The Ghost Within

By K.Z. Freeman

Given his life so far, Isaac Bain should be a dead man. What keeps him alive are the secrets he carries.

In his dark, gritty and twisted world, the future is something he can see, but cannot touch, that is until the future becomes Now and the world goes to hell. His only hope is the book he carries; an ancient tome of secrets promising deliverance. But can a book written by a madman be the world’s salvation?
It all still seems like something which can be accomplished. Until a girl shows up.
He thinks himself strong enough to resist the obvious charms of her presence. But she bares secrets of her own, her face strangely familiar. Ghosts follow her wherever she goes and have now trailed her into Isaac’s home. Unlike him, she can feel their touch and they want nothing more than to have her for themselves. And when they’re finally successful, Isaac realizes his troubles had only just begun...

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.Z. Freeman
• Release date: Jun 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301305933

K.Z. Freeman

I love writing fiction. My books are about people - how they can change, and in turn change the world around them.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

My name is Isaac Bain, and I am a keeper of secrets.

My demons, though quiet, are never silent. They are the reason why I must write down all I know.

But where to begin?

The pen shakes in my hand and I place it down for a moment to try and calm myself. I reach for the vial on my desk and take a sip, then focus on the empty pages before me; they have been empty for a while now.

I must start, as all things do, at the beginning. I must tell you something. A thing of a personal nature. A truth about myself I find difficult to live with, but am cursed to endure. I believe the dead are not as dead as they would like the world to think. They speak to me. Not with voices, but images, they show me things, the bastards. Things I suppose only the dead should see and know.

I am aware you may not believe me. But mine is not some charlatan trick or a particularly well-practiced mind for observation. My dead are as real in death as they have been in life, I swear to you. It’s either that, or I am so beyond help I should be shot…

I reach for the vial again. I wish to take another hit just as the effects creep into me. The sensation is familiar and wholly welcome. The voices quiet down. With a calmer hand, I place it back on the wooden desk and I think of the words I want to write…

There’s something about spirits. They whisper. They try and whisper to the wind and to the soil. But the wind has no mind for such things – it sends their thoughts adrift upon currents of movement upon which they all find their way into my mind. My simple, stupid, foolish mind. They form images there, these words. And me – ever the fool – listens. For what else is such a man but foolish? What else is such a man but stupid, he who would listen to the thoughts of the dead?

1

I am a collector. A keeper of old books. I seek and often find them not inside chests or libraries, but by overturning those chests and seeking a space beneath. I look not under shattered glass upon ancient alcoves, but within holes in the wall where dust cannot reach and erode precious pages. My books are not old like the rotting wood is old, old like memories, but old like the Earth, like its molten pulse. At least that’s what I like to believe, foolishly perhaps. But these are books that speak, and the hands that wrote them still turn their pages, unwilling to let go.

It is such a book that now sits before me. It is dear to me – the oldest thing in my possession. The tips of it are jagged like the shadows cast about it. A candle burs beside and will not last much longer, its flame is low.

I wish to tell the tome’s secrets to you. Yet before I continue, I should perhaps mention something. Yes... I believe I should. Above all who haunt me, there is only one I fear to lose. She hates me and I hate her, but a force of habit yet makes me glad every time I see her. She watches me from the corner of my sight even now. She is in my dreams, and she is with me as my tired hand shakes.

I take the pen my fingers and resume writing. I write down the first word. I don’t like it, but go on. The pen in my grip is old, older than me. She gave it to me. Its black words slither across the pages of my diary, resting beside the ancient tome, and she watches. She always watches when I write. Maybe the bitch wants the pen back.

I am convinced that these words I have to write, even if no one ever gets to read them. Someone must know. You must know. And while I also know there is high chance you won’t believe any of this, I will tell you what I had just written down.

I have been to the other side. You know of what I speak, don’t you? Well, I have seen it. I have crossed the veil and walked back. Maybe I was dragged back, I don’t remember. Perhaps I screamed, but I don’t recall that either. In any case, it is the reason why they hate me, I think. Because no one ever comes back. This book, this ancient tome before me, has shown me how to do it. It is why I believe every word written in it, or at least try to. But it promises something more. It seeks to teach me something I have sought to understand since the spirits decided they do not wish to leave me. It seeks to illuminate how I can make the dead stay dead. How I can make them leave this world behind. You may ask yourself why I would take it upon myself to do this, but this too you will understand in time.

My eyes dart over the last line of text on the page before me, then back to the primordial book. It has taken me years to decipher its language – a lot of referencing and cross-referencing. Whoever had it before me tried to do the same and his work had been helpful to say the least.

I grab hold of the thin, yellow paper with care, when the door to my study creeks open.

Master Bain, she says, her voice low and fragile as usual. May I have a moment, please? There’s a thing I would ask of you.

I half-look over my shoulder and my voice cracks through the momentary silence. The low burr with which I answer always seems to startle her. Myes?

