“Bad day at the office?” he asked. “Did you work today?”
“I wish! And no.”
“Uh, Cian giving you hell?”
Samantha shook her head, lifting it. She rested her elbows on the counter and cradled her face in her hands.
“Amaliya being a bitch?”
“I hate her.”
“I know.”
“But it’s not her. Though it’s usually her.”
Benchley leaned against the counter, nearly toppling over the pens in the jar next to the cash register.
Jeff saved it just in time.
“So, uh, what is it? I can maybe...uh...help.” Benchley attempted to look nonchalant.
Samantha blew out a puff of air, her bangs flipping upward.
“Sam, maybe we can both help.” Jeff lightly touched her cheek. “C’mon, talk to us.”
“My life sucks, Jeff,” Samantha said, her eyes filling with tears.
“No, it doesn’t, Sam.”
“My ex-fiancé is fucking Vampira and I’ve gone all Sixth Sense! My life sucks!”
“Okay, I get the Vampira reference, but not the Sixth Sense,” Benchley said, clearly confused.
“Me, too. Sam, honey, can you be a little clearer?”
Samantha wiped at her eyes irritably. “I’m so not going all Patricia Arquette. I refuse to! Because the next thing you know I’ll be all John Edwards-y and people will be banging on my door wanting the deets of their dead granny’s peach cobbler recipe!”
“Still lost,” Jeff said, wincing.
Samantha grabbed his t-shirt and hauled him toward her. Staring at him in the eye, tears streaking her face, she said, “I see dead people!”
“Cian and Amaliya?” Jeff queried, arching an eyebrow.
“No! Dead dead people!”
“She’s not real good on the being clear thing is she?” Benchley observed.
“She speaks Samantha-speak. It’s a variation of English,” Jeff admitted.
“Don’t mock me, Van Helsing!” Samantha fumbled with her purse.
“How many espresso shots did you have today?” Jeff asked, watching her shaking hands.
“Uh, four.” Samantha jerked out a folder and slammed it onto the counter. “And two margaritas at Polvos.”
“Did you drive here?” Benchley exchanged a worried glance with Jeff.
“No. I got a cab. So, Jeff, you have to take me home.” Samantha flipped the folder open and shoved it toward Jeff. “I am seeing dead chicks. Okay? Like...really dead.” She pointed adamantly at a printed article from the Austin-American Statesman.
Jeff picked it up and read it swiftly. It was a story with which he was passingly acquainted. A young woman went jogging one morning a few months before and disappeared. A picture of a pretty brunette was included and Sam kept poking it with one finger as he tried to read.
“Her! I saw her!”
“Cassidy Longoria?” Jeff glanced up at Samantha. “You found her body?”
“No, Jeff! I saw her Casper!”
“I think she’s saying she saw her ghost,” Benchley offered helpfully.
“Don’t say that!” Samantha shushed him with her hands. “If you say it like that they’ll hear you and start bugging me like they harassed Whoopi Goldberg in that one movie!”
“You mean Ghost?”
“Ugh! Shhh.” Samantha pouted, clenching her fists. “I don’t want this to be real!”
“If you’re seeing ghosts, that kinda makes it real,” Benchley answered.
“Oh, fuck you.” Samantha scowled.
“Sam,” Jeff said gently, touching her hand and getting her attention. “You saw the ghost of this jogger, right?”
She nodded, tears still tracing down her cheeks.
“Where?”
“The jogging trail. Under the Mopac Bridge.”
Jeff didn’t doubt Samantha had seen something very upsetting. It was clear that she was distraught and very rattled. Also, a little drunk and on a caffeine high. “Tell me what happened.”
In rather disjointed and sometimes incoherent string of words, Samantha related all that had happened that morning.
“Sounds like a sentient ghost,” Benchley said, his tone very serious. Benchley was the best ghost hunter Jeff knew. He took ghosts very seriously.
