Paranormal Raptivity (NC-17ish)

Hi guys! I'm new here, looking for a place to upload my fanfic and get as many eyes as possible to read it. I posted this on Writer's Cafe as well, but this being an Eminem forum, it makes sense for me to upload it here as well. I'm not familiar with the rules here, so if I make any mistakes, let me know and I'll gladly correct myself.

As for the rating, this fic won't feature *explicit* sex but better safe than sorry.

What this fic is about: A young heroine is murdered so hard, she gets punted right up to Heaven only to be cast down to Earth, this time as a paranormal spirit, or in easier terms, a ghost. Our girl must 'haunt' after one Marshall Mathers and stop a team of snipers from shooting him down, while facing a different kind of evil at the same time.

Okay, bad at descriptions! If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for approval, message me! Nonetheless, enjoy! :3


I didn’t wake up this morning thinking to myself “gee whiz, what a great day to die! The birds are singing, the cheesesteaks are fresh and fantastic, and all I want to do is get pushed in front of the L!” No. That is false. First, let me give it to you straight, no fucker in 2012 says “gee whiz”. I sure as Hell don’t. In fact, if I ever heard someone say “gee whiz” I would take them as a threat to America and do my civil duty by punching them in the face. Saying “gee whiz” should get you fucked raw by Satan and his pitchfork.

The guy who pushed me in front of the L, he should get fucked by Satan too. Satan and all his little demon cronies toting around in Hell.

I was on my way, minding my own shit and life, to the best damn record store in Philadelphia’s Old City. And this place is legit, taking up the second floor of a very nice and fancy hookah bar. And I mean fancy, fancy hookah. Floor-to-ceiling with 8 to 10 tentacled hoses. The whole place looks like an octopus convention and humans are just stopping in. There is no better feeling than buying an oldie-but-goodie vinyl for practically free, popping it onto one of the hookah bar’s record players, and letting that heavy scent of flavored tobacco hang over you while you just chill out.

But this was going to be an important day. A very important day for me. After a few good solid months of scratching my nails over the Internet, grazing over every website with a collector’s eye, I finally found a copy of Infinite. Eminem’s first professional album. On vinyl. Getting that record special ordered to my record store, because they wanted to see the thing, is what it must be like for the Giants to constantly piss in the face of the Patriots. Just pure, rampant, happiness. I’m fucking made of money, daddy owns the car company produced in Philly. The $300 I dumped out of my piggy bank for the vinyl was couch change.

The thing about Philly. Philly is loud, beautiful, awe-inspiring, gorgeous, and not a world-wide suck up like New York City. I try to never compare the two, and when I meet people who do, I eradicate them from my memory. You never really hear much about Philadelphia. It’s always NYC or LA or goddamn Boston. Whatever. I will admit one thing, Philly and NYC and LA and every big city to ever exist have one thing they can all get drunk and complain about: the homeless population. I see them everywhere, and while I don’t wave around my Gucci purse and drive a Maybach down the street, I reek of good money. I’m not a heartless snob straight out of the high school superlative pages, and sometimes I’ll place $20s or $50s in the raggy little cups or hats the homeless place out in front of them.

Today, I was so excited about my vinyl I had zero cash on me. Just cards. And I’m a bit of a status person in the city, enough that people recognize me when I don’t go hardcore incognito. Being daddy’s little girl does that. I don’t have my head so far in the clouds that I never go underground. I like the L. I like seeing this bellowing “get the fuck out of my way fuckface” attitude machine as it barrels down the tracks like a fighter jet that beasts it below the world of cars and buildings. The L don’t mess around. The L will set you straight if you don’t tread carefully.

Right. Alexus Hardly. Alexus. A-L-E-X-U-S. I was……I am Alexus Hardly. I cannot forget my name. Forget it, let it slip your mind once, and boom. That’s it. Game over, soldier. You spend all of eternity treading water, trying to remember who you once were.

Sorry, I can’t lose my thoughts. You aren’t more important than my name, you greedy self-appointing ballsack.

This guy asked me for change to ride the L. I’m in a hurry, okay, I want that vinyl and I want it now. Eminem is special to me. Special in a…..he’s almost all I think about kind of way. Daddy bought me tickets to see him in concert, front row, and I was an emotional sob story. There’s a moment, when you see someone you love, that you can’t describe in words or music or movements. It’s a blossoming effect in your chest so crazy it hurts and that’s how I felt when I saw Eminem walk on stage.

I was pushed. Shoved. Casually bumped? Off the platform. I remember seeing him, this greasy hairy bearded guy with starving eyes that edged cannibalism. He asked for change, I had zip, walked by and onto the very edge of the L platform to peer down the tracks for those planet-sized headlights. I don’t know how he got the money for the L so quickly after I paid. Maybe he sneaked by. Doubtful. SEPTA workers feed on the souls of human beings. And on puppies.

One minute, I’m bobbing my head to “Lose Yourself” on my beats. The most overplayed, but nostalgic of Eminem’s collection. I love “Lose Yourself” and if you don’t, well you can lose yourself in the agony of my hands breaking your fucking spinal cord. If anything in your life ever amounts to even a smidge of what “Lose Yourself” has done for people, then you can come talk to me. Otherwise, shut your mouth.

I hit the L tracks. Filth and rat shit everywhere. Do you have beats? The real big ones, that kinda cover the entire left-and-right of your head? I have those. And those fuckers eat noise the way Kobayashi eats hot dogs. Not even the L raging down the tracks penetrated the beats, and by the time I registered that fact I was about to die, oh, it was sadly late. The tracks, spiced with trash and spit and human piss. That big, mean, roaring metal cobra charging down the rails. Two wide, unflinching eyes. Headlights. Unstoppable, coming for me screaming “I’M GONNA GET YA, HOME GIRL!”

And I was got. I was got hard.

Floating here, in Odd Space, the L runs me dead, dead and gone for good. Squished like a grape, my feeble 18-year-old body putting up all the fight power of a piece of paper left in the rain. The L squeaks over me, grinding to a stop but hey, I’m already a popped bag of applesauce shot all over the place. Organs beat into pulp, my intestines and hair all stretched along the L’s treads. People are screaming and crying and in fuckin’ hysterics. The guy who pushed me, he slips away. I’m floating in Odd Space. I’m intact, from my snapback to my flip-flops. But I’m see-through. A little glittery. Silver-skinned. I flex and wave my fingers and I move in slow-motion, my hand casting doubles behind it. Weird.

Alexus Hardly. Once the daughter of car mogul megastar Colton Hardly, now a skid mark on the bottom of an L train.

“Fuck you too, universe.” I spit. The next second, I’m gone.

---

“Can I get you anything, dear?”

“What can I get?”

“Anything, dear. This is Heaven.”

The angel talking to me is real pretty. Like Mila Kunis-and-Megan Fox-had-a-kid pretty. I’m sitting on a bench made of puffy white clouds and, swinging my legs in front of me, I shrug. I don’t have much of an appetite. Probably because I think my stomach splattered somewhere on the L map and, well, I forgot to bring it with me when I suddenly got zapped up to The Big Pearly Gates.

“Uh, cranberry juice, please.”

The angel smiles me a smile with the most perfect teeth ever, I swear. Heaven has a kicking dental plan. And yes, cranberry juice. Cranberry juice is my elixir, my Eminem-in-liquid-form. Why? Okay, one time I got a UTI and I drank like 4 quarts of cranberry juice and it cleared right up. Cranberry juice saved my vagina.

Pretty Angel drifts away, and I notice her wings. Swan wings, neatly folded with the purest white feathers I’ve never seen in the down jackets my family buys. Plus she has a halo. I pat my own back, wave in the space above my head. Nothing. My clothes are clean and unharmed, but I’m lacking the very things that make me an angel.

Pretty Angel comes back holding a glass of cranberry juice. I take it. “Thanks.” I say, take a sip and if this isn’t the fucking greatest cranberry juice to ever exist. The taste literally makes my head jerk back. The purity of it stings my tongue. I swallow, and I can only compare it to the feeling you get when you see an A+ on the grade sheet of the class you really thought you were gonna fail.

“Whoa.”

“Cool, isn’t it? It’ll wear off when you get your wings and halo. Right now, you’re a Halfy.”

Sounds like a hurtful racial term. “A what?”

“Halfy. God will explain it.” And Pretty Angel gestures real wide and deep with her arm toward a pair of doors that miraculously poofed out of nowhere. Deep gold, bright, designed with figures I didn’t recognize and towering above me with no end in sight. I clutch my glass. My feet will not move, like “no way fuck that, man.” My brain has not yet configured my death.

“Go on.” Pretty Angel nudges me, gently, and my body carefully stands and I’m walking through the gates. I’m all the way through, walking on clouds, and the gates close and vanish behind me. I turn, expecting Pretty Angel, but nothing greets me. Clouds. A field of clouds.

“Hello, Alexus.”

I spin back around, so fast, my juice flips out of the glass and disappears. Instant. But I’m not worrying about a few spilled drops of liquid ambrosia. Standing a few feet in front of me, smiling huge with a snapback and flip-flops, is myself.

“Holy shit.” I stumble backwards.

I smile. “Not quite.”

“You’re me!”

“No, you are you.”

“Then who are you if I’m me but you’re standing there looking a fuck ton like me?”

“I am God.”

Have you ever said something about somebody and instantly wanted to take it back? Ever did that same thing to someone’s face? That’s me, right now. This isn’t dropping a little curse in front of your grandma, I just nuked the F-Bomb all up in God’s face. I blush, step back, can I please just curl up in the wheels of my L killer? God chuckles, advances toward me.

“I wanted to look like something that would not frighten you. Perhaps I should change into Marshall Mathers?”

I snap my head up. “Oh, please, no, no. That would be so sexually frustrating and awkward,” God laughs again, and I relax. I’m making The Creator laugh. I look at His face. My face. “Is this….are You me to every detail? I swear I didn’t have that zit on my nose when I left this morning. And wow, is my hair really that blonde? That’s like….the color of spoiled mayo.”

“Yes, I am you to every detail. Spoiled mayo? No, I see it more of a…..more like a highlighter. Only not as vibrant,” God examines a lock of my hair. “I do like the color I gave your eyes. Good, strong blue.”

“Yeah, I like them too. Hey, can I have my molar back? Like a real one?”

God smiles. Yeah, fancy rich bitch Alexus lost a back molar. You don’t need to know how. Suffer about it for a bit.

“I made you in perfection, Alexus.” God tells me. I sag.

“Perfection has all her teeth.”

God doesn’t answer, but motions with my hand to walk with Him. I follow step-in-step, walking in tandem. “I apologize you had to die, Alexus. And in such a gruesome manner. But do not dwell on it, for your death can be put to extremely good use.”

A look of thought on my features. Mine, mine. Not God-mine. “Why did I die?”

“Things have a strange way of working, Alexus.”

What a typical parent answer.

“It is not time for you to stay in Heaven. You are a Halfy, a spiritual word for what you call a ‘ghost’ on Earth.” God explains. I stop.

“I’m a ghost?” I repeat. I think of those ghost hunter shows, where “spirits” come and fuck shit up the one night some hacks are there with cameras.

God waves me forward. I keep walking. “Do I get special powers?”

“Each ghost is unique. You’ll discover yourself the longer you stay on Earth.”

“Can I possess people? Walk through walls? Throw stuff?”

“Those are the basics, so yes.”

This is awesome. I smile. God chuckles at my enthusiasm but all I want to do is go back to Earth and shake all the world’s soda cans. Soda is bad for you, America. You fat chicken-gobbling morons.

“Alexus. At some point, rather soon, there will be an attempt on Marshall Mather’s life. I need you to ‘haunt’ him, and make sure he remains alive and content until his time on Earth is succeeded.” God tells me, seriously, and the whole thing almost goes over my head as I imagine myself possessing cars as my super secret power or something.

But it hits me, what God says. Oh did it hit me. Hit me…..hit me like a full-speed L train.

“Eminem……Em is gonna die?” There is rage and confusion and a whole alcoholic brew fest storming in my non-existent, plastered-on-a-map stomach.
God shrugs. “Unless you stop his killers.”

I hop around, turn and face God. My face and my face, looking back at each other. It is an intense standoff.

“No bitch, and I mean no bitch is ever gonna hurt Marshall Mathers, may I be alive, dead, or somewhere in between.”

God smiles. “The best thing I ever gave you, was your dedication.”

A panel in the cloud floor opens. I hear the far away noise of Earth life. Cars and building roar. Police sirens. God walks me to the panel and just as I bend my knees to jump, something stops me. I straighten up and look God in His face. My face.

“When will Em die?”

God smiles with my teeth. “Depends on how well you do. Good luck.”

Detroit smells like sweat. And not the sex finished, basketball-and-gym-locker stench that chokes the air from your lungs, sweat. No. This is hard-working, living-by-the-dollar sweat aroma. I float above it all, enveloped in this thick, hugging fog that reeks of “I don’t give a fuck.” Detroit knows it isn’t LA or Miami or even Philadelphia. Detroit is Detroit. They don’t have to prove shit to the world. I respect an attitude like that.

Daddy always told me Detroit is the unshaved armpit of America. Not that he has anything against the people, you ugly judgmental dicks out there who say daddy has a thing against Detroit. No, he doesn’t like Chrysler. And Detroit builds those birds. It isn’t Detroit’s problem, they don’t give two shiny fucks about Daddy. Daddy hates all car companies that aren’t the sole single one he owns. Just a little bit I’ll tell you, not bragging or anything: Daddy oversees a company that makes cars so fancy and beautiful and amazing, Jay-Z had to save up for two years before he could afford one.

“Detroit, I’m about to haunt the fuck out of you,” I gloat, floating over the buildings until I realize, Eminem doesn’t exactly live in Detroit. I cross my arms, re-angle myself to hover along on my back. Being a ghost does have perks. Like smell, already established. And hearing. I can hear the footsteps of a pigeon walking along the pavement. Sight. I can see the feather pattern of that exact pigeon.

I hate pigeons. They shit on cars.

I’m letting the wind carry me. Free and weightless as an idea. How’s that for poetry, fuckers. I grab along the edge of the Renaissance Center, that big trifecta of smooth polished steel, I know it from Em’s Recovery album.

Em!

I have to find him. I can’t dawdle. God made me free-fall from Heaven with no answers, no when where or how Em would be hurt. I stand atop the main tower, Detroit spread like beauty below me. I hear every inhale and exhale, every working lung, blinking eye, and beating heart. I close my eyes. Focus. I pick out one. One specific beating heart. One certain flow of electron brain cells, one voice that rapped me through tears, laughs, pain, and the best of times.

My eyes open. I grin in that satisfaction of realizing my power and- nothing like that, I swear. I’m not gonna go power hungry. But I found him. Got a lock. I’m coming for you, Marshall Mathers.

---

My house, where I actually live……lived, I’ll correct myself, is fucking huge. I have a swimming pool in my house that is connected, via water slides, to every other room in the house. I hardly walk in my house. Come see me in December, walking around in a bikini because I’d rather water-slide from my room to the kitchen than walk 800 feet.

About now, everyone is probably glad a rich bitch like me is dead.

Well, to that I say fuck you. I can posses you and make your brain explode from inside your skull. Your move, cocksack.

I had a point, talking about my house. Eminem’s house isn’t much different. For one, it is fucking gorgeous. Huge. All stone and windows, curved torrent-looking things. High quality. I am a girl of quality, and this house, let me tell you, will shit on your house and laugh at it. Not my house, of course. But, Em’s house comes pretty damn close.

I walk up the driveway, all of me, no ghostly apparitions hanging behind in my wake. My beats are around my neck. I didn’t notice until a bit ago, but they have died along with me. And my snapback. And my flip-flops. I’m all here. Which is awesome okay, I don’t know ghost protocol and if all specters just chill around in the nude. I figure I could stand here, awkwardly, not knowing what to do until someone-

Footsteps. My brain yells into every fiber of my post-mortem body; “oh shit bitch you better run like you stole something!” And I’m about to, flee behind one of the perfectly manicured hedges or dive behind the conveniently parked Escalade that just pulled up behind me when my brain catches on. Oh right, I’m dead. A ghost. Invisible to the human eye. I laugh to myself, to relieve my own tension. I’m so caught up in relief and realization that the law can’t touch me, literally, that the sound of a front door opening catches my beyond-human senses by surprise.

“Yo, you got my Red Bull? Just one? Okay, how about we bring a few more. I’m gonna need more for today.”

If ghosts could throw up, certainly there would be specter puke all over Em’s driveway. My body naturally stands at attention. I gape, eyes widen, undead heart, oh you bet that girl would be thumpin’ if she had a pulse. I almost want to faint, go right back up to Heaven and tell God, “Look, I’m sorry, but Eminem is way too attractive, and that is gon’ be a huge obstacle in my protection program.”

But I don’t. I don’t do anything. I watch, motionless, invisible, as Marshall Mathers strides right by me, in a conversation with Paul that I fail to hear because my ears are, along with the rest of my everything, too busy gazing at Eminem and his low jeans and black jacket. He is shorter in person. I’m 5’6, a purebred rich bitch, and Em only got two inches on me. I roll up all my scrabbling emotions and kick them out of my body. I need a clear head for this job but, who am I kidding. Eminem is right there!!!!

“I fucking love you, Eminem,” The words break from my lips, jagged, hopeless, everything I am not, everything that Daddy told me not to be. Desperate. I sound as desperate as the homeless people who ask me for money. “I love you so much. I have all your albums, all your posters and DVDs, your t-shirts. I was gonna get a vinyl, man. I fucking died for a piece of you, and you can’t hear me! Hey!”

I yell after him, my voice hoarse and, for the first time, sounding very much like I was run over by a million-ton locomotive. Eminem walks to the Escalade. I hurry after him, a puppy after her master. I can pick up the scent of his cologne, his deodorant, the smell of his dog, the fucking steak he ate for dinner last night. My sanity is being devoured by my insanity. I can see, hear, smell, my idol, but I’m more invisible to him now than I was the night I saw him in concert. That understanding, the grip of it, chokes me senseless and it is torture. Protect your greatest inspiration, your hero, but oh, drawback. He’ll never notice you. Suck on that an hour after you get run over by a train, Alexus.

My hand reaches out, it can’t stifle the thought of refusing contact anymore. I’m right behind Em, who opens the front door of the Escalade and my hand plops, softly, on the middle of his back and my hand pushes down, so I can feel his skin through his jacket and his shirt.

Things happen.

One. I do not phase into his body. I won’t lie; I played around with that for a little bit back in Detroit. Messed around with a meter maid. I hate them. Vile little things who come straight from a Dante Hell Level, I’ll tell you. The PPA back home made SEPTA workers look cute and mannered as an adorable grandpa in a knit sweater. But the possession thing. It is a thinking power. I do not want to posses Eminem so I do not go through him completely.

Two. He freezes. Goes totally, stupid-shock still. Paul notices this. I go rigid. Gig is up. Turns out, I was drugged or high as the fucking towers in Heaven and I’m actually naked or something, totally visible, and my death was just some weird coked-out dream. I swallow and wait to be tasered or killed for real.

“Something wrong, man?” Paul asks, I look at him from the corner of my eye and he looks concerned, at Eminem and not me. Good, I’m still dead and still a ghost. Eminem straightens up, my hand doesn’t leave his back and I can’t stop myself. There is no stopping what happens next, none at all.

I wrap both arms around him, pressed my body against his and drop my head below his shoulder. My eyes start to burn from tears that I can’t cry. My throat surrenders a laugh from previous thought. What a cheesy song title. But Eminem, I smell everything on him. On his jacket. All the places he’s been, the people he’s met. The lives he’s touched. And deep within that mini universe I can smell, I can feel, my own devotion coming back to me.

Em jumps. He spins around, and I freaked him out. Fuck, I scared him silly. I study Em like he isn’t human, I know he’s paranoid about even leaving his house. Paul straightens up, all big guy mean, and two other equally muscular meatheads rise from the Escalade that I’m currently half-hanging in.

“Em, wants wrong?” Paul sounds gruff and ready for battle, like a grizzly bear wielding a machine-gun.

“You don’t feel that? I just got really fuckin’ cold, man. I’m freezing.” Em looks panicked, and while I should let go, I can’t. He’s warm, and as bad as I feel about chilling his blood my ghost self is not ready to give up. I cling like a tick.

Paul and the bodyguards exchange glances. “Em, it’s 75 degrees outside.” Paul says, eyebrow raised, head cocked to the side.

“Yeah, I know that. But….fuck, it’s still here. I’m really cold,” Eminem reaches behind him, and his left hand passes right through my hip and jumps back like it just got bit by something big and armed with pointy teeth. “It’s worse here! In the car!”

“The AC was on. We turned it on high. Em are you feeling alright?” One of the bodyguards, a fit walrus with sunglasses, asks. Eminem looked at Paul and the two guards, and I could see, well, not literally see, my skills ain’t that good, but I could figuratively see the gears in Em’s genius brain telling him he looked like a paranoid whack-out.

“Yeah uh, I’m fine. I’m just imagining things. Let’s go, I don’t wan’ to be late.” And he ducks into the car. I can’t let go, my dead body is stubborn and clingy but as Em leans back I’m suddenly full of Escalade seat plush. I cough, squeeze my way out, and settle in the backseat with Paul. I sit opposite Eminem, just so I can look at him. But I’m too far away. And when I say “too far away” I mean “I’m not directly in his face examining his pores.” As the car starts up, I lean forward on the middle console, prop my chin up on my palm and stare at Eminem with so much devotion and passion and love, the slimiest pedophile on Earth would back up from me and call me a freak to my face.

“So where we going? The studio? Grocery store? Do you do your own grocery shopping? Or do you have a guy for that? Oh my God, are we going to film your movie? Can we have info on that?”

It takes a solid two minutes of word vomit gushing before my brain sends the email to my mouth; hey fuckface of ugly, nobody can hear you. You’re dead. Maybe before you got set up to Heaven you should have taken your common sense with you instead of worrying about your stomach.

