Fatal Secrets Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Free Books

  Dead Man’s Flats

  Death of a Ghost

  Birth of a Deathmark

  How to Pettifog

  The Party

  Gate Crashing

  How to Use an Axe

  The Boss I Don’t Want

  Evictions are Messy

  Message or Murder

  Brain Drain

  Death by Donuts

  The Trial

  Stalking a Friend

  The Poltergeist Club

  How to Catch Your Ghost

  Where to Hide a Body

  Naming a Place

  A Safe Place, Sort of

  Car Thieves & Getaways

  A Guide to Grave Robbing

  Bones & Memory

  Secret Shadows

  Worst Morning Ever

  The Headlines

  Free & Discounted Books

  Keep Reading

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright © 2013 Vered Ehsani

  FATAL SECRETS

  GHOST POST #2

  ~

  By Vered Ehsani

  Some secrets are deadlier than others.

  Free Books

  For more information on how to get 3 free books,

  go to http://veredehsani.co.za/free-books/

  Copyright © 2015 Vered Ehsani

  All rights reserved

  Dead Man’s Flats

  Dead Man’s Flats is the kind of place you pass by on the highway, in between one blink and the next.

  As you drive by while breaking the speed limit, one of your passengers asks, “Hey, what did that sign say?” And you’re driving too fast to even blink, so you reply without looking around, “Don’t know, but there’s a McDonald’s up ahead.”

  Dead Man’s Flats is just that kind of place, the kind you’d speed by on your way to somewhere better. As fast as you’re going, you forget about it even faster.

  Unless, like me, you just happened to dump a body there. And then, because of that body dumping, you had to run off and disappear real quick like, leaving everything and everyone behind. Unless, like me, you had to stay in hiding or join that body.

  Now, that would make such a place very memorable.

  You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

  Except there’s another problem: I died and got stuck. I won’t go into the sad and gory details. You can read them for yourself. Point is, now I’m here, bodiless but earthbound, trying to figure out how to get unstuck before I loose all my memory.

  That’s right. I’m in danger of a permanent case of amnesia if I don’t figure stuff out first. Don’t ask me what stuff. That’s what I have to figure out.

  If that’s not enough fun and games, get this: there’s a shadow monster with a cowboy hat who wants to eat me. Plus I’m stuck wearing the clothes I died in. It may be a classic look, but faded black jeans and a white top kinda get boring after a whole month of wearing them.

  On the bright side, I still remember my name: Axe Cooper.

  Now if I could just remember why I dumped that body in the first place…

  Death of a Ghost

  Old man Wilson had never been happier and he decided that death suited him just fine. At least, that’s what he told the neighbourhood ghosts, right before it happened.

  Old man Wilson hadn’t moved on like most souls do. Maybe he hadn’t been so sure about how things would play out in the next world, or maybe he had something keeping him attached to this world, some unfinished business, a deep love, a broken promise. Doesn’t matter really, because now, no one will know.

  He whistled as he floated away from his body and his old apartment. The other ghosts heard him from a block away, whistling like he was immune from all danger just because he was already dead.

  Yeah, like that’s any protection.

  Being a recently made ghost, he probably figured he’d gone through the worst a man could go through. He’d paid taxes all his life, and then he’d died. What else could possibly go wrong?

  So he whistled and skipped past the other ghosts, pausing briefly to chat. The way he told it, Wilson was thrilled. No more arthritis. No more nagging wife, persistent debt collectors and uptight landlord. He was free. Never felt better, he told them.

  The neighbourhood ghosts and the free spirits flashing through the sky above watched as the new ghost of an old man carried on down the street, floating along through Vancouver drizzle. The dark, brooding sky didn’t bother him anymore. Neither did the damp cold. No more arthritis. He kicked his heels together, just to prove he could.

  Maybe he died deaf, or else his whistling was really loud. Either way, Wilson didn’t hear the other ghosts shouting at him to stay away from the bottom floor of a vacant building. He wandered through the broken glass of the front window, not at all concerned about the dark shadow in one corner. He was dead. Nothing to fear anymore, right?

  He didn’t notice how the shadow had no source, how it was scrunched down with only a cowboy hat clearly visible. He just kept on whistling and drifting towards the back wall.

  The old man’s ghost had no idea that the shadow marked the location of a violent death, and that the victim of that violence had left behind the memory of his pain and anger and fear. The ghost had never been told that deathmarks need one thing to be free from the place of death, to have enough energy to move about the world: they need to eat.

  Guess what their diet is?

  As the ghost of Wilson passed by the corner, about to exit the room through the wall, he finally noticed the silhouette of a cowboy. He glanced around, but the room was empty. No cowboy strolling along the street. No one at all, in fact. Even the ghosts were out of sight.

  He glanced back at the wall. The silhouette tipped its head forward slightly, the cowboy hat covering the featureless face. In that brief moment of silence, Wilson must’ve heard the shouts of the other ghosts. Unless he really was deaf.

  But it was too late.

