Necromantic (10 page)

My mind ran through our courtship. Again, what stood out most for me had been the sex. Our first argument had even been over it. Harold had wanted to try different
things
. I had been against it and our fight had escalated from there. I paused in my recollection to muse that many of the things that he’d wanted to try over the years were exactly the kind of stuff which we had been doing these past months.

Was it possible that wasn’t a coincidence?

I continued in my stroll down memory lane. More fights, some of them down and dirty...nearly all of them leading to some even dirtier make-up sessions. There were an awful lot of arguments, though. In day to day living, Harold and I had apparently been like oil and water. Why hadn’t I remembered that before? Maybe I simply hadn’t wanted to.

I decided to skip ahead, trying to probe my most recent memories of life. Harold had said that I died in a car crash. The event itself was a blank. I couldn’t even remember getting into the car. I must have, though, because I vaguely had the sense of being angry before...well, whatever happened to me. Harold and I must have had another fight. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I concentrated, the end of my life just wasn’t there. Maybe it was a defense mechanism of the afterlife. Perhaps we were spared the memories of our last moments because of the trauma. I couldn’t be sure, but that seemed like a plausible explanation.

I wasn’t getting anywhere trying to remember my
end
, so I concentrated instead on pinpointing my final remembrances. As I did, they began to coalesce. That anger I had felt, it had definitely been because of another argument. No surprise there. This one, though, seemed particularly bad. It wasn’t as loud as some of the others were, but there seemed to be a hurtful, almost vicious, quality to it for some reason. Why had we fought?

Argh! The memory just wouldn’t come. I finally gave up. Continuing down that path would only serve to give me...or rather, this body...a headache. A migraine wouldn’t exactly help me in my quest for answers. Speaking of which, I checked Harold. I was momentarily tempted to slap him awake for his bitch remark, but I held myself in check. That would be counterproductive, especially now that he was sound asleep.

I crept out of bed with minimal noise, grinning as I went. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine this body was probably used to making quick exits from the houses of other men. It was unfair, though. I didn’t know her or her story. The only thing I knew was that she was here, mostly naked, and apparently willing to give it up for Harold. That wasn’t exactly a full biography. For all I knew, she was actually a decent person.

Enough of that for now, though.

I wasn’t quite ready to face myself, or more precisely, my corpse, again. Besides which, if I was going to find answers as to how and why it was here in the house, I doubted it was going to sit up and tell me. I had a better idea, anyway.

* * *

I sat down in Harold’s office chair, the soft leather conforming to the outlines of my buttocks. Before doing so, I made sure the drapes were shut. I saw no point in attracting undo attention from the outside. It was late, but a naked redhead sitting in front of a computer - in full view of the window - didn’t seem like the subtlest thing to me. It was funny; a few weeks ago, I couldn’t have cared less if people had been watching. Now, though, it was like I was playing secret agent.

I booted up Harold’s laptop. It was newer and a lot faster than what I remembered him owning. Time and technology march on, I guess. Speaking of which, what if technology had marched on so much that it was completely alien to me? It hadn’t been that many years, but that didn’t mean anything. If someone had died in nineteen ninety-two and been brought back a few years later, they’d have been flabbergasted by the World Wide Web. Who was to say similar advances hadn’t been made? Technology had never been my strong suit. If the world had moved on too much, I’d be lost.

A login screen came up requesting a password. My husband had always been predictable and tended to use the same one over and over again. I tried his favorite,
Storm06
. It was a play on our last name combined with his birth month.

Bingo! Oh Harold, when will you ever learn?

His computer finished booting up and I momentarily hovered the mouse over the email icon. Tempting, but time enough for that later. There! I located and opened his web browser - apparently, the world hadn’t moved on all that much after all. It loaded and Google came up. Fortunately, it didn’t look all that different than I remembered. Similarly, the web browser hadn’t changed all that much either. Sure, it looked newer and sleeker, and there were a few new options at the top - most of which I had no idea what they did - but the basics seemed the same. On a lark, I pressed an interesting button called
private browsing
, figuring it couldn’t hurt. I could use a little privacy in what I was doing.

