Glow In The Dark

To me, family is everything. It’s always been a big part of my life, keeping family close to me...though I admit, for a long time a family of my own wasn’t really something I was after. Don’t get me wrong, I was never against the idea, but...the force was my life. I wasn’t too keen on asking any girl to play second fiddle to what I *knew* I wanted.

Then Jessica came into my life.

I knew everything the moment I realized I was in love with her. I wanted it all...marriage, house, kids and a family dog. I wanted more than a career, I wanted a life and I wanted it with her.

When Kevin was born...I realized what family was really all about. In her hospital room, holding that little tiny creature we made together...watching him nurse, and later at home, looking into his crib with Jess beside me...I knew I could kill for it. To preserve them, us...the way I felt when we were all together...

I know it sounds a little messed up, but my family was the first thing in my life that ever really belonged to me...but the same way my arms and legs are mine, the way my fingerprints are mine and absolutely no one else’s.

But in the end, that’s the problem with something that close to you...when you lose an arm or a leg, it’s difficult to learn to live without it.

Me...I’m not sure I ever will.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 252

( My First Time.... )

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 501

Hi...guess I ought to introduce myself, huh?

Let’s see...well, the basics are simple. My name’s Frank Taylor, I’m a private investigator working in LA. I used to be a cop...it isn’t exactly an upgrade, I know, but it’s a living. I’m also divorced...and I used to have a son. Unfortunately, it’s all tied together.

Back in 2000, my little boy, Kevin, was abducted from our home. He was only four...just a baby when it happened. To make a long story short...everything fell apart after that. My wife, Jess, divorced me...I lost my job...

...then I lost my life.

Look, it’s crazy. I know it. And I don’t make it a matter of public record because of that fact, but...well, this group looks sort of custom-made for this kind of stuff.

About four years ago I was working a missing persons case when I got stabbed by a man named Simon Dean. He was a suspected pedophile...but I got my shots in before I went down for the count. Threw him off the roof we were on...he broke his neck and I bled to death. Literally.

I died on the table, but they brought me back...along with something else.

Now I can see the dead...and the dead can see me. I don’t just see random spirits, on their end I stand out. One of them once told me that I glow...guess you could say that ghosts like me. A little more than I’d like, actually...let’s see, since I developed this gift I’ve been possessed, blinded, beaten, nearly drowned, fallen in love, institutionalized (okay, so that was voluntary, but a ghost led me to the sanitarium), kidnapped, and had more attempts on my life than I can count.

Anyway, it’s all given my line of work an interesting new twist. When taking clients, I no longer discriminate based on status life. It’s the living clients that pay my bills...but the ghosts that have become the people that I protect and serve these days.

Most of them, anyway.

I ought to warn you that there’s one spirit in particular that’s stuck around. You see, ghosts are souls that can’t rest...unfinished business and all that. When they’ve resolved things, they move on to...wherever we go when we die.

Simon Dean’s one of those restless souls...but he won’t rest until he finishes what he started.

So as long as I’m alive, he’s always going to be here...and he won’t stop until he sees me dead. Or worse.

At any rate, this has been my life for about four years now. It’s not much...but it *is* a living.

For the most part.

You want me to pick *one?* That’s kind of hard...my whole life is about hearing secrets and whispers nobody’s supposed to hear. The dead are constantly telling me their secrets...and through them, more often than not I’m exposed to things about the living that should have died with the spirits that come to me.

I guess you could say that the things I’ve discovered are good...beneficial. Listening to the whispers of a ghost got me institutionalized, but I helped a dead man reclaim his identity, and got a lot of healthy people out of a place they didn’t belong. This gift of mine...it threw me into the middle of a case that rooted out a bad cop and saved a good person’s life...though maybe that doesn’t count. Considering the ghost spent most of the time *possessing* me, I didn’t get to overhear much. But I saw plenty.

We all have secrets...there’s always something you probably shouldn’t have said or done, but it’s there, and someone knows it.

And if that someone’s no longer among the living...you can better believe that skeleton in the closet will one day end up on my doorstep.


Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 199

Nestor Cruz.

He was a blind Vietnam vet…a homeless man. Alone in a lot of ways, but not. He reminded me of myself in too many ways by the time I finished with his case.

Nestor showed me the darker side of being invisible…he made me realize the deepest reasons why I’ve had to hide my gift from the people I care about. The normal world…it doesn’t want to see the bad things, and so it doesn’t. It also doesn’t want to see things it can’t understand. It turns its gaze from both because both frighten them.

