Natie and Jake should take inventory and counsel

Even the cheap gadgets worked. Those little phone apps were more than I had bargained for. Now Jake was angry at me about Franklin, and I did sleep with Franklin. I just wish that Jake wasn’t right and I had to figure out a way to get his attention off the whole ordeal. Because I wasn’t cheating on him now and Franklin had been out of the picture for weeks.

 “Jake, stop being a jerk.”

 “I will stop being a jerk when you tell me it isn’t true. Tell me you’re not sleeping with my best friend.”

 I didn’t want to lie but I wanted to lie to Jake. How would I do it?

 “Listen, you know that app is full of crap, right? It’s ridiculous, Jake, please stop being so jealous. It’s just a name, it could have been any name, for that matter. Come on, I need you to help me contact my aunt.”

 Jake wasn’t convinced and I knew he would come back around to this topic sooner or later. I just wanted to buy some time and try to smooth things over. After all, Jake and I weren’t really together when I was seeing Franklin, so I didn’t understand why the app would say his name.

As I struggled to get a hold on my situation, I felt the goosebumps rise up on my arm. I realized it was cold in the living room.

 “Jake? Can we check the temperature readings now?”

 I didn’t know what he was thinking, but he stood and gathered his camera and EVP metre. Then he put them down again. He was confused, running his hands through his hair. He picked up his equipment once more than looked at me. Even an adulterous girlfriend couldn’t keep him away from his ghosts. Even I, as complicated as I was, could not drag Jake from his own reality. Jake wasn’t a jerk, he was magnificent. It’s just bad timing for us and I knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant as pie from here on out. But I was desperate. Jake looked at me and he could see the desperation and sadness in my face.

 “You really need this don’t you?”

 I was caught off guard by his words, but I caught on. “Yes, she died in there and going in the closet isn’t good enough.” I motioned toward the back bedroom. “ That corner has been dark ever since. I think she wants me to come to her, the cold place, you know.”

 “I got it. Let’s go. Grab the other camera. Oh and, bring your phone too. Make sure that ghost hunting app is still on.”

 “Are we going in there, in the room?”

 “No, I have an idea.”

 I never heard Franklin’s name again as we walked behind the house. I heard a few other strange words like ‘syringe’ and ‘number’, but no ‘Franklin.’ I guess the ghost was done being comical and devious. I guess it’s fun for the dead to watch the living squirm under pressure. They were the real jerks. Suddenly I felt bad for calling my aunt a jerk because my aunt was among that throng of the dead. I wondered if she was playing havoc with me and enjoying the torture.

 “What about here? Is it this window or the one on the other side?” Jake stopped and looked around the yard.

 I looked up at the high rectangular windows and shivered. “It’s these windows. Why are we outside the room, Jake?”

 “Because sometimes the spirits lurk outside the room they died in. They are scared of that room, almost as much as you are. She could be wandering anywhere outside these windows, even in the woods behind us.”

 I spun around and gazed into the darkened center of the woods. Vines and saplings invaded the yard and high limbs from trees tickled my head with dying leaves. I jumped back by a sudden scratch from above. “The woods are too close here, Jake.”

 “Why do you say that?”

 I leaned against the brick wall and whimpered. “I’m scared, Jake. What if she is still mad at me?”

 “What do you mean, mad at you?”

 I looked at him, pouring every fiber of sadness into the air between us. I wanted him to read my mind, but I forgot that he couldn’t do that. I wanted him to hold me then and I wanted him to forgive me about Franklin. Jake knew why I was scared. He kept telling me that it wasn’t my fault, but I knew better. It was my fault.

 She was coming for me, pushing through the fabric between purgatory and the living. She was already in my dreams, along with blood and exorcisms and screams. I saw knives cutting flesh and I saw a door opening. There behind the door was her face. There on the table, being rid of his demons, was my father, who was also dead. My aunt and my mother, both dead as well, were holding him down while my son took a knife to his throat. I instructed my son to kill him, and he did.

 “I am not your father. You cannot kill me.”

 “Hey! Natie, are you okay? What do you mean? Why would your aunt’s spirit be mad at you?”

 I couldn’t speak. I kept seeing her face coming back to me. She kept coming back.

 “Natie, why would she be mad at you? What did you do?”

 “I killed her, remember? I killed them all.”