. That was really weird by the way. Who the hell has a koala for an imaginary friend much less name them Booby? And Melbourne? Do I even need to go there?”
My mouth dropped open in shock. Okay, my day was getting stranger and stranger. “Okay, okay. You’re freakin’ death. I believe. Just Never bring up the koala OR Melbourne again.”
“Now that we have that covered,” he said with a small laugh. “On to you’re other question. What’s going on is a bit complicated.”
“Complicated? What’s complicated other than the fact that I was murdered, there seems to be a serial killer out there who’s murdering people, I’m talking to Death in tight leather pants and I still have no idea what’s going on?” I replied in frustration. Death actually smiled at me apologetically and shrugged his shoulders.
“Wellll…we had a little mishap in our department. It seems one of the lower realm joes has kind of gone off the deep end and decided to start some havoc around here. The serial killer going around is actually from the lower realms. He stole some of my paperwork and then made up here to the upside. He’s been killing ever since.”
My eyes grew in amazement at this. Whatever I had been expecting to hear about what was going on, this wasn’t it.
“So some demon guy stole you’re paperwork and I wound up dead. Are you freakin’ kidding me?” I shouted. Okay, someone kill me now, this was too much. Oh…wait. Suddenly a light bulb went on in my head.
“What does your paperwork have to do with me? Was I going to die anyway?” I questioned, trying to make some sense of this.
“Well, no not exactly. You weren’t supposed to in fact die for some years to come,” he said, looking a bit uncomfortable. I tapped my foot and crossed my arms, waiting.
“Well, you see…there was kind of a letter that got mixed in with some other stuff that he stole that sort of had your name on it,” he mumbled. My eyebrows shot up. Huh?
“A letter? What the hell kind of letter? And why did it have my name on it?”
He mumbled something under his breath.
“What?” I questioned.
He mumbled again, but I still couldn’t understand it. What the hell?
“WHAT?” I yelled out in frustration.
“IT WAS A LOVE LETTER I SAID!” he yelled back. I fell back on my heels in shock.
“A love letter?” I whispered. He nodded. “To me?” Another nod. “From you?” Another nod.
“WHAT?” I yelled. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You don’t even know me!”
He suddenly smirked again. “I beg to differ. Do I need to bring back up the somethings we aren’t supposed to ever bring back up?”
I shuddered and shook my head. “NO!”
I tried to grasp my brain around what he had just told me. “So let me get this straight, you wrote me a love letter, some demony guy stole it along with some paperwork from your department, and went topside and started a killing rampage in which, from finding your letter decided to kill me? Did I miss anything?”
“Welll..” He was looking sheepish again.
“What? What else could there possibly be?” I questioned, throwing my hands up in the air.
“I kinda need you’re help getting that paperwork back, along with the guy who killed you, and we also got to try and stop any more unsolicited kills from happening. I’ve managed to pull in some favors, so if you can keep track of the two officers in charge of the case, you can also keep tabs of our guy. I can come in and take him back, get my paperwork and get this all straightened out.”
“Are you kidding me? You want me to…no, not even no, but hell no. Just send Elvis to come pick me up in his Cadillac to take me to those Big Pearly Gates above or send me the hell back,” I growled out. Suddenly I was right in front of him, poking my finger into his chest with each word. “I can’t believe this. Men are impossible. What the hell did I do to deserve this? Is this karma? Was I that horrible in my past lives?” Poke, poke, poke. “I mean, I thought my mom was karma enough, but noooo, I had to get Death to write me a love letter and up and die. And now, if that wasn’t enough, you want my help, my help…to capture some demon guy? Do I look Laura Croft or something?” I fumed.
“Well, leather would look good on you, but that aside. I promise you we’ll get this straightened out. I…I never wanted this for you. I never intended to even…I’m working on getting it corrected. I just need some time,” he said, stepping back as he rubbed his chest with a grimace.
“Time? You just need some time?” I questioned, my anger deflating. He nodded vigorously. “And then you’ll get this all worked out and fixed.” Another nod.
I thought for a moment. It wasn’t like I had anything else better to do. “Fine. But I want this fixed ASAP. Being dead sucks.”
“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” he said suddenly flashing a smile. My heart would have thumped in my chest if I had a heartbeat. Leather pants indeed.
“If you’ve noticed, you’ve got a connection with the cop, Douglas. Where he goes, you’ll go. If you need me, just call me,” he explained.
“Call out your name?” I questioned.
He laughed and pulled out a cell phone. “No. Like I said, I’m with the times. My number’s in the phonebook. It’s the only one there, so you won’t have any trouble.” Like I’d be calling any one else. “And be careful.”
He was suddenly kissing me on my forehead and then he was gone. I stood there, holding the phone in a complete state of shock. Death was in love with me, I was killed by a serial killer who turned out to be some demony guy, I had to stick with Dougy who I couldn’t stand, and the first number I’ve gotten in a long time was…Just how much more could a girl take?
I flipped the phone open, then shut it with a snort of laughter. The screen saver had a picture of Elvis. Can we say smartass?
Suddenly the last comment Death told me struck me and I paused. Why the hell do I have to be careful?
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This 82 word review has not been unlocked.
it is very difficult to pick up on a piece of work without reading what eas written before and still maintain continuity and interest throughout the writing
when reading this though i was able to pick up on it and make sense of things and keep my interst
i liked reading this very much
regards
-kyle-
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I really couldn’t find anything I didn’t like about this. It grabs your attention right away. It’s humorous. It has mystery, romance, and the promise of more. What else is there?
I dont know if this is just me, but this entire story so far seems very anime-like. It’s probably because I’m an otaku, but that’s what I got out of it. Your writing style is very good, and I enjoyed how entertaining everything was from start to finish. The only thing was, I had really no idea what was going on, but then again I never read the first part of it.
I’ll go take a look at that as soon as Im done with this review though. Good job and I hope to read a lot more.
The sentence about being able to have dreams as a child, but as an adult you have to pay bills and taxes was a brilliant insight into how many people view maturity. Having said that, I thought that the sentence could use a little stream-lining. I would write it as follows, “However, she thought I never had grown up. I saw this as meaning that a child may dream, but an adult must slave for the wage and the tax. I never had quite lost the knack for dreaming.” Feel free to use or mock any part of my idea.
Given the preceding sentence, the sentence “The serial killer going around is actually from the lower realms.” seems over-explanitory and redundant.
It’s more usual to say “keep tabs on” rather than “of.”
Given that Death seems to be extremely attractive and have a sense of “cool” I would like to know what insecurity exists in his personality, or what physical inability exists that would prevent him from picking up chicks without resorting to the juvenile and awkward means of a love letter.
Overall, I enjoyed this. I liked the informal first person tone you maintained throughout the story. It caused some grammatical mistakes, but rules should be broken to maintain style.
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