Contents ( 64)
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- INTERLUDE
- THREE
- FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- INTERLUDE
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- INTERLUDE
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- INTERLUDE
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-ONE
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-TWO
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-THREE
- PART THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-ONE
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-TWO
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-THREE
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- INTERLUDE
- FORTY-ONE
- About the Author
- Acknowledgments
- CHUCK WENDIG in conversation with Adam Christopher
"Shhhh," Ghost Louis says.
Miriam doesn't mean to, but she bites Real Louis's tongue.
"Ow," he says.
She winces. "Sorry."
She wants to scream to the ghost, You're a figment, shoo, go sleep with the cockroaches. This is a celebration of life over here. It's not twisted. It's not fucked up. Totally normal.
Ghost Louis pulls up his other homespun eye-patch. A coughing burble of black blood runs out next to the still-streaming spout of maggots. He smiles.
"You're going to let me die and steal my money," Louis says, and Miriam drops to the ground and steps backward, her heart hammering against her breastbone like an iron fist. She doesn't know which one of them said it.
"What?" Louis, Real Louis, asks.
"Maggot, vulture, parasite, hyena," croons Ghost Louis in a chirpy sing-song.
Miriam cries out in frustration.
Real Louis looks confused. He looks behind him, and for a moment, she half-expects him to see his own ghostly reflection. But now Ghost Louis is gone, and she's certain that her mind has completely gone too.
"What is it?" he asks. "Did I do something?"
She wants to say, Yes, you manifested as a ghost or demon from my own subconscious and taunted me while I was trying to get some action.
"No," she says, instead, waving him off. "No, it's just me. I can't, uhh. I can't. Not right now. Outside? There a snack machine? Ice machine? Drink machine? Any kind of… machine?"
He clears his throat. "Yeah. Uh, yes. Go out the door, head left. It's in a little alcove just off the parking lot."
"Cool," she says, and opens the door.
"Are you okay?"
She shakes her head. "Not so much. I know it's cliché, but it's me, it's not you. I wholly encourage you to chalk this one up to 'bitches be crazy'."
"Are you coming back?"
She answers honestly. "I don't know."
INTERLUDE
The Interview
"It starts with my mother," Miriam says. "Boys get fucked up by their fathers, right? That's why so many tales are really Daddy Issue stories at their core, because men run the world, and men get to tell their stories first. If women told most of the stories, though, then all the best stories would be about Mommy Problems. Trust me on this. Daddies are great for little girls, unless they're Diddle Daddies. Mommies, though. That's a whole other bag of anger."
"So, you blame your mother for all this? It's her fault?" Paul asks.
Miriam shakes her head. "Not directly. But maybe not so indirectly, either. Let me lay out my family situation. My father died when I was very young, and I don't really remember him. He had bowel cancer, which from what I understand is the least pleasant cancer to have, because you're basically… shitting cancer. Some of life's best moments are during a good bowel movement, and to have that robbed from you, I can't even imagine."
"Girls don't usually like to talk about their bowel movements, do they?"