By: Tina S. Zhu
Megan had been dead for several years already when someone tried talking to her for the first time since the fateful day she had been run over.
She was sitting at her usual bench in the empty park by her old high school in the suburbs northeast of Atlanta, eating a Quarter Pounder she’d nicked from the closest McDonald’s, when a tall girl about her age with a ponytail sat down next to her and waved. As Megan was dead and nobody could see her, the girl must have been waving to someone in the distance, someone still alive.
Megan ignored her. Today was the first day of the seventh month of the year in the lunar calendar, better known as Ghost Month, and she planned on enjoying her food without being bothered by anyone. The oppressive summer humidity around Atlanta hadn’t let up despite the beginning of fall. Oppressive for the living, that was, as Megan didn’t feel the heat or cold anymore. The world after she died had permanently become room temperature and her hands would pass right through all food outside of Ghost Month.
“Hey!” the girl said. She was in a knee-length blue dress and bracelet with rainbow beads that she kept fiddling with along with an extra hair tie, as if she were nervous.
Megan bit into her double cheeseburger that was so fresh it was drooling meat juice. She used to not have strong feelings about burgers, but when you could only eat for a few weeks every year, even shoplifted stale crackers tasted better than the dumplings her mom would make every Lunar New Year.
The girl waved again, and Megan ignored her again. Forced social interaction was one of Megan’s pet peeves. She had once been the shy girl in the back of class who could barely string together a sentence before dissolving into stuttering, and death hadn’t changed her personality that much other than trading her social anxiety for a newfound love of My Chemical Romance.
“Hello?” the girl asked, waving her hand in front of Megan’s face, passing her hand through the tree right by the bench. So she was a ghost, too. None of the other ghosts Megan had passed by had shown any interest in interacting with her, and she knew this meant the new girl was trouble.
“I know you can hear me,” the girl said.
As Megan had been taught manners, unlike certain girls in blue dresses, she finished chewing before responding.
“Give me a minute. Lemme finish my burger first.”
The girl gaped at her before suddenly laughing. She had a nice smile, the kind that could get her on a toothpaste ad if she was still alive. But her laugh was ugly, like the sound of crows shrieking.
“Wow, the info packet on you was so wrong. Are you really Megan Yong?” The girl squinted, her gaze flitting to Megan’s black choker and Green Day shirt, the outfit that she had conjured up once she figured out her clothes could be changed as easily as video game avatar outfits. “You’re a lot edgier than you were supposed to be.” She extended a hand towards Megan. “I’m Tabitha. Tabitha Yu, Hungry Ghost Investigator.”
“How do you know my name?” Megan didn’t accept her handshake, instead shoving her hand aside. Ghosts could only touch ghosts, and the fact that Megan could feel Tabitha’s cold hand meant she was definitely dead.
Alive or dead, people were too much trouble. Look at where being a good girl landed Megan. Dead at sixteen, a random pedestrian struck in a freak car accident, the driver a woman speeding past a red light on her way to pick up her kids from school. Her parents didn't believe in ghosts or the old traditions, having sworn off them even before moving to America, which meant she couldn’t speak Mandarin and that they would never burn any paper money or paper cars for her, meaning she would be broke and carless on top of being stuck in Georgia for eternity.
Instead of playing nice with Tabitha, she balled up the brown paper bag and aimed for the trash can. It missed, instead going through Tabitha’s knee before landing on the ground. Tabitha picked it up and threw it away in the trash can like a good citizen.
Megan couldn’t stand good people anymore. She stood up, dusting her black jeans off in preparation to leave for greener pastures, better known as the closest boba store. They made a mean Hong Kong-style egg waffle, and she was ready to feast, as being a hungry ghost meant she was always hungry: for food, for revenge on bad drivers, for her future that had been cut prematurely short.
“Wait! I have an offer for you,” Tabitha said. “I need your help, and you like food. I’ve got food. It’s a win-win for the both of us.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Megan replied, before vanishing in a puff.
###
Warm egg waffle in hand, Megan found an oak tree behind the parking lot, where she could eat her food without any wandering kids noticing a waffle floating in midair. The waffle was the best thing she had eaten so far this Ghost Month: light and airy, the perfect amount of chewiness, perfect with tea.
