Chapter 3: Stalling the Dead

Knowing he was a ghost actually made things clearer.

My aunt was a renowned medium, and her daughter, my cousin Maya, had followed in her footsteps and gained a bit of a reputation herself. I called Maya and asked her to bring whatever tools she needed to deal with a spirit.

She arrived in twenty minutes, looking visibly shaken. I offered her a glass of water and a place to sit, but she refused, grabbing my hand instead.

"Chloe, you need to brace yourself." Her hands were trembling, and her face was completely pale. "David has been dead for over a month! He fell off a cliff—his organs were shredded by branches by the time they found him!"

"You're under some kind of spell, and it's making you forget everything."

"He came back to take you with him! We have to run before he gets back!"

I froze as vague, bloody images flashed through my mind. Seeing me in a daze, Maya grabbed my arm and started dragging me toward the front door.

Suddenly, the peephole darkened—an eyeball flickered on the other side. The lock clicked, and the door swung open.

David stood in the doorway, staring at us with cold, empty eyes. "Honey, where are you going?"

I stiffened and looked up at him.

The hallway light seemed to split the entrance into two separate worlds. David stood in the shadows, blood dripping steadily from the plastic bag in his hand.

Terrified, Maya leaned in and whispered, "Don't let him realize that you know what he is, or he'll completely lose it. Just act normal and try to stall him."

I nodded, my lips quivering, and forced myself to walk toward him.

"You were gone for so long, I was just going out to check on you."

His expression softened slightly. "I was just buying some groceries." He pointed to the dripping bag. "You mentioned how much you loved those wontons, so I picked up some more pork and scallions."

Unsure of what else to do, I took the bag of meat under his watchful gaze and reluctantly headed into the kitchen.

During our vacation in October, we actually had visited a cliff. David's coworker, Greg, had posted online about taking his family to a nice resort, earning a flood of comments calling him a great husband. Fueled by jealousy, David had kicked me and demanded I pack our bags immediately so he could show off online, too.

We took a train to Blackwood, about a hundred miles away. However, David refused to pay the ten-dollar entry fee for the park. He only cared about getting a few photos to brag about, so he dragged me down an unmarked trail to sneak in through the back.

The path was heavily overgrown and crawling with ants and snakes. I was so exhausted from trying to keep up with him that I eventually collapsed. Furious, he left me behind and climbed up the rest of the way alone.

I ended up falling asleep under a tree. When I finally woke up, David had returned, but he seemed like an entirely different person.

Later on, some of the locals mentioned that the unmarked trail only led to a steep cliff, with no actual way to access the park.

Did David die up there?

Had his ghost somehow altered my memories?

The realization that I had been living with a ghost—and eating the food it cooked—filled me with absolute dread. How were Maya and I going to get out of here?

David walked into the kitchen.

In a panic, I turned on the faucet and started rinsing the meat, watching the blood swirl down the drain. The pork was pink, firm, and undeniably fresh.

David stepped up right behind me and silently reached for the heavy meat cleaver.

I jumped back in alarm.

He barely reacted to my panic. Instead, he calmly took the pork from my hands and tossed it onto the cutting board. The living room behind him was completely silent; there was no sign of Maya anywhere.

Did he...

My throat went completely dry. "David..."

He slammed the cleaver down into the wood and slowly turned to stare at me. A wave of cold dread shot through my chest, and my legs began to shake.

"What… what did you do to Maya?"