Ashley Plum stood on a bridge that arched over a heavy waterfall, looking down at the gushing water at the bottom. It had been a little over an hour since she ditched the cheerheads to go down another path. 10 minutes ago, she found Chase’s bike in disrepair. No trace of him, though. Like he had just vanished. She texted Theo and Cassie as soon as she found the bike. She looked at her phone and swear under her breath. No texts. She might have to start looking for them too.
The corners of her mouth curled up. “So, the plot thickens.” She mused, stuffing her phone in her back pocket. She knew the school was hunted, but dang! This was more than she could ask for. Ghosts have fascinated Ashley since she was a child. Growing up in a haunted house with her mom and grandpa tell they moved when she was 13. Ever since she lived as an amateur ghost hunter. She came to this school knowing it is one of the most hunted places in Indianapolis and a good place to get a history major. It was easy to get people to help her. She just didn’t lead on that she was going ghost hunting. She has yet to find someone with her eagerness to find ghosts. So, she kept that part about herself a secret. Regardless… she didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, especially Greg. It’s not like death is bad or scary, no she did not fear the afterlife, not after being obsessed with it for so long, but the boys must have suffered a bit. And Chase… she never heard of a ghost taking a body. Of course, there is a terrible chance that Chase did not encounter the ghosts rooming the trees last night, but a living breathing thing.
A chilled wind bit at her cheeks and she pulled away from the railing. She knew that chill like the back of her hand.
she looked at both sides of the bridge, trying to find some indication of them.
“So you are the cause of all this.” A cool sweet tone whispered past Ashley. She spun on her heels. At the foot of the bridge stood a tall woman, white fire repolled off her skin. Ashley had seen her before, her knees lucked up as a shiver curled up her back, this was the woman she was telling the others about! The red eyes and long hair… hair seemed to sway in the nonexistent wind. The parts of the face Ashley saw… the women looked pissed.
“You have forced us out.” That same soft toon continued. “after sentries of being forced to live out our deaths were finally fading away… forgotten. You-” The ghost took a step onto the bridge, “had to come around and bring it back into the light.” Ashley took a step back. Her face marked with confusion. “you sent a soul off to die, twice!” the voice of the woman grows louder and louder with every word. Making her point clear. Ashley gripped the cool stone wall as the fall wait of what this means hit her like a tone of bricks. According to the afterlife, she was the one who killed Greg, and now as it seems Chase was not spared. She had dared Greg to swim to the bottom of the basement and had encouraged Chase to ride in the woods at night knowing fall wall of what might remain here.
"I can’t be responsible for the things those guys chose to do freely!” Ashley argued.
“Is that how you see it?” cool unyielding anger coasted to her from behind. The voice was vagally familiar. Ashley trembled slightly as she turned to see the ghastly form of Greg Benet standing right behind her. His hair moved up and down as it would underwater. His eyes blazed red, like the woman who slowly moving up behind her but more impassioned and vengeful. “I remember you standing outside of that basement door and manipulating me into swimming down. Promising me that you’d save me if anything happened. Where were you? I stretched out my hand to you. You never came!” With no worming, his hands were around Ashley’s throat. She tensed.
"you have done enough damage for one lifetime.” The woman said from behind her.
Ashley was shaking. She loved hunting ghosts for so many years. Visiting long-forgotten places and saying hello to any wondering soul there, had made contact a few times. She discovered amazing things about the afterlife, she never knew anything like this could happen. And her friends, yes, they were her friends, and she dragged them all into this mass. Possibly leading them straight to their deaths! She shook like crazy as she stared into the eyes of the person who wanted her dead the most. “You and your little gang are responsible for this boy here.” The women continued.
“I had the choice to leave this behind, the betrayal, but I couldn’t! You lied and you and the rest of them didn’t have the decency to take me out of my watery grave. You and everyone left me there to rut in the cold and filth!”
“Place,” tears rolled down her cheeks like the waterfall beneath them, “they… h-had nothing to d-do with that n-night… it was all me.” She led Theo and Cassie here, she needed to get them out. “Please.”
Greg laughed. Outright laughed as he tightened his grip on her neck. She started gasping for breath. “I like the begging, but too late.” His grin was pure sadistic delight. Then he dropped the boom shell, “Do you really think I wouldn’t save best for last? Everyone has already been taken care of.”
Ashley’s world begun to spin. From the lake of air or the realization that everyone… everyone that she dragged into this operation of her's… was dead, she couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter anyway.
“How?” was all she could say, her voice small and breathless.
“Chase died by the hand of Alison himself. He was run over by a car. Chase’s bike didn't stand a chance. The two love birds died by the kissing bridge in the back of the Lab by the hands of the girl standing behind you.” Something hard and cold pressed itself to the side of Ashley’s head. It made a click sound. Ashley’s teeth clenched together. She wanted to crumple to the ground and cry for hours, to never think about ghosts again, to go back and do it all over.
“The same way I killed Alison’s first wife, sitting on the bridge she and Allison would sneak off to. She sat for hours waiting for him before she died and will spend the rest of eternity waiting. If his mom hadn’t found out what I did I would have lived the rest of my days out in luxury in inheritance. I have spent every moment reliving my killings and death. I eagerly jumped at the change in routine. You better clear your schedule for the next two centuries.” The woman laughed.
Ashley’s eyes rolled up towards the sky, her body beginning to lose all control. She shock had settled into her like a two-ton weight. Her body didn’t feel like her own anymore, she became vagally aware of the laughing of the woman, of the running water under her feet, the dead man’s hand around my neck.
“And now you’ll know how it feels.” A male said from fair away. Ashley didn’t feel the wind on your cheeks, the ice-cold stabbing pain all along her body. Didn’t feel as the hand let go and water came pouring in.
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