About Through the Veil

by Kiernan Kelly
16 pages / 7000 words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

Fall always brings up bittersweet memories for Alex Martin, especially Halloween. It was Halloween when he met the love of his life, Charlie Martin, and Halloween when Alex lost him. This Halloween, he can't stop thinking of Charlie, reliving their time together in his mind over and over. The whole obsession thing seems a little weird, even for Alex. Will Halloween night tell him why Charlie is on his mind?

Sample

He was standing under a streetlight, and I saw him clearly for the first time. Taller than my five-foot six by at least half a foot, broad through the shoulders, he wore a cop's uniform.

Instead of feeling reassured, the sight of him sent a new finger of panic stabbing into my heart, doubling its beat until it thundered in my ears, but it wasn't a displaced fear of law enforcement that horrified me.

It was the fact that I could see right through him.

I saw him plainly enough – the brass buttons on his dress jacket; the numbers on his badge. I could see his face, his dark blue eyes, and clean-shaven cheeks. He had brown hair curling over his forehead from underneath the black visor of his hat, and I noticed a dark leather belt and holster weighing heavily at his hips. What stole the breath from my lungs was the fact that I could also see the trees and hedges, the cars on the street, and the spray of garbage from the can I'd knocked over. I saw all this not around him, or behind him, but through him. It was like looking through a smoky pane of window glass.

I took a step backward, tripped over a deep crack in the sidewalk, and fell on my ass. "Y-you're a…a…"

"Cop? Yeah, I am."

"A ghost!" I cried, tears and snot mixing, running down my face. I kept moving, crab-crawling, trying to put distance between myself and him.