  Before the whistling ghost could register the strangeness of a shadow without a source, the deathmark lurched forward, a dark shape stuck somewhere between being two- and three-dimensional. Its arms multiplied, twitching and twirling, its fingers slashing through the air, a wave of black shadow snakes. Its quivering limbs wrapped around the ghost, dark tentacles against the light of the old man. Wherever the darkness touched the light, Wilson felt a searing pain, as if someone was trying to extract a bone with a blunt knife.

  The ghost struggled but by the time he did, it was already too late. He was embraced in a wave of darkness that sucked at his energy, draining it. More tentacles latched on, pulling at the ghost energy. The light faded into the shadow, and in moments the deed was done. Old man Wilson the ghost was gone.

  Birth of a Deathmark

  I’m not going to explain at this time how I know all this. But trust me: what I’m about to write, about the birth of a living shadow, it’s for real. How I know, well, that’ll be for another story, the one when I get very up close and personal with a deathmark, and survive. For now, you’ll just have to trust me that, at the time I was dictating this to my ghost writer, I had a very reliable source who assisted me in putting together the most likely sequence of events. That and a bit of creative license, of course. So here goes…

  It always knew what it wanted, even though it had few real memories. Unless you count rage. It had plenty of that.

  Otherwise, what passed for its mind was more or less empty, except for two things: one name and one death. The two were not connected, at least not then, but the fleeting, fuzzy memory of the name and the death made it restless and it yearned to be free.

  The death: the moment the cowboy died of unnatural and violent means, it was born
. It had hovered above the still body, a shadow of the dead man. At the same time, it saw the man’s ghost or soul or whatever you want to call the energy that once animated the body. It watched as the ghost drifted away, and it was unable to follow, trapped in the area of the cowboy’s demise. It wanted to follow, it needed to, but it couldn’t. Not yet.

  The name: As it shifted around the wall, two other cowboys came into sight. Something about them was familiar to it. They should also be familiar to you, if you’ve read my previous account of the first few days of my ghost life. Most likely, it couldn’t remember who they were, didn’t realise that they were its former partners, but it knew they were important.

  The shadow watched and listened as they argued about the body. I’m assuming they argued, because that’s what they did whenever they were together.

  Like me, it probably wished it could make them stop, but its limbs couldn’t touch the living, not then. The two living cowboys made a decision, and began to argue about something else, something that involved a name. The two cowboys seemed to think the name was important; they repeated it several times. It remembered the name.

  The two cowboys left with the body, and it was alone now. The sun had set, and its energy increased. It twisted and snapped its limbs around, but it couldn’t move far. Across from its corner was a large, broken window facing the street. During that first night, it saw many things, living and non-living and things in between, and it wanted to hunt.

  First, it had to break free.

  It knew how. Dark instinct taught it. It squatted down into its corner, squeezing its two dimensional, shadowy form into a ball, waiting. All it needed was an opportunity. At some point, the opportunity came. The foolish ghost of an old man got too close. Last thing the ghost saw was a shadow with tentacles snapping overhead.

  Now it could escape. The deathmark with the cowboy hat flowed through the wall and out into the night. It needed more energy but at least it was free, free from its corner, free to hunt. It began to move and as it merged with the darkness, it remembered more snatches of images. It focused on the two memories that were becoming more distinct as they rose above the mush that passed for its other memories of a life almost forgotten.

  First, there was the face of something it had seen while waiting to break free, another dark being with power. It needed what that creature had: real freedom and the talents that came with it.

  And there was the name from the past.

  Still dwelling on the name, the deathmark with the cowboy hat flowed along the streets, through the night. As it merged with the darkness, the other ghosts fled before it. And in its relief at finally being free and fuelled by its constant rage, it made a plan.

  Find the other dark creature and learn its secrets.

  Then find Axe Cooper.

  How to Pettifog

  In the space of two days, I saw two names in the newspaper that should never have been there. The first was a man who was supposed to be dead. The second was a man who definitely was. In both cases, those names were not supposed to see the light of day, for vastly different reasons.

  Even then, I knew my past was catching up. I knew I was in trouble. I just didn’t know how much. But before any of that happened, I first had to survive a game.

  “The thing I remember most about my life?” I repeated the question and paused.

  Talk about a loaded question.

  There were lots I could remember, despite my deteriorating memory, but not much I wanted to share. Only five minutes into joining the game and I was already regretting it. I scratched at my chin, even though it didn’t itch. I don’t know why I scratch my chin. It certainly doesn’t help me think any better. Not sure if anything does these days.

  My fingertips tingled with the memory of the jagged scar and two-day old stubble. In the early days of being dead and ghostly, I hadn’t been able to feel anything. But like habits, memories are a lot harder to kill than people. And memories of feelings were turning into the real thing. So now I could feel the permanent stubble, the jagged scar. Just like Shadow had said would happen.

  I hate it when he’s right.

  They were waiting for an answer, and I knew I wasn’t getting out of this. I’d only agreed to the game because I wanted to ask Shadow a question, and maybe get the truth. Instead, I was in the hot seat.

  Something else I hate.

  “Dying, I guess,” I finally said, pretending disinterest.

