Lethal Takeout Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Free Stuff

  Being Dead

  How to Ruin a Dinner

  Lee & the Talking Trash

  We Make a Plan, Sort Of

  The Next 1,000 Years

  Shadow Talk

  Damn the Cockroaches

  Façades

  In the Dark

  Bob, not Blob

  Life of a Lawyer

  Deathmarks

  How to Have Fun at a Funeral

  Murder, Mayhem & Cowboy Hats

  Paper Trail

  The Three Cowboys

  Breaking Habits

  A Woman Scorned

  Free Stuff

  Keep Reading

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright © 2012 Vered Ehsani

  LETHAL TAKEOUT

  GHOST POST #1

  ~~

  By Vered Ehsani

  Dedicated to all the readers who are willing to take a risk

  (and hopefully not die in the process)

  Free Stuff

  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

  Being Dead

  “It’s nothing personal” were the last words the janitor named Axe Cooper heard before they shot him.

  And that was a real pity—the shooting, not the last words part—because with that shot, a lot of blood and guts splattered on the paper bag containing the takeout from Chan’s Chinese Chow, the best Chinese food that part of the city had to offer. It definitely ruined his dinner plans.

  Then again, being dead had a similar effect.

  “Blast it all,” were his last words. “Lee’s gonna be pissed about missing dinner.”

  Or at least, that’s what he always claims he said. I’m not sure I really believe that. I mean, can someone who’s just been shot really be worried about a missing dinner?

  Still, you have to admit that it was a pretty lousy way to start the New Year.

  How to Ruin a Dinner

  I thought after death things would get easier. Dead means no rent, no taxes, no worries, right? I didn’t have firsthand info on that assumption, until someone decided to shoot me, day after New Year’s. What a way to start the year. All because of a takeout order.

  “It’s nothing personal.”

  Yeah, that’s what they told me right before they shot me. Not personal? I can’t think of anything more personal than deciding to kill someone, except maybe a colonoscopy.

  I know it’s hard to believe, but the only thing I could think to say was, “Blast it all.” Not exactly pearls of insight and wisdom, but what can I say? I’m not bubbling over with pearls of any kind.

  Whatever my last words were, the fact is my body died within seconds. Cause of death: a big bloody hole through the centre. That’ll do it. One minute, I was walking out of Chan’s Chinese Chow with my takeout: a paper bag stuffed with steaming, jasmine-scented cardboard boxes. I was heading towards Donut Delight to pick up dessert. The next minute, my body was sprawled all over the sidewalk, along with various body fluids, Chinese food and the contents of a broken soy sauce package.

  I sure hope you’re not eating while you read this.

  At first, I didn’t realise what had happened. Seriously, I had no idea. As far as I was concerned, I was standing on the sidewalk, having just dropped my takeout all over the place. I noticed the mess and a shapeless shadow, but somehow managed to overlook the body lying in the midst of it all.

  I still didn’t clue in when two people appeared out of nowhere, one on either side of me. They were wearing wings on their back. Weird costumes was all I could think of. They introduced themselves as Serena and Manuel.

  “Don’t worry, Axe Cooper. You’re going to be fine,” Serena murmured soothingly.

  “I wasn’t worried,” I said.

  I studied the freaks with wings and my hands instinctively curled into fists. They do that whenever I’m preparing myself to fight or flee. And I was preparing myself for one of them, depending on what they wanted from me. Come on, who the heck walks around the darker parts of Vancouver, on the border with Skid Row and drug addict central, with wings stuck on their back?

  And how did they know my name? Now, that did worry me, more than the wings and way more than the dropped takeout bags.

  I wondered what else they might know.

  “Sure you were,” Manuel said, snapping his fingers to a tune I couldn’t hear. “Everyone has a twinge of concern at seeing their own corpse.”

  “Actually,” I retorted, not hearing the part about a corpse, “my ‘twinge of concern’ has to do with the ruined Chinese food. What’re you on about? Or what are you on?”

