Day 71 Writing Short Stories

Dead People

The knife dropped on the floor, colored dark red. I watched the scene unfold in front of my eyes as the poor chap drew his last breath. I let go of the chair and returned to the now. All eyes were on me, especially those who didn’t believe in mediums. I shook my head.

“All I can say is that the killer was a man, around six feet tall, thin-built. He kept his hood down and wore gloves. He had sneakers on. The Nike kind. But that’s all I know.” I had done this so many times. I have seen so many deaths that the tragedy of it was lost on me. Yet, I came back. Occasionally for the money, but mostly because I felt needed. I am fed up with talking about dead mothers and fathers and their buried secrets.

After my testimony, I left the scene behind, and I had almost forgotten all about it until I found the dead man in my parlor gasping for breath. His dead eyes accused me of not following through with what I had started.

I dialed the detective’s phone number and got a dead line.

“Shit,” I said aloud.

I showed the phone number to the dead guy and got a nod in response.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I said.

I dialed nine-one-one. What I got was a voice that thought I needed help.

“Let’s go,” I said to the dead man.

I took my car keys and locked the parlor behind me. The dead guy was already in my car, bleeding onto my new seats. I knew he wasn’t actually bleeding, but the sight of his gaping wound and all the blood on his stomach didn’t help me separate what was real and what wasn’t.

He kept gurgling and pointing to where I should go. I sometimes wished that the ghosts could speak; that they remembered what it was like to be alive, but this was better than nothing.

He kept taking me to an old quarry.

Of course he did, I thought. This was just like in the movies, and I was pretty sure that the pretty detective and her henchman were already dead, and I got there just in time to be killed. It would be so my luck.

I parked the car where the dead guy showed me to. He blinked out of the car, and I was glad to see that the seat was as fresh as it had been before any of this happened. I staggered after him. He was taking me to the overseer’s petrol-colored hut, and I was preparing for the worst. I could feel the hairs on my back rise as they did the first time I saw ghosts.

I swallowed and yanked the door open after the ghost, who had disappeared inside.

I wasn’t prepared at all for what I saw. There was a ritual circle on the floor drawn with blood. At every corner of the pentagram, there was a candle that was half-burned. The detective’s henchman lay in the middle of the pentagram, dead, his guts sprayed out to all the cardinal points. And I knew what the ritual was. Someone was trying to break out a dead person from the land of the dead.

“You don’t do that,” I gasped aloud.

I stepped to the side of the ritual circle and peered inside the hut. There was no one else there—just the dead guy staring at the dead officer.

“Where is she?” I asked.

He pointed again, and I glanced over my shoulder at the huge gaping wound on the sandy hill. He was pointing at the cave system.

“Holy fucking shit.”

I took my phone out and called the dead in. I said my name and the officer’s name, and hung up the phone when the questions started. I headed to the cave and knew that I shouldn’t be afraid of the dark, as I knew what lurked in there. But the knowing and seeing were two different things, and I wanted to see more than know.

I followed a blood trail in and down the corridors. The cave moaned around me. All those who had died there in accidents sought my attention, and all I could do was ignore them. I had to save her, or else all this would be pointless. But at the same time, I didn’t want to find her, knowing that I would find the killer there as well.

The dead guy groaned, pointing me to take a turn to my right. I followed his command and found myself facing the dead detective. Her eyes were bloody, and her mouth moved without a sound. She was screaming, and I ducked before a blade hit me.

I rolled to my side and watched as the killer ran out of the corridor, her dust-colored hair loose in the air, leaving me behind with all the dead people. I sat there, trembling, unable to move, trying to catch my breath until the cops and paramedics showed up.

I was dragged out to the back of an ambulance. The cops were trying to make me talk, but all I did was utter gibberish. Nothing made sense. I had seen the killer. It hadn’t been a man; it had been my twin sister. And there was only one thing she was after, and that was to bring back our insane, power-hungry dead mother, and I couldn’t let that happen. I had sent her to the grave in the first place.

—

Oh, this was a tough one. I almost skipped writing today. At first, the main character was supposed to be a detective or private eye, but then suddenly they became a medium. Then the middle rolled on somewhat steadily, but then it was time for the ending, and it was impossible. But I wrote it. But I’m not happy, and I don’t have the strength to fix the story. Sorry.

What I got today was a voice-driven, comical mystery written in the first person.

Thank you for reading! Have a surreal day ❤