  Shadow snorted, his nostrils flaring and his form darkening further. “Deep thoughts from Axe Cooper. Apart from dying, what stands out in that limited brain of yours?”

  My grey eyes narrowed into shards of stone. At least, I think that’s what they looked like. People used to tell me I had a very hard glare, and I guess that doesn’t change after you’ve been killed.

  Lee called it the Popeye glare, after the cartoon character. I really don’t like that nickname though. How can anyone get intimidated by a glare when they’re thinking about a cartoon character chugging down spinach and dancing around like a drunken sailor?

  Not that Popeye ever drank, at least as far as I know. He just acted like it.

  And just for the record, I make it a lot scarier than Popeye ever could. Maybe it’s the jagged scar on one side of my chin, or my hard, grey eyes or my generally rough, uncombed appearance. Whatever the reason, when I glare like that, most people step to the side or find something else to look at. At least, they did when I was still alive.

  Ghosts on the other hand are a lot harder to intimidate.

  Before I could say anything suitably witty or sarcastic, Faye Random pirouetted through the TV, her thick blond curls flapping around her child face, her blue dress sparkling colour against the drab, second hand furniture.

  “My most memorable memory was becoming a real journalist,” she gushed, ignoring Bob’s cough of derision. “And learning how to change my form. Do you like the new colour of my dress, by the way?”

  She waited until we all nodded our heads or mumbled something that could pass for a compliment. Satisfied that we all admired her dress, she batted her eyelashes towards Shadow. “And of course, meeting you, sunshine.”

  I snickered. There are many words I could use to describe Shadow, and ‘sunshine’ definitely isn’t one of them. Shadow scowled at me and shifted into an unlit corner of the room where he blended into the darkness. Only his eyes were visible, glittering malice, and his teeth shone against his dark skin when he spoke. “There’s no need to insult me further.”

  Before the game could continue, the door to the small apartment creaked open and Lily ‘Lee’ Chan marched in, still wearing her janitor overalls. She paused as she took in the group lounging about her living room.

  “For Pete’s sake. Is this your new haunting ground?” she demanded as she tossed a wet umbrella into the corner where Shadow was lurking, spearing him through the chest.

  “Who’s Pete?” Faye asked me.

  I shrugged my shoulders. I still had no idea, and I’d known Lee for three years. Then again, I don’t think she knew either. Anytime I’d asked, she’d just shrugged her shoulders and poured more tea.

  “It is a rather delightful abode,” Bob said grandly, a slash temporarily appearing in the translucent grey blob-like form. He always talked like that: despite looking like a huge serving of mouldy Jell-O, he sounded like a Shakespearean actor most of the times.

  Shadow smirked. “What the giant talking Jell-O means is that we like it here.”

  “And we can’t haunt The Ghost Post because Shadow’s still avoiding DD,” I added, referring to the manager of the detective agency / online news service / club for ghosts. “I’d really like to know why.”

  “I…” Shadow began, his face darker and stormier than the sky outside.

  “And in a matter of days, you’ll be retired,” I continued, addressing my one and only living friend. “Then we can really haunt you.”

  “Thrilling,” Lee said in a tone that was anything but thrilled.
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br />   I figured most people in her situation would have and should have been thrilled: she wasn’t yet fifty and she was retiring. She didn’t look or act rich or old enough to quit work that young, but somehow she was swinging it. I had my theories, but I kept them to myself.

  On the other hand, her not-so-thrilled sentiments could come from facing the prospect of being haunted by a gang of ghosts. Or gaggle or whatever you call a group of ghosts.

  “You should be thrilled. How come you get to retire so young?”

  I knew she wouldn’t answer me, kind of like the ‘who’s Pete’ question. Maybe there were no answers, but I kept asking, just like she kept trying to figure out my secrets. Neither of us minded that we kept secrets from each other or that we kept trying to discover what they were.

  She tossed a newspaper at my head. The paper landed with a thunk on the well-used coffee table. “Look who’s made front page.”

  “Oooo,” Faye squealed, clapping her tiny hands soundlessly. Her blue eyes glowed. Imagine the child actor Shirley Temple about to receive an Oscar. That’s what Faye looked like. She usually acted like a child too, so her adopted form suited her all too well. “Is it me? Have the normal, boring newspapers finally recognised the true talent behind The Ghost Post?”

  “No,” Lee said, heading for her bedroom to change, her long black braid swishing against her back.

  “Look at that,” Shadow murmured as he slunk over to the table and peered down at the paper. “Our dead janitor is famous.”

  “What?” Faye squealed and shot through the furniture towards the table. “Isn’t my name there somewhere?”

  “Sure it is,” Shadow said soothingly. “Right there, in that advertisement for pest control. So you’re both famous: Axe for being dead, and you for being a pest.”

  Famous is not good. In my case especially.

  I sunk into the sofa as I leaned forward. The headline story described in detail the circumstances of the recent arrest of CEO Perkins, the famous (or rather, infamous) Vancouver lawyer and proponent of the defunct Carrot Juice Diet. What caught my attention though were the two references to Axe Cooper, former janitor and murdered best friend of Ms. Lily Chan.