  Serena ignored our manly banter and continued. “You know the drill when someone dies, right? Take the exit up over there.” She pointed vaguely above me. “It leads to a tunnel of light, which will take you to that better place.”

  Manuel winked at me and added with a snicker, “Yeah, and from that better place, you can eavesdrop on your friends at the funeral. They’ll say all sorts of wonderful things about you. They’ll tell each other, ‘Oh well, at least now he’s in a better place,’ while stuffing their faces at the post-funeral reception.”

  Serena’s mouth twisted as if she smelt the contents of a nearby rubbish heap. “That wasn’t necessary.”

  I just shook my head. “Not gonna happen,” I said, referring to the image of a crowd of friends at my funeral. “I don’t have many friends.”

  Movement caught my eye. The shapeless shadow near the mess shifted and elongated into something resembling an octopus, minus a few tentacles. I didn’t feel like looking around for the source. That’s when I noticed the body in faded black jeans and a white, collarless shirt with rolled up sleeves. He looked familiar and I stared at him, rubbing my chin and trying to figure out why. The guy was sprawled out on the sidewalk bordering Gore Avenue.

  Nope, I’m not joking. Chan’s is in a cluster of restaurants in Vancouver’s Chinatown, along Gore Avenue. Nasty name. Great food, though.

  “Wait a minute.” I waved a finger at the two angels, a smile creeping across my face. “This is a prank, isn’t it? Or one of those TV shows with the hidden camera and all that.” I glanced around, wondering where the camera was.

  “No,” Serena said, her angelic voice less sweet. “This is one of those ‘you’re dead and need to come with us’ shows.”

  “Best show in town,” Manuel added, still snapping his fingers.

  My jaws tightened, my eyes narrowed and I crossed my arms over my chest. “Thanks and all, but I’m gonna deliver that food.” Then, feeling like I had to give some sort of justification to the two angels who were staring at me like I’d lost my mind as well as my body, I added, “It’s for my best friend, Lee. And bright light notwithstanding, I really gotta finish with this.”

  Serena spluttered while Manuel shook his head, his fingers no longer snapping. “You’re going to be one of those difficult ones, aren’t you? Someone who just has to stay back and screw up the process, right? Just my luck. Why do I always get the nut jobs?”

  “Thanks for trying,” I said, still wondering where the cameras were hidden and about the octopus shadow. “I better be going now. Lee’s waiting.”

  “You’re already dead,” Serena pointed out while gesturing to the corpse on the sidewalk.

  I ignored her and the corpse.

  A steady stream of pedestrians was joining the crowd that had already congregated around the scene. Onlookers were loudly whispering, gesturing and taking photos.

  “And Lee can’t see you. You’re just energy now,” Serena continued.
>
  I wasn’t stupid, just stubborn. Okay, sometimes I’m stupid as well, but not always. I didn’t say anything and I didn’t move. Instead, I looked upward, pretending to be interested. “So, in case I change my mind, where’s that tunnel anyways?”

  Serena pointed up, still glaring at me. “Just. Look.” She followed her own advice and then blanched. “Oh no. Manuel?”

  The two angels exchanged a look. It’s kind of like the one you definitely don’t want to see when the doctors are giving you the results from a medical examination. You see that look, you know you’re dead.

  Problem was, I already was dead. I just didn’t believe it yet.

  And the octopus shadow had morphed into the shape of a man.

  Manuel cleared his throat. “Well, this is a tad awkward. Seems like you’re not actually scheduled for the tunnel. Something about you or your past is blocking it, which means you’re stuck here until you deal with it. Oh, and get this.” He chuckled like he was about to divulge the punch line of a great joke. “The longer you’re here, the more memories you gradually forget. Happens to all earthbound ghosts, sooner or later.”

  Wow, that was helpful.

  “Something?” I repeated. “Can you be more specific?”

