Glow In The Dark

When I awoke the next morning, I began my struggle.

It wasn’t a difficult case...just a difficult setup. I packed my overnight bag, mentally evaluating my whole life, piece by piece. Went by pretty fast until I’d gotten up to the most recent ten to twelve months.

That’s what scared me.

I kept telling myself that maybe it might actually prove to be beneficial. I might learn some way to keep Simon off my ass and out of my head...anything that might help me sleep better at night. I’d seen too much by that point to think that I was actually crazy...but I had to wonder if part of the reason I couldn’t shake Simon was due to me. Was his hold on me *completely* psychological? Was I keeping him here?

Was I responsible for this hell I was stuck in?

I got everything settled...met with my client one last time...then hit the end of my journey as I pulled into the parking lot.

I got my bag out of the car and walked through the doors of the Hewitt Psychiatric Recovery Center, steeling myself for what lay ahead as I approached the front desk.

“May I help you, sir?”

I nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah. Uh...I need to check in.”

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 217

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a superhero...Captain America specifically. This was when I was real little...comics were my thing. I didn’t just want the powers or the glory...I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to hold up the crumbling building on my own two shoulders, I wanted to brave the flames to save the kid from a burning building. I’ve wanted to help people all my life, wanted to be the best and the strongest...I wanted to be the one others would turn to.

It’s kind of funny, really...I turned that dream into a career with the LAPD, and then that became my dream. I was good at what I did, too...I went for broke to make the busts, to be sure that I could always get the bad guy. Marcus said I had a deathwish...I’d laugh him off even though somewhere in my head? I knew I was thinking it...Captain America didn’t have a death wish. He had a calling.

Well, so did I...and I still do. These days, I guess you could say I’m a real-life superhero. I even have the superpowers to match.

Though just between you and me? There’s some days when I really wish I could fly instead.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 216

I think that to date, the most dangerous thing I’ve done was to commit myself to a mental hospital in order to solve a case. Reason being? Too many people thought I belonged there.

Dante keeps telling me I can’t put this ‘seeing ghosts’ thing on the shelf...can’t take it on and off like a jacket. The asylum made me see just how right he was about that...how all my efforts to separate myself from this gift, making it a ‘part of the job’ was starting to destroy me to the point that even my friends were seeing it.

I went into that place to work...but I think the whole messed-up ordeal was better than all the group therapy I could ever hope to sit through. Jess and Marcus knew why I went in...but when Marcus asked me about my “real” reasons for committing myself, in stung on an odd level. I wasn’t offended or anything...but knowing my best friend thought I was that far gone...in a way, it opened my eyes a little more.

I’m riding a fine line at the moment, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to totally accept this talent I’ve got for touching death...but people think I’m crazy, and I can’t blame them. I’m afraid of ending up in another institution, one I can’t sign myself out of because somebody else put me there.

There’s a balance somewhere in between...and I know I have to find it if I don’t want to end up lost for good.

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 262

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

“I want a divorce, Frank.”

We were separated when it happened…we’d been separated once before, a year before Kevin was born. It lasted all of three weeks.

This was different…much different.

She came to see me at the hotel I was staying at…a little hole in the wall in Van Nuys, not far from the station. Cool, impersonal…no place I intended to stay for very long. Close enough to work for my tastes, and close enough to home that I could go back to Jess at a moment’s notice.

That’s not what she wanted, though…not by a longshot.

She had the papers, too…that’s what I couldn’t believe. She already had the goddamn paperwork…she had to have been talking to a lawyer at least a month before I moved out of the house to be *this* ready.

“I want a divorce, Frank.” She said to me, one hand extended with the papers in them.

Waiting.

“I don’t fucking believe this.”

“Frank…”

“Jess…please, think about this…think about what you’re *doing*…”

”I have, Frank. I just…it’s not you, it’s me.”

Liar. It wasn’t her *or* me…it was Kevin.

“It’s just not working anymore.”

More lies. When she saw me, she saw our little boy, and she couldn’t deal with it.

When I saw her, I saw the mother of my son…all I had left of my baby. She was a little piece of Kevin, and I couldn’t stand to be away from her.

She was all I had to get me through the worst event of my life, and she wanted out.

That’s the problem with loving someone as much as I loved my wife…you’ll do anything for them, and you won’t think about what happens to you.

“You have to understand, Frank…I still want to stay close. We need each other.”

“Right…but you don’t need me enough to stay married to me.”

“Frank…”

I looked into her eyes when she said it…my name, that one little word. There was just so much pain…too much. It hurt me to see it…I loved her, and I didn’t want to hurt her. I take my promises seriously, and I’d promised to love her…love her ‘til death do us part.

I guess sometimes loving someone means letting them go.

That’s why I signed…and that’s why I kissed her when I gave her back those papers, complete with my signature on every page.

There’s been a few other women since Jess…but I still love her. I always will.

Married or no, I don’t need a license for that.


Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: Haunted
Words: 421

Dear Julia,

I know you’ll never see this, being that you’re dead...but I have to get it off my chest anyway. I read somewhere once that the Greeks believed that the dead could hear our thoughts. Well...wherever you are, I hope you can hear me now.

I never asked for this thing...this gift of mine. Nobody wants to spend their life tied down to death this way.

I had to meet you to realize that what I am now...what I do...it’s all just another part of the circle. We’re born...we die...and even when this life ends, we can still be happy, still find joy...erase the darkness of our own passing with something that makes it all good again.

You were in pain, and I’d like to think that I brought you some joy before you moved on. I hope that I erased some of the horror of your death.

Because you need to know one thing, if you know nothing else about me. Your life may be over...but you brought me back to life the day we met.

I just hope when my life is over, I can find you on the other side...just like you found me.

All my love,
Frank

Muse: Frank Taylor
Fandom: HAUNTED
Words: 211