I shivered internally at the wrongness I could feel coming off of her like a scent. Looking at that piece of wood had amplified her aura of spite and aggression to unreal levels, like she was facing it away before and now I was more directly in her line of sight. She walked by like she didn't notice me, or more accurately like she didn't care. I doubt she knew I could see her, as obvious as I'd been in the past she had barely had a passing run in with me where I barely acknowledged her presence.

"She's here?" Jack asked, my whispered omen causing alarms to visibly signal in his mind.

All I could do was nod. This person was not going to stop with mere words, that was never going to work. We had no choice but to pull someone away from her grasp. I didn't know how this plank of wood did such terrible things to a person, but I did know that the ghost had to be close to use it, that's just common sense. All I could determine is that without seeing the person she can't aim the. . . Magic wood energy? at the victim.

I breathed in deep, never letting my eyes fall to the floor like they wanted to. There was something familiar about how it felt. I guessed it was just something I'd felt while I slept the night of Kaylyn's murder. Either way, I wanted nothing more than to look away, to willfully ignore her, but my willpower was stronger. It may have been awkward how I was just staring at her, but if I tried to even just be subtle I could tell my resolve wouldn't see me through.

She walked into the center of the room and looked around, eyes completely skipping over Jack and I, regardless of the fact that I was staring right into her eyes and eventually landed on the girl who had ordered too many smoothies. "I was right," I muttered as she took a long moment to glare at the woman like she was sizing her up before a slight smile tugged at her lips.

I shivered, Jack watching me, waiting for some kind of cue. "Finish your smoothie and get ready. We'll need to grab her as the ghost starts to kill her but before anything actually happens or she'll just chase. She can go through walls, we wont be able to escape that," I muttered to Jack who I saw nod out of the corner of my eye.

Eventually the young girl behind the counter called her up to collect her precarious tower of smoothies. She tapped a few more times on her phone before turning it off and walking up to the counter with a smile. "Thank you," she said as she reached to pick up the stack of drinks in a manner that would undoubtedly end in disaster and I saw my opening.

"Here, let me help you," I said as I walked up to the counter and picked up a few of the cups. "Come on Jack, let's help her out," I said with a look that almost seemed threatening. Jack got up quickly and grabbed several cups which left enough to be carried without too much trouble.

"Thank you, I wasn't quite sure how I was going to carry all of that," she said as the ghost watched with a considering and spiteful glare. I never let my eyes stray from her or they might not find her again.

"It's not a problem, we were just leaving anyways," I said. I felt awkward just staring over her shoulder as we talked but there were worse things then some odd looks. We walked out of the store and made our way out to the girl's car to put the smoothies in. I waited as she put the smoothies she was holding in her car in a way that she thought would prevent disaster. I stared as the ghost looked up at the moon, or lack thereof, as she followed us, returning her gaze to her target and clutching the wood tighter to her chest and brought it close to her mouth, almost like she was telling it some profound secret.

I felt the girl remove the smoothies from my hand and set them into her car. "Thank you, that would have been hard on my own," she said. I was really starting to not like this girl.

The ghost walked straight into her car and sat down in the backseat, still clutching the wood close like she was hugging a beloved family pet that had been abused by someone in the room, that is to say, fiercely and with a look that could kill. I stepped back, Jack following suit. Soon all the doors to her car were shut and she was turning the key to drive.

"Come on, we've got to go. She wont be killed until she's in her room, we know that much from her pattern," I said, running over to Jack's car. He unlocked it before I got there and he slid in a moment after I closed my door, turning the key and putting the car into drive as fast as he could before ripping out of the parking lot in pursuit of the girl's car.

She wasn't a very good driver, weaving in and out of traffic like a crazy person and getting nowhere. Despite her seemingly evasive techniques we were able to follow her to a suburban neighborhood, a nice place that would surely have many families. I was sure a place like this had never experienced a tragedy, and we were about to keep it that way.

The girl was driving more normally now that there wasn't as much room for crime, but she was still swerving like the little brother who was bad at Mario kart had picked up the controller. We went around the same circle three times before I realized that she was probably trying to shake the people in the shitty car continued to follow her around. "Fuck," I muttered.

"What?" Jack asked, suddenly far more worried, the nerves clearly eating him alive.

"She noticed we're following her, she's probably on the phone with someone right now talking about what to do," I said.

"No one thinks that way while they're driving," he muttered just loud enough for me to hear.

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"They do, and we actually are following her," I said.

"Well, what do we do?"

"I don't fucking know, Jack! I. . . Stop at these mailboxes," I said suddenly. Jack seemed shocked but obeyed, pulling up beside the large cubes with slots for mail and keyholes for the residents to retrieve it. I got out of the car and stood at one of the mailboxes, fumbling with nothing like I was trying to find my key.

She circled around one more time before I got back into the car and told Jack to keep following her. "You really think that's all it'll take for her to assume nothing's wrong?" he asked as I closed the door and motioned for him to go.

"Yeah, I do. People are looking for reasons to feel safe, she'll take what she can get," I said as we pulled away from the boxes and down the road, staying just barely in sight of the manically driving woman.