I pout and flump back into the seat. Fuckin’ Escalades. “Well.”

“It is a little colder in here.” Paul muses beside me. I scoff.

“I don’t know how to turn it off! Ghosts are naturally chilly.”

“See, and you thought I was makin’ it up.” Em answers.

“Maybe your Red Bull is extra chilled today?” The driving bodyguard offers.

“That doesn’t even make sense!” I interject.

“It’s cold, but not like I’m pissing in the Arctic, cold.” Em says.

“You are so funny,” I tell the ceiling. “Penis.”

“Guys. Focus.” Paul speaks up, in his big deep voice. He could say “kitten” and have it sound as frightening as “Rick Santorum supports the eating of babies.”

“Why, what’s going on?” I demand. This could be it. This might be the moment God told me about. Please don’t let it by. I only just got here.

“Right. Can’t believe it man. Dead at 23. Broad daylight, who the fuck does that?” Em lifts his hand as he talks. I watch it move, see the veins, carrying precious blood to his heart and brain and everywhere else. I look at my own hands. Silvery, glittery.

“Who died? Who got shot?” At this point, I’m admiring my voice.

“This is risky, I’ll tell you what. It sucks the kid got killed, but until this fucker is caught, Em, you shouldn’t be on the streets.”

“OH! You’re talking about Vulpes!” Duh, took me long enough, but having a dead-weight brain floating in a dead-weight skull will do that. Vulpes, I’ll tell you, was this fucking ridiculously gifted up-and-coming kid from Hartford. I don’t know how they breed them in Hartford, but Vulpes spit on all the newbies and within a few months of his debut album, already produced a track with a feature from Kanye, and another with Em himself. Not bad for a white kid from Connecticut.

When I found out Vulpes was killed, I cried myself dehydrated for three days.

“I’m not staying long. I’ll pay my respects.” Em gives the final word on the matter, his voice very serious and enough to make me look at him, again, and not want any part of me to turn away.

The bodyguard drives the car toward Detroit. I can see the skyline punching up toward the sky, but it interests me for barely a second. I really can’t help myself, I have no self-control says the girl who in one sitting, ate two sleeves of Oreos and half a medium pizza all herself. Yeah, I’ll probably jumpstart his 40-year-old heart again, but one more touch. Just another, then I’ll be good.

No I won’t. Fuck that up the ass with no lube whatsoever.

I reach forward to the relaxed Eminem who, doesn’t notice the growing chill as he bops his head to Vulpes’ debut album playing in the car. My fingers flex, reach, and without a second to lose I grab Em as tightly as I can by his shoulder.

Probably the only thing worse than grabbing Em’s shoulder with my icy grip is grabbing his dick. Which I also did.

Sorry.

No, fuck you, I’m not sorry. When the object of your idolization and sexual desires is just sitting all hot and gorgeous 2 feet away from you, you can’t not jump on that invitation. I’m only human for fuck’s sake.

Well, a ghost. A ghost with very human urges. And tell me you wouldn’t do the same. If you could have restrained yourself well congrats, you drooping virgin testicle.

I settled my hand on his shoulder and, why not, I was already this deep already. “I have to make you notice me, Slim. In any way possible.” I said, a little meek in his ear, the waft of fear already spiking up around him. I’m not gonna lie it’s….it’s weird. I can inspire fear, terror, horror. I can be a revengeful, hell-bent, twisted-out-the-neck ghoul. I can make Paranormal Activity look as tame as Casper. I can do anything, because laws don’t apply to me.

Or I can fondle Eminem.

My other hand lunges forth like a dick-seeking missile. Through his jeans, through the soft material of his boxers. It’s hot, thick in my hand and a total contrast to the airy freeness of my arm. I temporarily lose the air I no longer have to breathe. I run my hand up his length, feeling the map of veins, like I’m petting a damn kitty cat and at this point, between cold on his shoulder and cold on his dick, Em leaps out of his seat so fast he bangs his head, loud and painful, on the roof of the Escalade with a thunk.

“Shit! Fucking asshole!” Em yells, practically standing on his seat. There is chaos in the car and yeah, all my fault, I get it. I let go, let myself shrink into the backseat as four grown men attempt to restore calm that I, an 18-year-old girl, created for them. I’m so sorry, Vulpes, for letting my sex brain ruin what should have been a somber ride to your funeral. If we meet up in Heaven, I owe you one.

“Em! What the Hell, man calm down!” Paul is thunder bouncing around in the car. If it weren’t for the overly tinted windows, our troupe would appear a hot mess to curious onlookers. The driving bodyguard makes good work of staying perfectly aligned on our side of the road. I wonder if he has practice in stuff like this, but only for a second, as Em steals my attention again. His heart is pounding so hard, I imagine it bruising through his skin. There is a genuine, real sense of fear blowing up in his brain.

“You believe in ghosts?” I whisper, low, and obviously only to myself. I know it. Clear as day, I see it running amuck in Em’s mind. Eminem believes in ghosts.

“There is something in this car, Paul! It touched me!” Em snarls, and it honestly had the potential to scare the life out of me if I currently had a life to live. Not as scary as Em’s verse in say, “Kim” but damn did this toe the line. I’ll keep saying it: bro was freaked.

“It’s just us, Em,” Paul speaks softly, like trying to talk a crazy lonely man off the San Francisco bridge. “I get it, everything is a little tense with the murders. But nothing, nothing is gonna get through to you.” There is silence following Paul’s words, quiet save for Vulpes killing lyrics, throwing out words so fast he sounds immortal. Not as fast as Em, no shit. Nobody raps fast and dangerous as Marshall Mathers.

I’m getting off track. This fear I can control, the horrible emotions I can ignite. I’ve been pushing it aside, not really grasping it but now, motherfucker, I am a ghost. I am dead, dead as Drake’s career will be in three years. I have a lump reeking of spoiled milk and dog turd reeling in my stomach. Em settles back in the seat, partly looking a ravaged mess while trying to retain some cool-boy composure.

The remainder of the ride goes surprisingly quick and uneventful. I am a good, respectable girl. I keep my hands folded in my lap and look out my window at Detroit. Detroit from the sky and Detroit at a human-eye level are two totally different cities. Why are Chryslers called birds if the city that produces them can’t find their wings? I’m not being a hypocrite, you Internet-fucking judging dick-chewers. Just that, driving through Detroit, you get that sense the people have accepted the label the rest of America has given them. America kinda pushed Detroit off the map.

I tilt my gaze to Eminem. “I’m glad you stayed here. Makes you the realest of the real,” I say, nothing but Odd Space to hear me. “Fuck LA and their soulless, poodle-pimping culture.”

We drive down roads and streets, mostly barren of life but plentiful with crusty, abandoned buildings broken in half with the sharp edges of their walls trying to stab through the sky. Prickles of foreboding, a feeling that follows me even in the afterlife, attacks my neck. “I don’t like it here, Slim. Hope for your sake these windows are bulletproof.” My worry is luckily short-lived, as the bodyguard driver turns down a street and how the fuck did I miss it?

The noise.

A somber sigh of melancholy that chills me, a ghost, ices up my ghoul form as the Escalade breaks into a crowd of quietly crying, sign-waving and candle-holding citizens. Alert, but sad-faced police guards stand at the gate of what is clearly a……where they hold funerals. The word oddly escapes me. I furrow my brow, rack my brain, but I can’t remember the name where they honor the dead. I’ll forget about it, then. As soon as I do it’ll pop up in my head.

“Lot of people.” One of the bodyguards brings up, like no fucking duh. The Escalade is driven around the corner, parked, and the occupants step out. Eminem is a little light-headed looking, and I jerk my head up to peer at him with motherly concern. Dear God-Who-Looked-Like-Me-When-I-Met-Him, I hope I didn’t give Em a new dose of brain damage or something. Em puts a black Kangol on his head and flips his jacket hoodie over it. Incognito. His eyes are somber, and I waft over to him, far enough away that he doesn’t get my chill. I’m close enough to hint his regret, his sadness. A kid lost his life, a victim to violence, to human ignorance and fear. I watch them walk ahead of me, Paul and the bodyguards making a fearsome wall around Eminem. I lag behind.

I want to find Vulpes’ killer. I’ve watched the fuckin’ night and day off Criminal Minds and NCIS and every city, season, and episode of CSI. I can catch a killer. And on the plus side, damn punk ass fucker won’t catch me!

“Don’t distract yourself, Alexus. Vulpes is very much gone, in the physical self. Marshall is not.”

If ghosts could crack their neck, mind would have cracked off from the force used to spin my head around toward that voice. There. Standing by the Escalade in a snapback and flip-flops, highlighter-blonde hair and blue eyes, stood the very real, very alive-looking, me.

“God.” I choked out.

God smiled, but it was a smile of polite sadness. Hands behind His (mine?) back, God walked through the Escalade and after Eminem and his posse. I landed on the ground, walked after them, silent. I figure, God will talk when God is ready to talk.

And God was ready at the top of the stairs where they……honor the dead.

“A church.” God says kindly.

I jerk in realization, V8 slap my forehead. “Duh! Why couldn’t I remember it?”

“Aside from their own deaths, ghosts have an extremely difficult time remembering anything to do with dying, or any process of celebrating those who have passed.” God informs me, and I nod like I have a clue what that means.

“Why did Vulpes have to die?”

“Things happen sometimes.”

God and I stand together. Our features are identical.

“Can the crowd see you?” I ask. The people are held back by barricades and watchful cop eyes. Most are crying, most are holding the signs and candles. All of them reek of that deep, dark, human sadness that devours all other emotion. Combined, all together, my senses are overloading and I want to tear out of here.

“No.” God tells me.

We stand for a while longer. I rock back and forth on my heels.

“Would you like to go inside and watch the ceremony for a bit?” God asks. I bob my head yes. Together, God and I walk in tandem, into the high-ceiling church with what can only be a hundred hundred people. The grievance is multiplied to impossible levels. I stagger, taking it all in. A man is speaking at the podium. I see a coffin.

God is frowning with my own face. “Look sharp, Alexus. You never know who will bring more death to a funeral.”

I rub my neck. “Is that come kind of reference or joke or-“

Click.

I heard it. Gun. Motha’fuckin’ gun. Straight out of a movie, that sharp clean tink of bullet entering barrel. I lift off from the ground, all ghostly supernatural power on high alert, I’m fuckin’ Alcatraz back in the day, I’m every guard dog and mama bear shoved into one undead spirit. I lift my head. A lot of people are wearing black and, damnit, Em is too. I can’t see any hoods or hats, he must have taken them off in respect. Otherwise excellent and speaks to his character but right now he is being a Where’s Waldo? to find.

Click.

Second bullet!? Or second shooter? My desperation is clouding my rationality. It won’t help but I yell: “Em! Em!” Nobody turns or looks or acknowledges me. I float higher. I look down for a second. I cannot see God. I cannot yell for help. My ghost voice is silent.

Bang.

A man jolts backward. In the split second it takes him to start falling, my ghost senses are a go. In an eighth of a second, I realize that the gunned man is not Eminem, but his bodyguard. The one driving the car and I smell it a second before everyone looks over and registers what happened.

Panic. Screams. Hysteria. It all hits me like…..like an L train of raw, untapped fear. People respond the way people are raised and evolved to respond. Run. There is danger, get the fuck away. People stampede over other people, push and shove and run run run.

Someone is not running.

Over the panicked heads, I see Eminem. He’s crouched down, low, kneeling over his dying bodyguard. I can see the slack-jawed gape of his mouth, wide eyes. Blood all over his fingers and hands. Paul and the remaining guard are trying to yank him away. I look up and, there they are. Two men, armed with handguns. Animal masks on their faces. One a vulture, the other a gorilla. The gorilla lifts his arm, points the gun at Eminem with such deliberate, torturous slowness. Paul yells something, yanks Em by his shoulder but all he does is look up with that same slowness as the gunman. Dread creeps up on his face.

I end it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The wrath in my voice scares even me. But it doesn’t stop. I can’t stop it. I get louder. It gets louder. My jaw drops off, I see it hit the floor. My vision expands, my eyes are wide and the light, the blinding yellow light bursting from them, from my eyes and my voice, no, it isn’t my voice it is a roar. It is the almighty, endless, fearing bellow of terror and agony and wheels and machines, metal and metal and death. Death. I get louder, I am the loudest creature in existence, dead or undead.

Try and kill my idol? Fucker, I’m gonna kill you with the same thing that killed me.

I am an L train.

I lift my arms, and with them, rises pews. I rip them right from the floor, rip ‘em up like fuckin’ daisies. Behind their masks, I can see the killers, see their eyes. Wide, fearful. Hear me roar! You can hear me now! Thunder has nothing on me, I scare thunder right back into the clouds!

Yet that one cock-and-balls asslicker still shoots at Em.

No worries.

I kill that lone, single bullet. Kill it dead. With a pew. That I flung at it. And the pew shatters like glass on the wall. Did I mention I’m still loud? Oh yeah, I’m loud. The L goes silent for no bitch.

I pick up another pew. I fling it, so hard it’s as fast as the bullet that murderer tried to kill Em with. Perfect aim, perfect impact. The pew hits gorilla-mask. It shears his head completely off. Clean edge, the blood gushes up like a mini-fountain and splutters into submission. His body hangs in a balance, still holding that gun out when it falls, he falls, topples to the ground like a heavy dead leaf. The other gunman is wise enough to bolt out of there. I let him.

I shut my mouth.

Silence.

The lights from my eyes fade into nothing. I can see. I can hear.

God is back. He makes His way to the fallen body. “Restraint would have been okay,” He tuts. I am stunned stupid, sagging and lagging and confused. “You become the very thing that kills you.” God continues. He goes to the corpse, plucks something shiny and small from the chest. “I must be going, Alexus. See you soon.” And He’s gone.

The people left in the church stand frozen at the doorway. Nobody is moving. I turn to Eminem. He’s right toppled onto his ass from my arrival, panting, Paul and the other bodyguard just…..I wiped everyone idiotic. Nobody knows what to do. But I do. I know what to do. I fall from grace, from the air and hit the ground and run. I tackle Eminem, fling my arms under his and wrap them around his back. Settle to my knees in between his legs and press my ear against his chest. I hear his heart beating. I cling tighter, never mind the fucking cold. I don’t care. I would cry if I could, yeah it’s lame but how about you almost see the man of your idolization, your inspiration, almost get killed and you suddenly turn into a subway train.

I see Em lift his arms. Slowly, hesitantly. Unsure in movement but his brain is piecing together confidence. He plants his feet on the floor, knees up, and keeps his arms coming closer, hands moving toward his body. I freeze. He tests the cold, what parts are colder than others and in no time at all, he’s got on hand on my shoulder and one hand on my back. Embrace. Eminem is embrac-…..hugging me, in the best way he can. I watch his wide-eyes look up at a stunned Paul.

“Man, I told you somethin’ was in that car with us.”

Nobody knows what to do.

Ambulances are called. Fire trucks are wailing down the street, their big red bodies pushing aside all the spectators like the respectable fuckin’ bosses that they are. Police cars dart out of the darkness like roaches after food. Dark thoughts to make serial killers blush roll and loll around in my skull as Paul hauls Eminem to his feet and half-drags him out through a back door. The other bodyguard remains standing over his fallen friend.

“They shot…..they shot Roy, man. He was right next to me.” Em speaks up, in shock, shaking slightly and I force myself to let go of him. I can sense everything from his wobbling knees to the food in his stomach, debating if it should run up his throat and out his mouth. Vomit instead of lyrics, I shudder at the thought. So I stand in front of him, watch his arms drop back to his side and he looks up at the balcony where the shooters stood.

“Let’s get you out of here.” Paul speaks, damn near emotionlessly if you ask me. He scans the place, sees the Escalade and makes his way over to it.

“What about the other guy? And uh, someone got shot! You’re just gonna leave?” What is this backstabbery! You can’t leave them behind!” I jump in Paul and Em’s wake, all my L noise dead and gone and not where I need it. Like now. I need it now. Damn. They continue on, oblivious to shouts. In some kind of anger, I ball up my fist and woosh! fling it in Paul’s direction. I don’t really have any of my powers down pat, I’ll tell you completely truthful. That L thing? No fucking clue how I pulled that out of my ass. Just like I have no idea how, the second I throw my fist, the shell casting from the bullet comes twirling out of nowhere. Nowhere! Well from inside, I guess. Anyway.

The discarded metal lightly taps Paul in the middle of his back, as threatening as an ant sneezing on a Tyrannosaurs. I debate running, remember that I’m dead and thus invisible so I remain on spot, lift my arms up from my sides. “Come at me bro, what ya gonna do?” I drawl. I don’t like Paul now. Yeah, Em should be his number one priority. But I made sure those ass-eaters were gone, and Paul still doesn’t go back to help those bodyguards.

Never become a bodyguard. You’re just cannonfodder. I can be a bodyguard. I’m dead.

Paul turns, glares around a bit, finally down at the shell casting. I see his features warp into confusion. A bit of fear. He looks up again. Nothing. Caterwauling hierarchy of sirens in the foreground, a game of who can be the loudest.

“Let’s go.” He grunts out, opens the door and basically pushes Em inside. He goes around the front for the driver’s seat. I look out at the crying crowd, so seeped in various emotions it makes my undead sprit coil and boil in my gut. I regret my choices, leaving with this rude farewell, but I phase through the door of the SUV and into the backseat. I watch the crowd get smaller out the back window the farther away we drive.

---

“It’s in here.”

“Yeah.”

“You think we could ask it to leave?”

Paul gives Em a funny look, but the rapper is dead serious. I lean on the console between them. “Do I get a say in this? I vote we keep Alexus in the car.”

“Don’t give me that look, man. This is some fucked up shit and…..” Em pauses. I glance over at him. I’m fearing some, I don’t know, JFK-style assassination. A bullet to suddenly explode through the window and blow off Em’s skull, sending all his bone and blood and brain slop right through me. If I had the capability to puke, I might have. Gore is not a favorite topic of mine to accompany dinner conversations, okay.

“Look, Paul. Goosebumps. This thing is right here. It’s next to us.”

Lost in my gross daydream of bloody stuff I hate, I didn’t notice Eminem hovering his hand just a centimeter from my silver skin. Sure enough, the cold is driving his human flesh to rise in little bumps. I don’t move. I get a whiff of the unease churning in his gut.

Paul, he doesn’t seem worried anymore. I’m not getting panic off him. Odd. In fact, as I lean closer to him I get…..

Curiosity?

“Hello, ghost. How are you?”

That just jerks me back like whoa-and-whiplash. Paul, he sounded, jovial. Like this is some big fucking prank. Em is next to me sick from his head to his toes over this, and Paul is trying to strike up conversation. And I can’t reply. I groan and have no idea what to do.

“What are you doing!” Em half-shouts. He scooches away from the console, and thus, away from me as well. I really want to do something for him. Hold his hand or shake him and tell him to calm the fuck down before he gives himself a damn panic attack. I hate to admit it but he’s getting old and old guys can’t take this constant stress for very long.

Paul chuckles. But it sounds forced, strained. I tense. Something isn’t right.

Paul cheerfully grins, that smug, shit-eating grin people wear when they get the idea they’re better than you. He locks the doors like nothing is out of the ordinary. The Escalade picks up speed and at this point, I drop a hand on Eminem’s arm, on the tattooed 12 etched forever into his skin. I sniff, but its just Paul. Nothing different about him.

Em’s heart is racing. “Why’d you lock the doors? Those shooters, they can’t catch up to us.”

In a wildly expositional bit, Paul slowly turns his head to us. Not just his head, his entire neck. It creaks in one tortuously mechanical movement, like Chucky or The Exorcist or any of those other fucked-up movies that, I’ll admit, I usually cry through and end up running away from.

Right. Paul.

He says to us: “The shooters aren’t what you need to worry about.”

And something huge, black, and pointy as all escaped Hell comes blasting out of Paul’s mouth. I fucking scream. Em shouts. I explode backwards. Em hits the ceiling. I almost shit myself. This grotesquely massive black cloud, stinking like rotted skunk corpses marinating in a sewer after baking in the sun hits me, and my ghoul senses shrivel up and faint dead away. Pun usage slips my mind. This thing is big with an open jaw that makes a white noise sucking sound, white teeth curved like razors and mouth like a funnel, and on it’s….head, I guess, are two beady red eyes, dead and rolling and staring.

HELLO MARSHALL HELLO ALEXUS.

It can talk? It can speak!? It knows my name! The Escalade is lurching through the streets. Paul’s hands are still on the wheel but Em, pardon the metaphor but Em is white as a ghost, his human fear is a dull ache poking at my warped senses. I feel him fighting to escape this thing, contorting and twisting away from this thing, mute in panic and succumbing fully to that primal instinct to run run run get away! This black thing is an inch from his face when I snap back into my reality, bare my teeth and push down my snapback.

“You call me Alex, fucker!”

I’m sorry, but these are really the conversations. When a big black specter-demon-eater thing comes ripping out of the mouth of the guy who manages your favorite artist, you can’t sit down with a team of writers and plan fancy comebacks. This is real shit.

I tackle the ugly fucker, but it takes up the entire Escalade. I hear the doors unlock and the front seat jam backwards. Em is peacing out. He might be yelling, trying to fight, I don’t know, I can’t pay attention to him. The thing with the teeth bears down on me. I kick and punch and struggle. The Escalade tips dangerously close to the side of the road and there’s gravel crunching and bouncing and-

The force of impact is enough to make me and the monster lurch forward through the dash. We drop into the Escalade’s smoking engine. I imagine fire and Hollywood explosions blazing around is. I rip and tear at the monster, it has to be a ghost like me, right? Its claws are shredding even my paranormal form. I see tiny wisps of silver float away. I feel no pain, but I strike harder.

I hear a body being dragged. Screams and cries for help.

LITTLE LITTLE ALEXUS, HOW ARE YOU DYING? PROTECTING MARSHALL, ARE YOU? VALIANT CREATURE, HOW NOBLE OF YOU!

