Be the Death of Me Read online

She sneers in my direction before snapping her lips shut, pretending to zip them closed between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Thank you,” he tells her with an overly sugary smile. He turns to face me, his loose, dark tie swinging back and forth like a pendulum. “Now then, where was I?”

  “You’re in my bedroom!” I yell. I don’t know what’s wrong with my voice. I’m dangerously close to sounding like a little girl who’s scared of the clown at her birthday party.

  “I’m more than aware of where I am,” he starts again. “I meant, where was I in regards to speaking to you?”

  “You’re Guardians,” I fill in the blank for him before I realize what I’m doing.

  “Right,” he smiles. “Thanks. Like I was saying, we’re Guardians. I’m Tucker Reid, and this lovely lady is Billie Foster. And I feel I should inform you that calling the cops will only be a spectacular waste of time.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because you’re the only one who can see us.”

  I have no idea how to even begin responding to that statement. It doesn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t wait for a reply.

  “Can you do me a favor?” he surprises me by asking. “Could you maybe sit down? There’s a lot of sharp objects on the floor. You’ll have to tell me how you got your hands on a javelin by the way. But if you fall off your mattress and impale yourself on one of them, well, it would sort of defeat the whole purpose of us being here.”

  He says all of this as if magically appearing in someone’s room and asking them not to accidentally stab themselves with antique artillery is the sort of thing that comes up in every day conversation.

  “Wait a minute,” I say, still standing my ground, realization finally hitting me. “Hold on. You’re . . . you’re not here to kill me?”

  “Nope.”

  Behind him, his partner shakes her head silently from side to side.

  Slowly, cautiously, I drop to my knees. We may have come to some sort of uncomfortable understanding, but that in no way implies that I trust either of them.

  “So what then?” I practically bark. “Why are you here? What do you want? I don’t have any money.”

  “We’re not here to rob you.” He remains standing, making no further moves in my direction. “We’re here to protect you. To keep you safe.”

  A hysterical burst of laughter breaks free of my chest. “Keep me safe from what? People who break into houses in the middle of the night?”

  “This is going to sound crazy, but believe me, everything I am saying to you is true. Something is going to kill you,” comes his response. The words wash over me like ice water. “Or someone. We don’t know. But it’s our job to see it doesn’t happen.”

  I suddenly feel defenseless, tempted to arm myself with one of the many weapons lying around my bed. “Yeah right. That’s just part of your plan to get me alone so you can harvest my organs or stitch a skin suit of out of me! And don’t for one second think I haven’t noticed you still won’t explain how you got in here!” I say, pointing an accusing finger at the pair of them. “What did you do, drug me or something?”

  The tiniest flicker of a smirk appears around the edges of his mouth. “You’re not drugged,” he relents. “And believe me, we’re a little shaken about all of this ourselves.”

  From behind him comes a feminine, though derisive laugh. He whirls on Billie, who in turn shrugs her shoulders and points to an invisible scapegoat at her side.

  “We’re not supposed to be here,” he continues, ignoring her. “I mean we are supposed to be here, but you’re not supposed to know we’re here, you know? You can see us, but you’re not supposed to. See us, I mean. Do you see what I mean?”

  I shake my tired, confused head. “Are you on drugs?”

  Billie doesn’t try to contain her laughter this time.

  “No one here is on drugs,” her friend says, driving fingers through his already tousled hair.

  “Then what are you talking about? Why shouldn’t I see you? You’re standing two feet in front of me for crying out loud!”

  He takes moment to look back at his pretty partner. She keeps her lips pressed together, and simply raises her eyebrows as if to say, “Just tell him already”.

  “You’re not supposed to see us,” he begins, carefully choosing each word, “because we’re dead.”

  This is it, I think. I have finally snapped and my sanity is no more than a memory, gradually slipping away with each second of stunned silence. I can hear what he’s saying, but the statement is so ridiculous, so insane, I don’t want to understand.