“But that’s not the worst of it, Jeff,” Samantha continued. “It was really scary, gooey, and bloody, but I think I felt her there before. Today is the first day I saw her, but I always feel this really super-cold breeze under the bridge. And...and...I’ve been seeing things out of the corner of my eye around my house. When I drove by the cemetery the other day, this old man was sitting on a gravestone and he waved at me. And now I think he’s a ghost. Then I realized that the other day I said hello to this woman walking down my street and my friend, Giselle, who was with me, didn’t see her. I thought she was jerking my chain, but now...now...”
“You think you’re a medium?” Jeff offered.
“Uh huh. Just like that Lost Highway chick,” Samantha said with a solemn nod.
“Got that reference, and Patricia Arquette is hot,” Benchley said.
“Tell me I’m not going all Allison Dubois, please, Jeff. Please!” Samantha clutched at his hands, her big eyes imploring him.
“Have you ever sensed or seen anything before the last few months? In your childhood?” Jeff asked. He plucked a pen from the jar and began taking notes on the cover of her folder.
“No, never.”
“When did you start noticing things? Like maybe cold spots, shadows, flashes of people out of the corner of your eye, that sort of thing?”
Samantha stared at him as she pondered his question. Slowly, her eyes grew larger. “That whore!”
“Amaliya reference, right?” Benchley asked Jeff.
Jeff nodded.
“I’m catching on.” Benchley looked proud.
“After I drank from her! When I almost died and you made me drink her blood!”
“Good thing you don’t have customers right now because that would be really hard to play off,” Benchley said.
“Jeff, you made me drink her blood! You said it would heal me! You didn’t say it would make me go all Ghost Whisperer!”
“Sam, are you sure? You never experienced anything like that before?”
“Dude, I’m Baptist. We believe in God, the devil, and angels. Not ghosts.”
Jeff rubbed his brow, pondering everything she had told him. “A lot of people do end up coming into their abilities with a near death experience. That could be why you’re now seeing things.”
Samantha rubbed the spot where the sword had skewered her a few months before. “Yeah? You mean it’s not the skank’s fault?”
“Not sure. Let me check on something.”
Sliding out from behind the counter, Jeff headed into the back of the store to where he kept his private collection of books written by previous vampire hunters. The fire safe was tucked into a corner of his office. After unlocking it, he pulled out a few of the leather bound journals.
Benchley and Samantha lingered in the doorway to his office, watching. He sat at his desk and started flipping through the tomes. Rubbing his leg, he rested his artificial leg on a rest under his desk. Every once in a while his stump would give him issues. Today, he was having phantom pains in a foot he no longer possessed.
“So you think it’s really because I almost died?” Samantha pulled on her bottom lip with her teeth.
“It’s totally plausible. Near death experiences place you at the veil between the living and the dead. You hover between the two. So you begin to see both,” Benchley explained as he darted into the office to sit on a stool near Jeff’s desk. He craned his neck to see the journal in Jeff’s hands.
Opening up one of his father’s old journals, Jeff scanned for an entry that had been made soon after his mother’s death. His father’s obsession with vampires had increased tremendously after his wife had been murdered and his son maimed by one particularly nasty vampire. Flipping through pages, he listened to Samantha and Benchley chatting back and forth, but really didn’t pay attention to what they were saying.
He was concerned that Samantha’s abilities appeared to be growing, not receding. Some people had very clear visions of the dead soon after a near death experience, but would eventually lose the ability.
“And you didn’t see her until today? Not even a passing glimpse?” he asked, cutting off Samantha’s summarization of all the seasons of Medium to Benchley.
She adamantly shook her head, her blond hair whipping about. “Nope. Never.”
Returning his gaze to the book, Jeff continued to scan entries. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and it was only growing worse.
“Oh, shit.” Benchley sat back, his expression fading to solemn. “Jeff has that look.”
“What look? There’s a look?” Samantha leaned over to peer into Jeff’s face. “What’s that look?”