Victoria Jackson hated Halloween. She supposed it had a lot to do with the fact that she didn’t like dead people.
She didn’t like anything about them. They were rude, pushy, impatient and a lot of them had a serious hygiene problem. Just because they were dead didn’t mean they couldn’t bathe.
The man in front of her was the perfect example.
He was a large man and she could tell from his girth that, while he was alive, food has been his one true love. He had a large middle section that spilled over his belt and a flabby chin that wobbled when he talked.
Victoria sighed and pretended that she couldn’t see him. It was the same every Halloween for as long as she could remember: the dead found her and asked for her help. She didn’t ask them to come, didn’t advertise that she could see them.
They just came.
It all started when she was thirteen, after she had gotten her first period.
Before that she had lived in the bliss and ignorance of childhood. Then, that year on Halloween, she had seen her first dead person.
It had been a woman; her face had been horribly mutilated and looked as if it was the result of a gunshot wound. Victoria had complimented the woman on her wonderfully realistic costume.
“You can see me?” the woman’s voice was shocked, thin. Hopeful.
She had reached out and touched Jessica, grabbed hold of her arm softly. She had remembered the woman’s sigh, soft like the wind.
“It’s been so long since I’ve been able to touch someone.” She had said.
“So long since I’ve been able to feel someone’s skin.” The woman had cried, tears running down her ruined face. “You’ve given me a great gift.” She had walked away slowly and disappeared into the mass of children out for tick or treating.
And Victoria realized that the woman had been dead.
Since then, she dreaded Halloween, hated everything about it. Hated the black and orange colours, the candy, and the children dressing up in costumes unaware that the dead really did walk among them.
She sighed again when the man sitting in front of her cleared his throat, trying to catch her attention.
Victoria grimaced and tried to concentrate on her Sudoku puzzle. It was three o’clock in the morning and already it had started.
She couldn’t deal with this again, could not deal with the dead. Why did it have to be her that could see them? Why not someone else?
“I know you can see me.” He said. “You can’t ignore me forever”
Victoria looked up from her puzzle and gave the dead man a vicious glare. “I can and I will.” She said. “You’re wasting your time.”
“But you’re the only one that’s been able to see me in years.” He scratched his head and she watched flakes of dandruff fall. Victoria made a mental note to have her loveseat cleaned. “You’re the only one that can help me.”
“Wrong,” Victoria said. “I don’t have to help you and I won’t. You’ll have to go look for help somewhere else.”
The man got up in a huff and Victoria was sure that he would come at her, that he would threaten her in some way. But he didn’t.
He just stood there, looking at her sadly and then made his way to the front door of her small townhouse.
He turned to face her. “Instead of thinking of yourself, you could help others, you know? You don’t have to be such a bitch.”
The man stepped through her door and Victoria was left alone in her living room, tears falling from her eyes.
She mopped them with the heel of her right hand, threw her pencil down on the coffee table and went to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.
She would lace it with bourbon, she decided.
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