Sinking into Shadows

Deirdre reached for her blood-soaked head with her hand. She had always heard that you were more likely to be murdered by someone you know than by a stranger. Her hand was unable to move the mess of tangled hair away from her face. She looked at her husband, swapping out his bloody blue uniform for a fresh one. It’s like he had no feelings for what he just did. He didn’t weep. He didn’t beg for forgiveness. The look on his face was remorseless and calm with a hint of smugness.

Deirdre looked back down at her head. Her arm was inside it. Yet, she felt no hair, no skull, no brain matter, and none of the blood that oozed out of the gaping hole in the back of her head. The blood spread out in a giant pool that looked like a deep red oil spill.

How could he do this? Her safe husband. The man who protected everyone. The man who served his church and community had murdered his loving wife.

Deirdre imagined tears falling from her eyes. She opened her mouth to let out the silent screams and leaned forward clutching her chest, but no tears fell. She reached out for him, but he neither saw nor heard her.

He didn’t see her. Certainly not, like he did the night before when he came home and told her she was so hot, he had to have her. He made voracious love to her for over an hour. It was the first time in months he had been like that. Yes, they went through a dry spell but every couple does. You can’t stay passionate all the time, especially when there’s a toddler in the family. Still, he was always loving and cuddly, and the most wonderful husband. Last night was the reward for her patience for letting him have his space while he worked through whatever was bothering him.

Why? Why did he do this? Did it have something to do with the phone call he took moments before he struck her for no reason? He told the person on the other line that he’d take care of the problem. How was she the problem?

He then walked to the counter. When he turned back, he raised her chef knife to his ear height. He charged. She ran. The fight for her life took less than five minutes. He caught her in the living room and shoved the knife through her back just below her ribs. She screamed, spun around, and kneed him in the balls. The pain in her back was excruciating. She still managed to limp a few steps towards the couch. He caught her again. She kicked backward. He groaned. She yanked herself forward. He pulled her back by her hair. She saw the knife swing down. She raised her hand. The knife sliced off her pinky and penetrated the spot between her neck and shoulder. She elbowed his ribs. He didn’t even flinch.

“Stop struggling!” He ordered.

She tried to pull away. He had her hair wrapped around his hand. She spun around, grabbed the knife, and fought for control.

“Mamma,” little Mary called through the baby monitor.

“Ryan, our baby,” Deirdre pleaded and gently placed her throbbing, blood-soaked hand around his fingers that held the knife.

His eyes filled with rage. He smashed her jaw with his elbow. She knew she couldn’t overpower him. Determined to leave as much evidence as possible she punched, clawed, and bit him. At some point, she heard the knife clink to the ground. He punched her face repeatedly. Deirdre watched Ryan finish her off from outside her body. He grabbed the lamp from the nightstand next to them and beat a hole in her already unconscious head.

It was a weird sensation, but she could feel her heart slow to a stop. She knew when each of her organs shut down. It felt like a slow numbing going from place to place in her body until finally, her brain shut down. That was like a sudden migraine, then ice, then nothing.

“I should have moved you to the basement,” Ryan muttered.

Stunned, Deirdre snapped from her memory. She watched in disbelief as Ryan calmly closed all the blinds and drew the curtains in the living room. Then he walked down the hall. She heard him enter their daughter’s room.

“No! Not Mary!” Deirdre screamed. Still no sound.

His footsteps froze her spirit. He entered the living room with the plump little butterball in his arms. She cooed and tried to move her head away from his hands. He struggled but managed to keep her eyes covered. Mary laughed like it was a game. He exited to the kitchen and then, with a click, she heard the front door open and close.

Deirdre paced for a while taking in the scene. Where’s the light? She wondered. Isn’t there a light that the dead see and instinctively walk into? Not knowing what to do, the new ghost laid down in her body and waited.

********

Between the wee hours of midnight and dawn, Ryan arrived home. Deirdre heard the kitchen door open and not one but two sets of footsteps. She heard two clinks of keys hit the counter.

“Where is she?” She heard Joan ask.

