I was murdered. On a Monday. Like these things tend to do. There wasn’t a reason. Which is rather what you want.

It was a surprise. For me. The guy who did it, I think he knew going in.

I wish I could say I was doing something exciting when it happened. Going out in a glory blaze, all sweet and selfless, saving the world from peril, a death stark and mighty. Even something kinky would be fine.

But, no.

What I was doing was getting a bagel.

I was trying to eat more wheat. And veggies. And fruit. Passing thirty, my plumping ass was expanding like dough itself, double yeast, and I was not going to buy another pair of pants. I didn’t even get a bite of the stupid bagel, but still…ugh. Fiber. I died for fiber. Come on. Lovely, you only eat fiber so you can get old.

Aside from my bloody murder, my life wasn’t interesting, and my death day was just spiked with same. Too many spooks and not enough sugar. And another fight with my mother.

Standing in a dank hall, squishing on stripped carpet that reeked of furnace oil and shit, I waited on a search warrant. Apartment three-oh-two was getting the spook from three-oh-one, and was withholding rent until she got an end to it. She was a nice enough lady, very sorry she had to call us in, but she hadn’t slept in weeks. She was so tired that her speech slurred. She was bloated with it, the skin of her face scary pale and frogging. There were bruises, from cracking walls or furniture, and she had a nasty nick that gave her a second eyebrow over her right eye.

We did the standard four-oh-seven interview and checklist.

She gave me a cookie and some nutmeg tea.

That was my last meal; I should have spent more time chewing.

I was back in the hall, finishing my last sip, and, while it still burned, I flipped the servo into the bin.

And cringed when it didn’t thud and ring.

I looked over, and, of course, there was mother-dear, the servo clutched in her grinning teeth.

“You really should recycle,” she scolded, in cheer. “I did!” She laughed, clapping her hands in shuddering glee.

The autopsy thread was stark, puckering against her pale grey skin, the classic Y in neat whipstitch. I didn’t want to look at it, but my eyes shined it just the same. She was naked, of course, and I fought to keep my bloodshot stare strictly above the needlework.

“Mom,” I said, even. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“Oh, get in the hole. Get in the hole. That’s just like a man.”

I threw up in my mouth. More than a little.

My mother had died years ago, but she wouldn’t go away. This was pretty embarrassing, given the field I was in. Since her body was salted, she borrowed others. She refused to admit this was a problem.

“Mom,” I sighed, “you have to go.”

“No.” She crossed her stolen arms.

I flicked my fingers, and she winked out.

Mags came around the corner. My foot kicked, like a cramp, wanting to fling some trash. She knew what was there, or rather who, and she waited, listening, testing what I would do.

My arms crossed over my chest, holding my bitter tea in, and I snipped, “Papers?”

“Got ‘em.” She pulled a portfolio from her coat and handed it over. I signed for it, and then used the key the landlord had given me.

The apartment was simple and small. A perfect mirror of next door, with four rooms in a skewed cross.

It was cramped with a theme of dusty plaid, and smelled like burnt oranges and rotting sinks.

I put my hand against the cool blue drywall. It was rough and lumpy, the acrylic paint thin and gobbed, done on the cheap, if not cheaply.

“Feel anything?” Mags muttered.

I shook my head, picked up my hand, and placed it a little farther down the wall. Another headshake.

It’s slow, itching and bitching slow, but it works. I was about halfway through the kitchen, my splayed hand between an outlet and a floral crock pot, when I nodded.

Mags moved in.

She reached into the wall, her hand swirling like she was stirring clotted batter, and pulled out Mrs. Myra Blaggins, pinched between her fingers and hanging as limp as an old coat.

Or a stretched sweater.

“Mrs. Blaggins,” I said, shaking my head at the spectre. “I’m sorry, but these are your eviction papers.” I handed over the yellow form, keeping the original white for the records.

The spectre snatched the papers, her scowl transforming. She shook them, and then her scowl came back, harder. She glared from one inspectre to the other. She shook the sheaf again, “Burn, damn you, burn.”

“It won’t,” I explained, polite. “It was pulped with salt.”

Swelling, Mrs. Blaggins opened her mouth, and Mags flicked her fingers, palm up.

The spectre was disappeared, winking out, permanently, before she could protest.

“Mags!”

“What?” she scoffed, stretching her shoulder. “She’s already been given her walking papers, Pelly. What the fuck you expect?”

“Decency,” I snarled.

A shrug. “She’s dead. That’s past decent.”

My hand tightened on the pen, hard enough that I heard something crack.

