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The child’s eyes glared at the one-way glass, shifting between the three adults as if he could see them. But that was impossible, it had to be impossible. There was no way he could see through the mirror, right?
Unless he wasn’t human.
“Again, I am deeply sorry for your loss. I know this must be hard,” the agent said, his voice as stoic as his expression.
“I can’t believe he’s been gone,” Jack muttered. “Two years after his accident and we never noticed a thing.”
“Ghosts are rather conniving creatures. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that one of that power would be able to slip into the human world undetected for so long.”
“But still…” Jack’s voice trailed off.
The ghost’s eyes flickered over to Maddie, locking onto her methodical stare. For a moment, Maddie could still see her son, Danny, behind the glow of his eyes. But then its eyes narrowed, further accentuating Phantom’s aggressive nature, and her son was lost again.
“It’s a ghost,” Maddie finally said, her tone devoid of the hurricane of emotions tearing inside her. “It’s just how ghosts are.”
The agent stepped forward, his shoes clicking on the tile until he stood shoulder to shoulder with Maddie. “You understand what we have to do.”
“Of course.”
“Hang on!” Jack put a hand on Maddie’s shoulder. “Think about what you’re saying for a second. That’s our son!”
“No it’s not,” she whispered.
“Maddie, please, we can fix this! He’s not—we can rip the ghost right out of him!”
Maddie spun around, tearing his hand off her shoulder. “No it’s not, Jack! That thing is not Danny! Danny…” Her glare met the soft expression of her husband, and it was as if the weight of the world was collapsing around her when she said, “Danny’s dead.”
“Mads…”
“No, Jack.”
Maddie turned back to the creature on the other side of the glass. In some ways, it was Danny. It has his hair, his freckles, his skin. But in other, more significant ways, it wasn’t her son, especially now that it wasn’t trying to hide its true nature from them.
Its eyes resembled nothing of Danny’s. They glowed green and glared through the glass with a deadly aura that could only come from a ghost. Then there were its ears, which ended in a point. Maddie wondered how long its ears had been pointed in its human disguise. She knew that they weren’t the most observational parents, but surely they would have noticed this change earlier.
But of all its ghostly attributes, the one that struck Maddie the most were the lightning-bolt scars that twisted around its skin, tattooing its body with the ethereal poison of ectoplasm.
“Let me speak to it,” she said.
The agent sighed and checked his watch. “Five minutes.”
Maddie turned for the door, ignoring the protests of her husband or the way Phantom’s green eyes seemed to follow her as she walked forward. She had to do this.
She had to confront the ghost that defaced her son’s body.
The door beeped open, and she gave one more nod to the agent before walking into the dimly lit room. She stepped forward, and the door slid close behind her. She tried to glance over at the glass for Jack’s comforting gaze, but she only saw the reflection of the ghost before her.
That’s right. She was alone now. With it.
“Well?” the ghost said, crossing its arms. Its lightning scars danced up its arms, illuminating up the skin around it in an acid green glow.
Maddie gave the ghost a calculated one-over and made her way closer to the creature as if it were a rabid animal.
“I should congratulate you, you know. You finally caught me after all this time. Does it feel nice? Is it everything you ever wanted? Phantom powerless in a freaking government containment block awaiting horrific torture and dissection?”
Maddie’s eyes narrowed. “You killed my son." Her voice was cold.
It snorted derisively. “If you actually believe that, then you’re more blind than I thought.”
“Then explain what I’m looking at. Because from my perspective, I see a ghost who stole my son’s body for its own sick obsession.”
“Hey! I didn’t—”
Maddie watched with satisfaction as it collapsed back onto the floor and curled in on itself, body convulsing. It must have been the safeguard that the GiW agent mentioned to protect against the creature’s barbaric tendencies.
It finally ceased its twitching and pushed itself back up, staring darkly at the floor. “You don’t know anything,” it growled.
Maddie squatted down and tucked a finger under the ghost’s chin, lifting its head up to face hers. So close to it, she could see all of the little details that made Danny her son, like the way its eyebrows creased inwards when it was angry, or the group of freckles that decorated its cheeks like constellations in the sky.
But even with all this detail, this still wasn’t her son.
“Then enlighten me.”
Something flickered in the ghost’s eyes. Was it fear?
No, that would be ridiculous. This was just a ghost. It was just trying to manipulate her in her son’s stolen body like this was some sick game.
“I…” The ghost’s eyes darted around Maddie’s. “I...can’t.”
Maddie let her arm fall. “You’re vile.”
“Wait—”
“How dare you,” Maddie said, drawing up to her full height. “How dare you parade around in my son’s body.”
“I’m not—”
SLAP!
The sound reverberated around the room. Phantom stared up at her, its eyes wide as saucers, cradling its cheek in its hand. For a second, it looked so Danny that Maddie almost felt bad about what she did. And then she remembered that this wasn’t Danny, just some ghost using his body like a puppet, and her anger returned to her tenfold.
“You’re a sick creature. How dare you use my son’s body like some toy, how dare you pretend to be a part of my family, how dare you pretend to be my son, how dare you endanger the life of my daughter. How dare you, you despicable ghost.”
Phantom’s eyes flickered, the glow fading in and out like a faulty lightbulb. After a moment, it relented. “It was the portal.”
“What?”
“The ghost portal killed your son,” it said, its head hung low. “That’s when I was created.”
Maddie stepped back. “You’re lying.”
Phantom’s head jerked back up. “Where do you think these came from?” It raised its arm up. The Lichtenberg scars gleamed in the dim lights of the room. “You’re the scientist! What do you get when you mix thousands of volts of electricity and highly concentrated ectoplasm?”
“And what, you decided to stick around in my son’s body? Why, Phantom?”
Its mouth snapped shut, and another strange emotion flashed in its eyes.
“I can’t…”
“No, of course you can’t. Because you’re a ghost, and all you know how to do is follow your obsession. You don’t have emotions, you don’t have empathy. You’re nothing but an animal in a stolen body. You disgust me.”
Maddie glanced at the one-way glass, and her own reflection stared back at her. Despite everything, her face was still as glacial as when she first arrived at the facility.
She sighed and—deciding she would rather be out there with her husband than in here talking to this awful creature—turned for the door.
Maybe Jack was right. Maybe coming here was a mistake after all.
The door beeped open.
“I know you can’t feel remorse, ghost, but I swear to you I will make sure the rest of your afterlife is so agonizing that you will regret ever touching my son’s body.”
Maddie stepped through the door and turned around to see Phantom one last time, but its glow had finally faded, leaving behind a wide set of blue eyes across a terrified face.
Danny’s blue eyes.
The door slid shut once again.