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Never Trust The Dead

Christopher J. Bailey

    Marty Coldwell ran out of the house as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. Leaving the door open behind him he raced down the path towards the dented and battered Chevy that was waiting for him at the side of the road. He raced round to the driver’s side, flung open the door and jumped in. He pulled the pistol from his pocket and placed it on the passenger seat. He’d lost his cool again. What he had just done was insane, though in his own mind, justified. No one spoke to Marty Coldwell like that. Closing the car door, he turned on the ignition and sped off. He would have liked to keep the headlights off till he got to the end of the block, but the street was in total darkness, so he had to turn them on. As he drove, he kept glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure he didn’t see any lights go on in any of the neighboring houses—unfortunately he saw a few lights going on, obviously people had heard the noise. Damn!

—

    Marty, thirty-five, worked in the kitchen of a well-known restaurant, and rented a small, cheap one-bedroom apartment. His job paid very little, but he was able to supplement his income with various other activities. He knew certain people who could always find work for him. Marty liked to think of himself as a tough guy—a gangster. These jobs actually paid better than his legal job; he just needed the respectability of a legal job to satisfy anyone who might ever ask what he did for a living, especially his Mom and Pop. When his mom asked what he was doing, which was every time she called him, he could truthfully say, “Hey, Ma, I work an honest job, and earn more than enough.” That always satisfied her, until the next time she called. They lived on the other side of the country, in California, but even from that distance his Mom still tried to control his life; his Pop not so much.
    He was currently seeing a woman, Angie, the same age as him. She lived two hours away from him which was a bit of a headache, but he couldn’t complain too much, the sex was always amazing. Angie worked for Walmart as a cashier. She wasn’t much to look at, but what she lacked in looks she certainly made up for in the sex department. Angie was very rough around the edges, and had a temper, but that didn’t matter much to Marty, he had a temper too. She had lost her driver’s license as a result of being pulled over by the cops on her way home from a party—three times over the legal limit. The judge had told her that she was very lucky to have escaped jail time. This was the reason Marty always had to make the drive over to her place.