  “Okay, good joke.” My voice sounds abnormally loud after all the silence. “Very funny. You almost had me there for a second.”

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  The look on his face stops me from saying another word. This guy either has the world’s best poker face, or he isn’t kidding in the least.

  But how can he be serious? Dead? I mean, come on! Magicians, maybe. Thieves, probably. Out of their minds, most definitely. But dead? True, I can’t deny they do have a certain “otherworldly” quality about them. I mean they glow for chrissakes! And I will never, as long as I live, be able to forget the way they both vanished the first time I met them, disappearing into the night like vapor over boiling water.

  Oh god.

  “You’re . . .” I start, trying my hardest to verbalize. “You’re . . . you’re . . .”

  He laughs at my struggle to remain calm. “Just let us know when you’re ready.”

  “Dead?” The word explodes from my mouth like a cannon shot.

  “Atta boy.”

  “Dead?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Dead? As in . . . dead? As in deceased? As in kicked the bucket, checked out, shuffled off that mortal coil, headed into the light, pushing–up–daisies dead?”

  I may have armed myself with every means of protection I could get my hands on, but I in no way prepared myself for this. I shake my head back and forth, feeling whatever’s inside roll around like the inner workings of a pinball machine. “No,” I say, more to myself than anyone else present. “No, no, no, no! This is insane! You’re insane! Both of you!”

  “No argument here,” he says. “But that doesn’t change what we are.”

  “But . . . how? I mean . . . why? I mean . . . you can’t be! How can you be dead when you’re standing there talking to me. It’s not possible.”

  “Oh, it’s possible,” he replies rather ominously. “Just unlikely.”

  “Unlikely?” I sputter, ignoring the rush of shivers crawling up my back. “How is waking up to find my bedroom invaded by dead people categorized as unlikely?!”

  He shrugs his glowing shoulders. “Then don’t think of it like that,” he says, the epitome of casual. “Think of us as something else.”

  “Like what exactly? How am I supposed to think of you? Supernatural bodyguards?”

  “If that makes you feel better.”

  “Well, it doesn’t! I don’t care what you call yourselves! I’m not okay with this! Dead, living dead, zombies, ghosts, raging lunatics, I don’t c–”

  I stop, my attention momentarily drawn to what’s going on behind him. Billie’s hand is raised in the air as if she’s waiting to be called on in class, an adorable expression of impatience on her face. He–Tucker, I think he called himself–notices my slip of focus and turns to face his partner.

  “You have something you’d like to say, Billie?”

  She puts down her hand, and actually takes the time to unzip her lips before fixing me with a chillingly cold smile.

  “Zombie?” she asks, taking a single step toward the bed. I can’t help but cringe a little at her approach. “Zombie? Do I look like a zombie to you, kid? Do I look like I foam at the mouth and eat brains for breakfast? Huh? Do I?”

  I cringe. “If I say yes, are you going to eat me?”

  Now it’s Tucker’s turn to laugh.

  “Listen up, pansy” she says, leisurely pla
cing her hands on the mattress and leaning into my face. She’s close enough for me to see that there’s not a single wrinkle, freckle, or blemish to be found anywhere on her shimmering, ivory complexion. “I really don’t care what you call me,” she whispers. “It doesn’t matter in the slightest. What does matter is that we’re here whether you like it or not. So you’d better get used to it, because we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. You got that?”

  I nod. Tucker folds his arms over his chest and continues to grin smugly at the pair of us.

  “Good.” She straightens up, and steps back in line with her companion. “Now clean this place up. It’s a mess.”

  I’m out of bed in a flash, the hardwood floor cold against my bare feet, dashing around the room, gathering spears, axes, knives, bludgeons, crucifixes, and any other sharp objects I can find and stacking them into a pile in the far corner.

  “I think that went rather well,” I hear her whisper as they supervise the cleaning process.

  Tucker raises his eyebrows at her. “You didn’t have to scare him.”

