Excerpt: The Ever After

Chapter Seven: Possessions

“We need to go. Now.” I started walking rapidly and pulled on his jacket so that he would know to follow.
“Go where?” He asked as he chased along behind us.
“Just hurry up!” I cried, and so the three of us ran all the way to my car. I needed to take him to my house. If anyone knew what to do about his new development, it would be my mother and Anya.
Briley decided just before we reached the car that she would fade out until we got back to the house and when she did I thought that poor Landon was going to die right then and there of a heart attack. “What the . . . where did she go?” he tried asking.
“I’ll explain soon. Just get in the car . . .”
“No, Lena! Not till you explain to me what the hell is going on!”
He had never spoken to me like that before, and I didn’t like it. By this point everyone was either running or staring from afar. I suppose this was the breaking point they’d always pictured I’d have.
“Look, Landon, you wouldn’t believe me even if I did tell you, now please just listen to me and get in the car.”
He stepped towards me and was just as close as he’d been to me when he snapped in my dream. “Try me . . .”
For a few moments, I was unable to answer him. Being that close to him was so intoxicating that I almost forgot where I was and what I was going to say. He smelled sweet and his breath was warm, not like it had been in my dream, mostly because this was real. He was no hallucination or dream person, he was real and he was really that close. I finally after several moments and several deep breaths was able to remember to say something. I leaned to the left and said softly in his ear, “Briley isn’t just my friend . . . she’s my spirit guide.”
“So what? Are you like a psychic or something?”
“Something like that. I can communicate with the spirit world and . . .
“Do you see dead people?” he asked in a mocking voice with a chuckle.
“This is not a joke, Landon! And yes, as a matter of fact I do.”
“So you’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“Really? I was just kidding . . . but what does any of this have to do with me?”
“Landon . . .”
“Yes?”
“You saw Briley . . .”
“So?”
“You see dead people too.”
That time, he did not laugh.