—

    It was Angie’s house that he was currently fleeing from. He reached the end of her block and made a left without acknowledging the stop sign. The road he was now on would take him back to the interstate, where he would head south, back home. About four miles from Angie’s he finally allowed himself to breathe again. He slowed down to the speed limit. “Shit!” he yelled as he thumped the steering wheel hard with both hands. “You bitch, look what you made me do!”
    Marty had no idea what he was going to do about this situation. All he knew for sure was that he had to get home, pack some belongings, and empty his bank account. After that, he had no idea. But he knew he had to figure it out, and soon. Marty took the ramp onto the interstate, heading south. Traffic on the highway was heavy, even for this time of night.
    A few miles down the road he noticed the temperature in the car getting colder. It was a cold night, so he had already cranked the heat up. His body shivered uncontrollably due to the sudden onset of the clammy coldness in the car. He began to see his breath misting in front of him. Why had the temperature dropped so sharply? The hairs on the back of his neck started to prickle so much they actually stood on end. What was going on? Marty cranked the heat up another couple of notches. The heater was on full blast now, but it still felt like icy-cold air, instead of the expected heat, was issuing out of the vents. Marty shivered again, uncontrollably. “What the hell!”
    “Hey, asshole!”
    The voice from behind him startled him so much he almost jumped out of his seat. Instinctively he took his eyes off the road and looked back over his right shoulder to see who was there. There was no one there. “Don’t go crazy on me, Marty boy,” he muttered uneasily. Marty turned back to the road just in time to find himself swerving into another lane, almost hitting another car. He pulled back into his own lane as the other driver honked his horn in anger. Marty flipped the bird at the other driver.
    It seemed impossible, but the temperature had dropped even more in the car. Goosebumps appeared on him. “I’m freezing,” he mumbled, rubbing his hands briskly together trying to warm them.
    A sudden glint of bright light caught Marty’s eye in the rearview mirror, so bright it blinded him for a second. He blinked furiously to restore his vision.
    “Careful, Marty, you don’t want an accident, do you?”
    That voice again. Strangely echoey, as if speaking to him from a radio station that wasn’t quite tuned in correctly on an old transistor radio. The voice sounded crackly, staticky, but familiar. Angie? But that was impossible; she was—
    “Dead! Yes, asshole, thanks very much.”
    Marty once more looked back over his shoulder, and the sight that met him made his heart start hammering away in his chest as if it were trying to escape his body. The hairs on his body stood rigidly to attention, and he felt paralyzed with shock and disbelief. On the back seat sat Angie, shrouded in an intense, shimmering halo. She flickered constantly in and out of focus, as if struggling to dial in completely to this dimension. But Marty had no trouble at all seeing the ragged, bloody hole that he had put between her eyes when he had shot her a short while ago.
    She spoke again, “Didn’t I tell you to watch where you’re going?”
    He swerved the car back into its own lane again as he tried to answer her, but his throat seemed to have closed up. All he could manage were a series of bewildered grunts as disbelief assaulted him.
    “Cat got your tongue, idiot?”
    His voice returned enough for him to mumble, “Don’t call me an idiot. You’re dead. I shot you.” Disbelief hit him full force.
    “Don’t remind me. Did you have to shoot me in the head, Marty? You’ve ruined my looks now.”
    Marty glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see her exploring the bullet hole, making a pouting face as she did so.
    Angie slowly slid a finger into the hole in her forehead. As she did so she wailed, “Ouch, that stings.”
    Marty was aghast at the sight going on behind him but was unable to look away.
    “Just kidding,” she smirked, “I can’t feel a thing, I’m dead, remember?”
     “Maybe if you hadn’t screamed so loudly after I shot lover boy, Ricky, I wouldn’t have had to shoot you too.” Marty didn’t even stop to question why he was arguing with a ghost. It didn’t even cross his mind that he was explaining himself to a dead woman.
    “Well, I’m sorry, but what did you expect? Did you imagine I was just going to sit there quietly while you did what you did? Maybe I should have offered to make you a drink too.” Sarcasm was heavy in her voice. “I think you’d have killed me too, anyway, even if I wasn’t screaming. Witnesses tell tales, Marty.”
    “No, I wouldn’t have.”
    “Well, we’ll never know, now will we?” She slid forward as she spoke, seeming to glide until she rested between the two front seats.
    A foul smell washed over Marty as she got closer, causing him to almost gag. He tried to hold his breath, but the odor of death still pervaded his senses.
    A translucent hand tried to pat Marty’s right shoulder, but instead slid straight through him. He felt the sensation of her hand crawling inside his body; it made him shudder. Angie looked a little perplexed at what had just happened. “Oh! I didn’t expect that. I guess that’s what happens when you’re dead,” she commented ruefully.
    “What the hell!” Marty turned to the face that was hovering uncomfortably close to him. “Please sit back, you stink. And you’re scaring the shit out of me. Why are you here anyway?”
    Angie pouted, but sat back anyway. She ignored his question. “Pop-quiz, dumbass: why did you shoot us?”
    “What the hell did you expect? He had to try to be a bloody hero. You could have both got out of this alive. I only came over to work things out with you. I certainly didn’t expect to see some naked guy’s hairy ass on top of my girl.”
    “I wasn’t your girl anymore, remember? I made that perfectly clear when I called you the other day; I told you we were through.” The aura surrounding Angie shimmered even more radiantly.
    “I told him to stay where he was on the bed, but he didn’t listen. He had to come at me, didn’t he? The gun just went off, it was self-defense.
    “Marty, I know you called him a little-dick before you shot him, but you’re not exactly God’s gift to women either. And, unlike you, he knew how to use it. Oh, and Ricky says he’s going to be waiting for you. He’s going to make your life hell.” She was silent for a moment, then added, “That’s if you don’t end up in hell first.”
    “Shut up Angie! You certainly didn’t waste any time, did you? Or were you screwing him too, while we were still together?” Marty spat back.
    “WE BROKE UP, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE EVEN BEEN THERE!” The hellish, deafening shriek, as if a banshee were loose in the car, caused Marty to almost jump out of his skin at the noise issuing from the back seat. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. The sound seemed to tear the soul out of his body, and the blood froze in his veins. He looked around to see Angie, her face now hideously distorted as she screeched her accusation. Her mouth was stretched impossibly wide, a black gaping maw, almost swallowing her entire face. Marty wouldn’t have been surprised to see Satan himself clawing his way out of the abyss that had been her mouth. Her aura glowed a flickering, dark, angry shade of red for a few moments.