She knew Joan. She was her husband’s partner at work. Joan often showed up at the house for parties, birthdays, and sometimes just to drop by and say hi. The three of them were on friendly terms.

“She’s in there,” Ryan answered. “Let’s get this over with.”

Deirdre sat up as they walked into the room.

“You clean the mess and I’ll get rid of the body,” Ryan told Joan.

“There’s so much blood,” said Jane. “We’re going to have to paint the room and somehow get rid of that couch and rug without anyone noticing.”

“Let’s just get it done,” Ryan ordered.

“Hey, I’m not the one who lost control,” Joan answered. “I don’t care if she was cheating on you. This never should have happened.”

“You gonna rat on me?”

Deirdre noticed his eyes. They were the same as when he turned around with the knife in his hand. She ran up to him with the intent to hold him back from Joan, and pushed through his chest. Maybe she should have spent those last few hours practicing how to move objects instead of lying in her body.

“Of course not,” she said. “You’re my partner.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said as he put on a sad act. “I didn’t mean to do this. I don’t know what happened. She said she was leaving me for another man and I snapped. It didn’t even feel like me”

Deirdre’s mouth dropped. Ryan lifted her body into his arms.

“You’re a lifesaver, Joan,” he told his partner.

“Where’s your cleaning supplies?” Asked Joan.

Ryan told Joan all the places Deirdre kept her cleaning supplies, then carried her body to the car and dumped it into the open trunk. Deirdre got in the car and rode with him to the lake where they met. He must have made arrangements because he carried her body to the end of the dock and dropped her in a small boat with a tiny outboard engine on the backside of it.

As Deirdre walked up the dock the wood planks came closer and closer to her face. She didn’t notice at first. By the time the dock was below her shoulders, she realized she couldn’t walk on the dock. But why? She walked on the floor and sat in the car. There must be something about water that makes spirits sink.

She watched Ryan speed away from the shore with her body. The water may make her sink, but on the ground, she moved fast. Her spirit didn’t walk. She floated fast. Deirdre followed him to a small beach with a dainty gingerbread beach house. He stopped in the middle of the lake and dropped her body overboard. Then brought the boat to the beach. As he got closer, a woman came out of the house. She was impeccably dressed with a politician’s wife hairstyle and plenty of gold jewelry to show her wealth. She clutched a coffee cup in her hands as she walked past Deirdre towards Ryan.

As he jumped out of the boat she said, “Baby, when I told you to get rid of the problem, I didn’t mean bring it to my house.”

“It’s just your beach house,” he snapped at her. “It’s safer here than at mine.”

“No,” the woman insisted, “If her body rises, she’ll be at my house and I’ll be a suspect.”

“Then maybe, Lurline,” said Ryan, “you should have been happy being a good mistress who shared me with my wife.”

“Not a chance,” replied Lurline.

She grabbed him and as they kissed a light grew in the distance. Its brightness increased at the same rate as Deirdre’s rage. She screamed and reached out to pull the woman’s hair. Again, her hand only slipped through the woman’s face.

“It’s cold out here,” said Lurline.

“Let me take you inside and warm you up,” Ryan said.

He lifted her triumphantly, like a trophy. Her coffee cup dropped to the ground.

Deirdre tried to follow, but the light had her trapped. She couldn’t move in any direction but towards it. Filled with rage, and a sudden ferocious desire for revenge, she turned to the light and screamed, “Not now!”

The light snapped off. Deirdre suddenly found herself in the lake next to her anchored body. No, no! This was not happening. She was not staying here. She marched towards the beach house. After a few steps, she was back in her body. What? She stormed forward again and snapped back to her body. What is this curse upon me, she wondered.

Over the next few days, weeks, months, she plotted her revenge. As the fish nibbled her bloated body she’d flick at them. At first, nothing happened. Her hand went through them. Then one day she flicked and a fish moved an inch away from her hand, then scuttled away. This excited her. She looked at the lake floor and kicked at a rock. Nothing. As time passed, she kept working at it. She noticed the better she got at moving objects, the more pronounced her spirit form became. Deirdre continued to practice moving objects, until the day she was able to untie the duffle bag of rocks from the rope attached to her body.

