The Almost Rock Star (A Ghost Story) (DRAFT)

The Almost Rock Star (A Ghost Story) 2, Mambo

Chapter Two

Mambo

I tried rattling the door harder. It didn’t budge. I hated myself for locking it before I went out that night. I hated myself for not leaving Mambo with an open bag of dog food and an unlimited water supply. Just in case.

“Mambo!” I screamed at the door. He was probably already dead. I cried out in anguish, thinking about the horrible condition he had been in when I had adopted him. Even the Get A Life Pet Rescue people were embarrassed, explaining that the poodle and Shih Tzu mix had been starved and beaten, and came to them through the Miami Rescue Railroad, a sort of runaway stream of dogs out of south Florida. He’d only been with them for two days. I had driven all the way to Plantation to get him. The young girl behind the counter offered a big sympathetic, hopeful smile. Then she handed me an extra bag of treats.

I banged harder against the door, rattling it so hard that the glass nearly broke. 

Then, I thought I heard a sound. I looked up, and tried to look through the glass, cloudy from a year or so of summer rains and sugar cane burnings in the nearby former Everglades. I could barely make out what looked like a moving mop on the floor. 

Mambo! 

I hit the door harder, trying to break it open. It just rattled some more. Then I suddenly heard a loud voice all around my head, everywhere and nowhere at the same time.  

Pick up the rock and throw it at the glass. Are you stupid?

I looked around frantically, but couldn’t see anyone. I didn’t ask out loud who spoke. I should have. I was too upset. Getting inside suddenly seemed like life and death for Mambo. I had to get to my dog. He seemed still alive.

I looked around the back door. There was a fist sized gray rock on the ground. I used to use it to hide the key. I had left the rock out in the open for everyone to see, hoping that was the best way to hide it. Not snuggled into a flower pot, or up against the house. Sitting all by itself like a kid threw it there. A little off the beaten path.

I grabbed at the rock, and as I lifted it, it slipped through my hand and fell to the ground. The key was gone. I remembered I had it in my pocket when I left the house. I screamed, “Mambo,” again, feeling helpless. For a moment, I couldn’t see my hand as I tried to reach for the rock again. Then, there it was, visible, just like it should be.

I grabbed the rock with all my strength, and focused on my hand, which closed around the stone. In one exaggerated movement, I swung the rock with all my strength around and into the window, a smooth move like a baseball pitcher going too slow at a fast ball. Then, crack, the rock hit the window and glass exploded everywhere. A fleeting thought ran through my head that the glass was taut, perhaps too tight for its frame for almost a century.

As I stood there, looking at the shattered window and breathing hard, I wondered where I would get a weird, misfit bunch of thoughts like the idea that no one cared anymore about putting in windows right. They probably did. I was only renting this house. I didn’t know anything about housebuilding.  I’m 16.

I slipped my hand into the broken hole to unlock the deadbolt. Now I could hear whining. Oh my God. He was alive! I could just barely see his outline in the twilight. I suddenly hated that light. Twilight. You could see and you really couldn’t see anything. All gray. Colorless. And there was Mambo, wiggling around and as best I could see as I fumbled helplessly with the lock, looking just fine.

My hand slipped and smashed down on the broken glass, and I winced, waiting for the pain of a sliced arm to reach my brain. It didn’t come. I moved my hand back up to the lock slowly. Nothing hurt. I concentrated as Mambo began yipping in joy. Slowly, with a few concentrated thrusts, I forced the lock open. I went for the doorknob, and my hand slipped again. And disappeared. I couldn’t tell if the twilight was tricking my eyes. 

I focused again and the knob turned, a little slower than my hand. I pushed, and then I was in. Mambo jumped on me. I went to grab him and pick him up, and he slipped right through my arms. He was jumping up and down on what would have been my legs, and his happy mouth was reaching for my hands. Sometimes he mouthed me when he was happy. His mouth closed on air. I wasn’t there.