A Touch Dead

A Touch Dead
Chapter 5


“I knew you would be here.” I grumble, shoving my hands into my sleeves and into the pouch on my sweater. I shuffle forward and rest against a near by trunk. I see a mixture of emotions flicker through his eyes as he looks at me then scans the area where I had buried Morgan Steels. The exact area where I had found him dead. I raise an eyebrow, this time inquiring against him.

“And what do you have to say for yourself? Coming across this exact spot so late…no, early in the morning?” I see his jaw tense, probably gritting his teeth and I know I’m frustrating him.

“He died here didn’t he?” I raise an eyebrow and he scoffed, trying again. “Where did you bury him?”

“You think I buried him?”

“Yes I-well, I know he was here.” His slip makes me hesitate. He wasn’t sure it was me who buried him, but he knows I’m involved somehow as I have the dead kids identity. And he’s right. He’s trying to make me reveal what I know and I’m being steadily pushed into a corner. But so is he.

“And how do you know that?” He glances to my left and quickly back to me, suddenly appearing nervous. I look over and see nothing but forest and give him another questioning glance. He continues to hesitate, pondering over whatever it is that’s stopping him from answering me. He’s being about as helpful as I’ve been for him, which is fair but frustrating. His drags his hands through his dark brown hair, tangled and messy like bed-head hair is. He looks like he’s going to start pacing but doesn’t, instead he points to my left and saying something so wild and crazy that I can’t help but express the full surprise on my face.

“Morgan Steels is standing right there. He brought me here. He woke me up just to do it. That’s how I know his body is still here because his ghost indicates it still is.”

I cringe as his voice piques a little in his excitement. “Well that explains it quite well.” I shift, readjusting my weight onto my other leg. “So what does he want?”

This time it’s his turn to look surprised. I wait for him to open his mouth and say something but he shakes his head, unsure. A silence falls between us as we ponder the situation. After a few minutes he speaks up. “So what did you do with the body?”

“I buried him over there.” I indicate with a nod of my head past him and he just glances over, scanning for the evidence which has become non-existent thanks to the heavy downpour we just got. He nods and idly brushes aside some brown strands from his eyes. He glances back up at me, looking more exhausted then before and I know he shouldn’t be out here. If he can see ghosts, I’m sure that’s freaked him out since childhood (presuming he’s been seeing them since then) and has been haunted by them, thus lack of sleep.

“You took his identity…why are you doing that? Are you…were you involved with his death?” I shake my head, knowing to expect these questions but not really wanting to answer them. I turn and start walking back through the woods, hearing him follow, and this time without complaint. I let the silence hang a bit before speaking up.

“I just happened to find him. I needed to get away from my old life and he just happened to be a convenient opportunity for me to hide under.” I realize how terrible that sounds yet don’t care in the slightest. I can’t see his reaction, but I’m sure he’s horrified. If he is, he doesn’t say so right away. I hear him keeping up with me, his footsteps sloppy and awkward. I wonder if he thinks I’m being disrespectful to the dead. I’m not quite connected the same way he is. I don’t even know if the real Morgan Steels cares about what I’m doing. But it seems he wants something from Aiydenn, and although I’m not involved, it seems he’s going to bring me into it regardless of what I want.

“So who are you really?” He finally asks, and I realise he’s beside me now. This close he really looks worn. His skin is pale in the moonlight and the circles under his eyes look more grooved than when I saw him in school. Although he isn’t a tiny guy, he looks fragile because of his exhaustion and from the horrors he’s probably witnessed since childhood. Every boy might think ghosts are cool but when you actually start seeing them, then they’re not so cool. To a young person, it’d be terrifying. And I can only imagine. Touching my first corpse, my own mother, had spooked me so bad I nearly fucking had a heart attack myself. At least I didn’t still see her. This guy has the bad end of the stick when it comes to the dead. Mine is just induced by touch. His? I haven’t the faintest clue and I wonder if he knows the limits of his own ability.

We step back out onto the trail and I stop, staring at him with mild amusement. “Let’s leave that for another day.” And with that I turn and head deeper into the woods where the next trail connects, leading back to my neighbourhood.

+


Thanks everyone for reading! I apologize for it taking this long but we had some troubles with our disclaimer and the story was hidden on us without notice. It’s all fixed up now though :) we might be a little slow in some updates but we will try as often as we can to at the very least have one out a week. I just started a new job and Kayaz is also working a lot so please bear with us and stick around.

Another quick note as well is that Kayaz and I aim more for quality then quantity. If there is something we are aiming for to be done in a certain chapter there is a chance the chapter might not be as long as some of the others. This chapter was an example of that, no worries though because they are all different in lengths.

I’m going to post all of my review responses down here from now on since I’ve been having issues posting the story with them up top. So if you want to read an answer to a question first I would say look down here first then read the chapter :)


Kylee: Morgan’s ghost is going to be sticking around for a while ;) and Aiydenn is going to be sick of him by the end, trust me. Chaise is a pretty strong character, and you’ll see more of that as the chapters continue but Aiydenn is developing into a stronger character (slowly). Thanks very much, we did have a great time thinking up the ideas, and we still are. It’s going to be much longer with a second story after this one as well, but we don’t want to get too far a head of ourselves, lol. Hope you will stick around with us the whole time, we love hearing from you!

Smint45: You are on the right track about this being a special case and their abilities. The next chapter and the one following will give a lot more insight into that, so make sure to stick around. Thanks very much for reviewing; we are looking forward to hearing back from you again :)

Lisa: You almost had it right, it’s Aiydenn. It’s totally different then most spelling I know but I really like having unique character names. We are so glad you love it so far. It’s actually the first paranormal/supernatural story that we have written as well. We look forward to hearing from you next chapter too! :)

Thanks to everyone who has read, we are happy to be well over the 200 hits mark already. The next chapter should be out in about three days! We look forward to hearing from you. See you all then~