  “Which makes sense,” Serena continued, ignoring me. “Take a look at his past. Not exactly heavenly material.”

  Manuel nodded his head. “True. Although over the past three years, he cleaned up alright. Cleaned up. He’s a janitor. Get it?” He laughed and flapped his wings. “I kill myself.”

  “I wish you would,” Serena muttered.

  “But seriously,” Manuel added. “Look at him. Street kid and gang member makes good, maybe?”

  Serena shook her head, frowned and her voice turned sombre and prophetic. “Axe Cooper. You need to put right the wrongs if you want to escape. For every wrong you do not right, you will lose a memory. If you forget who you really are, you will be trapped here forever.”

  On that cheery note, they flew off without another word.

  I glanced down at myself. “What’s to escape from?”

  Only when they left did I look closely at the sidewalk. I realise it’s kinda hard to believe, but I still wasn’t fully getting it. Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was some post-death syndrome. Maybe it was the wacky shadow man; he looked familiar.

  I smacked my forehead with a hand. “Blast it. Our dinner’s all covered in gore.”

  I leaned over to see what I could salvage (yuck, right?), and I gazed into a familiar set of steel-grey eyes. The only time I’d ever seen eyes like those was when I stared into a mirror.

  That’s when I finally clued in.

  “Damn,” I whispered as I stared at the guy with the faded black jeans, the white shirt and the steel-grey eyes. “I really am dead.”

  I straightened up. A couple police officers were chasing the remaining onlookers away, while another one was doing whatever police officers do at crime scenes.

  “Can it get any worse?” I asked the police. They, of course, ignored me. They couldn’t see or hear me. I hadn’t yet learned the invaluable skills of making the living hear me. At the time, I just thought they were being rude. But the sky might have been listening. It started to drizzle; ‘drizzle’ is one of the numerous Vancouver words that mean ‘rain.’

  The shadow near my body shifted. That’s when I recognised it: it was my shadow. Except my shadow had never had a life of its own before.

  I watched for several minutes more as the police stood around, talking into cellphones and taking photos. I also noticed the two thugs who had shot me. They were standing about half a block away with takeout bags from Chan’s Chinese Chow. Weird, huh? They shoot me, then go pick up some Chinese food. They were both wearing dark cowboy hats. Kinda out of place, even for a part of the city where all the out-of-place people ended up.

  A third cowboy joined them, hiding in the shadows. Actually, it was a shadow. I rubbed my eyes and checked again. Yup. Another moving shadow. It lurked behind the first two, mimicking their hand gestures as they talked. I scratched my chin and glanced down at my shadow. The thing was closer now, I was pretty sure of it, but I dismissed it and the hit men. I was still contemplating my new status as a dead man.

  The ambulance careened into the street with sirens blaring, parked illegally for a few minutes and left with my body. The rain increased from ‘misty drizzle’ to ‘steady downpour’; it passed through me, slapped against the sidewalk and washed the bloodstain away. The diner’s kitchen cleaner was sweeping the remains of my dinner into a mouldering rubbish heap nearby.

  “That was…” I stopped, wondering what word could possibly capture the speed at which I had been murdered, the site investigated and all the evidence removed. “Efficient,” I concluded. I stared at the place my body had fallen, my hands no longer clenched, but hanging limply to my sides. “That was all very efficient.”

  Yeah, I was feeling a tad sorry for myself right about then.

  I shook my head and rubbed my face, trying to erase the images. When I looked up again, my shadow stretched an arm towards me, like it wanted to shake hands. A flicker of motion and a second shadow with a cowboy hat flowed into view and my shadow slunk back and became a dark spot on the sidewalk.

  Who knew death could improve my imagination, right? I glanced around, looking for a cowboy who could be the source of the shadow. Maybe one of my murderers had forgotten the soy sauce packages.

  I was alone.

  Alone apart from the shadow. The third cowboy had left his two human companions to join me. I stumbled backwards and floated into the rubbish heap up to my knees.

