Spirits Read online

  “You are gonna to listen to me, you bitch!”

  Carla snaked her head into Victoria’s face. Hot breath scented with sour liquor fanned from the woman’s mouth. It didn’t surprise her; she’d watched Victoria drink until she wobbled out the door week after week.

  Victoria eyed the bartender, who seemed to be considering his options.

  “How does it feel to get away with murder?” Carla asked, her volume at full-blast.

  Pain spread across her chest. A lump built in her throat. Victoria mumbled something and pulled her purse close to her body. Tears blurred Carla’s eyes, and she brushed the droplets away with the back of her hand.

  “My daughter died, and you walk free, living life like nothing ever happened. I just want to know how it feels. How does it feel to feel nothing?”

  Her voice cracked, and her throat burned with the rawness of her anger. She felt the weight of the stares on her. A few people brushed by her on their way out the door, their haste a window into their discomfort.

  Victoria wouldn’t make eye contact with her, as much as she tried to coax it.

  “I ought to beat the living shit out of you,” Carla growled. It was a threat she’d tucked aside, something she’d never act out but couldn’t quite hold in any longer.

  Except that her fist balled. And she pulled it back. It flew forward before she could cool the bubbling cauldron of hatred she felt.

  Victoria jagged out of the way, and Carla brought her fist back and stared at it for a moment, unsure if the action had been voluntary at all.

  Carla put her palm against her face. It felt dry and hot. She pulled the cracked leather strap of her purse tight against her shoulder and scurried out of the Carriage House.

  It was cool outside. The rain had subsided, but it left the streets slick and shiny. She walked over the manicured landscaping to the sidewalk.

  As she walked, she wondered what would’ve happened if she’d actually hit the woman who killed her daughter. Would she be in a police cruiser right now, heading to county jail, or worse? Her insides squirmed at the thought going through with the act of violence. The vision of the khaki-clad douchebags trying to pull her off of Victoria flitted through her head, and the idea almost amused her.

  She’d been watching Victoria for some time now, checking to see what her life had become after the accident, to see how she could live with herself. It had become obvious that she lived with herself by drinking to the point of annihilation almost every night of the week. Maybe that quieted the guilt. But it didn’t exonerate her, not by a long shot. And the fact that she could simply drink away the pain fanned those angry flames.

  Each time she watched her sitting, legs crossed, at the bar, tossing back shots with her friends, laughing, living, she felt heat rise from her collar. Maybe she regretted not beating the shit out of her, but would that have brought Lexie back? Of course not. Justice had not been served. She knew all things the police claimed. No alcohol involved, which she doubted highly since the woman drank like a fish. It was a tragic accident. If it was so fucking tragic, why was Victoria Garrett able to move on with her life like nothing ever happened? She sucked in her breath. The searing heat that accompanied her desperate desire for revenge skimmed over the surface of her flesh.

  The yellowed plastic enclosure of the bus stop dripped from the night’s rainstorm. It was illuminated by an anemic streetlamp. Carla stood under it, inhaling piss and the ghost of someone’s B.O.

  Steam rose on the asphalt as Jaguars and BMWs hummed down the boulevard. The NJ Transit bus sputtered and groaned a few blocks away. The stink of burning oil intensified as it drew near.

  The interior lights beamed as it whirred to a stop in front of Carla. The doors hissed open, and she climbed up the steps, inserted her fare, and turned to find a seat. Most of them were occupied by slumped, dark-complected people, hoods pulled up, huddled against the chill. Some slept. A child fidgeted in a stroller, her mother rocking it back and forth as she scrolled through her phone.

  Carla sat next to a rotund black woman who smelled like artificial gardenias. The odor made Carla’s head throb. She pressed herself against the window and watched the mini-mansions of suburbia roll by. The stone and brick façades of old money were spotlighted against the dark. A lawn jockey, painted white in a half-hearted attempt at progressiveness, stood guard, lantern aloft, in front of a winding stone driveway. The message was still clear. Classicism was alive and well. The residents here used people like Carla as hired help. People with last names like Perez and Washington and Singletary and Ramirez cleaned their toilets and raised their children. People like Victoria Garrett rode on the backs of people like her.