    His hand slowly reached for the gun on the seat next to him. He felt the protection of the cold steel in his grasp as he glanced back again. “What the hell are you?” unable to hide the terror from his voice.
    “I’m pissed with you, that’s what I am. I was having a nice life till you came along. It wasn’t perfect, but I was happy.” Angie’s face and voice slowly returned back to normal; as normal as an apparition in the back of a car could be. Whatever had been there previously was gone, or maybe just hiding. “I see your grubby little hand on your gun again. Is your trigger finger twitchy again? Go on, Marty, do it. I know you wanna see if you can kill me again.”
    Marty ignored her but relaxed his grip on the weapon. “Just for the record, I did knock on your door. Three times, but your music was on, and maybe your headboard was banging against the wall that much you probably didn’t hear me. And your door was unlocked; I didn’t break in.”
    “That’s because when I tell someone we’re through, they normally listen to me. Not you though, dumbass!”
    “Shut the hell up, Angie, I’m not dumb.”
    “That’s a matter of opinion. Marty, you did nothing but lie to me. You told me you were a hot-shot restaurant owner, yet you drive around in this battered piece of crap. Does that make sense? A lot of things you told me about your job didn’t add up. When were you gonna tell me what you really do?”
    This whole conversation was so surreal to Marty; it almost seemed like he had fallen into an episode of the Twilight Zone. Was he really sitting defending himself to a ghost? Or was this a mental breakdown? “I was pushed out of the job by Corporate, they—”
    “Liar!” she yelled. Her aura radically darkened again.
    Marty didn’t want a repeat of the episode from a few minutes ago. That had truly scared the shit out of him. “Ok, I’m just a chef,” he hastily admitted. “I also do a few other less legal jobs for a few people I know. Happy now?”
    “Not really. I’m still dead, aren’t I? But, you see, you can be honest when you want to be.”
    Marty glanced in the mirror to see a self-satisfied grin flicker over Angie’s face. His next comment washed that look off her face. “Yeah, but it hasn’t stopped you talking, has it?” Marty mentally chalked up a minor victory.
    Angie ignored him yet again. “How d’ya think you’re gonna get out of this mess? Have you even thought that through?”
    Marty had, but didn’t have a solution yet.
    “I’ve an idea: What you could do is turn yourself in to the next cop you see. And you might want to step on the brakes too. Now!”
    His attention focused on his unwanted passenger; he had strayed from the road again. Just in time he stomped on the brakes to avoid a collision with a car mere feet ahead of his Chevy. The brakes squealed and the car swayed to the right in protest. Even with the frigid cold in the car Marty could feel himself perspiring. He wiped a hand across his forehead to clear the sweat.
    “Don’t you think that’s slightly ironic, Marty? You just killed me, and yet here I am saving your life. As I see it you made one big mistake, maybe more. You didn’t take my phone. All our texts and voice messages are on there, just waiting for the cops to unlock the phone and read them. You’ll be their prime suspect. Gotcha!” she yelled in triumph getting uncomfortably close again. Once again, the smell of death washed over him.
    Marty shook his head. “I’m not going down for you and Ricky boy. I’ll figure something out, maybe I’ll talk to one of the guys I know.”
    “Ha! As if they’re gonna want to take a fall for you. You’re just the small man on the totem pole.” Angie smirked.
    She was seriously starting to annoy Marty. He wanted her gone. His hand wavered towards the gun again. “What is this? Are you just here to piss me off and haunt me for the rest of my life, bitch?” Marty didn’t try to hide the irritation in his voice.
    Angie replied, ignoring the tone of his voice, “I really don’t know why I’m here. When I figure it, out you’ll be the second to know, ok?”
    He was going to respond, but he glanced in the mirror and saw that she wasn’t paying attention. His visitor was looking out of the back window, focusing on something. He tried to see what had her attention, but all he could see were dazzling headlights from cars behind them.
    “What?” he questioned.
    She returned her gaze to Marty, an enigmatic smile on her face. “Nothing. Just concentrate on the road. I still think you overreacted. Even if you’d ended up in a fight with Ricky. He’d have beat the crap out of you, but we’d have still been alive, and you wouldn’t have been on the run.”
    “Maybe if you hadn’t cheated on me things would have been different.” Marty reiterated.
    “Oh, so now it’s my fault I ended up dead, is it? That’s it, blame the dead woman. And how many times do I have to repeat myself? If I say it slowly enough it might get into your thick, stupid head. WeÉwereÉover, asshole!”
    Marty could sense anger rising again in his visitor’s voice. He wished he could have wiped the ugly sneer off her face, but of course that was impossible. He saw her turn around and gaze out of the back window again.
    “What are you looking at?”
    Angie turned back to Marty again; the unfathomable smile returned to her face. “Nothing. Just drive.”
    Still nothing to see out the back window, just headlights.
    Marty knew he urgently needed a way out of this. He had to think but couldn’t; his visitor wouldn’t shut up enough to let him.
    As if sensing his sudden anxiety Angie pressed him, “Don’t forget this is a death penalty state.”
    Marty ignored the comment but was only too aware of that fact. He had to get home and pack some stuff and—
    “Marty, what—”
    His thoughts interrupted again, he snapped. He swung around while Angie was in mid-sentence. “Will you shut up for once,” he lashed out in temper and frustration. “How the hell can I think while you’re constantly blabbering! Your mouth hasn’t shut up for a minute!” The gun was somehow in Marty’s hand again. The hand that was currently waving about emphasizing the anger in his words.
    “Whoa!” Angie’s eyes widened. Even as a spirit she instinctively put her hands in front of her as a shield and started to slide inside the back seat.
    There was silence for the moment. Marty glanced at a road sign that glided by quickly outside the car, lit up only briefly by his headlights. Still a long way to go. He glanced at his speed. Wow, he was doing ninety! Way too fast. The Chevy was only keeping up with traffic, but Marty slowed down anyway. The last thing he needed now was to get stopped by a cop. He glanced in the rearview mirror to see his unwanted visitor pouting. Good, let her. At least his outburst had shut her up for a while.
    Marty ran through a list of names in his mind, the names of the guys he knew who might help him. There were three of them. All of them were decent guys, but would they want to stick their necks out for him? Sure, he had helped them all out, and saved them money and hassle, but would they return the favor?
