Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

a hero. Everybody that made my life hell would be dead, and I’d be the famous one. Everybody would know the boy that survived.”

“You thought you’d be some kind of hillbilly Harry Potter? The Boy Who Lived? And be famous because of it?”

“Yeah. You see it all the time. People who live through tragedies get interviewed all over the place and get famous. How many network news shows wanted to interview you after it happened?”

Jess remembered. All of them was the answer. There had been news vans camped outside her house for days after. She didn’t go outside, of course, but saw them through the curtains. “But you died. You fucked it up somehow.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Reggie screamed, and his image flickered again. “Allan and Carl tied my shoelaces to my chair, so I fell over when I tried to stand up. I couldn’t get free in time, so I went up in flames with all the rest of them.”

“And you’ve been trapped here ever since.”

“We all have.” Reggie waved an arm, and Jessica saw a crowd appear behind him. Suddenly the empty gym was full of ghosts.

Jessica stood up and wandered through the incorporeal crowd, passing her fingers through the light-formed figures from her memories. “Allan, Carl, Mr. Davis, Coach Howe…” she murmured as she walked through them. She stopped in front of one girl’s form. “Crystal,” she said, holding up her hand to her best friend’s ghostly face. The ghost held up a hand to hers, and Jess felt a tingle through her arm as they touched.

“So this is why you wanted me here,” Jessica said, turning back to Reggie.

“We can’t leave without you.”

“Wait, what?” Jessica asked.

“He’s right,” Crystal said from beside her. Her best friend’s voice was softer than Reggie’s, and her form was less distinct, but she was still manifested more strongly than most ghosts Jess had encountered.

“You’re holding on to us, Jessie,” Crystal continued. “We’re gone, but your guilt is holding us here. You’ve got to let go, so we can move on.”

“So all I need to do is—” As she was saying it, Jess realized what she had to do. She reached out to Crystal and brushed the image of her cheek. “Goodbye, Crys. I’ll see you again soon. I love you, bestie.”

“I love you, too, Jessie.” Crystal’s image shimmered, brightened, and blinked out. Jessica felt around her with her Other Sight, but her friend’s ghost was gone. She looked around. “Allan Clark, it’s time to go.” The team’s center, almost seven feet of gangly freckled redhead, flickered twice and vanished. “Miss Scoggins, you saved my life by kicking me off the team. It’s time to go.” The cheerleading sponsor nodded her head full of dark curls and vanished.

One by one, Jessica spoke to the ghosts of her childhood, sending them to their rest. Even the few she could no longer call by name vanished at a touch. After over an hour of reliving memories and setting free the ghosts of her youth, a shimmering dark-haired woman walked up, brimming confidence and sarcasm with every ethereal step.

“Sam,” Jess whispered. “You too?”

“Yeah, girly. Me too. You either send me on or leave me stuck here. And trust me, chica; I hated high school the first time. I got zero interest in spending eternity in one.”

“I’m sorry I got you killed.”

“You didn’t get me killed, sweetie. Your dipshit high school uber-nerd over there got me killed. This ain’t on you.”

“I’ll miss you, but it’s time to go.”

“Be well, chica.” Samantha’s image leaned in, brushed ghostly lips across her friend’s cheek, and vanished.

“Billy,” Jessica said, turning to the cameraman.

“Don’t hold me up, baby girl, I want to see what high def looks like in Heaven!”

Jessica held up a hand, Billy touched it lightly, and was gone.

“I’ll stay with you if you want,” came Mike’s voice from her side.

“If it worked that way, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. But you’d be stuck here.”

“I got a deal worked with the guy upstairs. You keep doing this work, and I get to keep helping you.”

“Really?” Jessica turned to look at Mike. He looked better in death than he did even in life, more at peace with the world, and still dead sexy with his brown curls and olive skin. “You can stay with me, not with the place.”

“Yeah, apparently if enough people ask nicely, sometimes rules can be bent a little.”

“But who asked…oh.” Realization dawned as Jess looked around the room, once crowded with several dozen spirits but now home only to Jessica, Mike, and Reggie.

“Yeah, you have a little juice with the folks upstairs right now. But they have short memories, so I’d take advantage of it now if I were you.”

Jessica looked down for a second, then nodded. “Yeah, if you can stay with me, then I can keep doing this kind of thing.”

“Good. Nobody on this side wants you to retreat from your gift like you did last time,” Mike said. He held up a glimmering hand. “High-five?”

Jessica laughed and flipped him the bird. “Jackass.”

Then she turned to Reggie and her face stilled. “Now I guess it’s your turn, isn’t it?”

“Yep, time to send me home. I got people to see, things to do, harps to play, whatever we do after we die, I’m ready to get to doing it.”

“Aren’t you afraid of going to Hell?”

“Is there anything that could be worse than being trapped in high school forever?” Reggie’s image flickered as he laughed.

“Nope, can’t think of anything. Mike, let’s go,” Jessica said, then turned and walked to the gym doors.

“Wait a minute, you can’t leave. You haven’t sent me on my way yet,” Reggie said.

“You’re right. I haven’t.” Jessica reached the door and pushed the crash bar. The door opened easily, and she stepped out into the hallway.

Reggie flickered into the hall ahead of her. “I’m not letting you leave until you pass me on, bitch!” He held out a hand to Jess, but nothing happened.

“Good call, babe,” Mike’s ghost whispered from beside