Rogue Excerpt

The front door suddenly opened. Ester, startled, dropped her knitting and stood to her feet with surprising agility for a woman in her eighties.

"Hey, honey. I'm home."

Daniel Long's lips gave voice to the words, but it was Harry Burns who spoke them.

"Who are you? Get out of my house! I'll call the police."

Harry shut the door and locked it before walking into the house, making a show out of looking it over with disdain.

"Looks the same as when I died here. Well, except for this TV. Flat screens, they're called, right? Amazing."

"I'm calling the police," Ester said. She reached for the phone but Harry moved quickly across the room and wrenched the cord from the wall.

"None of that, woman," Harry said.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"You don't recognize me, woman? We were married for fifteen years."

Ester swallowed and tried to ease across the room away from the stranger that had invaded it, saying insane things that she couldn't understand.

"Gladys said, Gladys said," Harry mocked.

Ester swallowed hard. "I asked who you are."

"It's me, baby! Harry! You killed me right here on the floor. Stabbed me up good, just like I did that retard son of yours."

"Harry's dead."

"I've been here all along and you know it. That presence you felt at night, right before you went to sleep? The strange blood stains that kept creeping up right here on the floor? All me. I've been living in hell since you killed me. Guess what? Hell is where you and I are gonna spend eternity. Together."

"Please, just leave."

"After I'm done with you, I'm gonna go sneak into Gladys's bedroom, just like I used to do when she was little. I'm gonna get me summa that, even if it is old and dry now."

Ester was done denying the truth of her situation. After all, how could this young man know all the things he spoke if he wasn't indeed possessed by her dead husband?

"Harry," she said.

Harry laughed. He threw his head back and guffawed like the madman he was. "That's right, woman. Harry." He took a deep breath, smelling the air of the living world he'd managed to return to. "It's good to be alive again. I'm not just alive, I'm in a young, strong body. He's fairly handsome, too, ain't he?"

"I'm glad I killed you, Harry. All these years I've never regretted it. I've lived it over, and over, and over in my mind and do you know the one thing I regret?"

Harry looked at her sideways. Anger burned deep in his eyes.

"I should have taken more time. I should have tied you to that easy chair you loved so much and waited for you to wake up. I should have tortured you. Oh... the things I've imagined doing to you."

"Bitch," Harry growled, and moved closer to Ester. She refused to back up.

"You were nothin' when you were alive, and you're nothin' now, Harry. You always wanted to be a big shot. Guess what? You weren't. You were a bully. You thought everybody loved and respected you but no one did. They hated you. They feared you. The never respected you."

"Shut up, woman," Harry warned.

Ester didn't shut up. She kept right on going. "People were glad when you disappeared, Harry. They were glad when your body was found out in the woods. If they ever suspected me having a hand in it they were more likely to thank me than condemn me."

"I said shut up!"

"I'm not the same trembling, scared little weakling you remember, Harry! I hate you. I've always hated you. If you think I'm going to fear you now you've got another thing comin'. I put you out of mind a long time ago, Harry. I don’t care what you do to me now. I will never, ever, fear you again."

Harry rushed Ester. He took her to the floor and started to choke her, but the impact was too much for her frail body. She died as her head hit the floor with a crunch.

"No! No!" Harry shouted, enraged that Ester had died so suddenly. He had been denied the chance to watch the life fade from her eyes.