This thing speaks like wind on steroids carrying machetes. It is more physical than I am, I can see the slick black body denting the inner core of the Escalade. It has a clawed hand on my throat. It squeezes my windpipe.

“You can’t kill me!” I wheeze. “I’m dead.”

YOU DIE AGAIN AND THAT’S IT. GAME OVER. NO HAPPY ENDING. WE KILL YOU ENTIRELY. POOF. YOU NEVER EXISTED. GONE, FOREVER, GOOD-BYE.

What?

I break free. I wiggle my way out of the monster’s grasp, phasing from the claws and out of the car. I break into sunlight, I break into the open and see Eminem, sweating and panting and bleeding and on his knees next to an unconscious Paul. The sunlight stings a bit after having so much demon specter attacking me. I look back at the Escalade and see the thing peering out from the dented-up hood. The red-eyes, exactly the type of thing you don’t ever want looking at you. Un-moving, creepy, like that thing in Amityville Horror that looks at you from the window.

I spit. “What’s the matter, ugly? Don’t like daylight?” I jeer. Isn’t there some dirt-old fable that ghosts hate the sun? Or is that vampires? No, that’s vampires.

The thing leers at me. And then, without any parting remark or threat of return, it lets out a deathly scream of pain before ducking out of the Escalade, remaining in sunlight for a second before vanishing right into the damn road.

A second that lasts an entire eternity plus some passes by.

“What the fuck!?” I scream up at Heaven.

I hear the familiar wail of an ambulance. This time headed our way. I turn to Eminem, who is checking Paul’s pulse and I see a tiny bit of relief on his cut-up face. I can hear Paul’s heartbeat. Whatever that thing was, it could do possession the same as me. I close my eyes and deep in my dead heart, I very badly wish I was alive again.

---

Good news! Paul is going to be okay. Bed-ridden for a couple days, but okay.

Bad news. Eminem has hired some kind of ghost psychic or something.

After getting an okay from the hospital, Em ushered Lainie, Hailie, and Whitney right off to Kim’s house. No explanation needed as to why but just incase; Em is way too much of a father to let his kids stay home while ghosts and ghouls and shit are flying about, ruining his life. Got them a fancy black car with super-tinted windows. He hugged them each good-bye, lingering for a second on Hailie before shutting the car door after they got in and watching it drive away.

He waited in that exact same spot for three hours until the psychic pulled up the drive. I stayed with him for those three hours. But when the psychic came, I was out.

And by ‘out’ I mean I floated up onto a tree. For someone who doesn’t need sleep, I’m exhausted. And Eminem, the poor guy. He hasn’t slept since the incident. That was two days ago and still, he’s all jittery and flinches at any noise he hears alone in that big, big house. He doesn’t want the guards, doesn’t want his friends, doesn’t want anybody. He’s got two dogs and a cat for company. And me.

Yes, animals can detect spirits. Em’s kick-dog rat Chihuahua, Smokey, made that clear as water. The first time I came into the house, just wandering idly after Em, not hurting nobody, idiot pup started barking his tiny brain off. Em figured it out right quick. Since that discovery he walks around with Smokey tucked under his arm like a furry little man purse. If I’m in a room and Smokey starts barking, Em instantly turns around and walks the other way.

I hate dogs.

The ghost psychic is stereotypical to those nut jobs you see on TLC or Discovery or whatever. Short, pudgy, dripping with faux jewels and bling. Wide eyes, a hooked nose to put a vulture’s beak to shame. Wide eyes the darkness of Jack Daniels. She’s wearing what looks like a silk garbage bag and Em has one bodyguard to man the gate outside, and when he brought that guard in to find this lady via the Internet, her website said she was 28-years-old.

This lady could take 100 and call it a compliment.

“Not impressed!” I yell at Em, watching this old lady hobble out of her 1950s jalopy. She waddles to where Em is waiting, and he doesn’t extend a hand to shake or anything. Neither does she, just ambles up the front steps of the house. Em follows. And, why the Hell not. I float in too.

The psychic stands in the doorway. Em awkwardly scoots around her. Silence between the two of them, thick enough for anyone to feel it and I laugh.

“What a joke.” I scoff, floating through the wall to comfy myself down on one of the black leather couches. I sprawl like I own this damn place.

“No, deary. Not a joke.”

I sit upright like I just got tasered. I look at this lady, and she is looking directly at me with a fond, almost motherly smile. I tilt my head. She mimics me. My jaw drops and she laughs, turning to Em and reaching up to put her gnarly hand on the middle of his chest.

Em doesn’t look happy about the contact.

“Oh sweetheart, this is nothing. You have a little drifter, that’s it. A harmless friend, she won’t hurt you.”

Em steps back, crosses his arms over his chest and alright, he just found out he seriously has a ghost hanging around. He’s a man, he wants control over this situation. “How do I get rid of it?” He demands, in a voice that wants no negotiation. I hang my head. The psychic frowns.

“You hurt her feelings, Marshall. She’s a female.”

“Lady, I don’t care. I want it out of my house.” Em snaps back, but the psychic ignores him and steps closer to me. She’s smiling. Okay, maybe I misjudged.

“I am called Meddy. What is your name?” She sits down on a matching leather chair. I can’t take my eyes off her, even when Eminem slams the door closed behind him and strides into the room with us, gaze on the floor.

“Alexus.” I stammer and damn, wow, it feels good to talk to someone again. A real human someone. Meddy’s smile widens. Em narrows his eyes.

“You’re talking to it,” He accuses. “Stop talking, and tell it to freeload anywhere but my house. An’ it can’t follow me. Or throw things at my dog.”

Meddy doesn’t answer. She keeps such perfect eye contact with me that I want to start sweating. I roll my eyes to the ceiling, bite my tongue. I’m on the spot, I’m usually good with this stuff but not now, now is different. Does that make sense? No of course not. There’s a coarse moment of silence, Meddy studying me the whole time.

“I’ve got it. Watch.” Meddy gets to her feet, hobbles over to Em. She barely reaches his armpits. Meddy looks him in the eye, raises her hands, and without any warning, plunges both down Em’s sweatpants.

In the second that follows, as Em’s face contorts into agony and his knees buckle, that Meddy is twisting him around, pulling, digging her fingernails into tender skin and Em makes that noise, that sort of soul-wrenching sob that all guys make when their junk is hurt. He can’t even get out the words, eyes tight as Meddy squeezes with all her ancient might, driving Em deeper and deeper onto the floor.

I don’t care if she might be an old lady or a really wrinkly 28-year-old who can give me a conversation I badly want. Em is my idol, and I swore to God Himself that nobody would do him harm!

I force a picture on the fireplace mantel up off its place and pitch it right above Meddy’s head. Glass sprinkles into her hair. Her smile widens and she lets go in an instant. Em scrambles backwards until his back hits the wall.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” He yells, one hand going down his pants to right himself. I turn my gaze to him. No lie, I’m jealous Meddy got a good feel but…..no, I’m angry! I pick up another picture; ready it at my side in preparation. Em is too busy with Meddy. “Get the Hell out of my house before I get you thrown out!”

Meddy shakes her head and points. Em follows her finger and, he jumps, eyes looking straight at the floating picture. He swallows, takes his hand from his pants and reaches it forward, to me.

“H-Hold on. That’s a picture of Hailie, my little girl. That’s when she was a baby, so don’t throw it,” He swallows again, and I look at him. “I like that picture of her.”

I let the picture gently waver back onto the fireplace. I stand, unsure of what to do. Meddy bends down next to Em with some effort.

“Marshall. Darling, this ghost is here for a reason. This ghost is here to protect you. She reacted very violently when I hurt you. I believe, she is here for a reason.” Meddy tells him. Em huffs out a breath.

“Did you have to grab my balls to get a reaction out of it?”

Meddy chuckles and stands up again. “Why are you here, Alexus?”

I distrust her now. I frown. “Can you see me?”

“I cannot, Alexus. I can barely hear you, you sound just a whisper. But I sense your energy. Judging by the amount you give off you….oh, how sad. You are a child. Dead at 18.” And her face sinks in that pitiful way. I grimace and stand my ground. I hate being called a kid. I’m 18. I’m legal.

“I don’t have to tell you anything.” I bite back. Dang, that sounded a little moody, even for my tastes. I run my tongue over my teeth.

“Uh, hey, I wouldn’t mind what’s, you know. Goin’ on.” Em speaks up. He still hasn’t moved from the floor but looks and feels a little more relaxed. Interested, almost. I badly want to sit next to him.

“I’m guessing she is a fan of yours, Marshall. When you talk, it excites her,” Meddy says. I shoot her a glare, remember she can’t actually see me, and instantly direct my anger into my body. Meddy flinches and steps back. Hostility is bubbling in my empty veins. I advance. “What is wrong, Alexus. Tell me what is bothering you.”

“You.” I seethe. She could be like that black thing that possessed Paul. I don’t know. Em’s paranoia is leaking into me. This house is full of it.

Eminem clears his throat and it catches my attention faster than the word “Subway” did when I was alive. “Why don’t you sit, uh, Alexus? You’re name is Alexus?” He points a finger at the empty space beside him and…..he said my name. Twice. All my ghostly anger fades away. I wilt. I badly want to cuddle up next to him, fit against his hip and his neck and never move again. God, I’m worse than the most love-struck teenager in any Sparks novel or MTV reality crap. I walk over to him, pick out the goosebumps racing up his arms as I get closer. His eyes are hard and steady but the quicken of his heart can’t evade me.

I sit next to him, making sure to keep distance between our limbs. Meddy beams at us.

“Congratulations, Marshall. You’re sitting next to a real live ghost.”

“Funny.” I toss at her.

“How come we can’t see- should I be talking to you?” He points to Meddy. “Or the ghost? And tell me what she’s sayin’ back to you, I don’t like being left out on the important stuff.” He reclines against the wall and I do the same. Meddy sits and makes herself comfortable. Literally. She pulls a Snickers bar from the folds of her dress thing.

“Well. Ghosts have different reasons for not showing themselves. It could be an energy crisis, but our ghost has no problem with that. Maybe she’s shy, or doesn’t know how. Or, perhaps we have to find out who she was in life before she can show herself in death,” Meddy explains, politely breaking her Snickers bar into bite-sized pieces. “Would you like some, Marshall?”

“No, no I’m good. Hold on, you said her name is Alexus?” Em asks. “And she died at 18?” I can see the gears working in his brain and I tip my head up, hopeful.

“C’mon man, you know who I am. Daddy hates the car company of the city you live in.” I plead. Meddy is silent, observing, chewing her candy bar.

“I saw it in the news. A couple days ago,” Em gets to his feet, makes his way to the kitchen. He yells to us the farther he gets. Like I said, big house. “Colton’s kid got killed! Ran over by that, wha’ever they call it in Philly. The L.” I hear the rustle of papers. I stand, I imagine my undead heart thumping in excitement. I want to see what Em is bringing to show us. I breathe un-needed air, ragged and loud. Em walks back in, holding a newspaper that he shows to Meddy.

“See, look. Right there, front page. Hardly’s little girl. What a way to go, ya’ know? And….yeah. She was only 18.” Em speaks about my death the way anybody speaks about the loss of young life. It’s the worst ever. I can’t wait, I snatch the paper from Em’s hands. I want to cry, I want to sob, as I bring the paper up to my face and there, my eyes. My eyes look right back at me.

Have you ever had a lot to say, but your mouth couldn’t move fast enough to form the words your brain was shooting out? Well if you have, you’ll know what I’m going through. If you haven’t, you’re a fucking liar.

“This…..this is me. Holy shit. That’s me! Ew, I do have a zit! Oh my God is it still on my face? I wish they used a better picture…..,” I run a finger over the flat picture of myself. I’m smiling, bright and happy, all that youth in a visible form, so ready to tackle the Earth and reap the riches. I’m wearing my hat, the same hat I died in. I bring the picture closer to my face. My dad got those fancy tooth things celebrities wear. Veneers. No celebrity has their real teeth, from Ryan Seacrest to Madonna. Veneers, all of them. I got that sharp, angled face with high cheekbones. Perfectly sculpted eyebrows, straight hair, all that processed beauty you expect from someone born into money. My Daddy sometimes told me I was a natural beauty and I needed no outside enhancement, as he gave me special diet pills with breakfast and sent me off to get my hair cured and fixed and shit.

My fingers are trembling. I’ve only been dead for what, a couple days? I dunno, time waits for no man, not even those who’ve been killed off. Already I miss the tanning-booth brown of my skin, a controlled amount with luckily no scarring of orange. My pulse and my heartbeat, sleeping, eating, seeing my friends and my Daddy and driving. Being a ghost is awesome, okay, but being alive wasn’t so bad either. You’ll miss it when you’re gone.

“Holy shit.”

I jerk a bit, taken out of my stupor by the soft words taken out of Eminem’s mouth. I glare at him, all rabid animal, for ruining my moment. But that glare all leaves when he actually takes a step backward, hands raised in the universal sign of “I surrender.”

“A’right, sorry, sorry. It’s cool.” He mumbles, trying to look at the ground but unable too. His eyes keep shifting to me. And then, finally, I straighten up from the hunched-over-old-lady pose I had taken reading my death paper. I realize it-

“Can you see me?” I ask.

“Now I can, yeah,” Em makes eye contact with me. He’s speaking quietly, like I’m a baby deer he doesn’t want to scare away and not the ghost of a dead kid smushed by an L train. “Damn. I remember meetin’ you as a little girl.” He continues, eyeing me up and down, trying to understand the whole concept of, oh you know, just a ghost chilling a few feet in front of him. Meddy is grinning a Cheshire grin without the malice, like that friend who brought two lonely singles together for a date.

“Hold on. We met before? Like in real life?” The paper flutters from my fingers. I take a step toward Em, as my brain processes this suddenly delicious information. I met Eminem once, while I was alive? Daddy never told me this before. Then again, Daddy really doesn’t like Detroit.

“Yeah, but it was a long time ago, you were too small to remember, probably,” Em tells me. I’m leaning forward, waiting in earnest but he doesn’t continue, just keeps on looking at me like I’m the most interesting thing in the world. Which, hey, maybe I am! How many people can honestly say they had a conversation with a ghost that just didn’t later turn out to be a shadow or schizophrenia or something? I roll my hand for him to keep talking. “Uh, I was doing 8 Mile and you were there with your dad.”

I frown and, something is gnawing at the edges of Em’s voice. My inner “don’t be a fucking pushy ass dick” radar is telling me to reel in and back off. Daddy’s dislike of Detroit is a prominent ouch on his otherwise flawless business and personality. I can’t be surprised to find out Em doesn’t like talking about him much. But we’ve met before, sucks I don’t remember it, but we’ve met before.

“This happens often times. A ghost sees an image of itself and gains the power to become visible to whomever showed the image,” Meddy pips and I damn nearly forgot about her. Em must have too, he jumps a bit before spearing her with a look. “Did I make sense? Alexus, Marshall and I can see you but I doubt anyone else will be able too.”

“How can we make other people see her too?” Em asks, a little rash for my liking. My brow furrows. I dunno, I was kinda hoping to just be Em’s little secret. Why share a good thing like me? Meddy shrugs.

“She’s a ghost, dear. A new ghost, but once she gains better control of her powers she can reveal herself to whomever she wants,” Meddy looks up at Em, her smile gone and replaced with a look so stern and serious it would make a guy’s balls wilt on impact. “And you, mister. Ghosts don’t latch onto people for the Hell of it. She’s here for a reason and you better appreciate her.” Meddy pokes a long finger in the center of Em’s chest.

My mama tiger instincts flare up like fires in California. Meddy is sticking up for me, I realize this. But something else in me doesn’t like seeing Em touched, or talked down too. My hands curl into fists, but I will myself to relax, relax, take it easy. Eminem sneers and pushes Meddy’s hand away.

“I don’t remember askin’ for this. People are startin’ to talk already, they think I’m poppin’ pills again. I don’t want my kids goin’ to school and askin’ if their dad is back in rehab when they see him yellin’ through the walls at somethin’ that ain’t even there.” Em snaps, lifting a hand and jabbing it toward me like he was threatening with a knife. I want to cower, all my brashness depleted. Eminem yelling in his verses and getting mad in his raps is different than hearing him get all bothered because of you.

Meddy is quiet for a moment. She looks at me. “If you ask her to leave,” She finally says, “I think you’ll regret it.”

Before this becomes a full-on shouting match to the death, I speak up.

“That black thing. That came out of Paul’s mouth.”

Em and Meddy both look at me. Meddy looks….distraught over this new information. “What black thing?”

I try to think back, but considering I was fighting for my life and Em’s both, details are a little mushy. “Paul was driving. He locked the doors, and then this big black…thing came out of his mouth. It was all spiky and it had teeth. And it knew our names! Both of us.” I nod to Em, who looks the other way. Okay, I hope he gets over the whole ghost thing eventually.

“You fuckin’ grabbed my dick.” He accuses, bluntly, turning to look at me. I shrug, and if I had blood I would probably be blushing something fierce.

“I was curious,” I tell him, lamely. Em narrows his eyes, doesn’t break from me when he asks Meddy; “Any idea what that fuckin’ thing was?”

Meddy paces a bit, chewing her Snickers. After a moment of dawdling, she pauses. “Demon. I can’t see it being anything other than a demon. Nasty, tricky little things. Were you attacked?”

“Yeah! I had to fight it off! We crashed the car.” I exclaim. Even Em nods in solemn agreement. Meddy clicks her tongue.

“Not good. Most demons are pranksters. Everyday is April Fools to them. But this demon, this might be a bother. This one sounds malicious,” Meddy stops talking to admire the pictures of Hailie up on the wall, all different settings and all different ages. “It might target you again, Marshall. If I were you, I would not kick Alexus out just yet.”

Em is silent. I look at him, our eyes connect and I see the tightness in his jaw, the tense of his arms and with a lasting pang of despair that almost makes me cry out, I can already feel his decision.

“I’ll take my chances. Now I’m gonna ask you both to leave.”

---

Eminem slams the down shut behind us and I hear it lock. I want so badly to slip through and lurk in his house forever. A silent, watchful guardian, waiting in the dark for a demon to rear its ugly maw and I’ll be there to stop it. Instead, on stand on the stoop in defeat. I’ve rarely been rejected in life. It’s a new taste in death. Seriously. My mouth is sour.

Meddy makes her way to her car, an old skeleton of a thing probably related to the first engine ever made. I don’t follow. She looks over her shoulder at me.

“He’ll come around.” She tells me, all high spirits so I throw my hands over my head in temper tantrum rage.

“No he won’t! This sucks. I idolize the man every day I’m alive, and he turns me away! If it weren’t for his stupid vinyl being so hard to find, I wouldn’t be dead!” I scour down the driveway, wave my hand and poof! Strip a fancy manicured bush of its leaves. Meddy offers me a small smile.

“Alexus, have you ever seen a ghost being nice? Aside from Casper.” She turns fully to look at me. I pout, kick at the ground.

“No.”

“Exactly. We are born and bred to fear the paranormal. Ghosts are in our nightmares, in our horror movies. They lurk in legends and tale tales. We see ghosts in the dark corners of our room, if we see them at all. Marshall is a simple man under all that fame. He fears the same thing everyone fears.” Meddy tells me. I look up at her.

“Me.”

Meddy’s smile widens. “Give him time, and I’m sure Marshall will not only enjoy your company, he will demand it. But for now, keep a low profile.” She turns and walks back to her car. I watch her go.

“Meddy?”

One last look at me. I return her smile.

“Thanks.”

---

It does come back.

The demon.

After two days of peace it comes crashing in, loud and screaming and high-pitched like little teenage girls rushing a Beiber concert.

Not before it tries strangling Eminem, however.

The day starts, Em sitting at his kitchen table with Smokey on his lap. Em loves cereal, but aside from Red Bull and Diet Coke he’s kinda a health nut and aside from a rare spree of choosing Coca Puffs once in a while, he’s all about fuckin’ Cheerios. So there he is, eating Cheerios with his Beats over his ears and jotting stuff down in a notepad.

I’m the refrigerator, because I miss the comfort of food.

The past two days have been pretty lax, just me wandering through the house, avoiding the dogs. His cat couldn’t care less. It sensed me the first time I saw it, but carried on its merry way just like all cats do. Otherwise I stayed out of sight, always in the house or floating down the road when Em went to the studio.

Now, vacation time is over motherfuckers.

Smokey’s head jerks up. Rather than bark like when he senses me, he whines a little Chihuahua whine and bails. I frown, watching his little legs skitter to get him out of that kitchen, and fast. Before my brain can process what’s up, Em jerks. He drops his pencil. From my spot in the fridge I see his neck tense up, the sinews twisting and bunching and Em opens his mouth, gags out an awful choking noise. His hands flail to his neck, clawing at something he can’t grab.

Then he’s pushed. Shoved. Torn off his chair and onto the hardwood floor so hard, I wince and imagine his spine cracking into the ground and bruising up all those important nerves connected in his vertebrae. He’s fighting it, squirming, gasping, and I’m flying out of that fridge like I’m the best damn Superman on Earth.

I tackle this mass of nothing. The second I ram it with my shoulder, there it is. The thing turns black and huge, all demon anger, sharp teeth and red red eyes. It sneers at me with one bulbous optic and my attack slides off its greasy pelt.

I’M KILLING YOU’LL BE NEXT. DIE, MARSHALL MATHERS! CHOKE, CHOKE! NO WORDS CAN SAVE YOU NOW!

It has arms, long and twiggy ending in clawed fingers that are wrapped around Eminem’s neck. The demon wraps around him, a slinking tail tightening his arms to his sides, squeezing, a ghostly boa constrictor breaking his bones and churning his organs into pulp as I frantically claw at it, fuck, I even start biting. But the demon shrugs me off and I don’t get it, it’s daylight outside! I punch and bite and kick and yell at this thing that lifts Em’s head from the floor and bang! Smashes his skull into the ground with a dull, aching thud. Em splutters and his eyes roll up into his head.