A window popped up, explaining what it was - handy. I would be surfing the web without keeping a history of what I was doing. These things kept a history? I knew about bookmarks, but that one was new to me. Hell, yeah! The last thing I wanted was for Harold to check his computer tomorrow and discover I had left a trail behind. What a lucky break. Thank you, progress!

I activated it and then typed my name into the search box:
Lydia Strom
. As the results loaded, I saw it was a more popular name than I would have thought. I saw listings for Lydia Stroms on Facebook. I remembered that. It was kind of a new MySpace. There were more Lydias as well: a few on some website called LinkedIn and others listed on something called Twitter. Apparently, there was a porn star of that name as well. Go figure. I smirked at that thought. Considering the past several months, she and I might’ve had more to chat about than either of us realized.

Still, this was getting me nowhere fast. I needed to be more specific. I typed my name again, then added our town, Hollisburgh, and - just for good measure - ‘death’ followed by what I assumed to be the year of my demise. This was going to be weird, reading my own obituary. Holding my breath, I hit the search button.

What the...?! No results...or at least none that matched. There was a Lydia Nelson a few towns over. She was struck by lightning. A Munson Strom, no relation as far as I knew, died in Hollisburgh that year...from a heart attack. I combed through the first page, seeing no mention of my name. Was I that small of a deal to people? I mean, sure the gallery had never been huge, but it brought in a decent income. It had even gotten a few write-ups in the local press. It figured. Try to bring a little culture to a jerkwater town and they forget you the moment you croak.

I scanned through the next page and still nothing. I was starting to feel seriously insulted when I turned to the third page and a headline caught my eye.

Local Psychic Claims Missing Woman Alive and Well

For some reason, despite its
National Enquirer
type feeling, I was compelled to click on it.

Waynefield resident and self-proclaimed local psychic, Chase Thurmon, held a press conference today on the case of Lydia Strom of neighboring Hollisburgh, who went missing some four months ago.

Thurmon has claimed that Strom, longtime resident and general manager of the Hollisburgh Central Art and Photography Galleria, came to him in a dream the prior evening to announce that she is alive and well. According to Thurmon, Strom, missing since March of this year, wishes her friends and family to know that she has relocated out of country for reasons related to her health. When questioned as to why Mrs. Strom has not contacted her family directly with this news, Thurmon was quick to point out that sometimes his visions aren’t complete in their information.

Hollisburgh police detective, Jensen Horowitz, currently taking lead in the investigation, was quick to point out that Mr. Thurmon has no connection to either the case or his department. When pressed for further details, Horowitz stated that as of this time they have no additional information.

Mrs. Strom is survived by her husband, Dr. Harold A. Strom. Our sources reveal that he is currently not considered a suspect in the case.

What the hell? I quickly changed my search terms, taking out death and replacing it with disappearance. The screen immediately filled with stories, all of them about me.

My eyes opened wide in surprise, but I clicked on the first one nevertheless.

Chapter 15

By the fifteenth article, I realized I wasn’t going to learn anything else that was new. That was fine because my head was practically spinning. Forget the vasectomy lie. It was nothing compared to this. There had been no car crash...at least not one that anyone else was aware of.

I had simply vanished without a trace. One day I was there, the next I was gone. I had supposedly gone out shopping, at least that was the story the cops had been given. My car, along with my purse and wallet, were found at a mall I used to frequent. At first glance, it looked like a kidnapping. However, when no ransom note had been delivered, the police had turned to other theories. One was the obvious thought that I had simply gone nuts and run off. The other was more ominous...foul play.

That was the weird thing, though. According to the papers, Harold had quickly established an alibi and was almost immediately dropped from consideration as a suspect. I’m no sleuth, but growing up I had seen enough episodes of
Columbo
to think that the acceptance of his innocence happened a little too quickly. The fact that my corpse was currently lying in the basement, in full view of anyone who ventured down there, attested to that.

