Ghost Mortem (Bordertown Chronicle Book 1) Read online

  “Yes. I live in the forest,” she said, flashing me a mocking smile.

  “Could have fooled me,” I said. “Pretty little thing like you. You could easily be mistaken for a forest nymph watching over us mere mortals.”

  I saw her blush a little, and try to suppress a smile.

  “Fuck off,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Stupid question.”

  She's clearly on the run, I realized. Though whether to something or from something, I couldn't yet tell. But weirdly, I grew concerned for this girl. Not just because she was a total babe and I really wanted to see if I was her type, but she seemed to be all alone out here. And for a chick her size—she can't have been taller than five-foot-three, and she can't have weighed more than a hundred pounds—that wasn't the safest choice.

  “I'm Gavin, by the way,” I said.

  “Danny,” she said.

  She exhaled another cloud of smoke.

  I gave Danny a long, evaluatory look. I wanted to see just how much I could tell about her before I went on. I got the sense she might need help, but I didn't want to appear too eager to help. I might frighten her off, making her think I was a thief, a sexual predator or a serial killer. Or an insurance salesman.

  “Are you in some kind of trouble, Danny?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Why would you ask me that?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “You have a bag packed with several days’ changes of clothes, yet you don't look like you're traveling. We're pretty far from any town. You're on a skateboard, but it's pretty dark out here. These roads can't be the best—not to say safest—for skateboarding. You're not dirty enough to have been on the road all that long, so I figure you must have come from a place nearby.”

  “My stepdad's cottage,” she said, eyeing me cautiously.

  I noted some disdain in her voice.

  “Your stepdad isn't your favorite person, I gather.”

  “What are you, some kind of detective?” she asked.

  “Close,” I said with a smile. “I'm a psychology major.”

  She grinned. “Psychology, huh?”

  “That's right.”

  “So you probably know what I'm thinking, huh?”

  “Of course. For instance, right now you're thinking of telepathy. But that's not what I studied in university. Otherwise I'd probably be in Vegas right now cheating at blackjack.”

  She snorted a laugh.

  I took a drag, smugly admiring the way I'd answered that.

  “So…” she started. “You're a university boy, huh?”

  She sounded almost impressed. I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well…not anymore. I graduated last year.”

  The truth was—which a man of my meager means is usually loath to admit to a pretty girl he's attempting to hit on—I was unemployed, and decidedly unemployable.

  “Really?” she asked, cocking her head back. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three,” I said.

  “Wow,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “You look younger.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “You act younger too.”

  “Thanks…question mark?”

  She laughed. “Sorry, dude. Not trying to be rude or anything. I just thought from the way you dressed you'd be a lot closer to my age.”

  “A lot closer?” I asked. “Wait. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Good god, I thought to myself, I am so going to jail.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I said. “Aren't you kind of on the young side to be smoking?”

  “Pff…How old were you when you started smoking?”

  I had to think about that for a moment. I was probably around sixteen myself when I had my first taste of it. I coughed like a motherfucker for a good ten minutes afterwards. But I came back to it eventually. By the time I was eighteen, I was a chain-smoking maniac.

  “Okay, fair enough,” I said. “But still…I don't think you should be smoking. Better give me those.”

  I reached for her cigarettes, though more in a playful way than a serious one.

  “Fuck off,” she laughed, pulling them back.

  “Seriously. I could be your dad.”

  Danny laughed.

  “Really?” she said. “So you've been having sex since you were seven?”

  I thought for a moment. Now it was my turn to laugh.

  “Uh…no. I guess not. Like I said, psych major. Math was never my strongest subject.”

  “You don't say,” she said with a wry smile.

  Damn, I really like this girl, I thought. Pity she's so young. She is so obviously off-limits. Raven would smack me with her one arm if she knew I was hitting on a sixteen-year-old.

  It's just one of those things, I guess. Here I was, gazing at—not to mention flirting with—a girl who was biologically and psychologically a mature woman. But society dictates she's far too young for me. And really, they're probably right.

  I took one more drag and then blew out any lingering hope I'd be able to make a romantic connection with this 'girl.' She really was too young. And besides, I think what she really needed was someone to look out for her, not mack on her.

  I took another look at her purple backpack with the skull keychain hanging off it and the several days of changes of clothes. It looked not entirely unlike my bag, which I'd packed into the car in lieu of a suitcase, since my dad had thought to go ahead and have us all schlep to Bordertown before our furniture and the rest of our stuff. So it would be a bit like camping in our house. But out here, this sixteen-year-old girl seemed to be all alone.

  “Listen. Danny. I know it's none of my business, but, um…what are you doing out here?”

  “You're the psych major,” she said defiantly. “You tell me.”

  I took another drag and looked her over. And at her backpack. And at the Hellmouth skateboard decorated by her dad. I frowned in contemplation.

  “Well…I'm not psychic,” I said. “But it doesn’t take a psychic to see you're mad at your mom.”

  “Uh-huh. Go on.”

  “I think you're mad because she's with your stepdad now, and…you don't like him.”

  “No shit, Sherlock Holmes.”