NO!!!

I roar at the demon and from deep within my core, as lame as that sounds, I can feel it. Oh can I feel it. Barreling up, a million tons of steel and raw, man-made anger. My jaw unhooks and drops as the L bellow gets closer, gets louder. My eyes bug out, widen, go completely circular and I see the demon squeal and shrink back. Headlight eyes. Bright, fuckin’ tractor beams. The demon lets Em go, and maybe he has a concussion, maybe not. But he snaps to, suddenly wide awake and he scuttles back across the floor until he hits the cabinets. He sees both of us, the demon revolting in on itself from the light and me, all loud and crazy and shit.

Voice cracked and broken, Em yells the only thing on his mind; “Get the fuck outta my house!” Despite his assault he says it with force and rigor, enough for the demon to recoil at him. It bares teeth. My jaw snatches back up to my head. The headlights are dimming and the L retreats back to its slumber like an agitated dragon. The demon sounds in agony when it speaks.

YOU CAN’T HIDE BEHIND ALEXUS FOREVER, MARSHALL. YOU’LL DIE. I’LL KILL YOU. I ALWAYS DO.

The demon rushes through the hardwood floor and silence falls in the kitchen. I can hear birds chirping outside. My feet touch the ground and I turn my head real slow like to look at Em. We hold eye contact for an entire awkward five seconds.

“You can stay. But the second you pull anything like Paranormal Activity, I’ll get every fuckin’ ghost team in here to hunt you down,” Em shakily gets to his feet, one hand massaging against his skull for blood but wincing away at the discovery of only a tender knot. “Make ‘em put you on show or sumthin’, like an act at a zoo.” He grumbles.

I grin so wide, like I was given permission to get a puppy or go out to my first Saturday night party. “Thanks, man. I swear you won’t regret this.”

---

I regret this.

Let me explain.

When Eminem isn’t rapping at the studio or getting ambushed by killer demons, he’s a jokester. His dedicated fans, like me, know that Marshall Mathers isn’t completely serious 100% of the time. And I guess by his reasoning, if I’m gonna haunt his house he better get some hilarity out of it.

We discovered that I can be seen by everybody if I get surprised! covered in stuff. Em was in his basement studio and I was, excuse the pun, dicking around underneath the table between his legs. Nothing sexual, okay, give me that. I like to touch him. Not necessarily on his dick. But just grazing, a wisp behind his ear or on his neck, his ribs or shoulder blades or hip bone or like now, my fingers dancing up his legs to poke at his thigh. Eminem’s my idol; my inspiration and I can take advantage of my death and run my hands over every skinny part of him. He’s started getting use to my harmless curiosity. Especially when he figured out that my ghostly cold worked better than any ice pack. When I, careful and cautiously as fuck, soothed the bruise that developed on the back of his head, Em grunted and leaned back into it and I eased the pain for him, like any good and happy fan would have done.

Right, I’m under the table. Talk bad timing as I let teenage hormones get the best of my control. I reach forward, through Em’s jeans just to rub along his length and do some mindless exploring the second he takes a big gulp of Red Bull. The cold, and the contact in general, startles him so much he jerks back in the chair and spits the Red Bull all over me.

“Ah! What the Hell, man! Gross!” I sputter, popping out of my hiding place as the yellowish soda pools and reflects on my skin for a second before fading away. Em debates throwing the can at my head, I can see his fingers curl around it before he realizes what a useless gesture that would end up being.

“Stop grabbing my dick! Christ, you’re dead. Tell me how you’re supposed to have a sex drive.” He fires back, but with a soft, shy smile at the end. I bare my teeth at him, mockingly, before vanishing away.

An hour later, as I lazily float through a hallway, minding my own shit, a bucket falls from nowhere. One second I’m drifting along, the next I’m covered head-to-toe in…..I sniff at my red-slop-covered hair. I recoil in disgust, look left and right like a moron before finally tilting my head up. Eminem is leaning over the banister, grinning broadly at me. I’ve never seen him smile so wide before. I try to act pissed.

“Is this ketchup!?”

Em whistles out a tune that, I dunno, could be the beat to his next single or something. “Do you mind cleanin’ that up for me? My back is still sore from, uh, well you know. That wha’ever it was.”

I try and scoop the red slime out of my hair. “Where did you even get this much ketchup?”

This might happen several times in one day. I try and get a snag at his junk, he gets me back by pouring something –ketchup, mustard, marshmallow fluff, milk, pudding- all over me, knowing full well that if I get surprised by it the goop won’t fade from my spirit for a few minutes.

It’s a little, private prank war we wage on each other. He’s not serious about it, just being a goof.

But I’m serious.

I want full contact with what’s he’s packing.

And eventually, finally, I get lucky.

Welcome to the site ShadySharkKills. Thanks for uploading your fiction on our website we have lots of members and constant roamers who would love to read another fiction. People cant get enough of Eminem lol. Make sure to check out the rest of the website and im sure ppl will like ur fiction. Welcome again.

I love it! You took my two favorite things, Ghosts and Em, and made a story about them!! And I love Alex's attitude!! Update!!

Interesting piece of work, please update.

THE NEXT TWO CHAPTERS ARE KINDA EXPLICIT. Just throwing that out there xD I don't want to step on any toes.





The first time I caught Em jerking it, I swear it was an accident.

The next couple times, yeah, maybe I would casually peek through the wall or the ceiling to watch. No foul, right? You would do the same, wouldn’t you? Of course you would.

But the first time?

Total flub on my part.

Em was writing or doing whatever in his basement studio when I, several flights above him and setting mouse traps in his silverware drawers as payback for an earlier relish-dumped-on-my-head prank, started picking up…….vibes. Strong enough that I paused like a deer hearing an approaching carnivore and I looked up with a trap dangling from my fingers. “Slim?” I call to him. Which is pretty stupid. This house is so big, I still get lost and my cries for help to be found fall victim to silence. I frown, the prickers of distress forming in my thoughts.

It can’t be the demon. The demon is loud, the demon feeds on attention like a high school drama whore.

I dive through the layers of the Mathers Manor, leaving the traps unset on the counter. Within a second I’m in the studio, Em’s private sanctuary and the one place he will not tolerate me fucking around in. One time I twisted some random knobs on the recording equipment, just dicking around and shit, and when Em saw me he looked ready to punch me in the face. But I’m a ghost, so when that didn’t work he opted for bitching me out. I can chill in the studio as long as he’s not recording, but even I realize this is his space. Not mine. His.

I poke my head through the ceiling. The studio is dimmed, the recording booth dark and somber. I twist around for a better view when I hear him.

He’s isn’t loud. Just forced, ragged breathing, broken at times by a hard swallow or, am I hearing this right, a squeaked out whimper that begs me to drift closer for a better look when-

Oh.

Oh, oh shit. My brain kicks it into hyperdrive, flailing, screaming, “Abort! Abort! We are doing MAJOR trespassing, here!” But every other part of my undead spirit is crowding forward, wanting a glimpse of this hot piece of action that never, ever in a million years would I ever think to witness. It’s as beautiful and rare as a meteor shower, or a unicorn that hands out money dipped in chocolate. And of course, I ruin it.

“HOLY FUCK YOU’RE MASTURBATING!!!”

I’m not subtle.

Em, I scare the crap out of him. Or, I scare him well enough that in mid-jerk he almost rips his dick off. He reacts like a guy who just hit puberty, still in the experimental stage and, I’ll admit, it is kinda funny the way he spirals out of the chair, hitting the floor ass-first and probably crushing his nuts in the process, I don’t know I’m not great with guy’s anatomy and all their damn moving parts down there.

My initial surprise having died off, I can now properly see what I’ve been badly, desperately, painfully, been yearning to see.

Eminem’s dick, half-erected out of his boxers and jeans, the head red and angry at being interrupted and even from here, I can see the map of veins webbed under the skin. I’m staring. I forget Eminem’s dick is connected to Eminem, and he isn’t happy with me. At all.

“What the Hell is your problem?” His voice shocks me stupid. Shocks me right out of the air. I flump to the ground, break my eyes from his cock and look him in the face. Em looks ready to have a fucking aneurism. The veins in his neck are popping out, face red, eyes conflicted between needy release and pure, raring anger. I trip and stutter over my words. I’ve never seen him look so pissed. This isn’t hurt-anger like he rapped in “Kim” and “Cleaning Out my Closet.” Oh-ho, no. I’m not that lucky.

This is deep-from-the-core rage.

“I-I’m sorry, man. My fault, my fault,” I babble, and I start tripping over myself to get away. Em sorta hobbles to his feet, grabs the back of the chair he was sitting on. “I totally get it! I deserve this!” I yelp, vanishing through the floor just in time for Em to heave the chair at me. It cracks in two pieces on the floor.


Since that little awkward encounter, Slim and I avoided each other for an entire 8 hours. Unspoken agreement. I’m embarrassed, what can I say? And Em, he’s gotta hold it in for as long as he can take. He reeks of embarrassment and the dull, never-goes-away pelvic ache of holding in an orgasm. When I peep in on him through the ceilings or the walls, I see it in the glazed sheet over his eyes and the way he absent-mindingly gropes or itches at his groin.

I take the mousetraps out of the drawer and fling them away before Em gets himself caught in one.

I’m not talking about his fingers.

The desire and the basic human need must finally reach a climax (haha punny). I’m watching Em watching TV. I’m in the wall, he’s on the couch, slumped back and reclining, all comfortable and exhausted and I really want to jump on him and do all things inappropriate. But I’m trying this new thing called ‘self-control’ that in teenage years, even when dead, is like trying to fend off a pack of superwolves and you’re armed with a spoon. Anyway, as Em lounges with NFL playing, some teams I don’t care about because they aren’t the Eagles, his cat hops up alongside him. The cat, named Nike, we have a respect about each other. I don’t bother him, he don’t bother me.

Nike pads over to Em and does that cat thing all cats do, rubs his cheek and body all along Em’s lap. Including his crotch. Just an innocent cat mistake. Nike doesn’t know Em is wound up tight and one good stroke away from soaking his boxers.

Em jerks, bites his lip, and Nike gets frazzled and hops off. I try not to laugh as Em pulls at his jeans, glowers at all surrounding walls like my eyes are everywhere.

“Fuck it, I don’t care. You wanna watch, you little freak? Fine.” Em gruffs. He leaves the TV on and makes his way up the stairs to his room. I grapple with some deep shit for a few seconds, mentally weighing the pros and cons of watching, or not watching, my idol jack-off. But from upstairs I hear the sound of a zipper being pulled down and- “Wait, hold on don’t start yet, I want to see!”


I don’t actually say that.

I do, however, sneak like a cunning little thief up through the skeleton of the house into Em’s room. I lay on the floor in his bathroom, my eyes wide and intent like this is the unveiling of a new planet or, or, I don’t even know. My mind is focused only on the juicy show I’m about to witness. Audience of one, just me to see this. I feel a spike in my spirit as Em drops a hand through his opened jeans and through the soft material of his boxers. He sighs in relief, his eyelids flutter and I hear him swallow, see the strong solid movement of his Adam’s apple bob in his throat.

His dick spills free from the tight confines of his clothes and I watch, sedated by his movements as he starts slow, left-handed, root to tip and back again. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, the lights are off but there’s just enough from the sun that my paranormal eyes catch every moment. He quickens his hand, back and forth, back and forth over the rapidly slicking skin. His face is tilted upward, eyes shut in total bliss and lips parted just perfect, gaping slightly to let needy little pants and groans escape from his shuddering lungs. He slows down for a moment, going gentle, smoother, without the spazzing erratic jerks. Eminem’s muscles jerk, I can see them in his neck and in his arms as he teases himself, dragging a thumb tortuously slow on the big vein on the underside of his cock.

He goes faster. His right hand is mussed up in the comforter and I imagine it’s me, that I’m going down on Eminem and he’s tightening his grip in my hair because I’m that damn good to him. I let my chin slink to the floor, eyes unwavering as Em’s breathing goes faster, his tongue flicks out to wet his lips.

Hand almost a blur, Em grunts and grits his teeth and I’m ready to leap at him, he’s beating off hard enough to make it look like it’s hurting. He gives his length another two rough strokes then gasps, head twerks another degree upward and his eyes tighten shut, hisses bleeding out through his teeth as he focuses his hand all on the head. Em moans. I imagine his ab muscles clenching in release as he climaxes, breathing hard and heavy as cum spurts out and all over his hand. He bunches inward, jerks himself through it and lets out one last satisfied sigh as his hand stills and his dick gives one content twitch.

I’m pretty much frozen to the floor. The whole thing lasted less than three minutes.

Eminem stands and turns away from me, but not before I get a glimpse of his blood-red cock, still pulsating in his grip as he tucks himself away and zips up his jeans.

“Enjoy the show, kid?” Em calls out, sounding oddly mutual and not at all upset I witnessed him masturbating. Again. On purpose. I say the only thing that comes to mind.

“You’re so hot.”

Em glances over his shoulder, sees me sprawled on the bathroom floor. He quirks a brow. “Thanks.”

I don’t know how to politely say ‘can I blow you’ so I pardon the manners and just up and ask it. “Can I blow you, please?” I lift my head from the floor and the rest of my body follows. Em pauses. I can assume that, never ever ever would he expect a ghost to ask to give him head.

“Fuck that. You’re cold, and your underage. Stay away from my dick.” Em grunts out, coming into the bathroom and, wow rude, walking right through me. He shivers to put emphasis on, yes, I’m a freezing soul but I can’t help that! He turns on the sink and washes his hands. I float over to watch.

“I’m not underage. I’m 18! That’s legal.” I protest.

“No.”

“Why kind of guy doesn’t want to get blown? A free blowjob and you reject it?”

Em looks at me, turning off the sink as he does so. “Alex, I’m fine with you hauntin’ and lookin’ out for me, whatever it is you’re here to do. That’s cool, that’s fine. But we gotta draw the line somewhere, okay?” He’s talking softly to me, and I bite my lip and look down in, yet again, another pang of embarrassment.

He lifts his hand and moves it toward me. We watch as his water-cool fingers glide effortlessly through my silvery skin, not even disturbing the little particles that float and glimmer my spirit. His skin reacts instantly, goosebumps rising.

“You’re the same fuckin’ age as Lainie, you know that? It just…..it don’t feel right.” Em shakes his head and walks right past me, going down to the studio or whatever and whenever.

I stay in the bathroom. No, I won’t give up that easily. Dead or alive, I’m still goddamn Alexus Hardly and I’m no quitter. I vow to myself, I will suck Eminem’s dick.


I learned this trick. By accident. When you are a ghost, you can bend the laws of practicality into being your bitch. There’s no mistakes to be made when you have no risk of dying! What I’m getting at is, I found Em in the kitchen cooking eggs on the stove. Eminem eats really weird stuff. Healthy stuff, most of time, which combined with him running like eight marathons a day on his treadmill, and I’ll bet he’s thinner and better on the inside than I was in life.

I hover behind him. “Eggs? It’s sometime in the afternoon.”

“Any time is breakfast time.”

“Ah. Cute.”

Em shoots me a look. “Can you feel pain?” He asks, going back to his cooking and using a spatula to poke at the yolks. Real talk, this is fucking adorable. Watching the man who, 20 years ago, rapped about his dick and suicidal fans and dumping his wife in a lake, and now here he is cooking eggs. Eminem, cooking! It still strikes as something…..I don’t know. I’m invading. Like I’m witnessing real personal shit even though this is just Marshall Mathers making food. The whole thing…..it irks me.

“Well can you?”

I start, having forgotten Em asked me something and he raises a brow without looking from his food. I shrug.

“I wouldn’t think so. I don’t have nerve endings.” I land on the ground and, whatever, why not. Better not to speculate and go through with the action. My brain still refuses to accept death, and the inevitable warning of “WAIT WAIT NO DON’T DON’T!” Screams in my head as I reach my hand out and lay it on the edge of the red-hot stove top.

Nothing. Nothing but a warm, tingly feeling that crawls up my fingertips, settles in my palm, and begins a slow hike up my arms. But my skin.

My skin is going from glittery silver to that kind of red you see swirled into paintings of sunsets and gore and death, like that real exaggerated red straight from Rothko. Em is distracted from his cooking long enough to stare, watching the heat from the stove lazily snail into my body.

I take my hand away right quick. Hold it up to my face and examine it like I’ve never seen it before. Em holds his hand close to mine.

“You’re warm.”

I can’t feel it. I frown, flex my fingers and nothing. This is something I miss from life. Little things like this, not being warm and always having an Antaric breeze tailing me. I’m still in my finger staring match when Em dumps the eggs on a plate. There is a little bit of steam or whatever it is floating off the tops.

I get an idea. The best idea ever, thank you much.

“Hey if I’m warm, does this mean I can touch you now?” I squeak in the type of joy you don’t see often in this economy shit-bombed America. Em doesn’t even glance back over at me when he answers.

“Fuck off.”


The heat thing. Right. I can absorb heat, is the short way of saying it. Not like sun-heat. I can’t just spread eagle on the driveway and let the sun pump me full of vitamin D goodness that’ll shed some light into my ghostly complexion. I need man-made heat. Stovetop heat and lightbulb heat. It doesn’t last forever, either. If I sit my ass down on all four stovetop burners for five minutes, it gives me about a half hour of chill-killer.

When Em came downstairs from his room, he was talking on the phone to Hailie, letting her know everything was fine and he was just working some things out. He stepped into the kitchen and saw me roasting my ass meat on the same place he cooked his eggs and pasta and rice. I grinned at him. Gathering his wit back up, Em sneered at me, flipped me the middle finger and left.

Anyway, I use this new heat-eating power to my advantage.

Stove heat crackling like a ready-to-burst hot pocket inside my soul, I skulk around the house for Eminem. I can still hear the TV. Em really likes his football. But he doesn’t like the Eagles and that is the one thing that will never come up in discussion between us. Daddy always has season tickets to Eagles games. He knows the players and the coaches personally. I’m an Eagles girl. Em knows this, he knows I’m from Philadelphia. And football has never been a conversation between us because arguing with a ghost who watches you sleep and knows when you shower is not a good idea.

There he is, dozing on the couch with the football game on. Typical guy behavior. I step lightly to him, never making a ghost of a noise (punny!) as I phase through his coffee table and get on my knees between his legs. If I had a heartbeat it would be sending earthquakes through my body.

Em is oblivious.

I reach through his jeans and past his boxers, bite my lip in concentration as my fingers gently run up his length, tip to base and back again. His dick reacts slightly, but to really get the blood pumping I’m gonna have to go full gusto on this bitch. I pull my snapback further down, get real settled, and start moving my warm hand, back and forth and back and forth.

I’ve only touched one dick before in my entire life, so I can’t compare Em against a legion of penis. But in my hand, as he swells and I imagine him turning red with pleasure, I don’t think he was lying in all those raps where he talks about his dick. I lean forward, going fast and then slower, repeating and repeating. Above me, still reclined back, Em huffs a gusty little sigh and slouches further. I’m a little offended that he hasn’t even acknowledged or opened his eyes or anything.

My free hand tugs down his zipper. I pull his dick out into free air to see for myself.

He’s thick, with the big vein on the underside and head flared, straining for contact. I hold my palm against that vein, stroke up and down and use my thumb to rub the head. He’s getting more erect and redder by the second, and I make a circle with my fingers and thumb and start pumping him, jerking widely and with no pattern as I duck my head with jaw open to swallow him whole.

And of course, by Act of God, Eminem wakes up.

He comes to with a gasp, and I get the minute sense of panic until he has the sense to look down and see me, jerking him off with my mouth posed over his eager head.

Silence.

“Hey.” I say, finally, to break the tension. Eminem just…..he just looks at me. And he’s breathing kinda hard, his face is getting red, but from anger or good-feelings, I don’t know. My hand is still around his dick, I feel it pulse and twitch in my hand as if saying ‘don’t fuck this up for me, man.’ Eventually, after the worst five seconds of my life, Em groans and closes his eyes and plops his head back on the couch again.

“You got this far, don’t stop now.” I hear him mutter and whoa! Whoa! Is this really happening, is this the real life? Em actually gave me permission to jack him off? He even lifts a hand and gestures me to continue. This is like……this is like I don’t even know. Fuck metaphors right now. Fuck every innocent thought my Daddy shoved into my head, fuck anything that isn’t Eminem, right here and now, in front of me.

I open my mouth wide and take him all the way down to his root.

I wrote this earlier in the fic, when back and changed some stuff. Consistency might be a little off.





I’m pretty sure Eminem hates me now.

That’s the option I’m most confident in.

Other options for him avoiding me include: He doesn’t want to ask me to jerk and blow him again, or, option number 3, the sight of an 18-year-old dead girl swallowing his cum like he was a damn Slurpee, maybe he doesn’t want to remember that. You don’t need details, but you should know ghosts don’t have gag-reflex. So good news for you, whores and sluts of the world!

I did suck Em until he was shuddering, begging me to go harder, go deeper, and I took advantage to massage the muscles in his stomach, feel them clench and tighten and release, start up again and again until finally he tensed all the way up and let go in one sweeping, orgasmic load and I rocked him all the way through it.

Afterward, he stared up at the ceiling until he got his air back in his lungs. I expected a thank you, a smile, a fucking pat on the head at the very least. But no. Em just got up, tucked himself back in, and walked off.

And that will not do.

Night has fallen.

Em has long since gone to bed. Tomorrow I think he plans to head into Detroit, meet up with Paul, and not invite me in any way to tag along. But I can change his mind. Tonight, I’m gonna rock his fucking world.

---

It’s totally normal to wake him up with blowjobs, right? I could fling shit around his room, make the lights flicker like a bad disco party and run his shower and mess up his Nikes. But I’m not a jerk. And waking him up with a blowjob is a pretty pleasing alternative for both of us.