It’s happening again, she says.

I turn now, her pale-blue eyes staring at me.

Indeed? What does she speak of this time?

I’d rather not say. She looks to her bare feet. The air is cold like it tends to get when the dead fill it and watch from the darkness. Her form makes me shiver like the cold never could. Her gown is nearly see-through. I can see a black outline between her legs and the sharp points of her breasts. She sees me looking and slowly pulls down the white dress to conceal herself. Her breasts nearly pop out, her pale skin painted with orange hues cast by the candle. I have seen her like this many times before, so the reason why she would conceal herself now eludes me.

Please, she murmurs, come with me.

Her small hand beckons mine. There are tears in her eyes. Fear? She is shaking. I rise from my chair and take her hand in mine. Her fingers feel smooth, but cold and I notice her lips had gone almost blue with it.

You really should wear something on your bear feet, dear. She says nothing as we walk the dark corridor, the sharp daggers of light from her hooded lantern piercing the murk in front of her. I had told her never to bring it into my study and she never has. My candles are just as much a risk with all the paper scattered about, but her hands are clumsy and a fire is not something I can afford. Often, in my dreams especially, I had wished it to happen. That a great blaze would consume all of it. Perhaps because then I would have an excuse not to continue what I had began. I still hope to see it one day, wondering if ghosts burn as well.

Will you stay with me tonight? she asks.

You know I cannot, I sigh. You are young enough to be my daughter. I couldn’t believe I was saying the words even as I spoke them.

I just don’t want to be alone, that’s all.

I sighed. It always came down to this; every single night, the same question.

I had warned her the day she showed up on my doorstep. I didn’t even know my deceased wife had a child with another. Even then, three months ago, I said she would be better off living in the empty streets, than with me. But she insisted. She insisted with those familiar eyes and my heart couldn’t deny her.

We near a door at the end of the hallway, its existence a barely noticeable outline in the darkness. The light around us stands a reflection of the outside, where the seasons are all the same. The thought makes me wonder, however, just how many seasons could she have seen? It couldn’t be more than seventeen winters. But there are no winters anymore, all have merged into one, dead twilight, so I could be wrong.

I just don’t want to be alone, she repeats.

In this house, my dear, you are never alone.

How’s the book going? she asks as we near the door to her room. A distraction. Good. Might as well have something else to occupy us instead of what’s behind the entrance.

Let’s just say that if you didn’t insist on interrupting me, I say with a smile, hoping she will pick up on the sarcasm. She doesn’t.

I’m sorry, she whimpers.

No matter. The soft curves of her body underneath her dress make me sweat even in the cold. She is like temptation itself were given form and sought to walk my halls. I move in front of her and focus on the door ahead. My shadow pools upon it, black as black can get. I take the lantern from her grasp and with my other arm, push the wood open. The rusty hinges sing and I am met with a sight that makes my heart forget to beat.

The radiation has changed us, those of us who are left. I may be able to hear ghosts, but Ivy, she can be touched. She feels them as thought their physical nature can bleed into her mind and make her believe they are real.

A woman stands there, in the half-light. She is see-through, the bed stands behind her as much as it looks to be within her. She is bare-chested, full-breasted, wrapped in leather clothing and collared. Her dark skin glistens with sweat. Her full lips move as she talks beneath her commissar hat with eyes concealed in shadow. Strands of hair from an unkept ponytail hang from beneath the hat. A silver ring gleams on each erect nipple, a chain between them.

So... you came back to me, slut, she flicks a short whip in her hand. Her voice is distant. On your knees, whore.

Don’t, I tell the girl. The woman turns her head, her eyes yet hidden. I can feel them, burning through my own. She is tall, taller than me perhaps, the iron heels of her boots gleaming in the lantern’s light. She stands with her feet apart and coils her hands over her chest. I can hear the leather around her stomach and shoulders bristling.

I’m waiting, she says. Don’t make me come over there, she continues, already walking. The walls tremble when she speaks, and I am unsure if it’s my mind which shakes, or in fact the walls themselves. With each step the reality of her becomes more solid, the bed behind her less visible within her. She is near us now and grabs Ivy by the chin. The grip is firm.

Ivy, focus on me, I tell her. Ivy! Tears roll down her cheek as the woman lifts her own chin to stare down into the face she now holds in leathered fingers. The gaze of the woman is unblinking, eyes wide and staring, pupils like needle-tips. I had never seen a look so terrifying and sexual all at once.

No words are spoken and the woman’s expression doesn’t change, and for what seems like too long a time, all I hear is the lantern’s flicker. She grabs Ivy by her black hair and pulls her on her knees. A yelp as she is pushed down further, her face inches from the woman’s feet.

Lick them clean, little bitch.

I know I’ve said this before, but there is something about spirits. Something that makes the worst come out. It is as if their humanity has rotten away along