address.
A red and black website featured her friend in compromising positions. After getting over her initial shock, Meryl scrolled through. Beneath video prices was yet another link. This one opened a page filled with pictures of her friend in fairy costumes for high prices, each flooded with comments.
“Keep waitressing,” Meryl said with a scoff. Opening a fresh tab, she leaned close. “No. I need a website.”
Minutes later, she’d posted photos of every one of her still-life paintings online, pricing them in the twenties. That done, she put the links to them everywhere, ready for customers. When a week went by with no movement, she cracked her knuckles.
“Time to bring out the big guns,” she said, unloading her special paints from under her worktable.
For the next day, she shut herself in her room and painted. As images of horses, the ocean, and hills formed on the canvas, the paints she’d used brought them all to life. Manes blew in the wind. Foam sprayed the air. Flowers bloomed, and faded back into the grass. Even better, they kept their motion after she photographed them.
Glowing, she posted their pictures online in place of her old ones, and updated all her links.
After a day, the comments flooded in. People praised her, but no one bought anything. And then, someone posted a link to a site she’d never seen before.
She clicked on it, and her blood froze. Two of her living paintings danced in an ad for getaway resorts. No one had been listed as their creator.
Taking a deep breath, she screamed into a pillow. It took her five minutes to stop fuming, and open up her email. After sending the ad owners a thank you for featuring her living work, she listed them as examples of clients on her website. Within minutes of updating the link across the web, an email pinged in her mailbox—with Rach’s name on it.
“Looks like I was wrong,” it read. “Can I get a quote?”
Meryl grinned.
HER VOICE
Her parents still argued at the table down the hall, debating whether she was feeling alone, or lonely.
“Shut up!” she said, her voice fading as she lost it from hours of explaining herself. She raced into her bedroom, and slammed the door.
The quiet hummed in her ears. It reminded her that, even after trying to connect with her parents, she was still alone. Once her eyes adjusted, she crashed back onto her enormous bed. The frame squeaked, and then let out an all too-human whimper.
She shot off the bed, grabbing her bronze golfing trophy off a shelf on the wall. “Who’s there?” she asked, shaking from head to foot.
A woman in a formal blue dress crawled out. Mascara stained her cheeks as she huddled on the floor, wrapping rail-thin arms around her legs. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered.
“I-I won’t,” the girl said, glancing at the windows in between watching the woman on the floor. She couldn’t help wishing her parents weren’t all the way at the other end of the house. She backed towards the door. “I—um—wh-who are you?”
The woman’s eyes welled up. “I’m Lonely. W-will you stay with me?”
The girl rubbed her fingertips together. She itched to grab the door handle, but her body moved slowly. “I—uh—I don’t know. Maybe?”
The woman’s eyes lit up like dim flashlights. Rolling onto her knees, she started crawling over. The girl’s mouth went dry. Unable to look away, she groped for the door, trying not to scream.
“Thank you,” the woman whispered. Her dress made “shh”ing noises as one leg slid after the other. “So, so much.”
“I’ll go get my parents,” the girl said, finally wrenching the door open.
The sight of the hallway, and the kitchen light at the end, filled her with relief. She took a step, and a bony hand grabbed her ankle. It pulled her back, knocking her onto her stomach. Her crash gave way to a dead silence. For a second, she hoped her parents were listening.
The hand disappeared from her ankle to grab her waist, hauling her into the air. Limbs flying, she kicked and screamed. Chairs scraped down the hall, but as her parents’ footfalls grew closer, the door slammed shut.
Hands became arms, wrapping themselves around the girl’s stomach. They held her close to the woman’s bony body as she marched the girl through the room. At the bed, she dropped them both to the ground, rolling them into the twice-darkened space. The odor of carpet chemicals, and empty winter nights, pressed in on them from all sides.
The girl screamed again. Two seconds in, a cold hand brushed her throat, and her voice disappeared
Choking, the girl squirmed harder, but the woman’s arms held steady.
“I’ll give back your voice if you stay with me,” she whispered.
Outside, her parents’ footsteps thundered down the hall. The girl slammed her head back into the woman’s throat. She screamed, but her voice died as the girl’s returned with a squeak. Running from the room, she launched herself into her parents’ arms.
“Don’t leave me alone again,” she whispered, shaking.