I float through his door and sit on the dresser, watching Em sleep. I made sure to eat enough heat to last however long this is going to take me. Em has done, well he’s done so much for me through his music and his story and everything. The least I can do, other than save him from death and a scary demon, is give him one excellent-as-fuck blowjob.

Eminem has a luxuriously exaggerated room when it comes to size, but what’s in his room is bare and lonely-like. His huge, plush bed, the neat-stored dresser I’m sitting on, a walk-in closet (and legit, a separate closet for his shoes and hats to hang), mirror, and a treadmill. Compared to the rest of the house, Em’s room is modest and humble and very much like the man sleeping in it now. Except for that Redbull-and-Diet Coke machine in the corner. I don’t know the fucking deal with that, but it’s awesome.

Em sleeps on his side most of the time. Ultimate creep, I admit, but as I am a ghost and thus do not require sleep, I waste nightly hours pissing around his room, floating through walls and obsessively lurking out windows, checking for some bullshit sniper or something. And Eminem sleeps on, completely oblivious save for that one time he got up to take a piss, walked through me by accident, and shouted himself loud awake from the chill.

I float off the dresser. Take my sweet time hovering over to Em, gazing at his prone form, all defenseless and shit in his sleep. It’s a little sad, seeing him all curled up and small, taking up only one part of the mattress. Part of me yearns to see what he dreams about. But that is a power this ghostly body does not possess. Luckily for me, I do posses something else.

An awesome mouth and no gag-reflex.

Yeah, I went there.

I hang in mid-air, upside-down, looking Em straight in the face. I’ve sucked dick before, I told you. Don’t call me a slut, a whore, a ho, unless you want me to Paranormal Activity you so bad, you’ll shit out all your organs and die, hopefully in a pile of shit and blood as you writhe in the agony of my power. Dick sucking is awesome, okay. I didn’t do it often in my real life, and only with one guy who I really, really loved. But Em gets a pass. He’s fucking Eminem.

I prod him, gently, in his arm with my finger. Not hard, just until he gets the point and rolls over onto his back, re-arranging himself with left hand above his head on the pillow and right hand under the covers. I look at my own hands, at the fiery shine barely visible under the silver. I’m still warm. Em exhales in his sleep.

Alright, I’ve debated and fucked around for too long. The clock at Em’s bedside reads 2:48. I drift between Em’s legs, I’m still on the covers but hey! Fucking ghost rule up in this shit. Em can sleep like the dead (ha) some nights, and wake up at the sound of the wind outside on others. I pray tonight he doesn’t wake and ruin the moment. I part the covers, move and push aside a bit to expose the lower half of Em’s body. I destroy physical law, but blankets don’t.

My fingers hook into the waistband of his boxers and with all the grace of an expert sleuth, pull them down around his thighs. Em’s dick slumbers in quiet peace as I dip my head, nuzzling around the base of his cock and huffing my warm, heat-eaten breath on his balls. I dim my senses, my hypersensitivity, gonna make this as human as possible for Em. I flick out my tongue and drag it down his length, head to root, slow and tantalizing. He’s growing, reddening, and I trail a free hand down his stomach, tapping lightly on the muscles. My other gives a practices flex before I retire my tongue and put my fingers to work. I get him erected, stroke and warm him up, daintily rub my palm up the bottom of Em’s cock. When he’s as erect and red and swollen full as I want him to be, I back up and open my jaw, wide enough to take him down whole. All the way to his root. My cheeks hollow inward and I suck, suck suck suck, hard and fast and dirty, all pure raging hunger with speed to make the most prominent porn star today blush.

As my tongue swirls around his head, flicking at the slit, Em thrusts in my mouth and moans, long and slow and deep from his lungs. I look up at him, a rolling figure in the darkness. His breathing is getting a little ragged at the edges. I hear the smack of his tongue wetting his lips.

“God, you really do sleep like the dead. And I should know.” I whisper, pulling away and off his dick. I pause, a little disappointed that he isn’t even fluttering his eyelids or something. This seems to be a problem. I take this as an insult, and, swallowing just the head of his dick, free a hand to push up against his perineum at the same instant I give him a good ol’, dirty-as-porn suck.

That wakes him up.

Eminem jerks upward, his dick going deeper down my throat and I hear him gasp, struggle to fill his lungs with air and I give him no time to think or gather his wit as I swallow him back up, greedy, one hand on the base of his cock now and the other gripping his balls, my thumb rubbing along the skin.

“Shit, kid. Shit. Fuckin’ gave me a…..heart attack.” Em’s voice is low and……erotic? Does that make sense? Sure, erotic, with sleep. I hum in pleasure. Em moves, reaches for a head that he can’t grab, but I get the idea, and swallow him deeper, riding the waves of his body and sucking up the noises he’s making along with the thick of his dick. “Slow down,” He mumbles, voice deepened by sleep and pleasure. I’d rather hot and hard, take him in all at once and just mercilessly fuck him stupid. But, I am just Marshall’s humble ghost Stan. I do as he says, bringing his cock back out into the open to lap at the underside of the head. “Atta’ girl.” Em sighs.

This continues for a bit. I drink up the soft little moans and whimpers breathing out his throat. Tasty, but I’d rather fuck him ‘til he’s wailing.

Damn. That sounded pretty fucking horny, huh? Well I’m a ghost, and ghosts can’t exactly have full-blown sexual intercourse with humans, I’m guessing. I think that’s a move way out of boundary. So I want as much from this moment as I can possibly get.

“You gotta, you can jerk.” Em mumbles, blissfully in that happy place of getting a sleepy blowjob. He lifts a hand and makes the universal symbol for jerking off and alright, I get it. I drop a hand on his dick, starting slow before gathering speed, faster and faster, popping my mouth off so I can jerk his entire length, base to tip. I speed up in answer to Em’s picked-up breathing, grip tighter around his dick, my hand a silvery bullet blur and he swells in my hand.

I get the tip of his head in my mouth just in time for Em to cry out, a low treble moan of ecstasy as he cums, splurts in my mouth, my hand jerking him through the duration of his orgasm and he curls and uncurls his fists, I see his entire torso turn blood red as I lap the remainder of his dick clean, taking it all in as he rides out the entire process, finally laying flat-out on his bed sheets after it’s over.

I go to pull his boxers up for him, but Em grunts at the sensation and moves away. I back off, hands up in surrender. I dunno if it’s a guy thing or dicks are too sensitive after climax. I float over to sit beside him on the bed, listening to his breathing steady under control. In a perfect world, there would be like, a heart-felt conversation or some pretty shit like that. Alas, this is Detroit, or not-quite Detroit but still near enough Detroit for this to not be a perfect world. My senses are ghostly again and I freeze still as Em props himself up on both elbows. The dregs of his orgasm vanish, and in their place is disgusted anger.

“Yo, kid. I fuckin’ told you before. You do not fuckin’ touch me, okay?” Em’s voice is still in that low tenor, but low in the predator-stalking-me-from-afar kinda way. I smell regret rolling off of him as he runs a hand through his hair. “I got a blowjob from an 18-year-old kid. Again.” He says, mainly to himself and I avert my gaze to his shoulder and I shrug. What’s the big deal, I’m legal.

“I’m a ghost, so uh…..Earth years don’t matter to me.” I remind him. It can’t be that hard to remember I’m dead and my body is still probably rolling around in L treads somewhere.

“Yeah they do, you’re still 18. I’m 39. Don’t do this again,” He pulls the blanket over him. “I’ll tell you to politely fuck off from my room.”

I am a shocked ghost. Like, as a ghost, you would think shit wouldn’t phase me (again, ha) but I literally am slack-jawed and, you know what? Offended. “Shit, man, you weren’t so quick to kick me out when I had your dick in my mouth.”

He doesn’t answer. I can either wallow around and moan ghostly moans to keep him awake or I can peace the fuck out.

I choose the latter.

Even though I hate storys with everything that is paranormal especially ghosts I love your story.
I like thet attitude of Alexis very much, she's so funny. And I hope that when Hailie and Lainie go visit Em they won't think he's either insane or taking pills again...or both.
Please update soon!

I think that Hailie and Alainia probably will think that Em has lost his mind, or will he pretend that Alex isn't there? Update soon!

Paul is back!

He barges into Mathers Mansion like some terminator-meets-a-Tyrannosaurus, all big muscles and his bald head and fucking shit flying everywhere does he scare me. Paul Rosenberg could scare me back to dead, and Eminem and I are playing a fucking game of checkers in the kitchen when I catch whiff of Paul’s big-scary-man smell.

I make a noise that I bet sheep make a second before they get slaughtered, and Em raises a brow in lazy laughter as I melt through the kitchen floor to hide right underneath.

“You are such a pussy little ghost.” Em gets out a second before Paul is there, in the kitchen, and I’m peeping out at him like Lucifer himself is here to reap my soul.

Paul doesn’t look happy, not that I can blame him. He did have some horrible demon-thing sluice out of his mouth. Paul looks at Em and the now one-sided checkers board. Em puts down his piece. “Good to see you, man. Feelin’ better?” He asks, sliding the board down the counter and hopefully out of mind. Paul doesn’t answer right away, walks closer to Em and stands all tall and imposing over him. Em doesn’t look threatened, but my mama instinct bares her teeth.

“Em. What the fuck is going on with you?” Paul asks, softly, intimidating, in a way that I don’t think even Em has heard him speak before. I pick up a trickle of unease biting at Em’s spine and I narrow my eyes at Paul but…..it’s just him. Just Paul. But I was wrong once, and I can be wrong again. Paul takes a big inhale, then reaches one bear paw of a hand inside his pockets. He digs for a moment, brings his hand out again and opens it for Em "and me- to see.

Cozy and small in Paul’s palm are four plain white pills that, upon closer inspection, are not so plain and very obviously have VICODIN stamped on the side.

The temperature in the room suddenly drops at least 20 degrees. And it ain’t because of me.

Eminem recoils from the pills like Paul just tasered him in the gut. His eyes fall to those four blocky pills like Paul is giving him bombs to swallow. Em slowly tilts his face up to meet Paul’s eyes. He shakes his head, gently, back and forth.

“One of the staff, they found these in your fucking car, Em. Is that what you’ve been doing? Poppin’ these, blaming it on ghosts?” Paul isn’t yelling, his voice isn’t above the norm but the anger, the disappointment he speaks with is ten times worse. I want to yank myself free of the floor, explain in haste that Em isn’t relapsing, this is something far bigger and far worse.

“No, Paul, I swear man, I haven’t touched those since….- No, they were planted,” Em babbles, momentarily losing his voice and his eyes shift around, seeking my presence but when he fails to find me he clears his throat and speaks with confidence. “Paul. You’ve known me for-fucking-ever. You think, for one second, I would go back to pills? There are guys out there who want me dead, and they’ll do it anyway possible. Includin’,” Em pauses, remembering some dark time in his past and his eyes go a little hooded. “Getting’ everybody to think I’ve relapsed. So I’ll get sent back to rehab. This is a set-up.”

Paul is silent during Em’s plea, but the gruffness on his face doesn’t change. His hand closes on the pills and finally, after a tense few seconds Paul closes his eyes, relaxes, and opens them again. “I know you didn’t relapse. It was stupid of me to think that.”

Paul walks over and takes the stool formally occupied by me. He frowns a bit, no doubt by the cold my undead ass left behind. I skirt under the floor and pop up on Em’s side, my head level with his ankle and I reach out a hand to quickly rub up his shin, just a quick ‘Yo I’m here for you’ pat. By now, Em is a little better with my chill and barely flinches, passing it off as a itch that he bends down to scratch.

“Em. Be serious with me. Do you honestly believe a ghost is haunting you?” Paul starts, somber and deep and seriously, hoe has Em dealt with this guy for so long. Every time he talks I think of carnivores under my bed.

Eminem leans forward on the counter and crackles his knuckles. “Yeah. Two, actually. One is a demon. So there’s that, plus those fuckers who killed Roy.” Em is talking totally serious, like the idea of being tailed by TWO paranormal specters AND at least one killer is as pesky and annoying as being bothered by a fly. Or teeny-bopper fans. Paul just…..looks at Em. With such a blank look.

“Alright. Sorry man, I hate to do this but ghosts don’t exist, okay? I’m having you tested.” Paul gets to his feet and starts for the door. Em looks after him, mouth-kinda open in shock. It takes a second for his brain to click, tell his legs to get moving or his jaw to start working. Both get the ‘ok go’ at the same time and Em stumbles off the stool, trying to form words.

“Paul! Man, I don’t need to be tested! I’m not fucking doing drugs!” Em’s voice hikes in anger as he steps after Paul, this little guy shouting at this big, big dude. Paul suddenly pivots to look down at Em, who has to look up. I drift along after them, keeping my distance, warily tasting the mixed emotions firing up.

“Then something is wrong, Em. I don’t know where this sudden fixation on ghosts came from, but they don’t exist,” Paul walks the rest of the way to the front door, Em refuses to move, just glowers and I hear his teeth grinding together. “I’m sending a guy over later. For now, don’t leave this house.” Paul orders. Then he’s gone, out the door and Em doesn’t move until we hear a car start and fade down the driveway.

I’m full-up and standing in Em’s view. I pad over to him, cautiously, and raise a hand to his shoulder. I let it drop on his shirt, on the warmth of his skin and I’m about to apologize, say something, anything, when Em whirls on me and whoa, whoa okay, calm down, relax. He’s pissed. He’s mad. Seething and I see it in his eyes and in the way he clenches his fist before violently jabbing a finger at me.

“This is your fault, you fucked up little shit! Why the fuck didn’t you show yourself to him? He thinks I’m doing drugs again, man! And I don’t need to deal with that, too,” Em pauses to collect himself, but the retreat doesn’t last long and I’m stepping back but he’s advancing on me and fear, that cold, familiar dread of fear is stabbing into me, so real I can feel it, remember it, in death. “Meddy said you can show yourself, so why didn’t you, huh? You think this is some fucking game? I can’t see my kids because of you! You brought that fuckin’ demon with you! And you haven’t gotten shit done to get rid of it, neither!”

I stop backing up, and I’m looking down at his legs and I’m trembling in that weak, weak little baby girl way and that finger that Em was pointing at me, he half curls it and reaches for my neck like he wants to wring it, wring me, destroy my existence. “I shou-“

I don’t let him finish.

I jerk my head up, my eyes blazing into his and I bare my teeth and yell, almost as loud as the L but not quite, this is no machinery but raw, strung and yanked and killed and dire, human emotion, human panic and human limit.

“SHUT UP!”

I phase through him, past his hand, into him. I see blood and veins and hear the echoing drum of his heartbeat and pain, I feel pain. I feel pain everywhere, it isn’t just Em but it’s me as well. Am I hurting? Am I hurting him? He’s panicking, and I hit bones and organs, get caught in a web of veins and I’m seeing nothing, only feeling, and I get that falling sensation, boom, hit the ground and convulse and spread my fingers and there’s so much pain, beyond agony, a headache that makes me want to crack open my skull and dig out my brains. Somewhere, a tinny voice pleads and begs and whimpers to me, get out, please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry.

I escape. I’m out and I collide through the floor shoulders first, but not before I’m able to re-angle my neck, twist it around, to see Eminem limp and un-moving on the floor.

---

Things go to shit.

Things go to shit very fast.

I got scared. I bailed out of there faster than a guy who finds out he got a one-night stand pregnant.

I left my idol, comatose or possibly dead on the floor while I dove into the leafy greens surrounding Mathers Mansion. I curled up in one of the high trees, pressed my forehead to my knees and stayed there. I stayed until dark. I didn’t move, not even when I heard the ambulance, called a few hours before nightfall. I guess Hailie got nervous when Em wasn’t picking up, so she called Paul and he raced right on over.

I heard the conversations.

They think Em overdosed on something.

They’ll run tests.

I’ve possessed before.

Why did this happen now?

To him?

Fear? Was I scared?

I bite my lip. It’s quiet now. Paul is staying in the Mansion, along with whatever number of assistants and staff. No more lone life for Em, not now at least.

I stand on my branch, take a shaky inhale of air I don’t need, will never need again. I make the short drift over, passing along the pool and basketball court, up along the windows until I meet Em’s room and effortlessly, silent as a ghost, I slink in.

---

Eminem is curled in his bed, breathing softly and without a hitch. Smokey lifts his head from the little dog bed set aside for him and he snarls tiny white teeth at me. I stay by the window, only my eyes lingering on Em’s prone form. He’s got an arm on the pillow above his head, the other tucked around his side. I step closer, Smokey growls again but when I refuse to back down, he yips and lowers his head back on his bed. Those wide, black Chihuahua eyes don’t leave me.

I stand over the bed. Very Paranormal Activity and in that moment, I feel as sinister as Toby. For a second I don’t do anything and then, call it sheer throwing caution to the wind, I place my hand on Em’s visible arm and gently shake him.

“Slim?” I whisper and my voice cracks with a door-hinge squeak that does sound very, very dead. Em stirs, grunts in his sleep and his eyelids flutter before they open completely. His pupils look wide and tired and he yawns, stretches both arms over his head until his spine pops and his shirt lifts, the blankets are moved enough for me to see a party of bruises punched along his ribs and belly. I let go of his arm and step off, wincing, while he regards me with a look of concerned interest.

“Was wonderin’ where you went off to,” He yawns again, looks me up and down and frowns. “You okay, kid? You look pale as a ghost.” He lips twitch at the joke. I can only…..what? I look at him with my head tilted and there must be enough confusion on my face to stun predators away from attacking me. Em raises and drops both eyebrows before giving a shrug, one arm falling so his hand can lazily scratch at one of the bruises.

“I’m sorry, Alexus. For what I said to you.” He says simply, but so truthfully, so sincere that it makes me want to banish myself to Hell. I don’t know what to do, how to tell him it’s not his fault. I fish-gape my mouth for a second before I hang my head.

“My Daddy use to hit me.”

There I said it. Broadcasted to an audience of one. Okay two, counting the dog. Em goes from eased relaxation to sitting bolt upright in half a second. I don’t let him say anything, I keep going, and hot wells of nothing threaten to spill from my eyes and I tighten my hands into fists, wishing my fingernails could dig and cut the skin that isn’t "and never will be- there.

“A couple years ago, he grabbed my throat,” I mimic the motion myself, and just the feeling, that shadow of remembrance makes me want to tear out of there and fly, fly forever until Heaven and go beyond, never stopping. “He’d been drinking and he had a bottle, a bottle of some kind of vodka or rum and he brought it down.” I look at the ceiling. I grimace.

“I wear hats. I never take my hat off.” I stumble. I bring my gaze back to Em, who stares at me and I can’t read his expression. I use both hands to grip my snapback and part if from my skull, it feels like shredding off my fingers and toes and I clutch it to my chest and drop my head for Em to see, to look at it.

The scar. The faded dregs of staples, running nearly crown to behind my right ear, one long ugly monster-slash of a snarling scar, the little dots of bald where my hair refused to grow back, leaving me permanently, forever, even in death, flawed.

I stare at the ground. I’m a bad, bad ghost.

It’s a few seconds before Em speaks, and first he scoots over in the bed that is more than big enough to accommodate four men his size. “C’mere Alex, stay here tonight,” He says, softly, like he’s trying to talk a sobbing life-hater off a bridge. He puts a hand on the sheets and he looks so warm, so inviting. I shake my head, and he knows what I’m thinking, I’m wearing it on my face. “It’s not your fault, I’m not hurt. I provoked you. This is all on me.”

I don’t make a move to join him. I put the hat back on my head. “What about the tests?” I ask and Em smiles a bit and shrugs.

“Won’t find out until sometime tomorrow, now c’mon kid, it’s alright.”

I can never pass up the opportunity to join Eminem in bed. I gingerly go to him, crawl over the sheets and lay down on the open side. I stare at the ceiling. Em huffs and bunches the covers up against him. “No offense kid, but you are real fuckin’ cold.” He closes his eyes but that grin is still light and small on his lips. I’m still looking at the ceiling.

“I cut you off.”

“Hm?” He sounds so sleepy.

“What were you gonna say to me?”

“Uh……,” Em rubs his brow with a hand before tucking it back under the blanket. “Oh, that. I should kick you out of my house forever,” I flinch and Em looks at me, clicks his tongue to get me to look at him. “But I won’t.”

I smile, and the carnage of the day can be put to rest until morning. Em sighs in eagerness to sleep and I, rejuvenated and responsible, sit up straight and watch over him, watch him drift to a sleep that my dead body no longer requires. I watch over him all night. I never leave his side.

At 9:00, Eminem shifts in the bed and huffs, his face momentarily scrunching up in a snarl of pain before going slack again with sleep. I frown. He’s been doing that for most of the night, and I know it’s because of the bruises I beat into his skin. That dull, bossy ache. I tighten my eyes and run a hand over my snapback, letting my fingers trail along the brim.

I wonder if Daddy ever regretted the bruises he gave me.

The second that thought drags its sorry fat self into my head, my mama tiger leaps into action, roaring and biting and chasing the bad thoughts away. I drag the snapback snug down my head. I’m not gonna think about Daddy. Not now. Not ever again if I can help it, while I’m here and I got work to do.

The plus side, if any, from getting a beating every now and then is that I’m something of an expert in bruises. Heat always worked for me, and now it’ll work for Em, who continues to sleep with his mouth parted and a strand of drool dangling from his lips. Only he could still look adorably attractive like that, the blankets roughly kicked off most his body, all powerful biceps and faded-ink tattoos. Only in peaceful sleep does his face lose that scowl he almost always wears.

I trudge to the bathroom, run the water so hot that even in a span of only five seconds, the wide mirror fogs up. I pack my hands and forearms under the stream, feeling only that tingly bubble of heat getting sucked up by silver pores. Silver turns to the harsh volcanic glow of red, but still I keep myself under the water. I can’t brush away that mirror fog, can I? Will I see a reflection? I’ve never thought of it before.

I could try.

