"H-How long have you been standing there?"
The pale figure behind the petite woman visibly startled, eyes widening. A shocked silence lingered in the air for a few moments before a shaky voice whispered, "Y-You can... You can see me?"
The woman's eyes, red and puffy from crying, narrowed slightly as she responded, with a slight tilt of her head, "Of course I can. I don't recognize you, though, so I do wonder why you're here. At a church. For the funeral of a person I doubt you know. Nearly an hour after it ended."
"I... I didn't think anyone could see me," she mumbled, more to herself than anyone else. Nearly unintelligible, she continued, "How can she see me if she's still alive?"
"Of course I'm alive!" she exclaimed, before adding sadly, "This wasn't my funeral after all." She blinked away the intruding thoughts before looking up to make eye contact with the taller woman and continuing, "Were you a friend of his? I don't believe we've met if you were. I'm Lillian Andrews, but call me Lilly. I was Neal's wife." She extended her hand towards the other woman.
The taller of the two stared at the offered hand with amusement before reaching out to grab the hand. Lilly watched in shock as the hand slid through hers. Jerking her hand back, she stammered, "Wha- How did you- Why did that happen? This... this doesn't make any sense."
Laughing at her confusion, she answered, "It's 'cause I'm dead. That's also why I was so surprised that you could see me. Most of the living can't, at least not without me making myself visible on purpose, so I don't often get the chance to talk to someone like you. It's actually really good that you can see and hear me becau-"
"Good? How is this good? And how are you dead? Are you a ghost or something? Can ghosts even be in churches? They're consecrated ground and all that. You haven't even told me your name, so why should I believe anything you say?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm a ghost, and yes, we can be in churches. My name is Claire. I was about to tell you how it's good before I was so rudely interrupted. Maybe let me finish next time. Anyways, it's good because this makes it so much easier for me to help you find out what happened to your husband."
"But I already know what happened to him."
"You can't tell me that you actually believe he jumped off that bridge. There was no note, absolutely no signs of depression, and you live nowhere near that bridge. Why would he go so far away when there were plenty of other bridges closer to your house. And how did he get there? His car was still sitting in your driveway, and there was no footage of him on any public transportation."
"So what're you saying? That it wasn't suicide?" she questions, eyes filling up with tears.
"Are you saying that thought hasn't crossed your mind?"
Lilly glanced away from Claire, tears now spilling out. "I-I did think the circumstances were a bit su-suspicious, but I didn't s-say anything because then I'd be the cra-crazy conspiracy theorist widow," she slowly stammered out.
Satisfied with the answer she received, Claire said, "And I'm here to help you gather evidence to prove that you're right and not, as you put it, a craz-"
A loud cracking noise rang through the sanctuary, cutting off Claire, though the sound seemed to have originated from somewhere beyond the open sanctuary doors. Both of the women's heads turned towards the doors with varying degrees of speed. Claire's eyes widened as she whispered to Lilly, "We have to go. Now."
"But-"
"Please don't argue. We can't stay here. It isn't safe anymore. I'll explain when we get somewhere safer," she begged, pleading with her eyes. She gestured towards a back door. "We'll go that way. We need to get out of here as fast as possible and that's the quickest way." She began to run towards the door, the sound of her footsteps nonexistent. "Come on! Hurry!"
Still confused, Lilly watched as Claire ran through the closed door, before she too began to run towards the door. Lilly threw open the door and saw Claire halfway down the hall already. They ran through the halls of the church, luckily running into no one. They reached a door that led outside and went through it. Claire led them to an abandoned building 15 blocks away before she finally ceased her running.
"This is where we'll stay for now. Let's go in and I'll tell you what I know so far."
Lilly opened the door and walked in, Claire following behind her. The room was dark, but it appeared to have been a restaurant or bar at some point in its existence. Lilly pulled out a chair and sat down, while attempting to catch her breath.
"Let me tell you everything I know before you ask questions. So far, I know that your husband was murdered," Claire began. "And it's likely that it wasn't a human who murdered him. I know that the loud cracking sound that we heard was a demon teleporting into the narthex. Yes, they can go into churches, too, it hurts them a bit, but they can still do it. I also know that whoever, or rather, whatever killed your husband is also after you. And lastly, after I realized you can see me without me purposefully trying to show myself, I know that you're psychic."
Lilly stared at Claire, blinking blankly, trying to process everything she had just been told. After a few moments of this, she put her head in her hands and said, voice dripping with resignation, "Just when I thought today couldn't get weirder, I'm told that demons exist, I'm being hunted by a nonhuman entity that murdered my husband, and that I'm psychic."
"The universe is fun like that, don't you think?"
Lilly glared at her, and Claire bit her lip to keep herself from laughing. "Any questions?"
"Yes, actually. Do you have any idea who might've killed Neal?"
"Well, I mean, I would assume it was the demon who popped in to visit us at the church, but I don't know much beyond that. I don't even know which demon it was."
"Ah. That's unfortunate..."
"Yeah..."
"So if we find out who killed him, what're we gonna do to them? Can you kill supernatural beings?"
"Well, if it's a demon that did it, we won't be able to kill them, but we can exorcize them. An exorcism would send them straight back to Hell. If it's any other supernatural being, then we can kill them, we just have to get the right tools."
"Oh, neat. So how do we find out who did it?"
"First, we should probably find ways to kill different monsters so that we'll know how to kill or get rid of the monster when we find them. After that, we should go to the spot where your husband was killed to investigate. Some monsters leave behind a smell, and if there's a smell of sulfur at the spot, then we'll know it was a demon. We'll decide what to do after that later."