  “Admit it,” she chuckles and slaps at him playfully. Even her laugh is pretty. “It was a little funny.”

  He grins. “Maybe a little. I thought he might actually wet himself at one point.”

  I stop my work to stare at them. “I can hear you, you know.”

  “I know,” she replies, not bothering to look my way. “You missed one.” She tilts her head to a rather ominous looking meat tenderizer sticking out from under the edge of my comforter.

  I toss it on to of the pile where it clangs noisily against a large, metal mace.

  “Alright. First things first,” Billie says with an air of command, finally turning to address me. “We’ve got to do something about your name.”

  I glare at her. “What’s wrong with my name? It was my great–great–great grandfather’s name.”

  “And I’m sure he was a swell guy, but I can’t be the Guardian of someone named Benedict. I have a reputation to uphold. In normal circumstances I would just use your middle name, but Bartholomew doesn’t really work for me either.”

  “You can call me Benny,” I offer, hoping to get on her good side. The last thing I need is some crazy woman–dead or otherwise–angry at me.

  “No,” she muses. “I think I’ll just call you Ford.”

  “Why not Benny?”

  “I’d rather keep calling you pansy, but I don’t think that will go over too well with the people I work for.”

  “The mafia?”

  “Keep pushing me, Ford. I may kill you myself.”

  “Okay! I think we’ve all had just about enough fun for one night.” Tucker, who must have experience handling insane women, takes Billie by the shoulders and ushers her across the room. “It’s cool if you want to get some sleep,” he tells me. “We’ll be here all night.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Kind of,” he grins. “But we can talk more about your feelings in the morning, okay?”

  “Uh . . . okay,” I shrug, still not sure how I feel about being thrown into utter chaos by two people I’m not a hundred percent sure aren’t hallucinations. “There’s a couch downstairs if either of you want to get some rest.”

  Billie laughs. “We don’t sleep.”

  “You don’t sleep?” I can’t help my mouth from gaping open. “Like ever?”

  Tucker shakes his head.

  I climb into bed and pull the sheets up to my chest. “Man, that’s gotta suck.”

  “Oh yeah,” Billie adds, sliding down the opposite wall and resting her chin on top of her knees. “Death, the afterlife, it’s nothing compared to not getting our beauty rest.”

  I sit up and glare at her. If tonight turns out not to be a nightmare after all, and this girl really is dead, it isn’t difficult to understand why. Beautiful or not, I think someone obviously must have had their fill of her attitude and killed her just to get some peace and quiet.

  “What is your problem? Is it me? Am I the reason you’re so pissed off or is it because you left your army of flying monkeys home without a babysitter?” I say, not backing down. “I mean, honestly.”

  She turns to her comrade, who, oddly enough, is standing with his ear pressed to the wall. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

  He shrugs. “Seems like a legitimate question.”

  She turns to him in a huff. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that little trick you pulled earlier. You threw that crucifix halfway across the room without laying a finger on it.”

  “So?” he asks.

  “So? That’s what your gift is, isn’t it? I knew I’d figure it out sooner or later.”

  “You didn’t figure out anything. I didn’t want him to hurt himself, so I took his toy away. You’re welcome by the way.”

  “I don’t remember thanking you.”

  “Is she always like this?” I interrupt, looking to Tucker for an answer.

  He laughs and takes the wall across from Billie. “You get used to it.”

  “God, I hope not.”

  An inexplicable radiance bounces from her thin, willowy figure now huddled against the wall where a soft, steel–blue glow springs from her skin while sparks of light dance over each cheekbone. I turn on my side, and push thoughts of my beautiful tormentor from my mind. With any luck, I’ll wake up and find all of this was nothing more than a horrifically realistic dream. Outside, a restless branch continues to scratch at my window, and the same melancholy owl hoots eerily into the night.

  It’s the last thing I hear before I finally succumb to my exhaustion.