I hear the crack of bone as Em stretches, and I glance over at him, see both his arms splayed over his head. So perfectly can I see that, well, that delicious twine of muscle and damnit Alexus, you got a damn job to do! I turn off the water, my arms gleaming with heat as I sit next to Em on the bed, cross-legged. “Hopefully this won’t be too hot for you.” I say to myself, prodding his shirt up and over to expose the, holy fuck, the deep trenches of muscles in his belly, rising and falling softly in sleep. Eminem is a lean, not-tall-at-all kinda guy, but his ab muscles make my undead heart swoon in envy and…..stupid teenager lust. Whatever.

The bruises.

The bruises are wide set and ugly, color-splashed wounds of purple, blue, and some green and yellow. They look a devastating mess, patterned like continents on his ribcage, his navel, going far enough up pecs and low enough to disappear down his V. And I kick myself mentally internally and emotionally for marring the man who meant so much to me. But I can’t delete the past, only make the future better.

That was lame. Whatever, fuck you, you judging ass-eater.

I move with the caution one would use if trying to take a wad of diamonds out the mouth of a fire-breathing shark. I have no idea how Em will react, but before I can psych myself into diving away through floorboards I ease my hand onto the most painful and sorriest looking bruise, a mean motherfucker laying siege on his rib bones.

Em doesn’t startle awake, doesn’t really do much at all but grunt and his eye twitches. So I rub, softly, a little personal heat pack over the bruise, the tender skin having protected the vital bones and organs stored underneath. Em responds to the movement and he moves up a little, more into my hand.

“Ohhhhh, that’s good. Don’ stop.” He moans, voice thick and raspy with sleep. His head lolls around on his neck, eyes still shut, one hand coming down from the pillow to mindlessly wipe the smear of drool off his face. I keep at it, both hands going to work now, soothing over the multi-colored patches that I was the cause of. Em wriggles and his stomach strains, up close I see every minute detail in the tattoo wrapped around his belly button.

Huh. My eyes drift past the tattoo to the drooping slope of his pelvic bones, Calvin Kleins loose on his hips. Em is all narrow bones and I would never say this to his face, absolutely never, but he has a borderline girlish figure when it comes to his waist. I’m pretty sure if I mentioned that to him in passing, I would find things worse than ketchup or relish being dumped on my head.

I watch his face, that slow grin of pleasure crossing his lips. He didn’t notice my left hand going lower, stroking between the hip bones to massage the bruise that dipped below his boxers. “Does this feel good?” I ask, as if Em’s content sighs and dopey grin weren’t a dead giveaway (I am so funny.)

“So good. Don’t stop.” He slurs, and I realize he’s still pretty much half-asleep. Eminem sleeps like he’s afraid the power will be yanked away from him. I mean it, he really sleeps like a corpse and it takes a while for him to snap into full reality. I could probably, I don’t know, glue tampons to him and he wouldn’t wake up to notice it for hours.

I straddle his legs in one easy movement. I rest both hands on his stomach for an extra moment, hitting every bruise with a touch of heat, relaxing the knotted skin before making my way further down, my fingers hooking into Em’s waistband and pulling his boxers down. As if familiar with the ecstasy that accompanies my presence, his cock twitches, and I know that even if Eminem never forgave me for anything I ever did, his dick sure as fuck will.

I press one hand on the center of his stomach, on one of the bruises while my other hand grips the base of his slowly-waking shaft. I press down on his bruise, and Em moans in a sound caught between surprised pain and sudden arousal. His dick jumps in my hand and above me, Em sounds just even a bit nervous when he asks.

“What are you doing, kid?” He mutters, eyes slit open now and looking at me. I grin at him in what I hope is seduction, and not a shameful turn-off that I’ll bash my head against the wall for later.

“Apologizing.”

I flip his dick up toward his stomach and, since it got pretty bangin’ results last time, start my tongue at his base and go all the way up his length, purposely ignoring the head and going back down, all along that same vein which must be one Hell of a pleasure center, because Em bucks upward into my hand, a moan escaping his lips and under my other hand, his stomach clenches and rolls, trembling with need from those short, quick licks.

I look up at Em, to judge his reaction, but his head is tipped way back so I can only see the clenched sinews of his neck. “You doin’ alright, Slim?” I chuckle.

“I like what you consider apologizing’.” Eminem shot back, beggingly insane want ragged at his voice. I stroke up and down his shaft a few more times, decide to leave his cock untouched and instead pinch and rub his testicles. Several things I want to ask, and this is probably the best time, while Em is literally about to gush into the palm of my hand. He’s as far from a post-orgasm cuddleslut as humanly possible and I predict, the second I swallow his load he’ll go all distance like last time.

But he’s right, this is my apology and I want distract his mind with questions about things.

I take my hand from his stomach and place both on his dick, pump in unison and watch him grow, swell, turn angry and starving-for-more-contact red. I dig my thumbs along the underside vein and watch, watch as Em slowly loses his mind and arches his back way up, stretching those bruises and the skin tight along his body. I go back up and down, stroking lazily for one second and frantic the next, building and dropping speed and Em growls through teeth so tightly grit, I’m afraid for a second he’ll crack every damn molar in his mouth.

I twist my hands around, dragging warm palms against the skin and ignoring that yearning, wetting head as Em thrusts upward into my fingers. I dip my head, flop out my tongue and lap against the heft of his balls, low and slow and tantalizing against the flesh and Em makes a whine, his teeth clack together and he’s panting now.

“Damn, kid. You rub dick like it’s your only talent,” Em breathes out. I bring my head up, roll my eyes. Em hums in the back of his throat. “Not in the mood for talking?” He says with the dull edge of mocking.

“Nope, too busy.” I answer, rolling my shoulders and engulfing his cock, all of it, entire thing, like I am a pro and I put all those high school sluts to shame as I ride him down to his root, my hands fleeing, one to roll and loll his balls, the other to stroke and dance along his belly.

I suck him hard and he lifts, jerking into my mouth and I need a hand for this job so I leave his testicles and wrap a ring around his base. I squeeze, and my tongue flicks at the pre-cum wet tip of his head as my hand pumps him up and down. I’m doing so many things to him, I can feel the very nerve-endings in Em’s bodies fighting to decide who deserves to blast off first. I glance up for a second, see the red of Em’s torso as he undulates up again, his hands raking through his hair as hisses gasp from his mouth.

My mouth focuses only on that sore and badly-swollen head. I sweep my tongue around, only for a moment as I feel Eminem starting to break down, his moans growing louder and more frantic, his breathing starting to escalade. I don’t want him to give out just yet. I pop off his dick and pull my hands away, leaving him hard and raw and mad.

At the loss of touch, Em is quick to lock eyes with me. “What, suddenly too big for you to handle?” He raises a brow with a tight grin, and I shrug and use one finger to lightly stroke the underside of his length.

“I wanted to….you know, draw it out.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t it feel better, the longer you wait?” I ask and Em looks at my like I’m the most hilarious innocent ever. “I dunno, I’m not a guy!”

Eminem squints at his watch, one of several colorful pairs he never takes off. “Well that doctor is gonna be here by 10:30 and I need to shower so if you want this apology to have a happy ending, get back to it.” His head flumps back on the pillow and damn, if there isn’t something endearing about his bossy attitude.

I put both my hands on his dick again, tight, real tight, because dicks love tight places and Em is no different, he writhes in pleasure underneath me the tighter I go, just short of something painful and I release just a twitch when I go to far and he yelps out in a quick bite of pain.

Up his length and down his length, torturously slow, too slow, because Em makes his own demands and starts to buck, fucking himself into my hands and I keep them tight closed for him, only I start moving up and down opposite him and that breaches a whole different level for him, Em does a moan torn straight from the pit of his belly and his thrusting goes sloppy and haywire, his hands coming up to fix into his hair and his teeth are grit again, head thrown back and back arched once again, he’s so close I can smell it coming off him in waves. I end his misery, give one good, last pull, and let him come apart.

The searing white pleasure emits so strongly off him, I feel it hit even my spirit as I hold his cumming dick with one hand, the other going to rub his stomach and ride the waves rolling off of him. Em moans with a hiccup at the end, his body falling back onto the bed as I gently tug him through the aftermath, letting go before he gets all snippy about being touched post-orgasm.

I hover over above his face, beam in success at his glazed eyes and shy smile. “Do you accept my apology?” I ask. Em lifts a hand, watches it sway right through me and he looks a little saddened by it.

But he still tells me, “Apology accepted.”

---

I glare at the doctor, this weasel little man that even a panda could snack on for lunch.

Alright, that was bad, but fuck you. This guy is still a wimpy, snide little nerd and I can feel it, feel it deep in my ghostly aura even without the strong hatred rolling off Eminem, who glowers across the kitchen table at him. Paul is something of a peacemaker, which doesn’t make sense, because Paul looks as peaceful as a battleship during war time.

Okay, I bet Paul is a really nice guy once you get to know him. And, to work with Eminem, he’s gotta have a good sense of humor. He’s just intimidating as fuck.

I’m standing, arms folded, off to the side. Far enough that my chill is unnoticed, but close enough for Em to see me.

The doctor "I didn’t bother to remember his fucking name- opens a very medical-looking folder and paws over the results for a moment. “No sign of pill usage, none at all,” The guy finally says, and I see Em shoot Paul a look. “However….” The doctor frowns at his results sheet for a moment. He shakes his head, looks ready to say something but doesn’t. I barely stifle the urge to throw a cup or a shoe or a couch at him.

“Mr. Mathers, Mr. Rosenberg here told me that you believe you are being followed around by,” He pauses, as if it isn’t ‘professional’ to say the word. “Ghosts. Now then, this only happens in rare cases but is it true that we are coming up on the anniversary of your friend’s death?”

Whoa.

The look…..the look on Em’s face, that could scare the fucking stalker demon back squealing into Hell. Under the table, Em’s hands crack into fists and I’m cheering for him to throw a punch when Paul comes in.

“Yeah, it’ll be six years,” He says, gently, and Em relaxes and turns to look at me. I hold his eye contact, willing him to stay……okay I’ll admit, he’s gotta stay grounded so I make ‘calm the fucking shit down, man’ motions with my hands. “What does that have to do with anything?” Paul goes on.

“It can be a form of paranoia. Sometimes, when there’s going to be a certain marker of a death, the one’s closest to the victim experience of feeling…..that the dead has risen back to life.” The doctor tries to explain, and I snort and laugh and yell across the room at Em, because I’m the dead one and nobody else can hear.

“Bullshit!” I holler, and, what the Hell, Em turns away without acknowledging me and hey, I thought we were a team.

“That, was probably the stupidest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever heard.” Eminem tells the doctor without a hint of emotion in his voice. The doctor’s brow furrows and he puts the sheet back in the folder and closes it.

“I don’t know what else to tell you. I don’t want to be the one to admit it, but ghosts don’t exist and this problem might be more mental than anything else,” The doctor eyes Em up and down, there’s a mini-standoff between the two. Eminem is short and small-built, but he’s still intimidating as all holy Heaven when he wants to be, which is right now, and he stares that doctor down like he’s a meek and sweating opponent in a rap battle. “Some pills don’t show up right away in tests. You’re positive you aren’t taking anything?”

“Get out.” Eminem growls. This is nothing like the sex-purr (ha, that sounded hilarious!) he gave earlier in bed. This is violent, and the doctor looks once at Paul, before sighing and gathering his things. Paul stands and walks him to the door. Once they’re out of earshot, Em sighs and takes off his Kangol, rubbing a hand along the back of his head, slightly mussing the short hairs.

I clear my throat. Em looks up at me. “People thinking I’m crazy, because of you.” He accuses, but without even a shadow of malice and I smile on the outside, but inside I feel that teenager sob-story building up along the paranormal spirit. When I tell people about what Daddy did to me, they treat me different. Like I’m a little glass ballerina that can’t be pushed or I’ll fall and shatter. I’m stronger than that. I’m not a glass ballerina, I’m a fucking dragon made out of concrete.

So deep in my thoughts about how cool it would be to actually be a concrete dragon, I don’t notice the way Eminem is looking at me. I finally snatch my focus back and level at him. I don’t like that look. His hand is propped under his chin, eyes squinted, mouth a flat line like he’s realizing what I am for the very first time. It’s a look that screams, loud and screeching and demanding; ‘I’m going to ask you for something and it ain’t gonna include my dick.”

It’s a look I’m use to seeing, not in this intensity though, and I suck through the floorboards when I hear Paul’s footsteps echoing back toward the kitchen.

---

Nobody really knows how to fix Em’s fixation on ghosts, and by ghosts I mean me. So there’s nothing to do but let Eminem continue with his daily tasks and pretend nothing is wrong. Paul hangs around for another hour or so, but eventually leaves to get his own shit done or something. Other then someone outside tending to the grass and bushes and trees and whatever, and another guy cleaning the pool, Mathers Mansion is empty save for me, Em, the cat and the dog.

There was a type of desperation in his voice the first time he asked me.

He brought it up during the normal routine we had developed around each other. Em usually mills around his house in the morning, walking the dogs, filling their bowls with food, doing the same with the cat. He goes out to pick up the newspaper and the mail. Sits down at the kitchen table with a bowl and pours himself milk and cereal. It’s weird, seeing him like this. Just a regular guy doing regular guy stuff. I feel like some kid at a zoo and the lions and bears are sleeping. I want to tap the glass; “Wake up, wake up! Do something!”

So Em is just a guy. A regular guy with an army of assistants and cleaning staff, of course. It’s oddly…..humanizing when I stand there in the doorway and track his movements, like some childish part of me wants him to break out in song and dance. Not so. Eminem is almost exactly like any other guy his age, only super wealthy and talented and better at everything and…..he’s not so much Eminem as I remember him. Now he’s just Marshall Mathers. It’s……I’m watching my hero, my superman, and he’s just Clark Kent.

After Paul leaves, Em calls up Hailie and Whitney and Alaina and those, those are private conversations. I drift away and keep my distance to avoid the weeping pain Eminem collects in his stomach when he talks to the daughters he can’t see. And he explains, the best that he can, that evil people are following him and home isn’t a safe place right now.

Home isn’t safe.

Homes should always be safe.

I’m failing my duty.

I get mad at my myself for shrinking my protection and it gets ahold of me, wraps my spirit like war armor and I bend and rip apart spoons and forks in the kitchen. Em notices this after he hangs up the phone and sees me sulking at the window.

“I’m not dead yet, so you’re doin’ something right, kid.” He tells me, a surprisingly powerful way to lift my (ha) spirits.

Not everything is always hum doom and gloom.

Eminem is in his basement studio when I peep my head through the ceiling, upside-down. Zero-gravity rules, bitchtacos. He’s comfortably dressed, having changed into his ‘work at home attire’, black T-shirt, black jacket, and grey sweatpants he only wears around his house. He’s got those huge Beats over his ears, muffling all noise including my slinking approach from the ceiling, through the recording equipment and settling on the floor right between his legs. I can hear the music filtering from that dinosaur-era CD player he uses. He really treasures that thing. I’ve asked him, “Why don’t you get an iPod like the rest of the planet?” And he just bullshit shrugs and makes it apparent he doesn’t really enjoy my undead presence when he’s being all serious and writing lyrics and building beats from scratch in his head.

I reach forward, fingers diving straight for the gold that is Em’s groin. But my hand slips through nothing as Em’s chair suddenly propels back, and his body is bent down, head cocked to the side to look at me. Well then. Busted. I curl my knees up under my chin and wrap my arms around them. None of you foodfuckers would know, but Em has really gorgeous eyes. Not even your high-pixel Macbook or PC-on-steroids-because-you-can’t-afford-a-Macbook screen can capture that intensity his eyes look at you with. A picture only shows so much. I half-expect Em to scold me, tell me to fuck off, but I’m surprised when he pulls the Beats off and joins me on the floor.

He sits cross-legged and tries not to look completely awkward. I squint my eyes. I’m getting some harshly mood-killing vibes off him. “Everything alright?” I ask.

“Can you talk to the dead?”

Whoa. Okay. Yes, I did kinda expect this. Football channels have steadily been switching to paranormal shows. If any of that ghost hunter crap is on Discovery or A&E, Em stops and watches it like it’s a damn documentary on his life. He’s been sending assistants out to get copies of ghost books and when asked, Em puts on a blank face, shrugs, and tells them ‘idle curiosity.’

You know Proof is dead. And, everybody knows how important Proof was to Em. How important he still is. Their friendship was a friendship not even Death’s slimy cold fingers could kill. Em tries to sound neutral, like he’s in control, but behind the façade was that nerve-stabbing hope. I can’t put it into words…..I was going to let him down. I shake my head, a soft, slow-

“No. I mean, I’ve-I’ve never tried. I don’t even know how.” I shrug my shoulders, feeling lame and pathetic and Em looks at me with this blank face. But his lack of expression can’t hide that cold, heavy drop of grief that stops his heart for a moment.

“You don’ think you can try, can you? See what happens?” He pushes. “It would mean a lot to me, kid.” That sad hope in his voice kills me. It reaches his eyes, so forlorn and pleading in a way I’ve never seen before, not even in those lost-all-hope homeless people I spared bills to in life. I close my eyes and shake my head.

“I’m sorry.”

And in rejection, I slip through the floor, leaving Em to the silence.

---

Eminem does not give up. If he were a quitter, Eminem would not exist, nor would Slim Shady, and Marshall Mathers would be either dead or working in some piss chain restaurant somewhere or something. And Em isn’t about to let me off the hook until I give him a direct answer.

The second time he asks me about Proof, I’m in Em’s room trying to make a peace treaty with Smokey. But the little dog still valiantly hates me and I’m on my knees, slowly trying to coax him closer when Em walks through the door. Smokey yips at me, trots over to his owner and Em bends down to pick him up.

I float into the air, glaring at the dog. “Of all things, man. A Chihuahua.” I scoff. Em doesn’t smirk or grin or protect the honor of his pup. He just……looks at me and I feel so awkward, so scrutinized.

“Have you tried yet, to see if….” Eminem trails off, not breaking away from me, and his voice is soft and wanting, I know how badly he wants any chance, any chance at all to communicate with his best friend.

“No.”

Em puts Smokey back on the ground, and he prances out the door. Em puts his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, drops his gaze to the ground just below where I’m floating.

“Oh. Okay.”

This is awkward. So awkward. This is ‘pretend your texting when really you’re just hitting buttons’ awkward. Em is hurt, hurting bad in a way that made my earlier possession freak out look like a minor scratch in comparison. Eminem looks back up at me, with these sad eyes and I drop my shoulders and stare right back.

“You are really putting me on the spot here.”

Em frees a hand from his pockets and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah…..yeah I’m sorry kid, I won’t push it.” And he backtracks out of the room, taking his expanding grief with him.

I stay in his room for a moment, and suffer in feeling like the biggest, most inconsiderate, nastiest dick in the entire world. I hear something out the window. I look out, see something familiar in the trees.

I go to it.

---

Gods’ sitting in a tree branch, looking like me still, and admiring mine "His- nails when I plop down next to Him. God looks up, gives me a smile, then goes back flexing my fingers and wiggling my toes.

“How are you, Alexus?” He asks, friendly enough.

“Can I talk to Proof?” I jump right in.

God smiles again, and I focus on my face. I miss looking human, being warm 24/7 and having skin and all those little human things. I miss eating food, and sleeping warm and snuggly under blankets. God puts my hands down and catches my eye.

“Unfortunately, no. You cannot come back up to Heaven with me to meet him,” I must look unhappy with that answer, because God doesn’t wait for me to interject and keeps on talking. “However. I spoke with him before I came here.” He finished and I perk up, grin broad and wide and I even bounce a little.

“Really! What did he say?”

God leans back in the chair and looks at Mathers Mansion. “Marshall and DeShaun, you don’t see friendships like that much often in humankind anymore. Humans now only seek companionship to get something out of it. A leg up in society, sex, someone to rely on for money or success. Humans don’t want friends anymore for the sake of friendship. But it wasn’t like that with Marshall or DeShaun.”

I’m quiet for a moment. My legs are crossed and I lean forward. “God,” I ask quietly. “Why did Proof have to die?”

God ignores my question without an answer and shakes His head. A moment passes while Mathers Mansion, lonely and imposing, is the object now of both of us as I turn to follow God’s gaze.

“You let Marshall know that DeShaun could not be prouder of him. He watches over him everyday. He watches over his kids. When Marshall goes on stage, DeShaun is there with him. Every time,” God smirks a little. “DeShaun is constantly pushing the limits of what we let Angels do for humankind. Whenever there’s something he can do to help benefit Marshall he does it. When Marshall had that relapse, DeShaun was right there, with him, the entire time and even at the hospital. When Alania was driving with Hailie and that drunk ran the stop sign? DeShaun was the voice that told them to wait an extra second before going.”

I’m watching God now, my eyes wide and I’m leaning toward him, nodding only barely. For the next ten minutes, God tells me in detail the things Proof has done for Em, even in death. Nothing major, but just little, unexplainable things. Like how Proof made Smokey not want to go outside at exactly the moment he wanted too, or else he would have gotten hit by a car. Or when Proof moved Em’s car keys from the kitchen to his room, so that when he woke up late he wouldn’t spend 15 minutes looking for them and get stuck in traffic on the way to the studio.

I listen in earnest and….I’m sad. So sad that Proof was taken away from Em, so early, and now and forever Em will still be reeling and hurting from the loss of his very best friend. God stops talking, smiles at me again, and waits my answer.

“Whoa.” Is all I can muster.

God stands and cracks His knuckles. My knuckles. “Don’t tell Marshall everything. He just needs to know DeShaun still has his back and always will. That’ll be enough.” I nod in understanding when really I don’t, get to my feet in prep to highwind it right back to Em and babble like a 2-year-old to him, everything I just learned.

But God stops me. He puts a hand on my shoulder and the humor is gone, my face looks stern and warning back at me. “That darkness. It’s going to come back,” He tells me, seriously, and God, when serious, even using my guttural hack of a voice, is threatening and scary and I nod, okay okay. “I wish you all the good luck, Alexus.”