“We should salt ‘em all,” Mags whisked though her teeth, flicking the wall. “Just for sure.”

I stabbed into paper, filling out forms in triplicate.

We did thirteen evictions by lunch, eleven of them on Branal. We finished up at Dekay Manor, the local flop house for spooks.

If your home and your death site were salted, you had to go somewhere new. Walking, not winking. The newly dead liked the name. And, oh, a Manor. That sounded classy and ominous. Of course, the long dead wouldn’t be caught dead there. It was too easy, too slumming.

We were always at the Manor. Mrs. Swan wouldn’t have the doorways salted; she swore her brother would drop by, and she wouldn’t have him kept out. The door stays open for family.

He had been dead for forty years.

I had tried to tell her, gentle, that really good reasons for missing a visit were gone at a year, at best the first decade or so, but she had faith, crusty and sharp. We could salt it when she was dead.

(Actually, we couldn’t, her will said so.)

So, she had spooks plenty, and none of them were relatives. Yet.

I was back up on Sowo, crossing the street to Starchy’s, my mind on choking down twelve kinds of grain, when something hit my back. It hurt, and I fell down, dropping on a knee as my nerves panicked, throwing pain everywhere in their terror. Something struck the other side of my back, and I was down on my face, making noise, a terrible kind of squealing squeak as I tried to scream and breathe.

Having committed to crossing the street, my body tried to keep its promise, clawing along, as pain thumped again and again into my back. I didn’t wonder what was happening, or roll over, or make any sort of pleas or promises. I just thought hurts, hurts, hurts…and I was dead.

I winked in.

Looking down at my body. There was a man over it, and he was cutting at it. The knife went in and out like he was coring an apple. It even sounded kind of like that, but there was more blood. My blood. He had turned me on my back, and it’s so profoundly weird, staring down into your face, and it’s not a reflection.

I was glad I couldn’t feel what he was doing. It looked plenty painful. But it was still horrible to see it happen. It’s your body. Even though you can’t feel a thing, it’s like…watching someone you love die. But worse.

My corpse was getting violated in a Starchy’s parking lot, at lunchtime, and no one was yelling, or crying, or stopping him. They ordered their twelve grains and moved on.

Butter me pissed.

I screamed and kicked at him, and my foot went through his head. Not in the good way, no, but like my foot wasn’t there. I doubt that even gave him a headache. So, my murderer was ignoring me too. Not for long.

I crossed my arms, and winked out.

It really is like winking, as if you close your eyes to blink, and when you open them you’re somewhere else.

I popped out next to Mags.

She had a mouth of coffee and it spewed at me. It didn’t feel hot, but I saw it bounce. A spectre always acts on objects, that act on it.

“Fuck!” she said.

“He murdered me, Mags! Murdered me!” I like to get right to the point.

She blotted her mouth with the back of her hand. “So?”

I wanted to grab her hideous old lady lace collar and shake it. “Mags!”

She raised her hand.

“He plucked out my eyes and is fucking my eyes sockets!” I screamed so hard, I felt the veins bulge in my head. Confusing, that.

Her hand turned over, palm up.

I winked out before I was disappeared.

Yippee fucking skippy.

I winked back to my body. Of course. I clamped my eyes tight and thrashed my fists over them. Okay, he was…just making a fruit salad. A really juicy—oh, hurk—fruit salad. I fell to my knees. Didn’t hurt at all. That would be handy.

Okay. Roll over. No. Yes. No.

I clenched as tight as I could and rolled. I was on my back, part of me certainly spread where bits of my body might be; I was never going to look to be sure. I was gagging and hyperventilating. It didn’t matter at all that both my stomach and my lungs were dead meat, not even part of the same skin sac anymore.

Shut up.

I flung my arms, opening my eyes before I could pussy out.

Fuck.

His face was right above me. He was really sweating—a tough salad, hearty greens—and it was dripping onto my face. My spook face. My real face, my dead face probably wasn’t…

I shuddered and put my hands over my mouth. My arms passed through his head when I did it, and I cringed, even though he didn’t seem to feel a thing. He didn’t seem to see me either, what was left of me. The spook me.

I stared into his sweaty flesh, playing Memory with his face. I know a violent sociopath doesn’t have to look scary, but he had wedge glasses and a cap cut. He looked like he designed forms in triplicate, and he was smiling.

So…yeah, kind of scary.

I winked out, or tried to. My apartment pulled up in my mind, but it wouldn’t focus, like blobs of paint that couldn’t be brushed together.

Mags had already salted my apartment.