  The elaborate homes and manicured lawns gave way to multifamily rental homes and, soon, those gave way to graffiti and subsidized housing projects. The bus wound through the steel and glass of the business district into the gritty, desperate landscape of the inner city. It jerked to a halt at a dimly lit bus shelter. Carla grabbed her purse and shuffled past the floral-scented lady next to her.

  She pulled the collar of her coat close to her neck and walked into the drizzle. The wind whipped her hair into a thick, black tangle.

  Shadowed figures spoke in low tones. They tucked into doorways, backs pressed against brick, making illicit deals. Carla walked on, looking for number 17.

  The West Indies Soul food truck hummed and sizzled. The aroma of cumin, cayenne, and coriander melded with the succulent juices of pork and beef. She used to stop all the time for gumbo or jerk chicken. Used to. All food was tasteless now. It had been that way since Lexie died.

  The thought flashed of her child beneath the night-blue, frost-coated ground, tucked into a bed from which she’ll never rise. Anger roiled anew. The wind gusted, and the chill tempered the fury that always simmered, just below the surface.

  Number 17 was nestled into a dirty alcove that abutted Rai’s Market, which was now dark and barricaded by a metal gate. The door, once white, was spattered with mud. Carla pressed the dimly lit buzzer.

  “Yes?” The voice crackled through static.

  “Miss Tanuja? It’s Carla Perez. Can I come up?”

  There was a grinding buzz and a click, and Carla pushed the door open. She walked up a dingy staircase. The foyer smelled like curry and mildew.

  Tanuja’s apartment was separated from the rest of the multifamily house with a set of French doors. Lights glowed through frosted glass. Something clacked on the other side, and one of the doors opened.

  Tanuja wore an orange wrap around her hair, paired with a white dressing gown. It provided a stark contrast to her deep brown skin.

  “Well, come on then,” she said, her thick West Indian accent chopping at each word.

  She pushed her wire-framed glasses up onto the bridge of her nose and gestured for Carla to sit anywhere.

  The apartment was quiet. Strings of lights cascaded from the archway to her dining room. A golden Shiva statue gleamed against the votives of a Diwali display on an oak table. Diwali. Tanuja explained it briefly once, and Carla remembered it had something to do with good and bad, though the details were fuzzy.

  “What’s troublin’ you? What is it you need, honey?”

  Carla put her purse down, clasped her hands together, and sat on the threadbare sofa lined with an intricately patterned throw blanket. She felt the hot tears coming up in her eyes, and she rubbed them away with the back of her hand.

  “Revenge,” she said. “I want revenge against the woman who took my baby from me. Is there some way? Is there something I can do to put her through the hell I go through every day?”

  Tanuja’s forehead wrinkled.

  “Revenge is a tricky thing, Carla. Sometimes, when you hurl shit at someone, you get some on you.”

  Carla considered this for a moment, and then realized she didn’t care. The cosmic ricochet wouldn’t matter at all.

  “I’m prepared for that. You said there was a way. Before. Right after …”

  Mi
ss Tanuja sat and wrapped an arm around Carla’s shoulders.

  “Yes. There is a way. You have to believe in it, though.”

  At this point, Carla would’ve believed that the Tooth Fairy could come flapping down to take a hit out on this bitch.

  “Are you familiar with the bhoot?”

  “Boot? Like for your feet?”

  “No, no. Not boot.”

  Tanuja looked at the ceiling for a moment, perhaps contemplating the best way to explain it.

  “Spirit. Soul. Ghost! Yes, ghost. Something similar to that. Do you believe someone can be haunted?”

  Carla nervously licked her lips. She didn’t want to admit that she saw things, especially at night when the house was graveyard silent. It wasn’t like her teenage daughter flopped down next to her in bed, but every now and then, a wisp would appear. Something out of the corner of her eye would flit by like a puff of smoke. She’d turn to see what it was, but she could never catch it.