Then He’s gone. Just like that. I’m standing alone. Take a second to let it all soak in.

I’m off, whipping through the trees and just a silvery, puffy little blur rocketing up to Eminem with all the good news in the world to tell.

Well, not really. Not with the demon, and knowing it’s lurking somewhere, anywhere. But for now, good news. Just good news.

Eminem is kinda like a studio hermit. His personal basement studio is his home within a home. I’m pretty sure, if given the chance, he would just hole up in there and be anti-social forever.

Nah I’m just kidding.

He ain’t that bad.

Even so, when I float through his house and make ruckus against the walls, flinging my joy around through means of ruffling up the couch pillows and making houseplants quiver in their pots, I know he’s deep underground in that studio, writing or recording or bobbing his head along to the beats only he can hear, his brain just one big beatbox or stereo or whatever you kids call it these days.

Sure enough, when I phase through the studio door Em is hunched over, Beats over his ears and right hand at eye-level, twitching along to music only he can hear. I bite my tongue and try to swallow down the excitement, just a bit. I make my way over to him and let one silvery hand drop down on his shoulder, he’s wearing only a black T-Shirt and the sudden contact of my dead chill is enough to spook (ha) him into a slight jump.

Em takes the Beats and puts them around his neck, looks at me and I can tell he isn’t exactly grinning with excitement at seeing me. I take my hand back and smile at him, both hands going up to tug down my hat.

“I spoke with God,” I say. Em turns completely in his chair, raises a brow so high it almost vanishes under the brim of his Kangol and really, it isn’t kind in the slightest at all to dangle this in front of his nose so I blurt it out all fast and sputtering, and Eminem leans back in his chair with his hands on his knees.

“I did not understand a word you said, kid. Slow down.” He chuckles, barely, but I’ll take it for what it is so I exhale no air and relax.

“God. God came to me. You might have heard of Him, maybe? You know, God.” I start and Em gives me this look.

“I’ve heard that name once or twice, yeah.”

“God and I, we’re like…..we’re almost like bros. He warned me at Vulpes’ funeral, about those guys?” I continue and I can tell that yeah, sure, this is cool stuff, but Em would much rather get to the meat of this conversation-sandwich.

“God told me to tell you,” And I grin, all wide and beaming and ghostly teeth. “Proof still has your back.”

God only told me like 10 minutes of stuff, but I stretch to half an hour. I want to see Eminem happy, like that real sort of happy. He’s usually so down on himself and moody. Nobody should be like that, not as often as he is. So for half an hour I watch his expression gradually turn into one of excitement as I tell him about Proof’s interventions, his little blurps to enhance Em’s life, how he’s there on stage with him. And by the time I’m running out of things to say, Em is leaning so far forward with an elbow on his knee, face propped up in his palm. He hasn’t said a single thing, just grinning and part of me really wants to look down at the ground when I start to see his eyes go red, from happiness or longing grief, I don’t know. I wrap up my story quick.

“He’s an angel. Literally. Not a ghost, or a Halfy like me. A real, wings-and-halo deal, angel.” I finish. My arms are wrapped around my knees. Em is still softly smiling and we lapse into a comfortable, engulfing silence. I tilt my head up and try to rivet my senses but come up lackluster. It would be totally tops if I could, somehow, sense Proof here. Maybe. I dunno. But angels, I assume they have power to trump mine.

“Imagine Proof, wings an’ a halo.” Em laughs. He rubs the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, and my supersensitive ears catch the hitch in his voice, that little stammer, that painful hiccup that crawls up your throat and lodges itself there. Worse than choking, all of the panic, sure, but only one way to kill that little hiccup dead. Em ducks his head, eyes and most of his face hidden under the brim of his Kangol but you can’t hide anything from the dead.

This isn’t my place.

My common sense, which is still very much alive in the way I am not, warns me to bail out of there.

But I can’t leave him.

Not like this.

Alone in the studio.

Not today.

My hands are cold, so cold, but they are still a human-shaped touch and I place both on Em’s knee, eventually moving one to rub his back while he doubles over, hands hidden in his face, and he cries.

---

So Em cried in front of the ghost of a billionaire’s daughter and apparently it’s MY FAULT. For the entire rest of the day, Eminem ignores me. Blatantly leaving me behind when I try to follow him, fixing me with not-quite-glares, and I don’t understand why. He’s being such a girl as I phase through the floor underneath him, his shoes quietly scuffling along. I want to call him out on it, rant about what a solid I did him, talking to God and now Em wants to act all aloof? What the fuck? Em goes up the stairs to his room and before he can get through the doorway I pop up in front of him, arms folded, my eyes narrowed to try and be mean and scary.

Em frowns at me and goes to walk straight through but I conveniently activate my ghosty powers, flinging open one of his bedroom windows and dangling three pairs of his precious material babies, those Nike shoes, out over the dirty ground below. My face goes smug as Em’s eyes widen and I swear to God, you would have thought I threw Smokey into a wood chipper or something.

“Don’t fuck, kid,” Em warns, but he has enough sense to know when he’s beat and really, there’s no way to beat a fucking ghost. “What, what do you want?” He sounds exhausted and his eyes are still rimmed with red, what little of them I can see as he avoids looking at me. I want to be mad, but guilt and embarrassment and anguish and all these sad and bitter emotions are mixing one big ugly cocktail in Em’s stomach, and my senses pick it all up at once and try to knock it back like a double shot of tequila.

“Well uh, I tell you about Proof and one second yer all happy and the next, I spent the whole day trying to tail you around but you wouldn’t even look at me,” I huff out. I slink a little closer, dropping Em’s Nikes back to their spot on the floor, careful as I can. “Is this because I saw you cry? Man, I’m dead. Who the flying shit am I gonna tell?”

Em grits his teeth for a second, looks down at me. “It’s nothing.” He answers and, at that, I almost want to fling all of his stupid sneakers out the window. For a few tense seconds we square off. I suck in air I don’t need, air I can steal from him, and begin to descend through the floor.

“Whatever. I’ll you to whack off and angst, I don’t care. Girl tries to help-“ I bite off my words and plummet.

Something has me.

Something gripping my ankle and it rips me, tears me straight down and I can’t even scream before the thing pitches me around, through a wall, and I’m toppling over myself in barrels rolls, until I gain leverage to stop myself and I’m on my stomach, sprawled on the floor of the basement studio and above me, it leers.

The demon.

It settles back on greasy black haunches, the mouth and head just a tornado-shaped blob of teeth and those two, Devil-red eyes. It grins at me with teeth as long as a steering wheel is wide. This is my first, real view glimpse of this fucker and it is ugly in every sense of the word. You know evil people in history? People like Hitler, or that KONY guy, those mass-murders? I bet this is what those people looked like on the inside. Just a big, cancerous, black, shit.

NO FEAR TODAY LITTLE HALFY. NONE FOR YOU OR FOR MARSHALL, JUST STOPPING BY TO LOOK.

The demon sneers at me, with those sharp, sharp teeth that can cut through ghost flesh as easily as they can crunch a tic-tac. It lifts its ugly head and takes a big whiff. I SMELL GOD ON YOU.

I get to my feet, shaky but not down and no way fucking out. “Why do you want Marshall dead?” I growl. I have no idea how to turn the L in me on. I listen. I can hear footsteps running down stairs. Shit flying everywhere, Em, don’t come down, stay upstairs!

The demon laughs and, I cover my ears and flinch and stumble against the wall. It sounds like a dump truck fucking a garbage barge without a condom. The demon lashes its tail against the rolly chair in the room, smashing the innocent bystander furniture into the wall. The demon comes closer. I back up. I try to fade into the wall but the thing snatches at me, curls a hand around my throat and oh God, oh God, no no no no nononononono. I’m desperate for the L to save me, but I can’t even squeak dust out of my throat.

I don’t know, little child. Why don’t you ask yourself?

It grins at me, dripping fangs a centimeter from my cheek when Eminem comes bursting through the door, all heroic and shit and if this was like a robbery or something, yeah, his surprise might have worked. Not now though. The second it took Em to process what was going on, he looked half-tempted to whip right around and book it out of there.

But he didn’t.

He stood his ground.

“You don’t like light, do you?” Eminem hisses, and for the first time, I notice the studio lights are off. But it doesn’t make sense! The demon arrived that second time, in the light of the kitchen. But that was sunlight. The first time, it was hurt by the sun and fuck, fuck fuck fuck, I claw at the thing around my throat, gasp when I don’t need to breathe and Eminem flicks on the studio lights, all the way up, filling the room with harsh, synthetic brightness.

The demon winces, writhes around me and releases that grimy, viscous hand from my throat. I sink to the floor, shivering so bad, so intense, my silvery skin starts to flake and I clasp my hands over my ears, looking up, watching the demon hiss and snarl and gripe at lights, turning those stinking eyes to a slowly retreating Em. It bares teeth. It lunges. Hits Eminem from low in his belly to high in his shoulder. There’s a struggle, but I can’t move. My throat burns, so bad I want to tear it apart myself. I close my eyes against the bang and shouts and roars of a scuffle for life.

“Alexus!”

There’s flashes of pain laced with the spikes of fear. But I keep thinking of that fucking bottle. Again and again, smashing, and you know fucking hard those alcohol bottles are to break?

“Alexus, help!”

Hard. Hard to break. Strong enough to break bone. A constant, dull, knock. Didn’t even hurt. It just never ended. Not even when my knees buckled and I fell back, and little dizzy cars floated in my vision and I laughed. Cars can’t fly.

Something tears and there’s a cry of pain, what you would expect from an animal getting caught in a trap. Not that I ever experienced that first hand. Worst I’ve seen in terms of animal abuse is watching my friend’s pet boa eat a mouse. But it’s loud enough for to look up, my stupor fading, the bad memories ebbing away but still there, if you’ve ever gotten your ear piercing infected or something, and you take it out but always have that scar, that little pain, you know what I mean. Bad metaphor, but at the moment I’m breaking into full-out kickass mode. Eminem is fighting to get away from the demon that sink its teeth into his pectoral, the weirdest fucking place to bite. I heft to my feet, crouch for a section, and like a paranormal rocket, blast off all engines a go for that fucking sick, twisted, soon-to-be-DEAD demon.

I hit it straight up and on. Tackle it right off of Em, probably ripping out a whole bunch of his muscle, poor guy, because that demon really had its teeth deep in meat. We clusterfuck for a moment on the floor, and I go balls-out warrior while I feel it, that protection, that monster rearing and coiling along inside me, a metal snake to make any machine on the planet shit its machinery. We tussle, fight, the demon grabs and I dodge, two beings of another dimension, just ripping each other apart in a basement studio.

The L is up my throat. I open my jaw, but before I know it’ll click down, I yell. “Ask myself what!? I don’t want Marshall dead!” I scratch at an eye. It feels like jello in my hand and I squeeze, tight enough to pop it like some zit on the face of Lucifer. The demon shrinks back but I clutch hard. In its attempts to escape it answers, going mad from light and the pain of having an eyeball almost gouged out.

YOU DON’T? IF YOU DIDN’T I WOULDN’T BE HERE! CAN YOU NOT SEE DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOU?

And the demon…..this nameless, formless enemy, it starts to change. It melts and contorts, getting smaller. It loses the length and size of the teeth. They shrink down, wolf teeth. The hands wiggle into fingers. The head shrinks and hair forms. Those red eyes stay. The black, heavy body, made of seemingly nothing, an unexplainable anti-matter.

And then.

It’s like looking in a mirror.

The demon bends its head. My head. My hat, my cheekbones, my nose, everything but my eyes. Those teeth. It whispers low and quiet in my ear, within the screeching, the demand to be heard and noticed and respected. This is near soundless, so airy I can barely hear it, even a centimeter away.

“We all have demons, child, all of us. No matter how rich, no matter how poor, we always want something we can’t have.”

There’s a split-second of eye contact. The demon winks once at me.

Then it’s gone.

It’s late. I peel back the wrapper of one of those heavy-duty, incase-of-shark-bite Band-Aids. And that’s practically what’s on Em’s chest muscle, or what the demon was kind enough to leave behind. A leaking, torn, chew mark. A fist-sized chunk is missing from his pec, tooth marks dotted around and I’m on my knees, awkward, between his legs as he sits above me shirtless and stumbling fingers are slipping off the buttons on his cell phone. I hold the Band-Aid between my fingers. I have no fucking clue where to place it. This is a serious bite wound, and putting a Band-Aid on it? Kinda like super-gluing the Liberty Bell crack.

Speaking of which, have you ever been to Philadelphia? If you have, chances are you’ve just been strutting about the city, minding your own shit and not harming no one, and you get hit with the stench. Philly randomly smells potent and eye-tearing as a fresh bag of shit stew left to bake on the sidewalk. If you have ever smelled that smell, then you know the smell wafting off of Em’s bite mark in waves. I honestly can’t stand it. I lean back, and I swear I feel my ghostly skin melting off or something equally gross. Ugh. I put on my tough girl face and slap the Band-Aid on Em’s wound, hoping it’ll at least the kill the smell a little.

During my internal tug-of-war, Eminem managed to call Meddy and get her to answer, and when I stuck on the Band-Aid, his hasty explanation was cut off and he bitched out a quick shout of surprise. Em glares down at me. I shrug.

“Stupid fuc- Meddy, please, I need you to come down here. That thing, tha’ fuckin’ thing came back,” Eminem sounds cool and collected, sitting up straight in the chair and acting totally ‘oh no big deal’ about the ooze dribbling through the Band-Aid. My inner squeamish girl shrieks and, in a total blow of weakness, I scoot further back. Em frowns to himself, eyes narrowing. I can hear Meddy’s tinny voice and it ain’t real urgent, her tone. “The demon, and Alexus barely did shit. The thing bite me and now,” Em winces as he uses a hand to gently prod his stinking cut. “Ugh, man, it reeks. Listen, I’ll pay you whatever you want, if you come here tonight.”

There’s a pause. I hear Meddy agree. Em closes his eyes for a moment and he exhales in relief. “Thanks.” He says quietly before hanging up. And then, oh of course, he’s zeroed in on me, like I’m a dog who wet the carpet and I duck my head in the shame of my failure.

“That came pretty damn close, kid. If this gets infected and I die I’ll haunt the shit outta’ you, see how you like it.” Eminem gruffs out, rolling a thumb over the ooze and bringing it up to his face and he leers at the stench. I sense his stomach turn over. Em doesn’t say a word and wipes the poison on his shirt. “Everythin’ about this, getting’ too fuckin’ weird.”

---

Meddy is pissed to be out here so late, all disturbed from her other paranormal jobs or I don’t even know. Em barely has the door open, he’s seriously only just turning the knob, when Meddy barrels her way in and smacks Em on his naked arm with her weird voodoo bag of horrors. Her face is contorted in that sneering way like when you get into a real deep discussion with someone, and you pull out all these facts and the only thing your opponent has left is to throw half-baked insults that don’t even contribute to anything.

Em doesn’t even flinch just looks at her like….like she’s trying to be cute and angry but failing, and I puff up and try to make it clear that there will be as little physical contact with Em as possible, unless needed. Meddy stomps her way into one of the lavish, empty-of-life living rooms. Em and I exchange a look, he shuts the door and locks it. We follow Meddy into the room.

Em can’t even get a word out before Meddy reaches up one gnarled arm, and bonks him on the forehead with her palm. Total perfect V8 commercial. Em reels back, obviously unhurt but clearly confused and he rubs the mark on his head. He opens his mouth to talk, yet Meddy steals the opportunity from him again.

“You idiot, idiot boy! You’re just a testosterone-fueled bull, you should be taken out to slaughter for your lack of brains!” Meddy snaps, her hands pushing now, jabbing and pinching at Em until he falls down onto the sofa. Meddy shoves his legs apart and stands between them. Things go even more awkward and uncomfortable real fast.

“Ayo, back up, witch!” Em barks, loud and husky and that is a weird thing to compare his voice to right now, isn’t it? Husky. But whatever, fuck you and your opinions on words. Right now I pick up a pen wonderfully left on the coffee table. I pitch it at Meddy’s head with such skill, that this job can go fuck itself because I’m a natural born Phillies athlete, apparently! No lie, the pen bounces off Meddy with a tiny thunk and she turns to look at me.

I square my stance and hunch my shoulders, all like a twisted tiger demon rocket-cannoned straight from the bowels of Hell. “You can help, or piss off and we’ll fix this without you.” I threaten. Meddy, of all things, chuckles and shakes her head. I fucking hate when people do that. I’m not some stupid kid, this ain’t no joke. My powers bare teeth, and I lift one of the plush sofa chairs out of the corner of the room, aim it at Meddy. I’m not messing right now. Nobody laughs at me. Meddy finally realizes this. She looks at me and doesn’t break eye contact.

“Both of you, you’re children, thinking you can battle what isn’t of this world. Marshall, of all things, why did it ever cross your mind to fight that monster? And Alexus, I’m sorry dear but you aren’t being a very good guardian.” Meddy speaks to us like a disappointed mother and no, no that won’t fly smooth with a 39-year-old rapper and an 18-year-old ghost.

“Fuck you, she’s doing fine! And don’t fuckin’ touch me, bitch.” Em retreats further into the sofa, his eyes leaking enough rage to match the now soaked-into-a-greasy-stain wound on his chest. I’m about to fire my piece, but Meddy steps back and cocks a brow and holds up her hands.

“Okay. But you’ll die, Marshall. And quite a horrible death, too. Demon venom is a nasty way to go. Compared to those poor souls who use Drano or firearms, that’s a minor tickle to what’s going to happen to you.”

The dread of Meddy’s words take a second to soak through. I switch my eyes over to Em, who blinks with a parted mouth and glances down at the rotting, gaping bite marks. By now it has almost doubled in size, each individual shark tooth puncture as wide around as a water bottle cap. The missing chunk exposes blackened, squishy muscle and sour blood. The Band-Aid looks shriveled and meek, a tiny sodden dam fighting mightily to seep the flow of poison. How it grew like those dumb little dinosaur sponge egg things you put in water, no idea. But now the smell comes kicking back like Bruce Lee and I will tell you, straight up, I’ve smelled nicer scents in public bathrooms at Wal-Mart.

Not that I’ve ever been in a Wal-Mart more than once.

I mean, my first Wal-Mart visit was my LAST Wal-Mart visit.

Anyway.

Em gags, and I feel the vibes rolling in his stomach and he blanches, doubling over, tiny electric shocks sizzling under his skin and driving him into a fit of shivers. Meddy jumps back, removes the Kangol from his head and gives me a stern look. She drops her bag on the table as Em moans. Meddy must have some paranormal power weirdness of her own going on, she doesn’t even turn up her nose at the smell. “Can you get a bucket, Alexus please?” She calmly requests, and I stammer something stupid, my motor skills gone broke as I watch Em reel, like all of this hit him so sudden, so quick, and he runs both shaking hands over the back of his head and through his hair and Meddy snaps at me, get going, Alexus.

---

Buckets aren’t a commonplace item in Mathers Mansion. There isn’t a free-range population of buckets the way there are pens, Red Bull, Kangol hats and notebooks. But after some deep searching, and by deep I mean flinging open cabinets and scaring Smokey and Nike until I find a bucket stowed away in a hallway closet. I grab that bucket like it’s as precious as The Declaration if it were made of food and when I get back to the living room, Meddy is laying out weird tools and instruments on the coffee table. Em hasn’t moved, but when he sees me he motions me over right quick.

I get the bucket right under his chin in time for him to spew, splattering chunks of viscous black vomit out of his throat and coating the bucket’s metal walls. I tilt my head way back as Em’s whitened fingers clutch at the sides of the bucket. I can feel, inside him, every panicking little muscle and confused little blood cell, every mechanic in his body searching for some blueprint, some emergency plan with how to deal with paranormal invasion.

A second paranormal invasion.

“Hurts,” Em huffs to a question not asked. He spits in the bucket and a drop of sweat plummets down the side of his face. I look everywhere but the junk sloshing around in the bucket, heavy enough to rival the weight of a newborn baby. I move to put the bucket down "I sure as everything shiny and magic don’t want to hold it anymore- but Em’s grip tightens on it and he gurgles out; “Wait, hold on I’m not-“ And another onslaught of puke swallows up his words.

I hate to be the biggest jerk to ever hold a bucket, but I gag despite having no way to throw-up, and place the bucket at Em’s feet. Meddy smiles at me, and I have no idea how she can be so cool with everything. Eminem is nearly fucking dying a foot away from her, and she has the balls to not take any of this seriously. I can’t, I can’t even compare her to anything right now, that’s how mad I am at here but for Em’s sake, I gotta tone it down. Gotta keep my undead head on my shoulders.

Meddy plucks a particularly Saw-ish tool from the collection she has laid out. It’s an elongated, glorified scissors-looking thing with serrated teeth and a big, spring-loaded jaw. Meddy works it, and the jaws silently open and close, the metal teeth meshing together perfectly, the sophisticated teeth of a predator, a killer. Even my protective mama instinct takes the backseat upon seeing that thing.

Eminem’s reaction is no less severe than mine. Well, seeing as he’s gonna be the one dealing with that scissor-on-steroids, he’s justified in his going completely white, mouth hanging open a little and his shoulders flump down in total defeat. “What the fuck is that? Are you gon’ use that on me?” He rasps out, voice dry and cracked from the vomit stealing the saliva in his mouth. Meddy rubs a long finger along the smooth blade of the scissor.

“Yes, I will have too, Marshall. I need to cut away the infected skin,” Meddy does sound a little apologetic, and Em leans back against the sofa and his hands are on his knees and I turn my head to him, hearing his heartbeat start to beat away in fear. Meddy frowns, looking to me and then to Em. “Oh, no no, don’t, Marshall. If you let your heart get carried away it’ll spread the poison faster.”