"Okay, sounds good, but where do we find information on how to kill monsters?"
"We can go to the library and check out some lore books, or you can just look up supernatural creatures lore on your phone."
"Second one sounds faster. Let's do that."
Lilly got her phone out and began to research lore on all different types of monsters. After nearly 3 hours of research, she decided that she had enough information to be sufficient for what they were trying to do. She made a quick list of the ways to kill each monster on a piece of paper she found in her purse and stuffed it into her pocket.
"Ready to go?"
Lilly jumped, having forgotten that Claire was there. She nodded and then stood to walk out the door. She pushed the door open and walked out while being followed by Claire.
"You can drive us there, or we can take a train, but I don't know where it happened, so you'll have to lead the way."
"I guess we'll take my car," she decided. "I left it at my house and walked to the church so we'll have to walk a bit further than we ran to get there, but not much, just a block or two. Of course physical activity doesn't really affect ghosts so I'm not really sure why I'm telling you that, but oh well."
Claire reached out to pat her head. "You're rambling. Humans are just adorable."
Lilly's eyes widened. "Wait, but I thought you couldn't touch things without passing through them. How did you pat my head?"
"Well, uh, if I try, I can make myself solid enough so that I don't pass through things."
"Oh. That makes sense."
They began walking in silence, and after about 30 minutes they got to Lilly's house. They got in the car and drove off.
The drive was just over two hours, and they made meaningless conversation throughout the ride. By the time they arrived at their destination, the sun was beginning to set. They walked to the stop where Neal had been pushed and saw a man already standing there. He looked about 30, but it was hard to tell in the diminishing light.
"Oh, hello," greeted the man. "What would you be doing out here all alone?"
"Well, I-" began Lilly, before the putrid smell of sulfur found her nose, cutting her off. "It was you. You killed him."
Confused, the man asked, "Me? You think I killed him? Why would I want to kill him?"
"Why else would you have tried to get to me at the church? Or be here?"
"Why don't you ask your little ghost fri-"
"Exorcizamus te," began Claire cutting off the demon. "Omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, ergo draco maledicte, ut ecclesiam tuam secura, tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos!*"
A black smoke flew out of the man's mouth, and it sunk down towards the ground before going through the ground and disappearing. The man passed out and collapsed to the ground.
Lilly turned toward Claire and spoke slowly. "What did the demon mean by that? 'Why don't you ask you little ghost friend?'"
"How should I know? That's beside the point, though. He's gone now so he can't hurt you."
Lilly looked at her suspiciously. "Maybe this whole time he wasn't trying to kill me. Maybe he was trying to warn me." A look of realization crossed her face. "Warn me about... you. It was- It was you that killed my husband. Not him. But, but why? What did he ever do to you?"
"Did you ever stop to wonder how I died?" she asked. "No? Of course not. Your stupid husband killed me."
"Wh-What? No. No! He wouldn't hurt a fly!"
"There was a hit and run a couple years back. They never found out who did it. Remember that? Your husband hit me and then left me to die. I wanted him to die for what he did to me and that dumb demon wouldn't leave me alone so I killed two birds with one stone. And now all that's left for me to do is to kill you, too."
"N-No. I didn't know. I didn't do anything to you," she said, backing away from Claire. "You can't kill me!"
"Oh, but I can," she exclaimed. She advanced on Lilly and whispered in her ear, "All it takes is one little push."
Lilly looked down to see she was standing on the edge. She looked back up at Claire with a look of pure terror. "No, please," she begged. "Please don't kill me."
"My mind's made up. I just wanna monologue a bit before I kill you," she grinned. She grabbed the shorter woman's arm to keep her from running away and put her other hand over the woman's mouth so that she couldn't speak. "I had this all planned out. I was gonna kill him, make it look like a suicide, and then go to his funeral and wait for it to be over. I figured you would stay a bit after the funeral was over, so I stayed too. I waited until you were the only person still there, made myself visible to you, and acted like I was surprised when you could see me. You're not actually psychic; I'm just a fantastic actor. I wasn't planning on the demon, Pazuzu**, showing up though. I had to improvise a bit then, but it still turned out fine, I think. I gently implied that it was Pazuzu who killed him, and you just believed it with nothing more than circumstantial evidence. He knew I'd bring you here, so he came to warn you, and if needed, protect you. Look how well that turned out for him. And now, I'm going to push you off this bridge," she declared.
A muffled scream escaped Lilly's mouth. A grin worthy of the Cheshire Cat crept across Claire's face.
"Bye bye," she said in a singsong tone. Claire gave her a hearty shove and watched as she went, screaming all the way down.
The last thing Lilly saw, just before she hit the ground, was Claire flickering out of existence, having accomplished the only thing left tethering her to the world. "I'll see you soon," she thought to herself. Lilly hit the jagged rocks, and her world went black as she let out one final breath. The last sliver of sunlight disappeared, her broken and bloodied body disappearing from sight right along with it.
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*Translation: We exorcise you, every impure spirit, every satanic power, every incursion of the infernal Devil, every congregation and diabolical sect, therefore you also cursed dragon. So that your Church can serve thee in secure liberty, We beseech thee as We pray, hear us!
**Pazuzu is, himself, considered to be an evil spirit, but he drives and frightens away other evil spirits, therefore protecting humans against plagues and misfortunes.
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A/N: Hey guys! I hope you liked it! If you have any constructive criticism, I will gladly accept it.
Word count: 2,395