Page 61 of The Accidental Ghost

She couldn’t wrap her head around how she could’ve helped him the night he’d murdered her. “Michael, what did you want that night? How could I have helped you?”

Michael lifted his face, letting his head fall back on his shoulders as though he were in agony when he wailed, “I needed money! I needed it bad, but you wouldn’t give it to me.”

How random did it get? How had he decided he’d rob her, of all people, after all these years? How had they crossed paths after all this time?

Frowning, she kept her tone gentle and calm. “Talk to me, Michael. I don’t understand why after all these years, you sought me out for money?”

He scoffed in her face, spittle forming in the corners of his mouth. “Call it fucking luck. Call it karma, call it whatever the fuck you want, but your promise stuck with me. I saw one of the flyers for your store with your picture on it, and I remembered you. They were hanging all over the place, and I thought, Ms. Tucci will help me. Pretty Ms. Tucci. The teacher who a long time ago promised to help me if I just told her what was wrong—where I got all those fucking bruises. So I paid you a little visit. But you didn’t help me at all!”

In his drug-addled brain, he’d somehow translated a promise made years ago to her giving him money for drugs…

She felt herself beginning to fade, his voice becoming muted, but she couldn’t afford to black out now, not when someone was coming to take her off to Hell.

Blinking, Ralph tried to focus on his insane rant, keep herself aware, at least try and fight back. “But I didn’t help you? Why didn’t I help you, Michael?”

His face went ugly, distorted. “You said you weren’t going to let me get high with the money. Sure, you offered to help, but it sure as fuck wasn’t the help I needed. You wouldn’t give me the money in the cash register!”

Like a bad dream, that night suddenly came into view—crystal clear, crashing into her head with the clarity of a television screen.

She’d been unpacking some boxes of inventory when the bell on her shop door rang. One of those boxes held Nina’s velvet painting of Elvis. She’d been looking at it when she heard the bell.

Michael had been almost hysterical when he’d burst through the door of her shop, pacing, crying, desperate and sweaty, clearly on some kind of drugs. He’d ordered her to open the cash register, to give him all her cash. He’d ranted that she’d once promised to help him, and he was going to force her to make good on that promise.

Ralph hadn’t recognized him as he babbled, his words about some promise she’d allegedly made scrambled and unclear. But she had recognized he was completely wasted and in need of another fix. She’d begged him to let her call someone, but he’d become so agitated, he’d pulled a gun from his jacket and started waving it around.

Now that she remembered, Ralph would never again forget what she’d done next.

The utility knife still in her hand, she’d told him there was nothing in the cash register, but he’d flat-out refused to believe her.

He’d come at her like a raging bull, the gun aimed right at her. They’d fought, scuffled, and she’d reacted, trying to keep the gun away from her, slashing at him to keep him at bay, begging him to stop—and then he’d pulled the trigger.

Ralph groaned at the memory of the hot burst of pain in her chest, at the crack of her head against the hard floor when she fell.

Swallowing, Ralph looked into his eyes, glazed, hot with anguish and fury. “Look at me, Michael. I didn’t remember you that night. I’m sorry I didn’t remember you, but you’re a fully grown man now. Please, let’s stop this, and I’ll help you now.”

“Noooo!” he bellowed in her face. “Fuck no! It’s too late! I didn’t mean to shoot you, Ms. Tucci. I swear, it was an accident. But now he’s coming, and he promised if I gave you to him to take to Hell, he’d give me my fix. Said he’d give me all the fixes. The best fix ever, and I’m not gonna let you fuck that up again!”

She strained to look around to see if anyone had arrived to do this dirty deed Michale spoke of, but there was no one. Nothing but the glow of the inside of the light.

“Who is coming?” she asked, her terror rising like high tide.

“Me!” a disembodied voice roared. “I’m coming!”

“I told you he’d come,” Michael said, his words rife with sarcasm.

Out of a shimmering hole in the light, a form appeared.

A form with horns.

And a tail.

Did she say horns?

And a tail?

“Are you fucking kidding me? Glow Stick wasn’t supposed to be a ghost at all? She was supposed to go straight to psychopomp, do not pass fucking go? She really was an accident?”

George nodded, her glossy hair shining under Nina’s kitchen lights. “That’s right. When Ralph was dying, she touched that painting of Elvis you love so much, which was on the floor of her shop. Your supernatural-fu is strong, Vampire Lady. Like, you crossed realms and planes with your charms. Somehow, some heavenly signals were crossed, and when this kid Michael showed up, guess who approached him and made him promises they’ll never keep?”

---