I accept that the accident was my fault. Just like I told the cops - I was driving too fast, we'd been arguing, I didn't see that asshole out of the side mirror... boom.

I can deal with that, same as I dealt with the two counts of vehicular manslaughter {the asshole and her}. You just look like it's what you had coming, and sooner or later they agree and let you off easy.

That was years ago, now. I've moved away from where it happened, my lawyer's gotten it down to the point where no one knows about it, and as long as I keep the State happy {fucking court-appointed psychologists} all is well.

{They give me pills every month, and each day I drop one down the toilet with my morning crap. Just one, so they don't get suspicious.}

It happened, and it was my fault. I've accepted it. I've buried it, and I've moved on.

But she just won't let me be.


It started as soon as I took the leap and tried to get another, real girlfriend. Every once in a while, I'd look at the girl's face and I'd see her there, looking at me.

And I'm not talking her before the accident, either - the way I like to remember her {on those rare occasions that I do}. I'm talking that awful, bloody...

I'm talking about that thing that was left after she'd gone through the windshield and bounced off the pavement. That stretch-faced, eyeless and toothless face, with a wide-open, silent scream...

{She'd taken her seatbelt off to get away from me while we were arguing. Her fault, really... I wasn't going to hit her like the last time. I wasn't that angry... she should have known that.}

At first, I thought seeing her again, like that, was just nerves. Either that or the beer talking. And the shrink did say I might experience some weird feelings of guilt when I started dating again.

But after a while I realized that it wasn't just nerves - especially when the dead cunt started talking through the girl's mouth.

She'd ask me why I was cheating on her, and give me all kinds of details about the girl I was dating - nasty, awful things. Not all of them were lies, either, but the more I saw of her the more I realized that she could have been the one making the girl do them...

That was the end of that girlfriend, but she's come back with each new one. I was safe with one night stands or hookers, but as soon as I started spending a lot of time with a girl... boom, there she was.

And she did the exact same thing each and every time.


When she's not calling me a lying bastard, or telling me about who the new girl's done it with - and how - she tells me other things, too.

She tells me about the world she lives in now - some dark, awful place where the only release is to come back here and screw with the living. She tells me that there's cops there, too, and they don't like it when people do what she's been doing.

And she says it'd be easier if I joined her, because then we really could be together forever, just like I promised...

The last time, I lost it and started trying to choke the living shit out of her. She just laughed and left the girl, leaving me with a pissed-off girlfriend with bruises around her neck. She's now my ex-girlfriend, obviously.

{And thank God for her coke habit - she's not going to the cops for fear of a blood test during the examination.}


This can't go on, but I am not going to go back to that bitch. There's reasons why the accident happened - good reasons, too. The fact that she's doing this, now, just confirms it. World's better off with her not in it.

I thought about moving, but she'd find me, somehow {she said as much}. I thought about celebacy, but fuck that. And I thought about killing myself, but then I'd be stuck with her, wouldn't I?

It looked pretty bad, but fortunately she's not the only ghost in town.

Someone else started whispering in my ear, lately. He says he knows her - knows all about her.

And he's been telling me some of her secrets - how stuff gets done on their side of things.

He's told me that if you're inside someone, and they get hurt, you get hurt, too. Now, maybe a little punch to the nose might just be... well, a punch to the nose. And once she sees you mean her harm, she'll just jump out and leave you with a crying ex-girlfriend.

But if you did a lot of damage - real severe fucking damage - just when she didn't expect it, then she'd get so hurt that she'd go right back down to Hell and leave me alone.

{I think he said Hell. Started with an 'H' anyway. Close enough.}


So we've got ourselves a plan.

I'm starting to date this one girl from work. I really can't stand her - no one does, really - but I guess she likes me. I've been though enough whirlwind romances to fake one, though, so I've got her eating out of my hand. Chocolates on her desk, flowers in her in-box... the works.

And this Valentine's Day, I'm going to take her to this nice place. I'll have a sappy card and flowers, and a lump in my pants pocket that looks like a ring case. And she - my date, anyway - will know what it just might mean, given how dumb she is.

That'll be just enough to bring her around - I'm sure of it.

Meanwhile, my new friend will be there, in a waiter who's got "a few problems" as he puts it. He'll spend the night lurking near our table, waiting. And the moment she shows up, I'll just raise my glass to her... and he'll do the rest.

A sawn-off shotgun fits neatly under huge aprons those waiters wear, apparently.

Yes, it sounds extreme. But it'll do her so hard and so fast that she'll be in Hell before she knows she's dead all over again. There will be no way for her to get out of the girl.

{And he's promised to do the girl - and her - in such a way that I don't get spattered. I think that would really kill me.}

So that's my plan for this Black Monday: getting rid of the bitch for once and for all.

What's yours?

Besides being the webmaster of the Wraith Project, J Edward Tremlett somehow has the time to be the Mouth In Residence at The rANT Farm. He has been published in Pyramid Magazine, Shoggoth.Net, D20 Magazine and the International American.

The picture, and story, are jointly entitled "Black Monday."


 Back