Hell's Highway: Hell's Vengeance Series Book 1

197 pages

Chapter 3: The Dead Girl

Once they were face-to-face, the ghost girl looked Shane in the eyes, and a sudden realization dawned on her.

“You can see me,” she gasped.

She looked to be maybe in her late teens or early twenties. Her blonde hair hung limply down to her shoulders, as lifeless as she was. She wore jeans and a t-shirt, both soaked in blood, much like the rest of her. She was deep red and glistening, not a hint of dry flesh visible.

“Rough night, huh?” Shane grinned.

She laughed and looked behind her.

“You talking to me?” she asked.

He pulled a cigarette from his pack of Luckies and put a stick to his lips.

“No one else here,” he stated.

She took a tentative step forward as he lit the cigarette.

“No one’s been able to see me. There were so many people here, cops and others, and I kept talking to them. Yelling at them. None of them could hear me.”

“Well, cops, right? How often do they listen?”

“He killed me!” she said, not finding humor in his statement. “He killed me here and… he… cut me up.”

She choked on a sob, forcing the words out. Shane looked back to the bloody scene behind him. The body Jacinta had found was a man. First guess would have been that this girl was their killer. But if she had been killed as well, maybe the cops needed to do some more digging. And if the person who killed her cut her up, then he was a living, breathing killer, not a ghost.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Her expression was one of both sadness and anger. She seemed to be mulling over the memories of either her own death or the police being unable to hear her after. Ghosts tended to do that, especially when they were newer. The transition from life to death took some getting used to. But Shane wanted—needed—her to focus.

“My name?”

“You have a name, right? I’m Shane.”

“I dated a guy named Shane,” she said.

“Oh yeah? Good guy?”

“No, he was a jerk,” she replied.

Shane chuckled and flicked ash off of his cigarette.

“Maybe it’s the name.”

“I’m Sasha,” she told him. “Sasha Feldman.”

“Nice to meet you, Sasha. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Why did he kill me?” she asked instead of answering him. “Why? What have I done to him? Is he a psycho?”

“Yes,” Shane answered. “Looks like it. Do you know when it happened?”

“I was going to Point Pelee. I was going to meet my friends. We were going to go camping and party for the weekend. What the hell?” she said angrily.

“When?” Shane repeated.

She shook her head, frustrated by the question.

“I don’t know… it was… I can’t remember. You should go before he comes back. He might kill you too.”

“If someone wants to kill me, I got you watching my back. I’ll be fine,” he assured her.

“Last guy wasn’t,” she told him. “There was this guy. He caught the guy while… but then that guy got killed, too.”

Shane raised an eyebrow at that.

“Wait, so someone walked in on your killer? Was it this guy the cops were here for today? Or was it someone else? How many victims are there?”

“I’m not a victim,” she said angrily.

Shane frowned.

“All right,” he raised his hand defensively.

“He surprised me. I took kickboxing, you know? I could have kicked his ass.”

“Sometimes there’s nothing anyone can do,” he told her. He’d seen evidence of that often enough. If someone wanted a person dead badly enough, it usually happened. “Especially if the victim didn’t even know it was coming.”

“It’s stupid,” she said defiantly. “I didn’t do anything. Why did he have to kill me?”

“Did you know him?” Shane asked.

“What?” the question seemed to anger her.

“The man who killed you. Did you know him?”

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