  “I believe a spirit can be directed, compelled to haunt,” Tanuja continued. “Lexie for instance. Often, people who die in a tragic way, their spirits are prevented from moving on. Do you believe she’s restless?”

  Carla pressed her lips together and felt the tingle of tears build.

  “No,” she said. She knew where Tanuja was going with this, and she didn’t like it. Tanuja must have sensed it because she shifted in the cushion next to Carla and pulled away.

  “What do you know about this woman? You need to focus all your energy on this person. You can manipulate really any spirit to do what you want it to, but … just be careful.”

  Carla pulled the phone from her rear jeans pocket and it lit up in the lamp-dimmed room. She scrolled through the photos and showed them to Tanuja. There was an entire folder of pictures she’d snapped of Victoria Garrett at the bar. Sometimes, she was drinking alone, propped on elbows, sunken down into her drink. In others, she was laughing with friends, a shot glass in one hand, her head thrown back.

  “I know she’s a drinker. A drunk. And that’s where I’m going to hurt her. Drunks build up a tolerance, don’t they? The more they drink, the more they have to drink, isn’t that right?”

  Tanuja shrugged and nodded.

  “That’s what I’ve heard. I’ve never been a big drinker myself, so I don’t know firsthand, but that sounds right.”

  “So, what exactly do I do? Just some incantation? Recite some rhyming bullshit?”

  Tanjua looked over the thin rims of her glasses and pressed her lips into a frown.

  “If you don’t believe in it, you’re wasting your time––and mine for that matter. You direct all your energy to imbuing her with the spirit.”

  A smirk worked its way across Carla’s face.

  “Yeah, I can do that. Let me ask you something. How powerful is this … bhoot? What can it do, exactly?”

  “Terrorize. Haunt. You can compel it to do a number of things, but it’s not some all-powerful entity. It has limitations. It won’t go near water, for one. A lot of what it can do depends upon you.”

  “Thank you, Miss Tanuja. Thank you for everything. You were always so nice to me and Lexie. I know if she was here, she’d thank you, too.”

  She stood, and Tanuja followed her to the door. The older lady pulled her in for a long embrace, and as Carla tiptoed out the front door, she knew it would be the last time she saw her friend.

  There was a bracing wind when she moved back outside. Her hair lashed around, and she tucked her hands into the pockets of her Levi’s.

  The water tower glowed, lit from below, and she marched towards it, a soldier on a mission. There was a chain-link fence guarding the tower, but she’d scaled enough fences in her day. She hooked her fingers into the metal links and hoisted herself up. She flipped over the other side and realized with a melancholy chuckle that she wasn’t as spry as she’d been all those years ago roaming the streets, jumping fences, hanging with her friends.

  It smelled like rust and chemicals. The stairs to the tower were flecked with red and looked unstable, but she didn’t care about that now. She clutched the first rung and pulled herself up. The climb didn’t take nearly as long as she thought it would, even with the brisk night wind tugging at her.

  All Lexie had endured––and the thought of the pain her only child must have endured the night she died––ripped at the still-oozing scab of her heart. She couldn’t bear to use her baby’s spirit to carry out her spiteful obsession for revenge. It was her last act of maternal care.

  At the top, she sat and looked out over the town. Streetlights cast long shadows over the roads. Most of the houses were dark, apart from a few dimly lit windows. And somewhere out there, Victoria Garrett, the evil bitch who destroyed her life, was about to get what she deserved.

  She pulled the phone from her rear pocket and flipped through those photographs again. The light was nearly blinding against the black night. She clicked on one photo of the blonde, teeth bright white against her red lipstick. She was hoisting a martini glass in one hand. Carla stared at that photo until it became emblazoned upon her eyelids.

  She believed, more than she ever believed in anything, that her spirit would float free, find her, and every time Victoria drank, she’d become sicker and sicker until she would ultimately be destroyed. Carla would take up residence in her body and drain it dry. She wouldn’t stop until Victoria was a shell of a human being, a burnt-out husk. Visions of her puking, slobbering, and writhing with otherworldly torture flickered in her head like a movie. It was time.