Frantic, I started flipping places in my mind. My office, salted. Crawly’s, salted. The park…

I winked to the park. Inspectres would be looking for me. I could be disappeared by any of them, paperwork or no. Nervously sidling up to a tree, I stood in it.

I never expected to be a spook. Oh, I expected to die. Come on, I’m seeing dead people every day. I’m not stupid. But I didn’t expect…this. I was in breach of contract!

Inspectres don’t just have the usual confidentiality clause, we agree to stay dead. But, I didn’t. It wasn’t on purpose. I don’t think. But the salty doesn’t care about innocent.

Mags would be looking for my body. There were only so many places I would lunch. And when she found it…

I winked again.

I came out to stainless steel. All over. In cupboards and counters, like a kitchen. A really creepy one. Also, pricey.

The smudged glint of metal hazed in the dark. I went for the corner, groping in the black like a fool.

I wasn’t going to be stubbing toes or tripping anymore.

The corner was best because they got to it last. It was blocked by the rolling file cabinets, the backup lights, and the instrument trays. They got the shove here to make more room.

I went to yank them out of the way, and swished through them a couple of times like they were water.

Aw, crap.

Okay, I was having a hard time remembering I was ethereal. Strike ‘quick to adapt’ from my résumé.

I swung into the cabinets, or rather mostly through them. That got me up front with the wall of metal tote trays. I twisted my head hard away from the penned tag. Not that I could read it in the black, but the idea of it—of this—made me sick.

I shoved my cringing hand through the drawer.

A body is like a cup of tea. When you dump out the soul, there’s a ring left behind. Just a bit of residue. A bit of spook.

Dregs.

My hand felt cold, then bitten numb and prickly. My fingers tried to waggle it off, and it went into a burn, searing up my arm and cracking into my shoulder, knocking me back.

Stumbling and swearing, I curled around the pain, hugging arm into chest as tears cut my eyes.

I stomped around for a good while chanting fuck, fuck, fuck; it was the only thing to do to.

When I stopped, I had to open my eyes.

I looked down at arms that weren’t mine. The arms were small and thin, pale, and nearly hairless. Beneath them were breasts. Almost. And—

I looked back up.

Okay.

I was a girl.

They hadn’t cut me yet; I didn’t have the autopsy Y—

With a squealing puff, the room cut a wedge of pale grey.

I was wearing a dress, deep green and red plaid, I think, trimmed with frills. I’d guess a nightgown, maybe.

There was a lot of red that wasn’t plaid.

My hand curled into a fist, and crunched tighter when it remembered it couldn’t punch something.

I leaned back over into the metal. The tag was blocked with #72SDM101, and, underneath that in a sloppy squiggle, Sylvia Molen.

When I tipped back on my heels, I saw the reflection. I expected not to be there, but I was, dull and hazed. My hands came up, but couldn’t touch. No.

About half of Sylvia’s head was beaten away.

The coroner shoved a gurney into me, uffing when it bounced off, whapping into his stomach. He wouldn’t see me. He’d just think he shoved too hard and hit the shelving.

I lolled my head his way, and then wondered if it would drip. Grotesque, I know.

But my head didn’t feel lighter, or my body smaller. It felt like me, no matter what it looked like. But when Starchy’s was salted, I could still wink.

For a while.

It wasn’t the coroner driving the gurney. It was one of his underlings, Dave. A meat minder. They let him push the dead around, roll them, lift them, but that was about it. I don’t think he was even trusted to hose them down. Not that he was a tit, or even half of one, just…we’re real careful of the dead.

I stepped through Dave and shuffled out of the morgue.

Ugh.

I’d become my mother.

Don’t look. It was the easiest thing to remember. But I did. I had to.

The hall was filled with the Big Board, and I stepped up, scrolling and swearing. Sylvia’s lot was branded, not in scrawl, but in stencil.

Natural.

Case closed.

How interesting. A natural cause that beats your brains out. That has to be rare.

I closed my eyes. It was just a loaner, like borrowing a cup of sugar. Little Syl wasn’t my job or my problem. I had the end of problems. The ultimate.

Mostly.

Fuck.

Bet the bippy my mother never had borrower’s guilt.

Frowning into my crackling nightgown, I took a walk. A long one, moving would keep my imprint low.

The sky chipped away to sombre black, smoking with the ashes of snow that hissed down in frenzy. It was cold. And I was cold.

But not like I should be.

I huddled in an archway, feeling like a little girl lost. I glared up at the stars, and got snow in my eye. The other eye got meat.

The building had it branded in its side, seared in blackened letters the size of cattle. And the shape.

Ew.