  “I think you don't like him because, in a way, you feel like your mother's trying to replace your father. Only you don't want him replaced. You don't think he needs to be replaced. He's um…”

  I gave her a quizzical look…I guess I was looking for her to cut me off. Fill in the blanks. Help me out a little. But she didn't.

  “Lost the custody battle?”

  “No.”

  “He's in jail?”

  “No.”

  “Your mom got a restraining order on—”

  “He isn't um…”

  She didn't exactly break into tears, but it's when I her face contort and her eyes get watery that I had my answer.

  “He died.”

  Danny nodded wordlessly.

  “I'm sorry,” I said.

  I'm no stranger to how it feels to lose a parent. I still remember having nightmares when I was younger. I'd wake up, panicked and in a sweat, and my first instinct would be to find my mom. Sometimes she'd be in bed. Sometimes I'd find her out for a late night smoke on the front porch. She was always there to comfort me. Until one day, when I was eighteen, I awoke and she wasn't. And never would be again.

  I was never as close with my old man. To be honest, I was always a little scared of him. I guess we all have our favorites. In Danny's case, I guess that was her dad.

  I still miss her—my mother, I mean. So goddamn much. And sometimes I wonder if it's ever going to get easier. It's been five years. Five long years since that fateful night. Sometimes it still feels it all happened only yesterday.

  “You're not going to make it better by running away,” I said.

  The irony wasn't lost on me. I'd basically done the exact same thing with my father, when my mother
died. We've all been drifting apart for years, my dad, my sister and me. It's like mom was the glue holding us all together. The only thing keeping us together now was economic hardship.

  “What the hell do you know?” Danny snapped.

  “I know running away doesn't help, Danny. It just makes it harder. You'll be avoiding your mother at first, maybe waiting until it doesn't hurt so much to talk about it. But five years from now, Danny, you'll be…like…hard. You'll have hardened this wall around yourself and then you'll be alone. And all that repressed stuff…it'll still be there. Only then you'll really be alone.”

  “Wrong again, Sherlock.”

  “Oh really?” I said.

  “My problem isn't that I don't know how to deal with my father's death or whatever, all right? It's my…my mother's just being a total bitch right now, all right?”

  “I don't think you realize what a luxury it is to have a mother you can call a bitch.”

  “Fuck off. You don't know me. You don't know what she's like.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to diffuse to situation. “You're right. I don't. So tell me. What's she done?”

  “She just…she's always, like, constantly on my case about everything. Which is really strange, because it's her fucking dipshit boyfriend who needs to clean up his act. He doesn't work, so money's always tight. He's a worthless jackass and he takes it out on her. And me. They're both mad because my grades suck right now, but I don't have time to study anymore because I have to work so we can afford to buy food. And I have to hide my money, because when fucking Ted finds it, he just takes it and buys himself more fucking beer so he can stay drunk all day…and then…and then she treats me like I'm the fucking disappointment. Like, who the fuck does she think she is?”

  “I guess I can relate to that,” I said. “I think I only understand that all too well actually.”

  God damn, I thought. I wish I could tell Danny it gets better. But the sad truth was…I was five years into grieving, myself. And I was beginning to think it never did.

  “But…” I continued, “I mean…what, are you going to do? Where are you going to go?”

  “Fuck if I know.”

  “You don't even know where you're going?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well…but…isn't your mom going to worry?”

  “Fuck if I care. She’s probably glad I'm gone.”

  “That can't be true,” I said. “She's probably worried sick. I mean…I know if my little sister took off—”

  “I don't care, all right? Jesus!”

  “You don't care if your mom worries about you? You realize at least five girls your age have gone missing in the last few months, right? Like, well…not from this very road. But this general area. I mean…you could at least just call your mom to—”

  “No. Fuck her. I just hate her so much right now.”

  “You hate your mother? Really?”

  “That's what I said, isn't it?” she said, rolling her eyes.

  I don't know why, but it made me kind of mad.

  “Sounds like a luxury to me.”

  “What the hell do you know?”

  Danny looked like she wanted to say more. She looked at me, shook her head, and took another drag. She exhaled. She opened her mouth to speak. Then I guess she thought better of it.

  “Listen,” I said. “It's not safe for you out here. My family and I…we're headed to Bordertown. Maybe we can give you a ride back to your mom's—”

  “It's my stepdad's place, and I'm not going back there.”

  “Well, can we at least drive you someplace safe? Like, there's nothing but truckers and bikers out here. I'd just…I'd hate if something happened to you on the road.”

  “I can take care of myself, thanks” she said.

  Danny rose, flicked her cigarette into the nearby road, and closed up her backpack. She got on her skateboard and started skating down the street.

  “Danny, wait,” I said.

  “Get lost, creep!”

  That just made me so angry. The sane thing would have been for me to take a breath and just shrug and head back to join my family. But I'm not exactly a sane person, am I?

  “Fine!” I bellowed. “I hope something does happen to you on the road then. You…little shit!”

  I should say at this point that I'm not proud of those words. Danny was a troubled girl trying to make sense of a world where the only role models in her life sucked. A world where a guy who'd set out to hit on her, wound up yelling at her. And she was only sixteen.