"Alright," Jack said skeptically. When she pulled up to a house and stopped on the curb we did the same down the street and waited for a long moment as her car turned off. Jack did likewise, plunging the world into darkness as I watched the ghost walk through the car door and directly into her house, still clutching that wooden object to her chest. We watched the young girl make several trips to give smoothies to whoever happened to be inside, family most likely, though friends or perhaps a lover were equally likely with someone of her age.

I waited a long moment, looking at the nearby houses. They had those fancy doorbell cameras, although I hoped that the victim's house didn't as I intended to break in to save her life from a specter, something that most people wouldn't understand, even the victim herself would probably be confused.

I got out of the car, closing the door as quietly as possible and motioning for Jack to follow my lead. I slunk forward towards the girl's house, keeping low and sneaking behind bushes and garbage cans almost expertly, like I'd done this before. I'd make a good thief, I thought to myself as I noted my propensity for sneaking and picking locks. Jack was far more clumsy, making noises and knocking into things as he tried to copy my lithe movements. I crouched behind some small bushes in front of the house, cramming myself in the small space between the house and the bushes.

Jack was not as able to fit in the small space, pushing the entire bush away from the house to make himself fit beside me. Once he was in the space he seemed much more at home though, my heart was racing and it was getting hard to focus. I usually didn't need to squeeze myself anywhere, but when I did it was pure hell, like some sort of prison just awaiting execution for something I didn't do, not really anyways.

I was crouched below the window which sat cracked open, just barely enough to let a slight breeze in and enough for me to hear the conversations going on inside. They were talking about the smoothies and about how good they were, definitely a family event as an older woman kept telling the kids to get to bed, to which they immediately responded with "but I haven't finished my smoothie!"

I was tired, sitting and waiting all day had taken a lot out of me and there wasn't a lot of caffeine in the smoothie I had eaten. I hated this, I just wanted it to be over so I could go to bed and get out from behind this damned bush.

After almost an hour the voices inside went quiet, and moments later the light emanating from the window was cut off. I lifted my head through the bush a little bit to peek into the room to see a dark and empty space, only a couch and a set of stairs leading up towards the second floor.

I heard several notes play, bringing on a wave of exhaustion. Damn it, the music was keeping everyone asleep and driving ghosts away! I should have seen it before!

I slapped Jack who had started to nod off, motioning him to follow me. His resolve hardened and he shook himself awake, following me up to the front door. The camera imbedded in the doorbell mocked me, but it couldn't be helped. If I needed to I could use someone's device to delete the footage. I knelt down, pulling my lockpicks from my pocket as I inspected the lock. It was nice, definitely the nicest I'd seen, but it wasn't a key code so I had the tools to open it. I pulled out some tools and stuck them in the door.

The lock fell open with a faint sliding noise as the deadbolt was retracted. I pushed open the door and turned to see Jack struggling to keep his eyes open. I was faring better, but I was still unrealistically tired. "Shit," I muttered as I smacked Jack on the back of the head. He shook off the sleep and marched inside behind me, who padded lightly through the rooms and followed the ethereal echoing sound coming from the sound of plucking strings which built in intensity and emotion, none of the retellings doing the spite and pure rage justice.

I raced up the stairs, silently making my way through the well and up to a closed door, the same door that the sound was coming through. There was a faint white light, tinted a faint blue by the poor lighting and the flooring in the surrounding area. I tested the door. Locked.

I didn't have time to inspect the lock, so I just pulled out a turning tool and a rake, jamming both into the hole until the lock turned to let me into the room. The door swung open to reveal the ghost in her wedding dress, eyes closed and curled up on the floor with the wooden item she always had with her on the floor, finally revealing the top to be covered in strings which she plucked with dexterous fingers. The victim was standing stock still just in front of the ghost, glowing with a faint internal light that seemed to be moving within her, almost like mist just outside of a tinted window.

Her feet started leaving the floor, he mouth open in an eerily silent scream and her limbs twisted in almost unnatural angles, her eyes closed almost peacefully, even against the evident pain.

The exhaustion was getting to me, the closer I got the more I just wanted to curl up and go to bed. I moved in, but Jack was faster, racing in and tackling the girl out of the air. The internal light faded and she took a deep breath, hitting the ground with Jack on top of her. She fell asleep immediately and I saw Jack try to shake off the longing to slumber as the ghost stopped playing, her eyes opening and filling with more rage than any sound could convey.

"Fine, you win," she said darkly, her voice incredibly beautiful for such a monstrous circumstance. Jack got up and started dragging the unconscious girl out of the door, picking her heavily up and moving for the door. Jack shook the sleep from his eyes again, reaffirming his resolve once more.

"Nice! Come on, let's get out of here," I said, ignoring the ghost who had moved her hands back in place over the instrument. She plucked several notes, restarting the song. I ran in to try and usher them out faster, but Jack started slowing down. Jack soon came to a complete stop on his way out of the room, his eyes almost glazing over.

The girl we had set out to save fell to the ground with a crash, the sharp sound of bones snapping filling the air over the angry music that filled the air as Jack turned slowly to face the ghost.