Orpheus - Haunting the Dead.pdf - Dice

HAUNTING THE DEAD
ALLEN RAUSCH
Then, at precisely the right instant, she sent a
mental command and her body died. She relived it, as
she did every time:
“Shouldn’t he be in a car seat?”
“Do you want him crying the whole way? My mother’s
is less than two miles and he’s hungry.”
The sensation of Nicholas at her breast, the soft lips on
her nipple. The hormones flowing as he begins to suckle.
Searing pain shot through her nonexistent skull
while she tore herself away from her own body.
The screech of iron, glass cracking—shattering. Pain as
tiny, immature teeth clamp down and then blackness—
sweet oblivion.
A splitting, ripping sensation strikes, as though her chest
were bursting open
And light as she returns. Something warm and sticky
and sweet is dripping into her mouth. Nicholas is in her
arms and he’s so small, so still.
“Nicholas? Nicholas, honey? Nicholas…?”
“Nicholas!” she screamed. Other skimmers she knew
claimed that they enjoyed the process of freeing themselves
from the skinsuit. Eileen could only envy them.
It took a moment to adjust herself to the different
perspective that being a spirit brought with it. Everything
around her seemed wavy—slightly off and oddly
angled as though she was somehow seeing the threedimensional
world tilted 90-degrees to the rest of
reality. Things danced at the corner of her eye, ugly
things, things that wouldn’t be there if she turned her
head to face them. She had learned to ignore them.
She checked her body and grunted with satisfaction
as she noted its slow regular breathing and wide staring
eyes. Then she opened the door and stepped back into
the office, not bothering to manifest to Cardinale.
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