She then grabbed the rope and walked her body to shore. There was no beach house, no dinghy. This was not where Ryan and Lurline met up and celebrated her murder. She screamed and thought she heard something. She screamed again, this time putting all her hatred and anger for her murderers into it.

Her spirit felt a sickening whoosh and she found herself standing in her house. Neither Ryan nor Lurline or Mary were there. Instead, a wretched-looking couple was passed out on her couch. Yes, her couch. Joan did an amazing clean-up job. It was the same couch that had her blood all over it the day she died. Deirdre walked behind the couch and looked. Not a trace of blood. Joan was an impeccable cleaner, not that it mattered. The front of the couch where the filthy couple laid unconscious, was covered in layers of caked-on dirt.

Deirdre noticed the man’s gangly toes that didn’t quite come together. The spaces between the toes were speckled with puncture marks, some old, some new. She looked at the coffee table. It was covered in drugs and both clean and used needles. There was only one filthy spoon and one lighter.

The man rolled off the couch with a thud. He groaned, peed himself, stretched his arm, and went back to sleep. Deirdre let out a scream and watched her fingers get a bit longer as she did. She kicked the man. His body jolted.

“Where’s Ryan and Lurline?” Deirdre wondered.

“Who cares where those assholes are,” the woman mumbled in her sleep.

Did she just hear me?

“Who are you?” Deirdre asked.

With a gasp, the woman bolted up.

“Scott, Scott!” she cried out.

Scott blinked his eyes open and pushed the boxes of old Chinese takeout away from his face. He looked around at the floor, confused.

“How’d I get down here?” He asked.

“I just had the weirdest dream,” the woman blurted. “You know how Ryan said his wife left him for another man?”

“Yeah,” Scott mumbled as he placed his arm under his head.

“I just dreamed she was a ghost and walking around the house looking for him and Mom.”

Mom, thought Deirdre, that’s Lurline’s daughter? The difference between Lurline and this woman couldn’t be greater. They were the polar opposites of each other. Lurline was well put together and this, this piece of trash in filthy clothes and moldy dreadlocks . . . How were they even related?

“That’s weird, Muffin,” Scott replied. “It’s just a dream. Go back to sleep.”

“No, no, don’t go back to sleep,” Deirdre said waving her hands in front of Muffin. “I’m right here.”

Muffin didn’t even flinch. Deirdre clenched her fists and screamed. Nothing. She tried over and over again to get Muffin to notice her. Nothing. Then she remembered, she can move objects. Deirdre grabbed a framed psychedelic unicorn print off the wall and flung it at Muffin.

Muffin yelped and grabbed the back of her head.

“Scott!” She screamed. “Get up! Your picture just hit me in my head.”

“Sorry,” he moaned.

“Get up!” Muffin yelled.

Scott rolled over and looked up at her. She held the picture over his head.

“This was over there!”

She pointed to the wall.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Is that blood?”

Deirdre turned and looked at the wall. It wasn’t blood. It was chunky and looked like ketchup. That gave her an idea. She looked at the floor. Ryan never changed the carpet. Traces of her blood may be on the floor beneath the carpet. Deirdre floated to the coffee table and kicked it over. And there it was. It wasn’t where she expected it to be, but Joan wasn’t as thorough a cleaner as she first appeared to be. Ryan was a fool for not getting rid of the carpet or furniture.

“Well, that’s definitely blood,” said Scott as he picked himself off the floor.

“You don’t think?” said Muffin.

“I think you saw a ghost and she’s telling you Ryan murdered her,” Scott surmised.

“I’m calling Mom,” said Muffin.

“Wait,” Scott stopped her with his hand. “What if she was in on it?”

“No way.” Insisted Muffin.

Yes, way thought Deirdre. As her rage boiled her fingers lengthened and her spirit seemed to get taller.

“Oh my God!” Muffin cried and pointed at Deirdre.

“What?” Asked a still stoned Scott.

“I see something.”

Scott squinted in Dierdre’s direction.

“No, Muffy,” that’s just a shadow from the tree outside.