Her memories from being alive blurred whenever she reached for them, so much so that she didn’t remember her parents’ names or faces or the taste of her grandmother’s cooking anymore, but she recalled a generalized fondness for the taste of tea and coffee and the dismay that caffeine affected her sleep. One of the perks of being dead was that caffeine didn’t affect her anymore. She sat down against the rough bark of the tree to enjoy her food in peace when a rooster-thick branch creaked and snapped from the tree, before landing with a thud.
If she hadn’t been dead already, she would be well on her way to the afterlife, but instead, she phased through the branch before glancing up.
The glare of the late afternoon sun was bright enough that it took her a few moments to spot Tabitha, this time wearing a large red backpack, sitting up in the tree, smiling down at her like an opportunistic cat would at a bird. Megan groaned, resigning herself to more forced social interaction.
“There you are,” Tabitha said, leaping down from the tree and landing without a hitch, which would have been more impressive if Megan hadn’t also been a ghost and equally capable of performing gravity-defying stunts. “I wasn’t done with you. You see, someone alive has been scamming aunties around Atlanta into putting their life savings into a Ponzi scheme.”
“Why should I care? I’m dead already.”
Tabitha opened up her backpack to reveal two Styrofoam takeout containers that smelled rich, like meat of some kind. She wiggled them in front of Megan before yanking them away, leaving them tantalizingly out of reach. “I’ve got Peking duck here, if you agree to hear me out.”
Megan might hate people, but she wasn’t above free food. “Fine. Food first.”
###
After Megan and Tabitha split the melt-in-your-mouth duck with bao buns and they were working on the second takeout container, Tabitha said, “Whoever’s running the Ponzi scheme is pretending to be you. Someone has been posing as you to take the life savings of old people. When Annie asked the grandmas and grandpas, they don’t remember what the imposter looked like, and there’s no security camera footage or anything. Annie’s been helping me out, and she pointed me to you. Annie’s alive and a psychic, by the way—”
Another girl popped up behind them, plastic fork in hand, and took some of the duck before Tabitha could shoo her away. The new girl had bleached tips, and she waved at Tabitha. “Hi, I’m Annie. You must be the famous Megan. They used your yearbook photo from when you still had braces in the news after you died, by the way. My mom thought your black braces were really edgy.”
“Annie thinks maybe you have unfinished business that caused this,” Tabitha said, completely ignoring the interruption. “Whatever caused you to become a hungry ghost, maybe?”
She had been told by other hungry ghosts after she died that ghosts weren't meant to remember the things that hurt them the most. What Megan did know was that she had been a good student, good at following instructions, and a good girl who was waiting until college to start dating. She was good at delaying gratification, a marshmallow test champion.
But Megan had died. She was dead, and it didn’t matter that she had been a good girl. Good girls didn't follow random girls who somehow knew their names even though they had never met. There was no reason to be a good girl anymore. She was tired of doing nothing and delaying gratification even in the afterlife. Maybe she would have better luck in another life. Maybe having been a good girl meant she would be rewarded by being a human again next time and not an ant or an oak tree.
“And why, might I ask, are you interested in helping out random aunties you’ve never met?” Megan asked.
“There might be reward money from the feds,” Annie said.
Megan appreciated her honesty, and Tabitha laughed. Her laugh wasn’t quite so grating this time, and Megan thought she could almost be pretty, if you ignored her inability to leave her alone.
“I’m an investigator. It’s what I do. I help people.” Tabitha gestured at the parking lot behind them with her right hand, and Megan noticed half her rainbow bracelet had disappeared. “Why not make some good use of being stuck here as a ghost? I’m not going to sit around looking pretty and moping for eternity.” She winked at Megan. “Not that I have anything against being a pretty edgelord, of course.”
Megan didn’t think she and Tabitha could be friends, but Tabitha was right that she didn’t have anything better to do. So Megan decided. She would help out until Ghost Month was over and Tabitha couldn’t bribe her with food anymore.
