Page 6 of Down and Dirty

Chapter 4

After my CT scan, they moved me out of the small ER to a room on another floor.

I wasn’t complaining. There were no more traumas on this floor, like in the emergency room where spirits were walking the halls, dazed, and desperate to return to the land of the living. This floor was more peaceful with less death.

The nurse had checked my vitals before showing me to the restroom and the sterile shower. She handed me a pair of hospital scrubs and a packet of toiletries that a hotel would give you if you’d forgotten yours. “I’m going to leave the door cracked and be right outside just in case.”

My overripe stink could be a candidate for the body odor hall of fame. The gunk at the landfill clung to my pores, not to mention my arms were covered in dirt, grime, and scratches.

I stepped into the shower and washed from head to toe and still wasn’t able to get out the smell that was branded in my nostrils. I was never going to be clean again. I held my head under the showerhead as steam danced around the small space. My hands pressed into the cold tile walls.

She’d looked like Talia. Tears gathered in my eyes as the hope was yanked out from under me. She’d looked so much like Talia.

Anger mixed with despair. How could Fillpot have given us hope?

A tear slipped free and then two while my body shook with my sobs. Sobs for the sister I’d never see again.

I dried off, erasing as best I could the grief I’d thought long gone. My red bloodshot eyes weren’t as easy to disguise. After dressing, I stepped out into the room. Gwen was sitting cross-legged in the middle of my hospital bed with the phone pressed to her ear.

“Where’d the nurse go?”

Gwen covered the speaker with her hand and answered. “There was some type of code, so I told her I’d listen out for you.”

“Who are you talking to?”

She held it out the phone and lifted a brow. “Someone who won’t believe me that you’re okay. She needs to hear your voice.”

“Who is it?”

“Who do you think would know when one of us was in trouble?”

I took the phone and lifted it to my ears. “Grams?”

“Faith dear, are you okay?”

“Uh…yeah. How did you know I might not be?”

“I’m your grandmother. I know all,” she said. “But I have to ask...what in the world were you thinking of going to the town dump looking for your sister, who you already know is dead.”

Her voice was stoically calm. She’d been that way as we were growing up, and we’d tested her resolve many times. She had her worry nailed down to a refined art form.

“The ghost asked me to find her, and she looked like Talia,” I offered as an excuse. “I had to go. You know what happens when I ignore their pleas.”

“Yes, dear. They get louder, more insistent,” she answered. “But we taught you how to deal with that. Do I need to send you some more salt?”

My lip twisted into a grin. “Are you going to steal it from the retirement home’s kitchen?”

My question made Gwen laugh.

“Don’t be smart, dear. I can just order it online like everything else these days.”

“Right. Grams, I’m fine, and I have plenty of salt. Thank you for asking and checking up on me.”

We said our goodbyes, and I handed Gwen back her phone. “You could have told her I was resting.”

“You could have waited on us to go with you,” she shot back. Her statement was accusatory. Her gaze felt like my mother’s when I’d been caught talking to the spirits.

“I had to know,” I said, slipping onto the bed with my sister. “The woman isn’t our Talia. She’s a doppelganger. Jimbo told me her name is Ann Scott, and she’s thirty-four.”

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