“Are you sure?” Muffin asked and rubbed her arms with her hands. “It’s getting cold here.”

“You’re seeing things,” Scott replied.

“You literally just watched the coffee table tip over,” she reminded Scott.

“Oh yeah,” He said and pointed at the underside of the table. “Blood.”

“That’s it,” I’m calling Mom.

Muffin dug through the trash on the couch until she found her cellphone.

*********

“No, Mom,” Muffin whined. “I didn’t leave the windows open.”

“How can you be so sure?” Demanded Lurline. “Look at this disgusting mess,” she said kicking weeks worth of trash, drugs, and takeout with her foot. “You’re using again. Why do I even bother sending you to rehab?”

“I use because I have to deal with you,” shouted Muffin.

“That’s it,” Ryan yelled. “Scott, if I see you within a mile of Lina I’ll throw your ass in jail.”

“On what charges?” Protested Scott.

“I’ll make up something.”

“Dirty cop,” Scott shouted. “You're a dirty cop and you murdered your wife.”

Scott barely took half a stride before his fist cracked the side of Scott’s head. Scott fell like a brick.

“You killed him!” Exclaimed Muffin.

“Shut up, Lina!” Ryan warned Muffin. “He’s unconscious, not dead. Get her out of here, Lurline. Take her to rehab and meet me back here.”

Lurline pulled a crying Muffin from the house as Ryan dragged Scott out by his feet.

********

About an hour after everyone left the house, Scott was back. This time he was in spirit form.

“What’s going on?” He asked Deirdre.

“You’re dead.” She answered.

“That bastard,” Scott said looking at his hands and body. “Am I a ghost?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” Deirdre answered and placed her long, pointy fingers on his shoulder. “Did you run from the light too?”

“There’s really a light when you die?” He asked.

“Yes,” answered Deirdre.

“Whoa. Hey, why didn’t you go to the light?” Asked Scott.

“I intend to get revenge,” replied Deirdre.

“Ah man, that’s bad karma,” said Scott. “I’m going to the light.”

“Well, then I think your time has come,” Deirdre informed him.

She pointed to what looked like a ray of sunlight coming through the window. Like before the light grew brighter.

“Whoa, that’s beautiful. I can’t wait for everything to be better. My life sucked. Honestly, drugs were the only way to kill my pain. I’m looking forward to this,” he said. Turning back to Deirdre he added, “I think you should give up on the revenge thing. It’s not a good look for you.”

Deirdre wondered what that meant as she watched Scott wade into the glowing river of golden light that consumed him.

“Aw, this is so cool!” She heard him shout from deep inside the light.

********

More hours passed by before Ryan returned.

“Where are you?” He asked. “Good, I’m in the kitchen.” He opened the refrigerator. “Gross, get some food on your way here. You’re going to have to clean up this place . . . because your damn kid and her loser boyfriend ruined my house . . . Yes! He’s still breathing . . . Damnit woman, just get food and get back here.

He slammed the refrigerator door shut.

“I never should have left Deirdre for that woman,” Ryan shouted to no one. “Now I’m stuck with her,” he muttered.

“Yeah, you should have kept it in your pants,” said Deirdre as she picked up a filthy pan with moldy food in it from the stove and tossed it at him. It crashed onto the refrigerator with a loud clunk. She never was a good shot. Ryan jumped.

“What the . . .,” he exclaimed.

He looked right, then left. His body was tense. He stepped back. Deirdre smiled, walked to the island where she used to fix his meals, and flung the filth from the counter with the swoop of her arm. Paper trash flew across the room. Ryan stepped back more.

“Nuh, nuh, no, no way,” he stuttered.

Deirdre walked up to him and stared into his eyes. He crossed his arms in front of him and rubbed his biceps warm with his hands. Deirdre noticed the blood on his ring. So, he beat Scott to death too. A cop should know to change the M.O., but he wasn’t the most brilliant cop out there.

“Murderer,” she whispered.

Ryan flinched.

“Why haven’t those idiots turned on the heat?”