###
Annie listened to bubblegum K-pop and wore oversized round glasses that mostly hid her face. Annie was one of those cool Asian girls who painted her nails fun colors. She hadn’t died yet, which meant she couldn’t teleport, not even across short distances like Megan and Tabitha, so they ended up spending a lot of time in her car. The first time she offered Megan a ride, she took them to a strip mall at the edge of Atlanta with a couple payday loan places and a couple shuttered stores.
“Do you like BTS?” Annie asked, before changing the playlist over to BTS without waiting for a reply. She had avoided looking at Megan after introducing herself, which most likely meant she was a bit shy despite her brusque demeanor. “It’s nice to meet you at long last, Megan. I had no idea you were still around. I told Tabitha there was a good chance you’d passed on already. None of the people I interviewed to put together your file mentioned anything about you being resentful enough to stay.”
Annie inherited her store from her parents before they shuffled off this mortal coil a few years ago. North Georgia Hungry Ghost Investigators, LLC, the sign declared in fading letters above the Chinese translation she couldn’t read. The carpet inside emitted the scent of cigarettes and was the ugly shade of blue in fashion when Megan’s parents were still in China. A couple of the lights were flickering, and the sink in the break room didn’t work. The utilities company was only keeping the electricity running because Annie had threatened to sic an angry ghost on them. Property developers had come calling, even going so far as to offer Annie ten times the amount of money her parents paid for the store, since Annie was the last holdout keeping them from succeeding in buying up the entire strip mall to turn into a mixed-use development. All in all, not particularly promising, and Megan had to wonder if Annie was really as good at her job as Tabitha claimed.
“What’s the plan?” Tabitha asked, sitting on the chair, also last in fashion in the ‘70s, swinging her legs back and forth.
Annie hummed, shuffling through papers. Megan leaned over her shoulder, looking at the list of names of people who had been targeted by the Ponzi scheme her imposter was pulling. Even if someone she knew was on the list, she didn’t think she would recognize the name.
“The way this Ponzi scheme works is that the culprit schedules meetings with aunties through WeChat. They usually target book clubs or Bible study groups, but any excuse that people have to congregate is fair game. They ask for small amounts first, before they swing back around to the same book clubs and Bible study groups and ask for more,” Annie said. “I think they’re using Megan’s identity because Megan’s dead already, which makes her fair game.” She glanced at Megan for the first time since they met. “Your death was in the papers, but it was a while ago. People have mostly forgotten.”
“Thanks for letting me know that nobody remembers me and the purpose of my entire existence was pointless,” Megan muttered.
“Assuming you can figure out where the imposter is going next, Megan and I can hide in wait and give them a good haunting,” Tabitha said, ignoring Megan. “Specifically, Megan needs to scare them a bit, yell at them for stealing her name, and then hopefully we can scare the imposter into giving themselves up.”
Annie finger-gunned Tabitha. “Perfect. I’ve been asking around the aunties to find out where the imposter is going. I just tell the aunties I’m interested in joining them in their investment journey too and that I’m a current Harvard MBA student home on summer break, and they usually don’t ask questions since my name’s pretty common. I also sometimes use my parents’ WeChat accounts to ask around in the group chats they were in. I’ve heard there are gonna be a bunch of appearances by the imposter this month.”
“What do I get if I help?” Megan asked.
“The eternal gratitude of the good people who are still alive,” Annie said.
“The pleasure of my company,” Tabitha said, when she saw Megan’s flat expression, “and don’t forget, free food.”
###
Tabitha and Megan’s first outing as a team was at a book club hosted at the home of a middle-aged auntie. They were reading a book on parenting, and Megan and Tabitha sat there in the corner, Annie idling outside in her car, until the conversation dissolved into gossip. The aunties had been expecting a special guest, the host of the book club said, but the guest had canceled at the last minute.
“This scammer’s flakier than a bowl of corn flakes,” Megan said, and Tabitha laughed at her. She was the type who clapped when she laughed, and the bracelet that was there the first day they had met wasn’t there. Her usual hair tie was only half there, as well, the other half having vanished. Megan would have to ask how she pulled that off. It must have been a secret ghost trick she hadn’t learned yet.
“What? I wasn’t trying to be funny.” Megan said. “I just meant that maybe the scammer’s already left Atlanta.”