Ghostly Tears
I woke up, and wondered why the ceiling light was getting closer.
Flailing, I cried out, trying to shove myself back. Right before I crashed into the frosted glass dome, I fell.
Only, the ground didn’t rise up to meet me. I wouldn’t have even known I’d stopped if I hadn’t looked down. And if I hadn’t looked down, I wouldn’t have noticed that I wasn’t in my body anymore. The girl I was—and now sat on top of, like a chair—lay motionless, and gray, and was surrounded by the teary faces of my family.
“What the hell?” I asked.
“How could she be dead?” my mom asked my dad, like I hadn’t spoken. By the sound of it, she’d been asking this question for a while. In the corner, my boyfriend covered his mouth—the very mouth I’d dreamed was kissing me in that special place not a minute before.
If I’d been in my body, my hands would’ve been shaking. I sniffled hard, and then it hit me: ghosts can’t cry.
Or can they?
People made up stories on TV all the time about how they’d seen, or heard, or experienced weird things in haunted places. Things had gone flying, or someone had spoken. Some people got touched.
Well, I figured, my house wasn’t haunted before. But it sure as hell is now.
I glanced at my bedside table, where a gum container sat with its top open. A peek inside showed me it was still half-full. My hand shot out, but my fingers went right through. If I’d had a working heart, it would’ve skipped several beats. My arms would’ve gone cold. I tried to pick up the container again.
My whole hand slipped over it, like I wasn’t even there.
“No,” I whispered. At the end of my bed, my parents sobbed harder, louder.
Getting up, I flew around the room, arms wind-milling like mad. Not a single poster shifted, not a feather on the end of any of my pens fluttered in the breeze. Tears I couldn’t shed worked themselves up behind my eyes, cinching my throat closed.
“No,” I whispered again. I caught my boyfriend sliding down the wall, about to collapse on the floor, and tried to put my arms around him. Just like with the glass, I fell right through. If I’d been in my body, I would’ve tumbled into him.
He shivered once, hard, and sucked back snot. Pushing himself to his feet, he moved away, blinking tears from his red eyes.
“No!” I said, scrambling after him. He left the room first. My mom hurried after him with a sob, followed by my dad. He tried to keep one hand on her back, but she moved too fast.
“No!” I shrieked, diving for the door.
They didn’t turn around. They didn’t even appear to hear me. As I followed them out, something forced me to a stop—some sort of invisible wall keeping me in my room.
“No,” I whispered, and then rounded on my body.
Something has to be done.
I dived, pounding on my lungs. For once, my hands didn’t go through. “Come on,” I said. A tear fell from my eye, disappearing into my corpse’s arm. ??
?Come on!”
Like a vacuum, I was sucked me back into my body. Coughing, I vomited out a wad of gum. I shuddered as my body came back to life, gasping for air. In the other room, everyone screamed.
I didn’t care. I was just glad to be back.
Dedication
For Nick, who makes me feel safe, especially when my world’s imploding.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Holly Lisle’s free workshop, How to Write Flash Fiction that Doesn’t SUCK!, these stories, and many more, now exist. If you have any interest at all in writing, or becoming a better writer, I highly recommend it…and all of her courses. I might be a Holly Lisle loyalist. It’s for a good reason.
Share the Love
I want to thank so much for buying this book! If you enjoyed it, please leave a review for future readers, and recommend it to your friends, family, and any other readers you know:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14553996.C_L_Mannarino
As an independent author, your support and feedback will help me write more books that you enjoy. Thank you.
About the Author
C.L. Mannarino graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English from Framingham State University. She lives in Massachusetts with her family and can be found at clmannarino.com.
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NEW FROM C.L. MANNARINO
The companion to Hiding in the Corners
LOVE, LUST, AND PIXIE DUST
Five Flirty Fairy Stories
Ebook
Romance comes in many, many forms… and you’re about to meet some highly seductive companions:
A mermaid with a secret,
A girl who’s ruled by her heart,
A wife with desires of her own,
And don’t forget the lady with the double lives,
Or the daydreamer by the hallway door.
You should stay awhile. They’ll be sure to make your day.
For more details, join the newsletter at https://clmannarino.com/news/
OTHER BOOKS BY C.L. MANNARINO
The Almost Human Series
1 - What We’ll Do for Blood
1.5 - What Killed Clara Mitbourne
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