Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 52976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52976 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Byron’s impatience is showing. “What exactly do you mean by ‘die a little’? Is this tea poison? Did you just fucking poison us?”
I glance at Byron, surprised. He doesn’t usually use such language.
Mrs. Shaheen isn’t fazed at all. “It isn’t poison. It makes the gateway blurry. Lets you see them. Lets them see you. Without it, negotiating with any ghost is futile, like showing up to a knife fight with a Twizzler.”
As Byron looks like he’s going into a full-blown panic attack, I come around the table to her. The room is spinning and I don’t know if it’s the tea or my own fear. “Please tell me there’s a better way to go about this.”
“If there is one, I don’t know it.” She sighs. “Now I’m not sure how long the tea lasts exactly, so once you die enough, you must be very quick. Find your ghost friend, free the other half of your soul, then return here to your own bodies. You don’t want to be caught out there when the tea wears off! Don’t worry,” she adds, “I’ll watch your defenseless bodies while you’re gone.”
“I-I don’t like this,” I say at once, shaking—or am I shivering worse? “I don’t like this at all.”
“We’ve gotta try it,” says Byron, deadpan.
I turn to him, shocked. “Now you’re the one who’s onboard with this lunacy??”
“I’ve seen many things I can’t explain. But this?” He looks at me with pain in his eyes. “I can’t lose you. I’ll do whatever it takes to save you. Whatever it takes.”
“Lie down, both of you,” suggests Mrs. Shaheen, ushering us to the living room. After a glance at one another, we lie down on the floor, sides touching. “I’ll bind one of your hands to each other’s with a ribbon.”
“Soul tether …” mutters Byron, curious.
“Yep. You will need to be the strong one, young man,” she says to Byron. “You’re the one with all your soul. That is why Griffin can’t do this alone.”
I take hold of Byron’s hand. We turn our faces and stare into one another’s eyes as Mrs. Shaheen wraps my hand to Byron’s with a long, silky ribbon.
“Good, good,” she mumbles as she ties the knot. “It is done. The tea should soon kill you a little bit, then you’ll have an … undetermined … amount of time to complete the task. I’ll just sit on this couch behind you and thumb through my Instagram for funny cat videos and hope you avoid eternal damnation.”
“You okay, babe?” I ask Byron.
He nods, but I see the fear in his eyes.
Then the room starts to spin worse. “O-Oh … there it is,” I murmur, instantly feeling like I’ve just downed some seriously hard liquor. “Ooh …”
Byron’s eyes slowly start to close. His lips part, like he’s trying to say something, but nothing comes.
“Oh, and one last thing,” announces Mrs. Shaheen as the bound pair of us slowly give in to whatever the hell was in that tea. “When you enter the Realm of the Dead, you might experience some strange side effects. I can’t speak firsthand about it, but I’ve read the most common side effects are heightened senses, a peculiarly strong urge to laugh at very inappropriate things, and extreme and wanton horniness.”
“H-Horn … Horny what …?” I try to ask.
“Sweet dreams,” whispers Mrs. Shaheen before it all goes black, the room twisting away.
-8-
Ghosts Get Horny, Too
I open my eyes.
The old ceiling of the apartment is all I see.
Is it over? Did we do the thing already? Why don’t I remember anything? Was it a dream?
The moment I sit up, Byron sits up with me. We turn to each other, surprise painted over our faces.
“Griffin?” he murmurs, confused.
We rise from the floor together, then hold hands as we gaze into each other’s eyes. “I feel strange,” I say.
“Must be the tea.” He chuckles suddenly.
Then we glance down at the ground.
Our bodies are still lying there. Eyes closed. Hands clasped, bound together by ribbon.
We back away from our bodies on the floor at once, officially freaked out. “What the—?” I exclaim.
Then we both look at the couch behind our bodies. Mrs. Shaheen sits there, bored as ever, with her phone in hand and humming a tune. She appears completely oblivious to us as she lazily runs a finger over and over her screen, gnawing gently on her lip.
I blink. “Uh …”
“She doesn’t see us?” asks Byron, wide-eyed.
“Apparently not.”
“Can she not hear us either?”
We both continue to stare at her. She continues to completely not acknowledge us, scrolling away on her phone. She seems to find something that pleases her and chuckles. “Cute kitty-kitty,” she mumbles to herself.
“Yeah, I don’t like this,” Byron decides. “What is going on? Is this some kind of illusion, or—?”
“We don’t have time to figure it out. We have, like, a time limit to get this done. Remember?”