Biting down, I flipped the card in my mind, calling up Mr. Fresh Greens.

I winked.

I came up in…confusion. What I saw was a haze, muted and dull, all crept in smudges and swirls. Worse, my confusion had a damask.

It was a shroud.

I could see beyond it, a filmed blur of lumps and shadows, like a woozy bride frowning through a veil. Mine was a grey kind of blue, rather dingy.

I can say this on reflection. In the moment, I was thrashing and squealing like I’d woken from a nap swathed in duct tape. No matter how much I swung, I didn’t so much as poke a thread out of stitch. I did manage to trip though, on myself, and that stepped me out from behind the drapes.

Maybe they got a puff of billow.

A wiggle.

Something.

Curtains are scary when you’re inside of them, and I didn’t know I could wink to innards without meaning to, and I was right there, staring right at Mr. Greens’ elbow, when the horror tromped to the front of my skull and kicked. Could I wink inside Mr. Greens?

I tasted vomit.

And I knew, full well, I didn’t have vomit anymore, and I told myself that.

Twice.

Didn’t help.

Vom again.

Scowling, I looked past Greenie’s elbow. I didn’t really care to. He was probably eating fingers or something. Likely mine. His hands were busy, yes. Snick-snicking with some kind of tool. I frowned for a bit as it popped and punched. It was some kind of hooking needle. He was jabbing it in and out of a wedge of netting, knotting bits of ragged yarn into place.

The snip inside his fingers was bright orange, and orange again, and another.

I twisted more to look.

He was making a puppy, an orange puppy, with loppy ears, and enormous haunted eyes. It was missing its lower jaw.

But only because he hadn’t looped it yet.

You think you know a guy.

I glanced around, now expecting doilies—hand tatted—to add a festive flair to any displays of decapitation.

Nope.

Nothing bloody.

But enough stitching to cross any heart.

How did he find the time?

Even the switches had cozies. There was braiding on the cords. And a tower had a candle with a teared diamond point lace matte wrap.

Now, that was just crazy.

I took a pace, and stumbled by a fridge festooned with magnets. Knitted. The top ones were little bloomers, with pantaloons peeking out of the bottom hems. They were holding up a fresh notepad that beamed ‘While You Were Out’.

I could just kill myself.

Ha.

I paced for a while. Sat for a bit. Played with my fingers. Greenie tied up the dog and went into it with a kitten—a kitten with a butterfly on its nose. Its eyes were crossed.

The kitten’s.

I tapped my toes through a wriggling bunny, rolling in a salad of lettuce.

He was starting another one, two dogs curled in a heart, when he put the blunt needle through his thumb.

It went up the centre of the pad and out by the nail.

The dogs went red.

Oh, there was blood aplenty.

And cursing.

Getting up, he managed to twist his wringing hands and there was a crack, then a scream, as he lunged forward in trip. I think that’s when he split his scalp.

Imprints are…nasty.

He managed to rinse off his hand, but not without giving himself a good scalding. Stumbling around the kitchen, he stubbed his toes. Twice. The second time, the joints made an awful crack. Or maybe it was the bones.

I kept on him while he limped off to bed.

His bedroom was also decked in modes of grandmother. Sweets of floral, twining etching, figurines festooned with doily dresses.

And the bed had a grand weighted lace canopy.

I was staring at one of its crisp four points, when I noticed the knife and popped my focus.

It was small and unimposing. Plain, it had a delicate shape, more like a scalpel or letter opener. It had a crisp silver shine, though it could have been some other metal.

I wondered if, perhaps deep in the handle, it still had my blood on it.

Folding myself onto the floor, cozied right next to the polished nightstand, I poked at the knife.

Nothing.

But I had all night. There was plenty of poking to be done. A while in, I got bored, and began to alternate with poking Greenie. It had the same no-effect. Still, even though I didn’t need to touch him to mess him up, there was a hope that it made the imprint worse. But, honestly, it would have felt much better to just pick up the knife and put it in his back.

Don’t think you wouldn’t.

A pacifist is just some who hasn’t been put in the right position yet. Sure, maybe you think you would never kill for you. But would you let someone else die? Many someones? You don’t know.

Existential questions are a bother when you can’t sleep. I wondered what stabbed Greenie’s mind. He kept thrashing about like he was on a bed of needles. Or like those pink rose sheets had thorns.

By the time he gave up and thrashed out of bed, I thought I’d made the knife wiggle once, maybe even got the tink of metal against my nail. I wasn’t wholly sure if it was practice or presence that let these things work, but I had little to do but to try rapping the walls or closing a door. Fire would be fun, shame that one seemed to take a bit. Knowing I was causing a chill was hardly as satisfying.