    He glanced at Angie again and saw that she’d resumed looking out the back window. He was going to say something but then thought better of it. While she was quiet, he could think, plus he was sure she was just trying to mess with his mind. He came to a decision: after getting his things he would go around and see Mick. He was the most likely of the three to help him out. ‘Mick the Prick’ they called him, and he truly was, but he was also fiercely loyal to people who were loyal to him. Marty smiled for the first time since getting in the car earlier; he relaxed a little too. Things would work out. Mick would know what to do. He was connected.
    Angie happened to see the smile cross his face and had to go and spoil the moment. “Hey, Ricky just told me to try something with you.”
    Marty was perplexed, he didn’t need any more spooks in his car. He worriedly scanned the back of the car. Nothing! “Where is he, I don’t see him?”
    “Oh, don’t worry about that, he’s around. Right now he’s back at my house, watching the cops. They got there quick. I guess someone heard the shots. We’re talking, up here.” She tapped the side of her head. “It’s awesome being a ghost. Just look at what you’re missing, Marty.”
    The worry returned like a punch to the stomach.
    “They have my phone. I don’t know how, but they also have your license plate information. Some neighbors are just too nosey, I guess.” Angie shook her head and made a sorrowful face. “Oh well, it’s been a blast, Marty, but it’s time for the final curtain. I’ve figured out at last why I’m sitting here in the back of my murderer’s car. All good things must come to an end, as they say.”
    What came next happened so quickly it was beyond Marty’s comprehension. He didn’t even get chance to respond to her statement. Angie slid forward again until she was almost in the front seat. She slid her hand inside his right shoulder. The sudden, frigid coldness hit Marty again like a sledgehammer. Her hand and arm slid deeper and deeper inside him. Marty squawked in shock as he felt her slithering around inside him. His left-handed grip on the steering wheel tightened as his right arm flailed desperately against her, trying to claw her off. An impossible task, as his hand just went straight through her ethereal form. Angie just smiled at him, a dreamy smile.
    Marty gave in to a full-throated scream as she delved deeper into him, both arms inside him now. She was plunging headfirst into his body, as a diver pitching headfirst into an expanse of water. Parting him from the inside to get more of herself in.
    Just as, to his utter horror, her head disappeared inside him he heard the words, “Don’t worry, this won’t take long.” The words seemed to come from his own mouth. He tried to reply but all that came out was a series of grunts. He was no longer in command of his own mouth. The revulsion he felt grew stronger as the spirit continued to fill him. The slithering became a repulsive squirming as she adjusted herself.
    Marty was too concerned with what was happening to himself to notice that his car was veering all over the road. Other drivers were hanging back or giving him plenty of room for him to pass. One car that didn’t hang back, but actually sped up to catch him, was the Sheriff’s car that had been following him for a while as a result of his sometimes erratic driving. This was the car that Angie had been aware of. The light bar on top of the car was turned on, the blue and red lights flashing a warning to pull over. Marty did not notice this though; he was too preoccupied with the happenings in his Chevy.
    With a final ghastly sucking noise, Angie’s feet disappeared into him. She was upside down and squirmed around to right herself. Marty felt all of this. “You’re not a perfect fit, but you’ll do for what I need.” The words, not spoken by him, nevertheless came out of his mouth. He felt sickened, and found he no longer had control over his body. Angie was in control here. He felt his body being manipulated; his arms and legs spasmed, and his head moved erratically from side to side as Angie started experimenting with her control of him. He couldn’t even talk unless she wanted him to say something.
    His head was forced to turn to look out the back, and his eyes widened in shock as he took in the red and blue lights coming up fast behind him.
    “Ooops, we seemed to have picked up a cop. I think they need to go away, don’t you Marty?” The sarcasm heavy in the words issuing from his mouth.
    To his utter alarm his right hand crept over to the gun on the passenger seat. “No!” The word struggled to cross his lips, but wouldn’t.
    “This is the way it has to be Marty. Don’t fight it.”
    With a mind of their own his fingers closed around the grip of the gun. Haltingly, jerkily, because it seemed Angie was still struggling to get used to this whole possession thing, the gun was raised off the seat. No matter how hard he willed his hand to drop the gun he was powerless. And he had no doubt at all what her plan was. In fact, he now knew what it had been all along. The hand holding the gun continued its unerring rise and then began a slow, spasmodic movement backwards. The hand was shaky, as if the weight of the gun was too heavy for the amateur possessor of Marty’s body. But he could still not stop the slow but certain movement.
    When Marty’s arm reached the maximum possible backward range of movement, although he could feel his arm straining to get a few more inches for a better shot, he heard the words, “Ok, let’s see what we can do with this sucker.” His finger tightened on the trigger. He knew what was coming next but was still incapable of preventing it. The gun barked twice and jumped violently in his hand. Angie lost control of his hand and the weapon dropped to the floor in the back of the car.
    His ears ringing from the deafening, simultaneous gunshots, he was unable to hear the sudden inrush of air from the shattered back window, but he could feel it. The cop behind him drew back significantly, no doubt radioing in for help.
    “I wouldn’t have done that if I were you, Marty. You should stop and say sorry.” Her giggle forced its way past his lips.
    Unable to do anything about it, his foot slammed hard down on the brake pedal causing him to jolt painfully forward in his seat. The seat belt locked up as the car came to an almost abrupt halt.
    “Ouch, I’m sorry, that must have hurt.”
    “Damn you!” Marty mentally screamed at her
    Another giggle, as his hand put the car in neutral. The cop pulled up a safe distance behind him. The light bar flashing dazzlingly bright against the dark night was almost immediately joined by a second. Fear took hold of Marty as he waited for what came next. He felt a tugging from inside as Angie started to extricate herself from him, her job done. The feeling was not unpleasant but still felt weird. He felt the feeling returning to his arms and legs as she climbed out of him.
    “Bitch! You planned this.” He could talk again.
    Angie, who was now sitting in the passenger seat, watched as a third cop pulled up ahead of Marty’s car. She countered, “No, just took advantage of an opportunity. Anyway, Marty, gotta run. The next decision is yours to make. Stay put or run. Whatever you do though, we will all be together soon. Just think of the fun the three of us will have. Ricky can’t wait to meet you again. And just for the record, Marty, Ricky was a cop. So, you are now officially a cop-killer.” Angie smirked at him one last time and blinked out of existence as if never there.