That’s me and Nestor…pretty scary fellas.

Before Nestor, I thought my eyes were open to a lot of things…ghosts, psychic phenomenon, the power of curses and witchcraft…there wasn’t much I *didn’t* believe in anymore.

I thought I was different from most people…but I wasn’t. I saw the dead, I saw the darker side of a city where The Beautiful People reign supreme…but there was still a lot I didn’t see.

Dante told me that the heart was the seat of all emotion…that when I heard Nestor trying to tell me about his heart, that that was the reason.

When I held that heart…his medal in my hands…when I heard those words echo in my ears again, I understood just how right Dante really was. Only a small measure, though…it wouldn’t be until I met a young dead woman named Julia Caufield that I’d really learn how something as insignificant and small as an old war medal…or crossing paths with a beautiful woman in a bar.

Me and Nestor Cruz…the homeless guy on the street, the forgotten heroes that have fought for their country, the men and women who suffer in silence because of strange and terrible, wonderful gifts that they never asked for.

We’re all invisible to you. And while we may be lonely people…we’re never really alone. None of us.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 318

It’s kind of silly…but the only real superstition I’ve ever had is biting my nails.

Yeah, I know…but it’s true. Started when I was in grade school…biting my nails was a nervous habit, but even if I didn’t study? I always did better on a test when I bit my nails. Now that I’m older, I know it was just a crutch…comforting, or relaxing or what have you, but my parents played hell for years trying to get me to quit.

Now? Superstitions? I eat, sleep, and breathe them. I don’t believe in ghosts, I talk to them. I work cases for them…I know possession is real and I know that the chills you sometimes get isn’t someone walking over your grave…it happens when you walk over someone else’s grave. I know that if you die with unfinished business, you gotta put it to rest before you can move forward.

Does anything get rid of the spooks? No…not until they get what they came for. And for some…like Simon Dean…that means seeing someone dead before you can find peace.

And Simon’s got a *very* long wait ahead of him.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 189

What is one thing you have learned from your past?

If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past, it’s a man’s capacity to take things for granted...*my* capacity to take things for granted.

I was a blue collar man stuck in a blue collar job...a working stiff. I played hell paying my bills, I didn’t get much sleep most nights, and life wasn’t exactly easy...but I had to lose everything before I finally realized just how good I had it. A beautiful wife I was madly in love with, a gorgeous son I adored...a job I was passionate about, a great partner...Jesus, I even liked my mother-in-law.

Right now, I’d give anything to have Jess at home to complain about the bills...I’d sell my soul to endure one more sleepless night holding Kevin when he had a nightmare. I want more time, another chance to appreciate what I had.

I’m still helping to catch bad guys. I’ve saved lives...I have a roof over my head and I just manage to make ends meet. I also, however, talk to the dead, haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in well over a year, and half the people in my life think I’m crazy.

But...there’s still people in my life that I care about...who care about me...and some of those spirits have made my life better, in their own way. I’ve done some good, and I’d like to think that I’ve paid for some of my past sins.

Life’s not so bad...but it was better, once.

And sometimes I have to wonder if it can ever be that good again.

* * * * *

Describe a dream that you've had. How did the dream make you feel?

Frank heaved a deep sigh and shut his eyes, throwing an arm across his face to blot out the light. He didn’t have enough strength left to shut the lights off, or even close a window.

Sleep would come anyway...now that Simon wasn’t here to stave it off.

* * * * *

In his dream, he was back in the corridor, only now he was alone there, Kevin standing at the far end. His hand was outstretched, beckoning to Frank as a sunny smile graced his perfect, slightly pudgy little features.

Frank could only stand there, tears forming a lump in his throat that made it difficult to breathe. Light streamed down from the ceiling, forming a circle around the small boy, casting him in shadow as it had in the hospital when Frank had died.

Kevin waved to him again, taking a step forward this time...closer to the edge of the circle, heading out of the light.

“Kevin, no!”

The words tore from his throat in a hoarse cry that stopped the little boy in his tracks. Frank understood now...and the pain of his revelation was more than he could bear.

He was never going to see Kevin again.

* * * * *

With a start, Frank awoke, gaze darting around in the hazy confusion of one rising from the depths of a dream. His breath came in harsh, ragged gasps, calming slowly as he flopped back down on the couch again.

Frank covered his eyes, shoulders shaking as the silent tears of truth came.

Kevin had gone into the light...and that’s where he had to stay, safe and protected, and hopefully happy.

But Frank knew, really *felt* the truth in his bones for the first time.

His baby boy was dead.