I did not watch Greenie eat his breakfast. Because, yeah, I didn’t want to see what he cut into. Hearing him chew, I got a smacking picture of my peeled faced on toast, with eyeball garnish, and I had to cough through a hearty bout of retching.

I wondered what Greenie did for a living. It couldn’t be selling handmade knicky-knacks. People weren’t willing to pay enough to cover materials, let alone labour. He’d be blessed to pull in cents on the hour.

My guess?

Butcher.

He was getting dressed, into a uniform of sorts. Crisp white shirt, grey suit. Lighter grey tie. He went to a tiny cabinet on the top of his dresser, palmed through its lower drawer, and pulled out something that he pinned to his breast. Something red. I leaned in for a look. It was a…tatted apple.

He screamed as he took a twist wrong and racked the needle into his chest.

Wonder if he was up on his shots?

Hmm, probably. A hazard of the blades and all.

He didn’t get out the door without cracking his knee, hard, into it first. Hard enough that the swirled paneling of the door cracked too.

That had to leave a mark.

I didn’t have to worry about imprinting on the crowd. Because Greenie flew at a pace that had me winking ahead to keep up. We ended up out on a fringe of wilted shrubbery, and my stomach flipped around my spine as I realised:

He was heading for the school.

Oh, not good. Really not good.

I stepped in front of him. I tried to pull a trip, a shove, anything.

But I was still useless. I could make him clumsy and sleepless. That was all I had. Not enough.

“Hey Palmer!” That one came with a huge cheery smile.

They knew him.

Oh, no.

When he wasn’t cleaving meat from bones, Greenie was a teacher.

I winked home. His home. I couldn’t loiter around a classroom. I didn’t need to perk up my day by imprinting forty kids into disaster.

The good news was his knife was on the stand. I spent a lively day poking.

By the time the door thumped him home, I had spun the knife around. Twice.

Greenie came in the room, clawing his tie off with hand, reaching for metal with the other. Trading noose for blade.

Oh.

Uh-oh.

Action.

As he tucked the knife in his pocket, I circled him scowling nervously, like I was pulled in and swirling a sucking drain. My orbit followed him out to the walk, and I jerked and shook it off, stopping in front of him, my hands at his chest.

He shivered.

I kept just in front on his pace, not touching, not shoving, yet.

It was hard not to look behind me. Even knowing I couldn’t trip, couldn’t bump, couldn’t—

Habit stays with you, even long after a change. And it wasn’t long at all really.

He kept touching the knife, stroking it. Like it was…Well, let’s just say he was very…affectionate.

I shivered, my tongue feeling thick in my throat as I gagged.

My middle was cramping, and I fought the urge to hug away the pain. I needed to—

Greenie tripped, and my hand popped a lever.

As simple as that. I reached out and pulled down, just a tiny tug, and mechanical action brought the other end up.

So, as little Greenie took a spook header, he went down into his own knife. Hard.

He lay there, and he wasn’t quiet about it. He was screaming for help, but, you know, I think I was the only one who would ever answer.

Leaning down, I put my hand through him. It was a bit harder than a wall. But not enough. I spun my wrist, and pinched.

I pulled.

He was still screaming even as I held him up like a dirty shirt. Well, the spook him was screaming. The other? Not so much.

“Help me!” he blubbered.

I smiled.

“He—Hel—” He choked, his face crunching oddly.

Maybe it was because I turned my head and leaned in so he could get a nose of the gaping hole there. “No more bagels for you,” I said.

His head was shaking back and forth now, his mouth moving like his tongue was a filthy rag shoved down to gag him.

“I’m dead, so you’re dead.” I said, even. “That’s fair.”

He was still shaking, all baffled denial. I rolled my eyes and pointed down with cheerful pecks of my finger.

His head lolled low, over his corpse, and then he started screaming again.

“It’s fair,” I repeated. “But, I’m not.”

I put my hand out, palm up, and flicked.

He was disappeared.

Hmm. I’d never done that without papers. Wasn’t even sure a spectre could do it at all. A spectre inspectre.

Heh.

I frowned down at his meat. Rotten, that.

Well, now.

These hands, might last for a while yet. I looked down at them, so small. And I rolled below, at the blood spattered nightgown.

So much blood. And pain.

Natural.

I flexed my wrist, watching my palm fold in my fist.

Syl’s parents needed a little visit.

Just a bit.

# # #

Bagels and Blood by Marlo Dianne
originally published February 3, 2010