The rest had been pure speculation on the media’s part. Apparently, there had been an arrest of some drifter, but it had gone nowhere. Everything else pointed to a cold case. Hell, as far as I could tell I hadn’t even been declared legally dead yet. If that were the case, then there had been no funeral either. It was yet another lie to add to the growing list.

What the fuck had happened to me?!

* * *

I glanced down at the clock and noticed I had been at it for longer than I realized. My time was rapidly drawing to a close. Oddly enough, that was fine with me this time. However, I realized there was one physical sensation I really needed before I left...and it had nothing to do with Harold’s prick. I needed a drink. I knew it wouldn’t do me any good once I returned to the beyond, but even a few minutes of alcohol-based numbness sounded like just the thing for my frazzled brain.

I got up, taking care to shut down the laptop and make sure the room was left in the exact same condition as when I had entered it. Hopefully, Harold wouldn’t be able to tell there had been an unauthorized login to his computer during the night, but alas there was nothing I could do about that. I just had to hope that the intervening years hadn’t seen him become more technologically competent than he had been before.

When finished, I walked into the living room and headed immediately for the bar, thankful for the tacky new addition to our - Harold’s - household. I grabbed a tumbler and took stock of the selection. Ah, I found a bottle of good Russian vodka, more importantly good,
expensive
Russian vodka. I filled up half the glass and then walked into the kitchen, more out of force of habit than anything else. In life, I had never been big on taking my liquor straight.

I opened the refrigerator, hoping for some orange or cranberry juice. Heck, any type of juice would do. I stared at the contents of the fridge, unimpressed. Forget the bachelor lifestyle; this looked like the refrigerator of someone straight out of school. Beer filled the lower half with several bottles of soda up top. I did see a carton of milk, but it looked well past its prime. That was about it. Real nice, Harold, not even a stick of butter in sight.

Wait a second. I pushed a few bottles of Pepsi out of the way and found an unmarked glass pitcher filled with a neon green liquid. I vaguely remembered buying a bottle of Hi-C of the same shade some years back when it was on sale. Considering Harold’s other selections, a sugar-saturated kids’ drink didn’t seem out of the ordinary. I figured, what the heck?

I poured a splash in my vodka and gave it an experimental sip. Ugh! Definitely not fruit juice. It tasted bitter in an herbal kind of way...almost medicinal. Was this Harold’s lone concession to healthy living, some kind of vegetable concoction? Fortunately, the aftertaste wasn’t too bad. The shock over, I took another sip and considered it. Mixed with the vodka, it was palatable. Of course, that might have just been the warmth of the alcohol hitting my belly.

Whoa! It was definitely warm. Despite how this body looked, I guessed that maybe she was a lightweight when it came to drinking. The warmth was starting to spread and along with it came a tingling, which likewise filled me. It felt familiar...very familiar.

Soon my whole body was feeling it, especially my most sensitive areas. My nipples hardened and I could feel my crotch growing damp. Holy shit! This was almost the exact same feeling as I had gotten from the magic pentagram in the basement. I highly doubted it was the vodka. That left the mystery juice. What the hell was in it?

Whatever it was, it was starting to affect me. Whereas before, my interest in returning upstairs had been the necessity of leaving, it was now becoming a physical need. Salacious thoughts entered my mind from seemingly out of nowhere...all of them involving satisfying the craving that was rapidly growing inside of me.

Had Harold somehow distilled that power from downstairs into this drink? It sounded absurd, but at the same time seemed possible.

But why?

Maybe he’d planted it as a trap for me, but that didn’t seem likely. Had he perhaps used it on all of the women he had lured here? I put the juice back where I found it and considered this. As I did, my hand reached down, almost seemingly of its own accord, and began stroking my inner-thigh. It felt almost dangerously good...far better than anything I had felt in this body up until this point. For me, that ruled out Harold using this on his female guests. If he had, I would have certainly noticed this feeling before.