Never Let the Dead Linger

CW: Physical violence, grief, mental health

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

I stare out through the windshield of my car, watching raindrops strike the glass, leaving streaks that fracture the reflection of my headlights. I don’t look at the figure sitting beside me in the passenger seat. I don’t want to see that look on her face. The look she wears every time I see her.

“I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask you to wait here?” I say. Not pleading, but close to it. “You know you won’t do any good if you come with me. It only ever makes it… harder for you.”

She doesn’t answer. I still can’t face her. I know she’ll be staring at me, wearing that expression of love and pity. And hate. She could never figure out how she felt about me when she was alive.

She certainly can’t now that she’s dead.

Everything about her is just as it was when she first came back to me. When she began to haunt me. Right after I killed her.

Without another word, I climb out of the car, stepping into a puddle and barely noticing. I look around, peering through the rain and gloom. The alley around me is cluttered and dirty, with stacks of disintegrating cardboard boxes piled up amid overflowing dumpsters and broken pieces of furniture. It’s the kind of place you dump things you don’t want anybody to find for a while, a collecting ground for stuff that’s been broken beyond use.

It's the perfect place to leave a dead body.

I spot the person I’m here to meet. She’s standing near one wall of the alley, staring straight ahead, a lost, confused expression on her face, like she can’t believe what happened to her, and isn’t quite sure what’s going to happen next. It’s another look I see all the time.

As I draw closer to her, I can pick out the little details that tell me what she is. Like how still she’s standing, despite the cold and the rain. How the water doesn’t touch her, no raindrops running down her face or darkening her hair and clothes. How her feet aren’t quite touching the ground, leaving her just sort of hovering in place.

“This is the place?” I ask, coming up next to her. “This is where… where you were… left?”

She looks at me; long practice lets me meet her gaze without flinching. She nods. “Right over there.” On hand rises, one finger pointing at the gap between two dumpsters.

With a deep breath, I go where she pointed, look into that space. Sure enough, there’s her body. Her dead body.

She was killed few hours ago, then dumped here by her murderer. The police wouldn’t have found her for days, time enough for any trace evidence to wash away in the rain, for rats and other vermin to work on the corpse. Time enough for her spirit to lose its connection to its former home, to forget what happened. Time enough to lose its way.

When she came to me, her spirit—her ghost—asked me to help her. That’s how it happens. How it always happens. The souls of those recently killed seek me out, wanting only one thing: to give them justice, to give them some peace. To let them move on believing that they won’t be forgotten, that their murderer won’t go unpunished. Not all of them, of course, but enough to make my life… complicated.

I do what I can for them, and I do it as quickly as I can. I’ve learned the hard way what happens when I let the dead linger too long.

“Can you help me?” she asks, suddenly standing right beside me. Again, long experience keeps me from jumping out of my skin. I didn’t see her move or walk; she just… appeared there. They don’t mean to do that, to startle or scare people. They just don’t think about it.

“I’ll try,” I say. Taking a deep breath, I move a little closer to the corpse, kneeling on the wet pavement, getting as comfortable as you can near the body of a murdered woman. Reaching out, I touch the face of her corpse, gently, careful not to disturb anything. I’m not a cop, and I don’t want to mess things up for them. I’m here to help, after all. Then I half turn to look up at her ghost; as I do so, I see another figure nearby. A familiar one.

Like the poor, lost soul before me, she’s untouched by the elements, disconnected from the world I inhabit, but still all too there. I frown; I knew it wouldn’t do any good to ask her to stay in the car. I don’t know why she always does this, why she has to watch me work. I know it hurts her, that I will do for others what I wouldn’t do for her. But she’s here, staring at me, that familiar expression on her face, all the same.

Sighing, I do my best to put her out of my mind. I hold out my hand to the ghost of the other dead woman. “My I take your hand?”

She hesitates. Most of them do that, too. Maybe they know what’s going to happen. Maybe they’re afraid to go through that. Maybe they don’t know that it will help them, free them. Allow them to let go.

Maybe they do know, and they’re afraid of that, too.

Finally, she reaches out to me, places her hand in mine. I can’t easily describe the sensation of touching the spirit. It’s like holding light and feeling an icy draft. Warm and moving and bitterly cold all at once, while at the same time being utterly intangible. Then the memories and sensations start to flow, and I can’t think about anything else.

Through her spirit, I relive the crime. Become the victim. Feeling the sharp wire wrap around my neck, cutting into my flesh. Strangling, fighting for air, fingers plucking at the taut cord. I try to move past the sensations, to just see what she saw. Her attacker was a man, larger and scary. He wore a mask, a knit cap, gloves. Clever. But in the middle of the pain and fear, of that last gasp of life before dying, his victim met his gaze, and held it. It was the moment he was waiting for, the satisfaction of watching the life go out of her eyes.

But it’s also the moment I was waiting for. In that instant, I know him. I know his name, I know where he lives, where he works. I know his hopes and dreams, and all the disappointments in his life that led him down this sad, sorry path. The dead see so many things that the living don’t. Being closer to eternity grants a certain perspective, I guess.

I see other things, little details that are much closer to the crime. Like where he bought the piano wire he’s using to kill me… to kill her, I should say. A store far from his house or other haunts. He used cash to pay for it. But he left the bag and the receipt in his car. It’s still there.

With that knowledge in hand, I release the connection, let go of the ghost’s hand and take my fingers away from her corpse. For a moment, it’s all I can manage, as I try to push away the worst of what I experienced, while holding on to what good I’ve taken from it.

When I’m able, I stand, brushing off my knees. I draw a shuddering breath. “I can help you. I’ll make sure the police find you, and your killer.” I meet her gaze. “You’ll get justice. I promise you that.”

For a minute she just looks into my eyes. Then relief spreads across her features. Hope. Peace. She’s taken comfort in my words. It’s all I can give her really.

“Thank you,” she says.

“You’re welcome,” I reply, but I’m already speaking to an empty night. She’s gone, to wherever we go when we leave this life behind.

With a sigh, I return to the car. I’ll call the cops, give an anonymous tip. They’ll investigate. No matter how clever the killer is, with the information I can give them, they’ll connect him to the crime, and any others he committed. She’ll have justice, and peace.

I wish I could say the same for myself. For the woman I still love.

“You helped her, didn’t you?” She’s back in the car with me, still gazing at me with that look.

“Yes,” I answer. It’s the look she wore the last minute I saw her alive.

She wanted the truth, to know where I went and what I did when I’d just up and disappear for hours at a time. I told her. Naturally, she didn’t believe me. She could never believe me. So we argued, constantly. We were arguing that night, driving home through the rain and dark. A lot like tonight. I could never figure out if it was an accident, when I went off the road, plowed into a parked car. Or if some part of me meant to do it. To kill her. To make her believe, finally.

I do know that when she came back to me, wanting, like all of them, a measure of peace and justice, I couldn’t give it to her. They ruled it an accident. I hadn’t been drinking or under the influence. I wasn’t culpable, they said.

It sure felt like I was, though. She seemed to think so.

But I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t give her what she wanted. Later, I thought. Give it some time. I’ll get over this. I’ll be able to let her go. Just wait, just for a little while.

But I let her linger too long. She forgot what she wanted. Forgot that she had to move on. Forgot everything.

Except how she felt about me.

Now, she’ll be with me always. Loving me. Pitying me. Hating me.

She’ll never know peace or justice.

And neither will I.