—

    The air coming out of the vents began to grow hot again, too hot, as Marty sat there stunned trying to absorb this latest information. A cop-killer. Things looked very bleak for his future. But a thought struck him then, how did he know for sure that Ricky was a cop. He only had Angie’s word for it, and she had been playing him the whole journey. This one doubt opened a floodgate of questions in his mind. Was she really in communication with Ricky? And if she was lying to him, then had the cops even discovered the murder scene yet?
    It was possible that the cops had only initially pulled him over for his erratic driving. Sure, he had shot at them, or rather Angie had shot at them. Somehow, he didn’t think the cops would believe that story though. Marty believed that somewhere, somehow, Angie was watching this scene play out. She was probably having a good laugh as well. The bitch had screwed him over. She had turned a bad situation into a ruinous one for him. His mind raced as he judged his options, fifty-fifty as far as he could see. Terrible odds, but that was all he had to work with. Stay or run?
    A wry smile crossed his lips, “Never trust the dead,” he mumbled. As the doors to the cop cars started to open, he grabbed his gun from the back.
    Marty exploded from the car and ran. A voice behind him exclaimed, “Gun!”
    He heard a female’s mocking laugh echo in his ears, followed by a sigh. Footsteps behind him, giving chase. The events unfolding around him seemed surreal, as had the whole journey. His senses, his whole being, seemed heightened. Marty could hear the noise of cars screeching to sudden stops as he darted amongst them. Every footstep, every breath, every shouted order was amplified loudly in his ears.
    “Stop, now!” The barked-out commands rang out from seemingly all around him.
    But Marty didn’t stop. He ran for his life, as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.

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