  Good god, I am a creep, I thought to myself.

  Danny's only response was to flip me the bird without looking back as she skated away.

  A black sedan crawled toward me, slowed and then stopped next to me.

  “Nice going, Casanova,” said a voice similar to, but a little deeper than my own.

  I turned to see my father's smug, angular face, topped by his shaved-bald head. Behind him, in the back of the car sat my sister, Raven, her face somewhat hidden behind a mop of long black hair with purple highlights.

  “Shut-up,” I sighed.

  “Gavin,” said Raven, “please tell me you didn't seriously just yell at some poor, underage girl for not being into you. You know how shitty that is?”

  “I wasn't…” I started. “I was just trying to be helpful, all right? Is it…is it seriously that obvious to everyone else she's underage? I'd swear she looked twenty-five.”

  Raven crossed her arms—well her one arm over her stump—indignantly. Did I mention my sister only has one arm? I mentioned that, right? Well, there was the jar with her pickled arm in it, on the back seat, belted in right next to her.

  “And no,” I said defensively. “Actually, I was only talking to her because…”

  Because what? Because I was chasing a raccoon-dog with giant balls who stole my cigarettes? My family thinks little enough of me as it is, thanks!

  “You know what?” I said. “Forget it. Let's just go.”

  Chapter 3

  I was half asleep in the passenger side, and there was still no sign of this town in the ass-end of Saskatchewan we were apparently being forced to move to. I imagine if you were, say, an owl in the night sky, scouring the landscape for a meal, you might fly overhead and see one lone black sedan, covered by a thick layer of dust, making trails down a dark, seemingly endless highway.

  We're bound for the 49th parallel—that largely imaginary line dividing Canada from the United States. We’d been driving for nearly nine hours, and I was beginning to get the feeling we were lost. Not that my father would admit it if I asked.

  I’d been about to offer to open up Google Maps for the umpteenth time, more to annoy my dad—taunting him about having trouble locating something that was, you know, on the border—than to actually help. My dad seems to have this phobia of technology. He's one of those dads who believes there’s nothing better you can do with you life than good ol’ fashioned hard work.

  My father is a police officer. Or rather, he was. Once. He used to be a twenty year decorated officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He used to be Jack Masters, the R.C.M.P. detective famous for finally catching Nefarious Darius Danko, the serial killer who once haunted the Saskatchewan highways for nearly two decades. Danko had been targeting hitchhikers. Mainly women. And then, mainly aboriginal women. Now that I think about it, the recent disappearances—the ones I'd been warning Danny about—were a lot like those. I wondered if my dad had been making that connection these past few months. Then again, maybe it's best if he didn't. Danko was the case my father devoted his career to, and I think it’s the thing that finally broke him. Towards the end of his career with the R.C.M.P., my dad began shouting at people without provocation, and had, at one point, beaten the living crap out of a man because he couldn’t find enough evidence to convict him for diddling his four-year-old nephew. The R.C.M.P. finally put my father on permanent “snap leave” after that. He’s been looking for work ever since.

  Less
than a week ago, a “special recruiter” got in touch with him and offered him a job almost on the spot. That should have been our first red flag right there. But did any of us heed it? Fuck no. So now, here we are, headed for Bordertown, U.S.A. Or is it in Canada? I'm still not clear on that.

  Before you start getting an image in your head of my dad as some kind of Dudley Do-Right, especially those of you on the American side of the border, I’d like to point out there’s nothing royal about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, nor are they generally actually mounted anymore. If you were to look in the driver’s seat, you’d see a bald-headed guy who looks a lot like Bruce Willis, idly rubbing his left hand on his shaved head while the right hand sits at the twelve o’clock position on the steering wheel. He’s got a muscular build for a 48-year-old, but then again, I suppose a good cop ought to.

  “Ugh…How much longer are we gonna be stuck in this car?” came a petulant, and decidedly unimpressed voice from the back seat.

  That’s my kid sister, Raven—the 18-year-old Goth-girl in the back seat with the nose ring, the black lipstick, the skull mini-tee, and the long, straight, black hair with purple highlights—texting with her, “like, soulmate,” AKA, probably her only real friend, whom she believes she’s “like, never, like, ever-ever,” going to see again. She was texting one-handed. Like I mentioned early, she's only got the one. Her other, prosthetic arm, decorated with matching black nail polish, lay on the seat beside her. She actually hates wearing the damn thing, because she claims it makes her stump itch beneath it. But she wears it in public because she hates “looking like a freak.” I often point out the irony in that, given her Goth-girl fashion choices. She never thinks it's as funny as I do. And then, of course, there's the pickled arm, strapped into the seat next to hers. The less said about that, the better.

  “Soon, sweetie,” said our dad.

  Dad was trying to sound patient, but he wore an expression on his face of confusion, looking around at the lack of roadside signs, and the winding roads, surrounded by walls of evergreens which seemed to stretch for miles into the dark horizon.

  “Dad,” I said, “you're sure you don't want me to get out Google maps, and—”

  “No. It won't work.”

  “What do you mean it won't work?”