He hastened into the living room and stopped at the thermostat on the far wall. The cover had a lock on it. He went back to the kitchen. Deirdre followed him. As he reached for the keys, she flung them into the living room.

Ryan jumped and stared into the living room. He turned on his heels and walked to the door. When he pulled the door refused to open. Deirdre laughed. She may not have been able to overpower him the night he murdered her, but she was the stronger one now.

“How is this happening,” Ryan cried.

Deirdre punched him in the gut and he doubled over. She grew stronger with her anger and the more she tormented him, the more her rage grew. She slapped him and a bruise appeared on his face. That felt good. She dragged her long black fingers across his face. A cut manifested on his cheek.

“Stop,” cried Ryan.

There was fear in his eyes. Tears welled up. His body spasmed as Deirdre placed her hand on his chest above his pounding heart. For the first time since her death, she felt something. She savored the feeling. Revenge felt good. She enjoyed his fear. Her spirit felt electrified. Ryan grimaced and grabbed his heart.

At that moment, Lurline walked in the door. Her arrival annoyed Deirdre’s spirit. She flickered to the counter, grabbed the same knife Ryan tried to kill her with and threw it at Lurline. The knife hit Lurline in the chest. Deirdre watched the woman who convinced Ryan to kill her fall to the ground. Her spirit got a charge. Dierdre looked down at Lurline. Revenge felt good.

Lurline’s spirit appeared next to her body.

“Who the heck are you?” She demanded.

“I’m Ryan’s wife,” Deirdre told her. “The one you told my husband to murder.”

Lurline’s jaw dropped.

“No!”

“Yes,” Deirdre’s voice hissed with hot, smooth venom.

“You killed my husband,” accused Lurline.

“He’s not your husband. He’s my husband.” Deirdre shouted as the realization that Ryan was dead sunk in.

She turned to see Ryan’s spirit looking over his body. He picked up his head and looked over at the quarreling women.

“I don’t want to spend eternity with either of you women.” He confessed. “You’re a bitch who trapped me by forcing me to kill for you,” he told Lurline. Then he turned to Deirdre, “You, you were a nag, a great fuck, but a total nag.”

“What?” Shouted Lurline. “You loved me and I put up with your abuse because you loved me.”

“I never loved you. You were weak, but you didn’t nag, as Dee did.” He stepped up to Lurline’s spirit. “I only killed my wife because you threatened to tell my boss that I killed your daughter’s dealer. You manipulative bitch. You asked me to kill him. I did you a favor and you forced me to spend the rest of my life with you. I will not spend eternity with you.”

“How many people did you murder?” Asked a shocked Deirdre.

“Like you are so innocent,” snarled Ryan. Look at what you turned into.

“You’re not even human anymore,” mocked Lurline.

“Shut up,” Ryan snarled at Lurline. “You’ll probably end up the same way.”

Deirdre looked down at her hands, or rather her long black fingers. They were bony and pointy. Her arms were black and looked like the thin extremities of an ancient tree in a witch’s forest. She no longer had a body. It was replaced with a pulsating black cylinder. She wasn’t human anymore. She was a shadow person. Scott was correct. Revenge didn’t look good on her.

Deirdre looked around for the light. Her revenge was complete. She was ready to leave. Ready to go to heaven.

“What are you looking for?” Snapped Ryan.

“The light. I’m looking for the light,” she said.

“Oh honey,” laughed Lurline. “That light’s not coming for us. Hell is.”

Deirdre froze for a split second, then ran out through the door, through and out the garage. Standing on her lawn she took a deep breath in. As she exhaled she found herself standing on her death spot in the living room.

“How long do we have to look at these bodies,” she heard Lurline complain. “Death is so unsightly.”

“I don’t know. Last I checked your stoner daughter isn’t coming back until she finishes rehab.” Ryan mocked Lurline.

“Well, that miserable wife of yours was able to move objects, maybe we should make a phone call,” insisted Lurline.

“I don’t think there’s cell service between life and the afterlife,” argued Ryan.

“No, no, no.” Deirdre cried to herself. “What did I do? What did I do? I can’t. I can’t spend eternity with those two.”