“You’re a riot,” Tabitha said, and Megan could tell she wasn’t being sarcastic. “And I don’t know, my gut is telling me otherwise. There’s been no reason for the scammer to leave, right?”
###
The second attempt at finding the scammer, a week after the first, didn’t go much better. They missed the info session at the local community college because Annie’s tire deflated on the highway. Annie had never used a car jack before, and Tabitha and Megan had to help her figure things out.
“Sorry,” Annie said, not sounding apologetic in the least that she had to resort to two ghosts to figure out how to interpret YouTube videos on changing tires. Megan’s initial positive impression of Annie had been souring. Annie would constantly ask Tabitha for things: to shoplift for her, to get things off high shelves for her, and to give her upstairs neighbors that for some mysterious reason were moving furniture every night a scare. None of these things were horrible individually, but taken together, Megan got the feeling that Annie was taking advantage of Tabitha’s kindness. She couldn’t suss out their exact relationship, whether Annie and Tabitha were just mere coworkers or friends.
###
Annie had been compiling a briefing every morning for the past couple weeks with case updates. Megan appreciated how dedicated Annie was to the job, to catching the culprit, even though she suspected there would be little profit to be found.
The day after the botched second attempt, the scammer duped a local parent into parting with a sizable chunk of the college fund they were saving for their kids. The parent then discovered the WeChat support group Annie had set up for people who realized they had been tricked. Tabitha was right. The imposter was still in the Atlanta area.
###
Annie had to start school this week, the next-to-last week of Ghost Month. It turned out that she was a senior in high school, and Tabitha and Megan didn’t get much done in her absence. They kept up with the WeChat group chat, which mostly contained angry rants about how the victims were going to sue the perpetrator once they figured out who it was. On the third day of school, Annie even asked Megan for help doing her math homework for her.
“I have to meet with more property developers,” she explained to Megan after they were back in the strip mall after school. Megan had introduced her to the greatness of My Chemical Romance while Tabitha was out tracking down another ghost haunting a community theater. “They always try to wine and dine me to get me to sell off the store.”
Megan had noticed that Annie’s woes were mostly financial, and she hoped she didn’t come across as condescending when she said, “You know, it might make your life easier if you sell it. You could run the business from WeChat instead. It’s not like me and Tabitha have an actual commute to worry about.”
“I can’t. This was my parents’ baby. They worked for years to buy it in cash because banks wouldn’t give them a mortgage. I can’t let their dreams die on me.” Annie glanced down at the ugly carpet, rubbing her eyes while MCR played softly in the background. “You wouldn’t get it. You’ve never lost anyone. I’ve met hundreds of ghosts, and none of them have cared about anyone other than themselves.”
Megan had nothing she could say to that, so she took Annie’s math homework out of her hand and started working on precalc for the first time since she died.
###
A few days later, the scammer was said to have shown up at a Chinese school in Johns Creek, claiming that one would get monthly interest payments if they joined in on the plan. Annie, who rushed to the scene of the crime afterwards, said the witnesses described the suspect as short, wearing heavy makeup, and speaking perfect Mandarin. Megan’s Mandarin was never good enough to make her parents happy. It was almost funny that the imposter was more of a good girl than she’d been when alive.
###
Only ten days were left of Ghost Month, and they were no closer to finding the culprit than they had been at the start. But Tabitha kept her promises, and she had treated Megan to food galore over the past few weeks. Egg tarts and red bean buns and fried rice and twice-cooked pork and all the comfort foods Megan missed from when she was alive. She didn’t say where she got the food, and Megan didn’t ask.
“Why are you working with Annie?” Megan asked instead. They were both seated in a park not too unlike where they had first met, but this time they were at a picnic table. When Megan studied Tabitha more carefully, she could see through Tabitha at the right angle.
“I’ve got nothing better to do.”
“That can’t be right,” Megan said.
“Do you know why I’m stuck here?” Tabitha asked. Megan shook her head. Hungry ghosts weren’t supposed to know, and once they discovered their reason and made peace with it, they were supposed to pass on.
Megan was planning to ask how Tabitha made her possessions disappear, but at Tabitha’s question, she decided it was better if she saved her curiosity for later.