  The shadow slithered forward along the sidewalk.

  I pushed myself up a bit, so only my shoes were inside the garbage.

  The cowboy shadow peeled off the concrete, limb by limb. Its arms snapped around, like it was trying to decide if they were arms or whips. It quivered in front of me, a dark shape stuck somewhere between being two- and three-dimensional.

  Its featureless head swivelled from side to side. Its fingers elongated, each twitching and twirling. It shifted towards me.

  I shifted away.

  It lunged, its fingers slashing through the air at me, a wave of black shadow snakes. One of its limbs slashed around my wrist and I screamed. If you think pain ends with death, think again. My wrist burned as if someone was trying to extract a bone with a blunt knife, except I had no bones. Just energy, and I could feel that draining out into the shadow cowboy. Its other tentacles slithered through the air, seeking out more of me to latch onto, to drain.

  Maybe the other two hit men had sent this thing to finish the job. Like killing me once wasn’t enough.

  Thing is, I wasn’t ready to be finished off. I was kinda attached to the habit of living.

  Without thinking about it, I flew up into a streetlamp, breaking the connection, and plummeted down into the street, where a car ran me over. Good thing I was already dead. Quivering, I tried to run, but my legs didn’t work that way anymore. They hung below me like cooked noodles and as equally useless.

  I glanced towards the living shadow. It was still on the sidewalk, in the area I had dramatically vacated, its tentacles hungrily waving over the garbage heap. Its head swivelled back and forth, like it was sniffing for me, trying to find my trail.

  I tried moving my legs again, but only succeeded in flapping my arms. That got its attention. The shadow stalked towards me, its featureless head rolling from side to side.

  “Move,” I shrieked at my bodiless body, visualising myself dashing down Gore Avenue and away from the shadow monster that the two cowboy hit men had unleashed on me.

  Lo and behold, I twirled around and zoomed down the street, weaving between the cars, my arms and legs dangling behind me.

  The thing didn’t follow.

  Once I was well and away, I willed myself to slow down and not think about whatever could’ve happened if all those shadow fingers had grabbed me. I had enough to think about.
Like my death. Like how busy the streets were. Wherever I turned, ghosts glimmered in the rain. Some of them looked faded, their eyes glazed, reminding me of the countless drug addicts who roamed the Eastside where I lived. Some looked more solid, more human; they waved or scowled at me as they floated about their business.

  Then there were the others, brightly glowing spirits who flew through the sky. They zipped in and out of sight, their faces radiating an emotion I hadn’t experienced for a long time: pure joy. I wondered where they went to when they weren’t visible. I wondered if I should’ve tried harder to find that tunnel.

  I floated aimlessly along, invisible and inaudible to the living and basically ignored by the dead, and eventually found myself in front of the narrow, banged-up door to Lee’s apartment building.

  The building was tucked behind the storefronts lining Main Street, near the intersection with East Hastings. It was within Vancouver’s very own Skid Row, the poorest postal code in Canada.

  Home sweet home.

  Once upon a time, Lee used to live closer to the downtown core, but as that place became a high-end hangout for coffee lovers and celebrity stalkers, the affordable options shifted to ‘those areas’ of town where coffee lovers and celebrity stalkers definitely did not go, unless they were looking for cheap drugs.

  While Vancouver can rightfully boast about its beautiful mountain and ocean views, those views were invisible here, unless you were on the apartment building’s rooftop. The only time I had seen anyone go up there was if they were about to commit an illegal act or suicide.

  And yeah, I know that from experience. Not the suicide part, obviously.

  I gazed at the old concrete structure that was Lee’s home and had, up until recently, been mine. Its grey walls were dark and the windows wet. The downpour was now a torrential storm; the big drops zinged right through me.

  As I floated up several flights of stairs, all I could think was: She sure is gonna be pissed at me about the dinner. Not to mention me being dead and all. I reached her door and started to knock, but my fist went through the wood.