  Billie

  “Doesn’t he ever stop snoring?”

  “Go easy on him, Billie,” Tuck says over the much louder sound of obnoxiously heavy breathing emitting from the broad expanse of mattress. He leans his lanky frame against the closet wall, folding his arms across his chest. “This hasn’t been easy for any of us.”

  Another earsplitting snore issues from deep within the layers of covers strewn messily around the bed and floor. At some point during what I can only assume was a less–than–pleasant night’s sleep, Ford must have declared war on his bed and its allies. The sheets are tangled around a figure lying somewhere amidst their depths, while the comforter is draped chaotically over the headboard, and the pillows, freed from their cases, occupy opposite corners of the floor.

  “This is getting ridiculous.” I pull my knees in tighter. “Shouldn’t he be in school or something? It’s two o’clock in the afternoon for crying out loud.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  The muffled response comes from the bed. Ford sits up, pulling the sheets and bedspread with him, making it impossible to discern whether or not there’s an actual person inside the tightly wrapped cocoon of blankets. “It’s Sunday,” the voice repeats, sounding a degree or two more hostile than before. “The day of rest. The day I had planned to waste in bed, convincing myself that spending the rest of my life confined in a mental institution wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the reality of having to deal with the two of you.”

  The sheets begin to move as he fights to liberate himself from their constricting embrace. “And what do I get instead?” he asks once he’s finally free, his dark hair sticking up in untidy tufts. “I get to wake up to find the two hallucinations I deluded myself into believing I’d dreamt up aren’t hallucinations at all! They’re real. And they’re you.”

  He finishes with a final groan, flopping back onto the mattress.

  I turn to Tucker with a smile. “My, he’s chipper.”

  “A regular ray of sunshine,” he grins back.

  “They’re not real,” comes the sound of soft, determined chanting. “They’re not real. They’re not real. They’re not real. They’re not real.”

  “Oh, but we are real,” I counter, phasing onto the mattress, appearing on the pillow next to him. I tap his nose. “Now time to get up, silly boy, before you sleep the day away.”

&nb
sp; He’s out of the bed in a flash, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. I smile and sit up. “Or not,” I offer with a shrug. “Either way, have your butt dressed and downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

  His head shakes back and forth, sending messed, chocolate brown bangs falling across his forehead.

  “What do you mean, no?” I ask, trying very hard not to lose my cool.

  “I’m not changing with you here,” he says, a flush of pink coloring his pale cheeks.

  I can’t help my smile at his discomfort. “Let me assure you, Ford, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen and laughed at before. So do us both a favor, and don’t concern yourself with trying to protect the innocence of my eyes.”

  “Billie.” The reprimand comes from Tuck who’s staring at me with a rather disapproving frown.

  “Fine,” I relent. “But you and I both know that if this was like any other assignment and we were still invisible, he wouldn’t have to worry about being seen naked by a girl.” I close my eyes and picture the downstairs kitchen in my mind, finding myself standing in my vision a moment later.

  An older woman, in her sixties or seventies at least, trundles through the front door, humming what sounds like an old gospel hymn, her arms full of brown paper grocery bags. She’s a sturdy looking lady, with wide hips and a cheery, plump face. Her long, gray hair is tied into a single braid that lays neatly against a back hunched slightly with age. She sets the bags on the counter and begins unloading the groceries, darting back and forth from the small, green refrigerator to the cabinets overhead. She pauses and digs to the bottom of one of the bags, resurfacing with the receipt a minute later. Holding it close to her face, she attempts to read the tiny, ink faded print, but gives up after a moment, only to begin patting her pants and shirt pockets in frustration.

  With a tiny, hidden smile I reach forward, and with a gentle flick of my finger, push her rather stylish, cat–eye glasses from the top of her salt and pepper head, down to her nose. The old woman halts her search, obviously startled by the sudden improvement in her vision, but laughs softly to herself, and with a shake of her head, dives back into unpacking the supplies.