“I died because I was lonely,” Tabitha said. “I had no friends. My mom passed away when I was in elementary school. She was always working because my dad left us when I was a baby, and she overworked herself to death. I went to live with my grandparents, who didn’t care for me since they blamed me for my mom dying and for her marrying a useless boyfriend who knocked her up and then left. When I got sick, there was nothing to live for. I was so tired. So, I just gave up.”
“So, you’re stuck here until you make a friend,” Megan concluded. She hadn’t taken a bite of her red bean bun at all. Tabitha’s story killed her appetite.
“You’re a smart one. Yep, bingo. Annie figured it out when we first met, which was when my grandparents hired her because I was haunting their restaurant and causing trouble. My grandparents still leave food out for me every Ghost Month because they’re scared of me.” Tabitha chuckled. “I’m stuck here until I have a friend. Like, a real friend. It’s stupid, isn’t it? I joined Annie because she could use a ghost for her line of work, and I’m hoping if I meet enough people, I’ll be able to make a friend. At the very least, maybe Annie will eventually think of me as a friend and not just her ghostly personal assistant.”
“That blows,” Megan said, and Tabitha laughed again.
“You know,” Tabitha said, “It’s not terrible. I need her, and Annie needs me to keep her business afloat. She’s not too bad. And you’re not too bad yourself, Megan. I like your spirit, and I’ve had fun hanging out. You should consider joining me and Annie full-time after this job.”
“About the scammer, I might have a plan to root them out.” Megan had been thinking about the scammer’s awful pattern of targeting the elderly, and she had some ideas she didn’t want to tell Annie until she ran them with Tabitha first.
“You do? Do say more,” Tabitha said.
###
Megan’s plan: to fight fire with fire. She would pretend to be a helpless old lady. She would make a new WeChat account with a burner phone and ask the imposter to come to her Chinese ink painting club for empty nester moms. The monthly interest payment date was coming at the end of the month, and she and Tabitha pooled together funds to invest a couple hundred dollars with the scammer, from the ghost money Tabitha’s grandparents burned for her soul every year this month. Ghost money turned into real cash that materialized in Tabitha’s bag every year, but it was only usable during Ghost Month and would vanish from bank accounts and cash registers immediately after.
Once I get my first interest payment, we’ll invest more in your fund, Megan texted the imposter on her burner phone. She had run the sentences through Baidu Translate from English and had the computer read them out loud twice for her to check that they made sense in Chinese.
The scammer texted back a sticker of a cartoon dog nodding its head and a string of heart emoji. From the emoji, the imposter must either be quite young or from mainland China. Either or both was possible at this point of their investigation.
“Do you not want Annie’s backup when we go catch the imposter?” Tabitha asked, when Megan showed her the texts over sandwiches.
“She’s busy with school, right? She’s applying to college this fall.” Megan tried her best not to sound resentful that Annie would have a shot at turning eighteen and going to college and someday reaching drinking age when she could never do any of those things, not even if she wanted them.
“You sure? She could be helpful.”
“I don’t want to stress her out any more.”
Tabitha shrugged. “You’re the brains of the operation, so whatever you say.”
###
On the final day of Ghost Month, Megan and Tabitha arrived at the park they had arranged to meet the imposter was, after a few initial failed attempts teleporting there. The person Megan had seen the most the past month was Tabitha. Were they friends now? Did normal teenage girls plot to catch scammers together during their slumber parties and study hall periods?
They set up enough trip wire, with rope stolen from the closest Lowe’s, for the park to resemble a spiderweb. They waited in the trees for the imposter to show up. Tabitha had her own phone in hand purchased from this year’s ghost money, ready to snap pictures to use as evidence. The plan was to trap the imposter, then check who they were before haunting them until they gave up.
Megan hadn’t cared much for the job before, but she wanted to make Tabitha happy. Tabitha, who had shared so much food with her during the past month. She would miss her after the job was complete. Tabitha was closer to finding peace and passing on than Megan was, as she was starting to piece together the real reason why she was stuck wasn’t that her parents forgot her, but rather that she had never done anything for herself during her life. How she could fix this, she didn’t know. That would be a problem for after Ghost Month.
The tree they were sitting in rustled and bent. There was no breeze. The tree creaked further, bending at a dangerous angle.
