Glow In The Dark

I don’t believe in reincarnation. Actually, that’s the wrong expression to use...I know reincarnation isn’t real. At least I know in an ‘on a scale of one to ten, give it an eight’ capacity. No one knows anything for sure, but considering I deal with the dead on a pretty routine basis? I can safely say I’ve never encountered a single incident of reincarnation.

Souls come to me...I help them...they move on. I don’t see them again.

I have, however, been dead personally, so if you want to talk about reincarnation? There is a somewhat oddball version I can ascribe to...that movie Chris Rock made, the knockoff of Heaven Can Wait. He dies too soon, but when his body’s destroyed, he gets another one...the body of a man who died so recently that he can claim it for his own before anyone’s the wiser. I can deal with that idea of reincarnation. I’ve had the out of body experience, I’ve seen the path to the other side. Hell, I brought a piece of it home with me.

Okay...if you want a good reincarnation story? I can give you one. Down the street from the Blackhawk there’s this new age bookstore. I’ve frequented it often enough over the years that I’m on a first name basis with the owner, girl named Shelley. Anyway, she offered to read my aura, so I let her. *She* claims in a past life, I was a knight...you heard me right, a knight, medieval style. Chivalry, swearing fealty to my lord, the whole bit. She recommended a past life regression specialist to me...hypnotherapy or something.

After my previous experiences with being forcibly rendered unconscious, I declined. Knowing my luck, Simon would choose that exact time to stop in and start walking around in my bones for a while, and frankly? That’s the *last* thing I need.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: HAUNTED
Words: 315

I need to get laid.

I know it sounds pretty crude, but it’s the God’s honest truth...I haven’t been with a woman in a while. Not in...God, three years, and that instance...it was complicated. Girl named Melissa...we were institutionalized together when we met. I mean...she was in there, I was there for a case I was working on. Anyway, long story short she was being kept when she didn’t need to be treated anymore...one of the patients was impersonating a shrink and kept her there.

We hit it off...sort of. I mean, I wasn’t completely interested at the time, but she was pretty cute. Few months later, we ran into each other again and...we were together. It was one of the strangest encounters I ever had, though...mainly because it was so satisfying. Not because it was any great romance or deep, spiritual connection...but because we were both lonely and sad and...together, we were okay for a while.

I think that’s one of the rare blessings of sex...it’s a way to be happy. Keep the darkness at bay for a while. I mean, I’m not big on casual sex, but this wasn’t casual. It was just...right. Melissa and I, we took a night and we enjoyed ourselves. I took her upstairs, we did it a few times...fell asleep in each other’s arms, took a stab at making breakfast the next morning. When she finally left, it was with a smile. We both felt lighter...warmer, less alone.

It’s doubtful it’ll ever happen again...but Melissa made me feel alive for the first time in a while, and that’s what sex is, I think. It’s a reminder we’re alive...that no matter how bad things are, there’s one thing left that’s good. It’s a connection...a tie that binds us all together.

And when all you do is talk to the dead...sometimes that little reminder that you’re still among the living is especially important.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 335

I live over a bar...The Blackhawk...so it’s a pretty sure bet that I spend a good deal of my evenings at home downstairs with a beer, watching the game, or the races...whatever’s on. That said, I’d have to say my biggest pet peeve is the type of guy I call the Happy Hour Cassanova. It’s the kind of guy that thinks that by going into a place like The Blackhawk, getting drunk, and spotting a pretty girl gives him free license to be a prick.

You see it in bars all the time...guy gets plastered and tries to feel up a waitress or some other woman. You want to step in, and sometimes you do...at least you do if you got any balls. Not much more than harmless morons with a few to many Jacks in them. Bouncer can handle them pretty easy, especially if they don’t just get gropy, but loud.

However, there’s more dangerous types than the shitfaced obnoxious Happy Hour Cassanova...there’s also the ones who are perfectly civil. You never spot them ‘cause women welcome them to their table. They share a few drinks, some nice conversation...but then they cross the line. Somehow, some way...they do something inappropriate, and the woman they’ve chosen gets spooked and walks out on ‘em.

