and wrinkled, her dress was sopping wet. She had long runners of seaweed tangled within her hair, which for the most part was clinging to her face and skull. Her nose had begun to rot around her nostrils. Her eyes were glossy; her white orbs and the skin around them was so incredibly dark and dreary that I wasn’t sure it was her––but it was. Oh God, of course it was her. A man knows his own wife when he sees her, even when she looks so bad.
I sat up quickly, placing my weight on my elbows and resting my back on the headboard. Then I pulled my knees towards my chest and away from her, careful not to make a sound as I did so. I briefly considered jumping up from the bed and running for the door, but my fear had me paralyzed. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Besides, is it possible to run from a ghost?
Somehow I doubted it.
She was in the far corner, hiding in the darkest place, where the wallpaper peeled from the wall. I always hated that empty corner. Somehow it always seemed like the coldest spot in the house.
Try as I might, I couldn’t pull my eyes away from her face, her terrible, terrible face. She looked like she’d been underwater for a year or more. Her lips were blue and her teeth were black with soot. I could smell the ocean salt on her body, polluting the air around me. She was all craggy and… sour. That’s what she was: sour. She smelled like a river. Lord above help me, my wife smelled like a truckload of rotten fish. And she didn’t move, not a goddamn muscle. She didn’t breathe either. For the longest time she just stood there, looking at me with white-button eyes while tiny crabs scurried across her skin. Doing nothing, saying nothing, like I should say something to her! And I could hear the drops of water falling from her dress. They hit the floor one at a time, slowly, almost keeping rhythm.
Drip, drip. Drip. Drip, drip. Drip.
It was the only sound in the room; the only sound I could hear. It creeped me out immensely. The minor splashes against the hardwood made things all too real.
Drip, drip. Drip.
She opened her purse.
Yes, she had a purse. It was covered in patches of green and brown moss. Strange huh? A dead woman with a purse… wonders never cease.
She opened her purse, slid her bony fingers inside and pulled something free. Her fingernails were dirty, cracked and broken; the bright red paint had washed away long ago. Her knuckles looked to be nothing more than lumps of bone. Her feet started moving slowly, one after another, making squishing sounds on the floor. She was coming towards me, dragging her feet and holding a wet plane ticket where I could see it. When she reached the bed a crab fell from her open mouth to the sheets. It scuttled over my knees and onto the floor. Then another crab fell, and another. Each crab was smaller than a coin. Just babies, really. Just babies.
I wondered if there was a nest somewhere on her body.
With a gurgle in her voice, the ghost said: “You won’t let me go, will you? Tell me you’ll keep me safe.” Her lungs were filled with seawater, which dribbled from her chin.
I opened my mouth but I didn’t say a word. My lips started to quiver and my knees began to shake.
“Tell me.”
“No,” I said. The word seemed to pop out of my mouth on its own. “I won’t let you go.”
“Promise me?”
“Of course,” I said, almost babbling. “I promise not to let you go, honest I do. I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
She put the ticket in my hand. One of the crabs started running towards me and I screamed; I couldn’t help it. The ticket was cold and wet and I just couldn’t take it. I screamed loud and squeezed my eyes shut and held my fists against my ears. The ticket crumpled into the shape of my hand and knowing it was still there I screamed again.
When I opened my eyes Luisa was holding me in her arms nervously, saying, “What’s wrong, dear? What happened?”
I pulled away from her. I must have looked insane. “I don’t want you to go away, babe,” I said. “Oh please, don’t go! Don’t leave me!”
“But why, honey? Why?”
I looked across the room with my stomach in a knot and my