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NextEstablishment856 t1_jdqhb78 wrote

"I wasn't always the caretaker here." I say it quiet, hoping she miss it, already pulling up the security footage on my phone. Not the cheap camera the city put on the gate, but the good ones I installed.

"Where were you the caretaker before?" God, I love the way kids think. I debated how to correct her, but decided not to. She wasn't entirely wrong.

"I took care of the living before. I learned how to deal with... Bad people. You don't want him coming back, right?"

"Her. No, she's scary."

Her. Now I have to ask. Women killers are a lot more like to be related to the victim. I know it's not her mother, because Mommy is buried next to her. No ghost there, sadly. "Is she someone you knew? An aunt or family friend?"

"No. Just some lady. She killed Mommy, too." Now that worries me. Her mom didn't die with little Sophie here. She went a week earlier in a house fire. No one knew it was murder.

I get the shot up. Sure enough, it's a woman in her mid-forties, wearing a simple black dress. Smiling that shark smile I know too well.

"The Pike," I whisper under my breath. Thankfully, she misses that. Also, thankfully, my old friend didn't see me. I worked hard to get out, cover my tracks, but if anyone could find me, it was her. I ask, "Did she see you?"

"No, I stayed up in the tree. I was playing hide'n'seek with Tommy and Jedediah."

I watched the clip of her leaving in a rental car. I hadn't hacked this cities traffic cams yet, hadn't needed to before, but this called for it.

"Soph," I put away my phone and kneel to match her height. "You don't need to worry. I'm going to go talk to her and make sure she knows she isn't allowed here." She still looks scared. "And I'll tell Joani and Earl about her, too. She broke the rules, so she can't come here anymore."

Sophie relaxed at that. Thankfully, she passed young enough to think that adults have some sort of magical aurhority. And she doesn't need to know about the extra work I'm going to do.

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designbat t1_jdqtjs9 wrote

Great story. I appreciate your characterization of the ghost with not one unneeded detail. Your writing is both suspenseful and succinct.

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Xidize t1_jdqwdfi wrote

Really great writing. Looking forward to the next part

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