“Was that you?” Megan asked.
Tabitha pointed at the ground. “I think we caught them,” she whispered.
Megan leapt from the tree, followed by Tabitha, landing on the ground silently. Instead of someone neither of them recognized, they discovered Annie on the ground, rubbing her ankles. Her cheeks had dirt stains on them, her pants grass stains.
“Oh, hey,” Annie said, waving at them. “How are you two doing?”
“What are you doing?” Tabitha asked.
Megan suddenly had a strong suspicion as to what Annie was doing. “You’re the imposter,” she said before pointing at Annie. When she was alive, her parents and aunties said pointing at people was rude, but they weren’t around to tell her otherwise, and if the moment called for pointing, that was what she would do. “You’re the imposter, and you pretended to be me to make money off people who didn’t know better.”
“What are you talking about? Why would I do that?” Annie asked. She sprayed Neosporin on her ankle. Always prepared, Annie was, which sounded much more ominous now.
“What the fuck,” Tabitha said to herself, the first time Megan had heard her swear. “Tell me Megan’s wrong, Annie. Because what the actual fuck.”
“Look, we’ve seen the state of the store,” Megan continued. “You need money. So, you probably saw in the news that I died—”
“My parents wouldn’t shut up about your death when it was on the news because something about you reminded them of me,” Annie interrupted, without denying the accusations. “I didn’t know you had become a hungry ghost. If I had, I would have taken someone else’s name.” There were tear tracks on Annie’s cheek, clear patches between the dirt stains, and Annie hid her face in her arm.
“You should return the money. You could tell them a vengeful ghost intervened and forced you to quit the investment plan. Most of the people you duped would just love to see their original money back. It’s not too late, Annie.”
“Annie, it was wrong of you to take people’s money and then lie to me.” Tabitha crossed her arms, and Megan could feel the cold rage radiating from her in waves, from Annie lying to her this entire time. “I could have helped with money. I still have my ghost money until the end of today. We could have figured out some kind of scheme to get them off your back.”
“Tabitha,” Megan said at Tabitha. “Did you not notice something was wrong? Every time we went out with Annie, the imposter didn’t show, but we knew they were doing things when we weren’t around. How was that not suspicious?”
Annie had started crying louder. Tabitha handed her a tissue before sitting down next to her on the ground. Megan didn’t feel the sense of self-satisfaction that she should have from solving the case. Instead, she just felt bad. She felt downright awful for making a high school girl cry, a high school girl who was an orphan struggling to make ends meet after her parents had died.
Taking action was kind of awful, since it meant you needed to take responsibility for the consequences. She’d ruined things with Annie, and more importantly, with Tabitha.
So Megan left to eat away her feelings by eating more waffles, before she would lose her chance to do so for another entire year.
###
The egg waffles didn’t taste very good. What had been sweet and light last time now tasted bland and flavorless. In a few hours she wouldn’t be able to hold onto food at all, let alone chew or taste any of it. Instead, Megan sat down by the tree at the edge of the parking lot that had become her favorite hiding place, not caring about getting dirt on her jeans, holding on to her half-eaten waffle while she watched teens pass by.
“Hey, Megan,” a familiar voice said. Megan turned to find Tabitha waving at her, accompanied by Annie. Annie’s cheeks still were splotchy and swollen, but the dirt had been wiped off.
“I think I’m going to sell the store after all,” Annie said. “I wanted to hang onto it since it was the last thing I had from Mom and Dad, but I need to repay the people I’ve duped. You were right that I majorly messed up. And it’s not healthy for me to keep clinging to my parents’ store. I have a life I need to live outside of keeping their memory alive.” She looked Megan and Tabitha in the eye. “Tabitha, you were doing most of the fieldwork, so I’ll let you two decide what you want to do with the business. Thanks, Tabitha, for everything. And you too, Megan. I’m sorry things turned out the way they did.”
She sniffled and turned back towards the parking lot, disappearing into her car. Tabitha sat down next to Megan, much as she did the first time they had met.