  Her head spun, and her heart thudded as she looked down. She clutched the railing, unsure at first. But there was nothing left here for her. She bent her knees and pushed off, letting go of the railing. The city blurred as she fell. She smiled when she hit the concrete below, jettisoned into a purpose greater than she’d ever known.

  CHAPTER 5

  Headlights glared and blurred against her windshield. Droplets spattered into view, and the wipers swept them away. Tori’s hands ached as she gripped the steering wheel. It was only five blocks. Cars careened past. A horn blatted, and she jerked her Volvo away from the double yellow line.

  Vibrations worked down her arm as she swung onto Chestnut Street and then pulled onto Essex. Snot dribbled from her nose, and she pulled her arm away from the steering wheel just long enough to wipe it clean with her coat sleeve. The car juddered onto the shoulder. She wrenched the wheel to pull it back onto the street and swerved into the opposing lane. A pair of lights raced at her. She zagged the wheel just in time to avoid the approaching car. Her heart lodged into her throat, and she swallowed hard. She was so close to home now. Just a few more blocks. Tears welled at the thought of driving more. Her breath hitched. Her chest felt like someone set a dumbbell on it.

  She sucked in a breath.

  “Okay. Just turn up here. That’s all you have to do.”

  She squinted and pressed herself closer to the windshield as the turn approached. The green street sign came into view, and she maneuvered onto Chelsea.

  The guardhouse that kept the riffraff out of The Haven at Montclair Heights was empty, but she wheeled up to the gate, punched in her code, and the boom barrier lifted.

  Her throat was dry, and her hands shook with that old familiar palsy. Anxiety, she guessed. The entire day had been a disaster. Anyone would be shaking if they’d been accosted like she had.

  The car lurched forward into the parking lot. A loud crack and a pop sent her bolting upright. The rearview mirror smashed against the brick of the guard house as she drove in.

  “Motherfucker!”

  She turned the wheel. Wires and glass dangled as she pulled into the parking lot. She found a spot near the entrance to her building, put the car in park, and slumped into her seat.

  “You know what? I’m not even going to worry about this shit tonight. I’m too fucking tired.”

  She grabbed her purse, took the key out of the ignition, and got out. Her legs felt heavy as she wobbled, feet t
hrobbing, to the entrance. Her head buzzed as if electricity sizzled beneath her hair. A clean, sterile hallway led her to a silver elevator. She climbed in and slouched against the mirrored wall. Her knees buckled at the movement of the elevator. She couldn’t bear to look at herself.

  The elevator dinged, and she stumbled down the hall to her apartment. She unlocked the door and walked into a suffocating silence. Her furniture was outlined in negative in the dark.

  “Alexa, turn on the lights.”

  The space glared against the recessed lighting. Everything was red, black, or white, and antiseptic clean.

  She walked to the bank of windows that overlooked the city. Manhattan twinkled in the distance. Low clouds drifted, clearing in spots to display stars. She caught her reflection and put a hand to her head. She’d very nearly gotten her ass kicked, and her hands quaked at the memory of that woman. Tori had never met anyone who looked at her that way. The space between her eyebrows had been a deep V. Spittle flew from her lips as she’d yelled at Tori. She put a finger to her chin to dab a long-evaporated droplet at the thought.

  Wasn’t it enough that her life was falling apart? What did this woman really want from her? Blood?

  Acid gurgled in her belly, and the anxious burn that had tormented her every night as she waited for Rollie to can her returned. The silence raised bumps on her flesh. Never mind the visions. Those were harmless nightmares she could awake from and shake off like a fog. This Perez woman was a real threat, so bent on revenge that she might come around and hurt her.

  The bottles on the wet bar glimmered. The warm brown of the Jameson’s made the saliva percolate at the sides of her jaws.

  She walked to the bar and clutched the whiskey. The heavy glass bottle slipped from her grip and shattered against the hardwood floor. A wedge of glass gouged her foot, and she knelt, a constellation of shattered bottle around her. Bits of glass scraped at her kneecaps. She put a bloodied hand to her mouth and sobs built up in her chest. The tears wouldn’t come out, but animal noises escaped from deep in her gut, distraught and terrified.