Sounds harmless enough, doesn’t it?

There was a guy like that at The Blackhawk a few years ago. He was one of those types...and he killed a woman named Julia Caufield about a year before I met him. He killed her because she rejected him...he hurt her and he dumped her body on the street.

I fell for Julia a year after she died...I caught her killer, and I helped her find peace so her spirit could move on.

Ever since that night? If I see a girl getting hassled, I do something about it.

And when I know she’s safe...I go home.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 327

Religion’s kind of a tricky question for me, given my unique situation. I was raised in a Catholic home, but when I got older my faith in anything...it came and went, it’s not unusual. I had a relationship with God that most people have, I would assume: when I talked, He listened.

Now...seeing the things that I see, knowing what I do about what comes after, it makes me wonder. I know the Church doesn’t support pagan stuff, or the arcane...but I can’t help what I see, what I know to be true. When I first got this ability to see ghosts? I was uncomfortable with it, not to mention the numerous visits I found myself paying to new age and occult bookstores. It felt...wrong, somehow. Over time, though, it got easier...shed my upbringing, as it were.

I don’t believe in the afterlife, I *know* it’s real. Life doesn’t end when we die. But what I believe...I believe that curses and black magick? They can be just as real. I’ve seen it firsthand in a ghost that cursed her own child with her dying breath and haunted an entire family for generations, wiping every last one of them out.

But God and the Devil? All the things that make up religion? I don’t really know if I buy into it...the only thing I know for sure is that belief is a powerful tool...it *makes* things real, viable, tangible.

I think for now I’ll stick to what I can see. After all...I know it sounds corny, but I *do* see dead people.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 269

You’ve gotta be kidding me, right?

Suffice to say...yeah, I believe in ghosts. They’re my stock in trade...they’re who I am. I deal with ghosts every single day, no matter what form they might take. I track them through the shadows, I lay them to rest, I see, hear, and *feel* them.

Then, of course, there’s also the dead people I see everywhere I go.

Talking about the horror-movie ghosts is easy. They’re almost what you expect, but not quite. When they take physical form, yes, they’re pale. Sometimes they bear the wounds that killed them. They’re cryptic...mysterious...they flicker in and out. They move things without being visible. They come on a chill breeze that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

More often than not, though, the ghosts I deal with are tied so deeply to the *other* kind of ghost that it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins. You find a spirit with a secret, and soon you find another, and another...the ghosts of the past, present, and future swarm you like bees, droning so loud you can’t hear, can’t see through the thick shadow they cast.

I’ve never seen him on *this* side of the veil...the one between here and *there*, I mean..but Kevin is my ghost. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake how badly I failed him.

I’m a private detective. Ghosts of memory, ghosts of the past...they’re my stock in trade, not to mention my poison of choice.

But the dead? I guess you could say that the dead are my specialty.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 276

( My First Time.... )

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 501

Okay, so I have one hour to live? Fine...I’d find Marcus and Jess and take them out to lunch. Spend my final hour with the people I love...and get one last decent meal in my stomach. I’ve seen too many people die alone and unhappy...I’ve felt the suffering of too many spirits who ended their lives unseen and unknown. I don’t want that for myself.

There’s more to it, though...most folks might try to earn a few last brownie points, but not me. I know what’s going to happen when I die. I know *exactly* where I’m going.

Nowhere.

I’m pretty sure by now that my son is dead...if I die, I’ll find out for sure. But I need to know the how and why...and I need justice for my baby boy. I refuse to rest until I know the truth...all of it. I will not go quietly on into...whatever’s waiting, until I know the ones who hurt Kevin pay for what they did.

I have a lot to look forward to by letting go of this world, I know. I could possibly see Kevin again...I *will* see Julia again. I’m sure of it. But it’s not who I am...I didn’t become a cop just to catch bad guys, I did it to protect and serve. It’s all I’ve ever known, all I really know how to do.

So...when my time comes? I’m staying right here.

And praying to God that I’m not the only person out there with this curse of a gift.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 263

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.