###
Megan split off a piece of the waffle out of habit for Tabitha, still speechless after Annie’s confession. The only sounds were of the breeze and their chewing. Megan let her fingers brush against Tabitha’s when handing her the untouched milk tea she had stolen. Fall was slowly coming to Atlanta, and some of the kids in the parking lot today wore light jackets. A group of girls were laughing about gossip at school. Annie would be one of them soon, free to live as she wished.
“I guess it’s just you and me,” Tabitha said.
Megan wasn’t sure when she had started thinking of her and Tabitha as a unit, but here they were. The most interesting Ghost Month of her undead life, and it began and ended with Tabitha. When Tabitha tried to pick up her tea, it slipped through her fingers. Megan yelped as the tea spilled on the dirt. Tabitha’s right hand was turning transparent. Her right leg, too, was translucent, no matter which angle you looked.
“It’s you and me, isn’t it?” Tabitha laughed, the kind of laugh that scared Megan, because it sounded like Tabitha knew exactly what was happening. It sounded like she had accepted what would happen next.
“Are you okay, Tabitha?” Megan asked. She had never addressed Tabitha by name before, and the sharpness of the syllables caught her unawares.
Tabitha laughed again, and Megan suddenly knew what was happening. She wanted to yell at her to stay here, to stop the process. Megan could be an asshole to her again if it meant Tabitha could keep from passing on.
“I think my time’s about up,” Tabitha said.
“You can’t. Please. We need to keep the business going without Annie.”
“You’re a natural at helping people. You were right that I was lying to myself about Annie. The hints were all there, and I didn’t want to see them. I wanted her to be my friend.”
“You don’t have to go,” Megan pleaded, even though she knew it was hopeless.
“I might have fooled myself with Annie, but I think I know why you’re stuck here. You never got to make choices that you wanted for yourself. You only followed what everyone else expected of you, didn’t you? I can tell you’re a bit of a people pleaser. So I’ll give you a choice. The files on the other cases we were looking into are in my backpack. You can take ‘em or leave ‘em, it doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
Megan reached for Tabitha’s left hand, still solid, and pulled what was left of her into a hug. She was cold. They were both cold, but Megan felt warmer regardless.
“I don’t want you to go. I need your help,” Megan said, even though she knew it was time. She closed her eyes, felt the warmth of fresh tears form at the corners of her eyes.
“You’re braver than you think, Megan. I’ll see you around. You can tell me about all the adventures you’ve gone on then, after you’ve lived more than you could ever have dreamed of when you were alive.”
Megan kept her eyes shut. Who knew what she would discover when she opened them again? Then she felt something against her forehead. It was a brief kiss.
“Wait—” she started, before opening her eyes.
She was alone. Tabitha was gone.
The next time they would meet would be another life.
Tabitha’s red backpack was on the ground. Megan tugged the backpack, felt how heavy it was with data on issues ghosts were causing around the Atlanta area. A few of the cases that stood out, as she was flipping through the files: a poltergeist in a phone repair store near Georgia Tech, the ghost of a middle-aged woman wandering the North Point Mall in Alpharetta, and a ghost of a boy who had drowned in the YMCA pool who couldn’t stop doing laps and yelled at anyone who tried to swim in his lane.
She wanted to meet new people, all the people she didn’t get to meet in her short life, people both good and bad, alive or dead. She wanted to help the people who needed help and help other hungry ghosts pass on. She wanted to finish everything Tabitha left behind. She would tell Tabitha about everything she had done, whenever they ran into each other next.
Megan slung the backpack over her shoulder. There wasn’t any time to waste. She was already planning what she would say the next time she ran into Tabitha when she vanished with a pop. Her destination? The YMCA pool.
© Copyright 2024 Tina S. Zhu
About the Author
Tina Zhu is a NYC-based writer with a weakness for the speculative and the strange. You can read her work in Tor.com, Lightspeed, The Journal, X-R-A-Y, and other places. Her stories have been featured on Tor Nightfire and have been nominated for Best Small Fictions. She reads submissions for Split Lip Magazine and khōréō, and she is an occasional book reviewer for Hugo-nominated speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons. She is a member of SFWA and Codex Writers’ Group. When she’s not hiding in the pages of a book, she can be found looking for good food. Her newsletter, with reading updates and occasional writing ones, is http://thebookcave.substack.com.