Em grips his knees and sure, he can will his heart to please try and calm the fuck down, but Meddy is slowly going to stand between his legs again, the scissor armed in her hand and Em closes his eyes and leans his head back. I almost see him screaming fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck but he doesn’t pip a word, just grips his teeth shut real tight. Meddy takes a hanging bit of reeking rotted meat, and cuts it off quick with the scissor and deposits it with a wet plot! Into the puke bucket.

I stand aghast and grossed out as Meddy snips away bits of skin and muscle and all-around slabs of human beef. I swallow, thickly, as Meddy drops the pieces, one by one, into the bucket. “So gross. I bet my dead corpse looks better under the L tracks.” I attempt at conversation.

“Shut up, Alexus or I’ll puke all ova’ you.” Em gets out. He takes his hands from his knees and wrings them behind his neck, his eyes are open and he’s just……lookin’ at the ceiling. I guess the best thing to do now is get his mind off Meddy cutting away at his human body.

“Does it hurt?”

“Actually, no.”

“Oh. You don’t feel anything?”

“Other than feelin’ like I should check myself into rehab if shit like this keeps happenin’, no.”

I shut my mouth. A lot of feelings are driving through my head. Em doesn’t deserve this, he doesn’t deserve any hardship whatsoever, for the rest of his days. He’s worked and paid his debt, should enjoy his life with his daughters and his music and I come along, dragging him forcefully through nine levels of What The Fuck. I should go find that demon myself. I think of it, lookin’ like me with red eyes and T-Rex teeth. I want to announce my plan, let them know I’m turning into a demon bounty hunter, when Em jerks upward and his head tips forward so he can look at his wound and something in him hurts.

“You felt that, good. I cut most of the infection away but,” Meddy frowns and uses two fingers to squish into the remainder of the blackened tissue, and Em juts forward again, stomach clenching up and his head drops toward the floor. “Some of it has gone too deep. I won’t be able to get it.” Meddy removes her finger and uses her hand to prop Em’s head up by his chin.

“Alexus, sweetheart you’ll have to possess him.”

FUCK THAT. I step back and shake my head. “No. Fuck no. I almost…..I don’t know what happened last time, but I hurt him. I can’t hurt him again.” I tell her with so much force and strength in my voice, no room at all for suggestions or whatever and Meddy looks down at Em and back to me.

“He’ll die.” She repeats.

I drag the sides of my snapback harder over my ears. “I’ll kill him!” I protest. Meddy, her hand still on Em’s chin, lightly shakes his head back and forth and he opens his eyes into mere slits. Sweat is trailing his face, his lips are dry and how the fuck did he get so bad so fast? I take another step back. Eminem takes his head out of Meddy’s hand and holds himself up, I can see his effort in the way his muscles tense and shoulders bunch.

“You’re not gonna kill me, kid. Now man up, and get this the fuck over with,” Even half-dead, with the remains of the demon wound continuing to fester back, Em still speaks with that confidence that so much outweighs mine. I shake my head. Em keeps eye contact with me. “I trust you, kid. You aren’t fucking this up.”

---

I give myself a second to prepare, take an inhale and charge. I hit Em square in the belly and warp through everything that he is, suddenly…..it’s so much. Too much. Everything is too close, compacting me, I’m a dead car at the auto lot waiting for that big crusher to turn me into a tiny cube, a pipe dream of my former self. I hit organs, I steam blood, bones scratch my silver skin and I hear Em choke, hear churning in his stomach and white blood cells driving themselves into little explosions, trying to locate me, trying to find me. Our fingers twitch, his eyes are hurting but he can’t use his fingers to scratch at them. I feel blood dribbling out the corner of his mouth, his nose, his ears. What do I do, I don’t know what to do!

Something grabs Em’s shoulders, and I feel, see or hear, I can’t tell, but it’s Meddy and she shouts; “Alexus, he’s trying to reject you! You have to gain control of him, but first you need to relax!”

Relax!?

Okay.

Relax.

I can do that.

I can do this.

I know now;

Forgive me, Slim. I’m just trying to save your life.

Human possession is hard. It ain’t as easy as it looks in the movies. You are trying to take control of a living fucking thing. A thing that sees you as a disease, a threat, a parasite. The human body will attack you. The human body will attack itself. Red blood cells scramble, white blood cells chew themselves apart. The brain is fired into hyperdrive. Nerve endings are zapping around, freaking out like electrical cables on speed. Ghosts, we ghosts gotta treat the human body like a marlin. Let it run, let it get tired and at the first sign of weakness, take control.

Em fights me, even after I relax, and make him go into some Zen tranquil mode. His body attempts to reject, to strike back against my invasion. It will not work. It kills me inside, this would really kill me dead if, well, I weren’t already killed dead. Possession is a painful process. I am stealing Eminem’s willpower, his own body from him, and the panic and the fear is rampant in his stressing brain. I try to make it quick, flood his veins and nerves and all the cracks and divots of human form. I take what makes Marshall Mathers who he is; his personality, his ideas, his spirit, I bundle them all together and shove them deep into a pocket in his brain. A little pocket I don’t control. A little bit of Marshall he can still have left to himself.

Also, difficult ghost stuff. Marshall is three personalities. He’s, of course, Marshall Mathers. Another ‘of course’, he’s Eminem. And finally, fucking duh, he’s Slim Shady. I round up all these personalities, including that little shit devil, Slim Shady, and stuff them in the brain pocket.

Finally, I open our eyes.

The first thing I feel, is the heavy darkness in his heart. No, darkness, that isn’t the right word. Even at the worst of his lyrics, there’s no hint of evil in Marshall Mathers. And seriously, does that even make sense? He’s Evil of Bad Meets Evil. But I can remember everything he remembers as far back as his brain can contain, even farther, I can unlock the little deep nuggets of history his conscious has locked away. I can see the moment he first laid eyes on Kim and the searing, agonizing bullet holes her disloyalty left in him, I see the second he held Hailie for the first time. The way he smiled and his eyes lit up, the same exact way he continues to look at her. There’s a dull, aching throb in our knee that only acts up occasionally, when running too hard or prancing around stage. White spots lazily float through the vision in our right eye, no hurry at all in the world, just annoying little fuckers from a bad past that still haunt even so many years later. There’s so much I can do, touch, taste, lift, for God’s sake I’m human again. Sure, in a male body, but fuck that, I lift our hands so we can see them, and I flex each digit, admire each nail and every wrinkle of real skin, every little bump of vein.

“Alexus?”

Meddy’s voice sounds distance, clogged, and I wonder briefly if Eminem is going deaf in his old age, but Meddy says my name again and this time I hear it, perfectly clear and without a single little flaw. I want to tune her out, shut her up, I’m not done exploring, damnit. And there’s one part I’ve really been dying to explore in all the greatest of glory.

I drop one of our hands toward our crotch, but Meddy disrupts with a chuckle and we glare at her, with Eminem’s harsh judgmental eyes and his lip curls up in the way I’ve taken to snarling. I like this body, and part of me doesn’t want to leave. I want to stay here, rooted forever in Eminem’s heart and soul and mind but, no, shit, wouldn’t it drive him mad? Drive the rest of his sanity into oblivion as mine continues to fester, to leech, to expand and take over and rule?

Okay, this is fuckin’ deep shit.

“Remember what you have to do, Alexus. And be quick. Human bodies are not strong enough to harbor ghost spirits for very long.” Meddy warns. Yeah, I figured as much. Not only give me an impossible task, set me a time limit. I haven’t played enough hardcore video games for this crap. Put a gamer in my place, one of them fat stereotypical pimply guys who does nothing but play Bioshock and Mass Effect.

“What am I looking for?” We ask and it’s a weird, gurgled combination of male and female voices, not quite ugly enough to be a cacophony but still scary enough to be a monster under the bed. A tiny bead of blood drips from our mouth. We tip our head down to look at it. “Blood.” We add.

“It’s temporary.” Meddy answers with just a hint of aggravation. I want to tell her, relax, I know what I’m doing. I can’t help it, it feels so good to be human again. My senses are dulled, pathetic as those new shows on Nickelodeon that aren’t even funny and just string all these stupid jokes together, but whatever, back to the point, that’s nothing compared to feeling so alive again. You try being fucking dead and ghouly, realize that’s all you’ll ever be for as long as time holds on. Then along twirls a miracle, a host to offer up his body for you to make into a nest-

No! What the fuck am I thinking? I can’t steal Em’s body, I can’t shove out his spirit and soul and being to waste away like turds in the grass. I nod at Meddy, quick and pitiful and frightened at my own wicked thoughts drilling like worms in my mind. “What do I do?” I ask, leaving Em’s voice to waver so he doesn’t waste the energy.

“Get it out. Absorb the poison. You’ll become,” Meddy pauses, one of those deliberate stops people do when they don’t want to sound particularly horrendous about something that is gonna suck. I wave a hand to coax her, Em’s fingers and wrist rolling in my sight with such easy, fluid movements. “A little upset, dear. But it will fade away.”

“How upset?” I don’t want to go all drug user or something, and have that demon poison drive me madder than a crack addict with no access to his rock or shit along those lines. My mind wavers back to my first possession of Em, and I drag his tongue along his bottom lip in thought. Worrisome thoughts continue to nibble my common sense but, okay, I can’t let Em die from this infection. “Nevermind, forget it I’ll find out when it happens.”

“Channel yourself. Locate every little strand, fuse it with yourself.” Meddy coaches, and it sounds so voodoo-shit weird I just tune her out. I got this, I can do this, and I make Em close his eyes and I try to avoid contact with that tiny little pocket of himself I tucked in his brain, all frantic and annoying, like a fly buzzing around my skull wanting to know what’s up. I look past the excitement of having a human body once again and zero in on the source of that fuckin’ ghoul energy. It’s seeping like an oil flow, like BP’s majorly royal screw-up in the ocean that tainted the sea for miles and miles. I see myself touching that black inky strand, one of them at least and fast as anything, it gets sucked up into my essence.

Weird.

I trail through the bite wound and snatch up the toxin. I’m keeping Em in a zen-like limbo trance, slow his heartbreak and nearly put all his organs to sleep. I’m in possession, but not 100%, anything to relieve the stress on his battered body. It’s sad news to understand, but Eminem, he ain’t a young’un anymore. Though the sober healing stuff has helped, I can still feel it, sense it, that everlasting damage done to his core through years of drugs, alcohol, and pushing his physicality to the limit.

I don’t want to think about that. Trust me, if I could infuse Em with internal life, I would do it without hesitant and care of future effects.

I swim through arteries, I gently part muscle and stomach, reaching out for every tiny smell of poison, damn this stuff travels fast, and the more I take in, it’s like alcohol. Have you ever done a ridiculous, I’m talking an insane amount of booze in a really short span of time? I have. When I was first introduced to 100 proof cookie dough vodka, I slurped that shit back like it was the elixir of life. The following morning, I woke up in some Philadelphian shit house with police sirens wailing around, calling my name because Daddy thought I was dead and sinking to the bottom of some filthy river.

Right. The toxin. It’s having the same effect, only a lot less pleasant and without that great cookie dough taste. I’m going numb, I fidget, try to shake it off but whoa, wow, okay, it’s getting worse, real worse and this must be what Meddy warned me about. I twist around, but no longer sense all of that demon goo when, just like the brute force of the L train that killed me, I get hit.

The demon poison. It eradicates my sense of self. I’m a ghost, I shouldn’t feel this! But it drives into me, a million needles tipped in acid set on fire hauling tiny bombs in their wake, all aimed at me. It hurts, it hurts so bad and I convulse and I’m out, I bail, I free myself from Em’s spirit and soul and body because I’m raving mad in every sense of the word and all related to it. Getting smashed by the L didn’t hurt, it was over so quick. Daddy breaking the bottle over my head, it hurt at first but eventually everything faded to black. This, this is something else, a new warpath of pain. It sickens me, I blanch, and I’m standing in the living room of Em’s spacious house. There’s a new wave of something vicious bubbling up through my humanless skin. I look down at my fingers. Silver, shining faintly. No veins, no blood, no nails, no wrinkles. Nothing.

“Alexus?”

Meddy’s voice is timid as a mouse’s squeak. I look over my shoulder. Meddy has a hand out to me, the fingers curled slightly toward me. She looks….wonderfully scared out of her freaky little mind. Em is awake and alert now, fully restored back to his old self and I must give him a look to wilt his balls into deflation, because he so suddenly cringes inward, the wound on his chest completely healed, thanks to me. Meddy takes a step backward. I sense fear and I want to roll in it, snort it up like a row of cocaine.

“It’s alright, sweetheart. Just relax,” Meddy tells me, softly, and I shake with anger. She’s telling me what to do! A feeling hot and dangerous, like a loaded shotgun, bubbles in high-strung tension along my body. I get it now, that demon’s anger, it’s reason for haunting Eminem, I get it all, just from the venom it left behind. I can justify that anger it harbors against Eminem, how he takes everything he has for granted, living in an isolation that doesn’t live up to celebrity code. His ignorance of fans, his refusal to put out new music, the way he holds himself distance, not even registering the impact he has on so many people-

It’s the same exact resentment I’ve secretly held against Eminem. When I was alive, when he ignored the fan letter I, a single among thousands, sent to him years ago. The demon poison, it unlocks a rusted and ugly chest full of starved-for-daylight memories. I’m young again, so young, 7 or 8, and Daddy is holding me with one arm and shaking Eminem’s hand with the other. I can tell, Eminem doesn’t like Daddy and pins him down with that narrow glare of his. Daddy asks Eminem if it’s okay for me to play with Hailie while they take about Eminem’s movie. I don’t know why Daddy is dealing with 8 Mile, there aren’t many cars in that movie. But Eminem refuses, stomps on the offer and says to Daddy, and off-handedly to me, that he doesn’t want his daughter hanging around with someone of spoiled rich money. Daddy gets offended, we leave.

I’m in the present now.

“Marshall, it’s best if you leave the room, I think.” Meddy says quietly.

I turn to Eminem. I don’t want him going anywhere. I lift a hand and, in full ghost strength, force him to remain seated. Invisible chains coil around his arms and naked torso, bind his legs at the ankles and the spike of fear, that sudden jolt that races up his spine and tingles his nerves, I drink it all in.

“Kid, what’s wrong, let me go, Alexus.” Eminem is doing pretty alright, but he can’t fool me. I smirk at that underlying fear, that slow reek of terror and confusion building in his gut. Eminem is disgustingly ignorant, blissfully so, and I lower my hand a little and contort his chest just enough to make him a trite more uncomfortable, so I can hear that quicken rabbit that is his heartbeat.

“Alexus, you’re letting the demon control you. You’re much stronger th-“ Meddy starts and she’s annoying, this only between me and Eminem. I lift my other hand and point it at her.

“Shut up.”

And snap her neck.

It’s straight out of Paranormal Activity and just as easy, that flawless little wave of my hand and Meddy’s head is backwards, her spine jutting in all directions like a crown and an onslaught of crimson flows from her tore skin and I dangle her there for a moment, dead in my power, before letting her drop like hamburger meat to the ground. Her blood runs into floor.

Eminem says nothing. His jaw drops but nothing comes out. His mind is stunned stupid but his body is panicking, searching and clawing at the walls for escape. He struggles against my invisible hold, and he writhes and twists all the more desperate when I step over to him.

“Alexus yo-you killed her! What the fuck is wrong with you, what the fuck!?” His voice is octaves higher than normal, that nasally whine like his Slim Shady days only this is fear, cold-blood-running fear. I stand over him, towering now, and watch him fight, watch him contort and beg for his life and it makes me sick, seeing him so quickly reduced to stammering for me to stop, to think, trying to tell me who I am and what I should do.

I lift my hand again, point it at his chest. “I died because of you. I wanted to get Infinite on vinyl. I was on my way to the record store,” I clench my fist, and feel his heart react accordingly. I can squeeze it, I can rip it up and toss it up and down like a baseball in front of his eyes for a split second before he dies. I don’t go that far, I just caress his beating heart through his chest, hard enough to hurt and Eminem quiver, the pain driving him into little fits, he’s wide-eyed and looking at me with all the realization he’s going to be killed, right here, right now. After my monologue, of course.

“Daddy hated that I loved you so much, obsessed over you, put up posters and pictures and bought shirts and hoodies with your name and lyrics on them. He hated that instead of talking to him, I listened to you, all your songs.” I seethe to Eminem’s paling face. He tries to jumble out words. I silence him, a quick closure of his throat so he can barely breathe. I control his heart and his throat, he knows this, and looks at me with such pleading eyes I’m tempted to rip them out.

But I don’t.

It’s a lovely feeling of control, seeing him look at me like that. He knows I can kill him with a simple motion of my finger. I have reduced the most powerful rapper nearly to tears. This is pleasure, the ultimate joy. Stripping a man to his weakest, his absolute most vulnerable and more than anything, I realize, I do want to see him cry. I think of all those nights I spent crying after Daddy had yelled at me or hit me, and the eyes of my Eminem posters just stared down at me, unblinking, fake.

I squeeze his heart almost to the point where I stop it from beating. It hurts, I can feel it, it’s a hurt unlike any hurt a human being can endure, physically. I loosen his throat, just a little, just so I can have the satisfaction of hearing him gasp and attempt to reason with me, hear him word-vomit about why I came here in the first place, about his daughters and Kim and a noise of other excuses. I watch. I watch as the pain escalades, both from my grabbing his heart and that powerless, sinking drop of unavoidable death.

“I obsessed over you, for so long. I wasted so many years of my life for you, spent so much money on you, and you,” It’s like a high, an excellent hit from a perfect bong, to see that first tear roll from this eye as his head twitches back on the couch, his body gradually going still as I feel his heart pound slower and slower. “You wouldn’t even let me play with Hailie when I was 8.”

I’m about to crush his heart, squish it in my grip like a ripe and plump tomato.

When I’m blinded.

---

This is Heaven.

And that, standing up above me with his illuminated wings and really serious face, well that would be Proof.

“Hold on, kid, this’ll only hurt for a second.” Proof barks out, and I idly wonder what he’s talking about when that bright light flashes again and suddenly something is ripped, kicking and screaming like a Satan baby, from my chest and I palpitate and my ghost senses go berserk up the ass and the light fades. Proof is holding a squealing, biting, screeching little ball of black. It looks like the demon, only more contained, a tiny model of a much larger evil. Proof sneers at the nasty little booger, lifts his free hand and smacks! the thing between his palms like it’s the most ultimate mosquito in the world.

I’m lying on my back, feeling like I just ran a marathon with bricks tied to me and I haven’t slept for weeks and the sun is shining in my eyes. Just that sort of drained that leaves you void of life. Only, well, I’m already void of life. I chuckle. Proof looks at me.

“What the fuck kinda dumbass told you that would be a smart idea?” He accuses. I shrug.

“Meddy.”

“Who?”

I wave a hand above me. “This lady.”

“Oh, Jesus. The one you killed?” Proof cocks his head at me.

What? What! I bolt upright, looking at Em’s deceased best friend for the first time. He hasn’t aged a bit, wearing comfortable clothes that really look kinda shoddy compared to his brilliant ivory wings and gleaming gold halo. No lie, the wings and halo still throw me off because…..I dunno, I can’t believe they are actually a thing in Heaven.

I can’t say anything, Proof is already going on. “Well good riddance, huh? That bat was a fuckin’ nuisance. Alexus, you never absorb demon energy. It brings out yo’ worst.”

I open my mouth to speak but Proof keeps talking and I respectfully let him finish. I duck my head and nod.

“You said some pretty nasty things to Em, almost killed him, too. This is gonna be a tough one to explain.” Proof is sorta talkin’ to himself so I interject anyway.

“What.”

Proof acknowledges me directly. He comes over to me, holds out a hand, and helps me to my feet. He brushes off my shoulder and re-adjusts my snapback so it isn’t all silly-tilted. He looks at me, really looks at me, and I try and hold his gaze but he is an angel, and I’m just a bottom-bitch ghost.

After a long silence, Proof is the first one to speak.

“It’s breaking a whole lotta’ rules, Alex. But God can forgive me just this one time if I go down to Earth and explain to Em what happened.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I still have like no clue why I’m here or what, but…..is this real? Proof is coming to Earth? To see Eminem? I almost faint dead (ha) away, that’s how giddy I am and I clutch the edges of my snapback and break out in the biggest smile ever. My eyes are probably twinklin’ like two fucking stars in the night.

Proof drops a hand on my shoulder and gives me a playful shake and a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Let’s go see Marshall.”

---

Like a dog banished to the kennel for committing a crime it doesn’t understand, I’m not allowed in the house. Proof and I had stood outside Mathers Mansion for a moment and Proof took it all in, before telling me very sternly to stay outside while he talked to Em.

A lot of pouting later, and I’m still confined to the outdoors.

“Sucks.” I whine, sitting on the hood of one of the Escalade Herd that never seems to leave the driveway. Em has a free-range number of black Escalades that litter his property like stray cats. I’m bored, bored out of my mind and wondering what Em is thinking right now. Proof, he’s got legit super powers. Angels make ghosts look as strong as a leaf in the waves of the Pacific. Proof can block emotions, and my senses are picking up nada from inside the mansion.

I roll around on the roof of the car for 4 hours. The sun is setting and I’m watching it thinking of poetry when I feel the Escalade give a tiny move and someone sits next to me.

“Hey.”

I’m expecting Proof, I mean why would it not be him, but I lazily turn from the pretty sun and see Em. He’s right next to me and his eyes are bloodshot red and he’s wearing a black shirt that is clearly damp in many places. Even from that one word, I detect that inconsolable wetness, that deep heartache that you can’t get rid of. But, under that, I pick up a tiny flame of hope, a little beacon of complete, utter, undestroyable joy.

“Uh, you okay?” I ask, because in this situation I really have no clue what to say, and my hands are super cold and won’t be able to offer any comfort in the slightest. Em wipes at his eye with the back of a hand, and I suddenly want to leave him, this is not something I should be a witness too. I’m about to break off and float into Empty Space when Em tries to make a grab for me and his hand falls through nothing.

“Wait, don’t go.” And he looks at me with those red eyes and I just….I nod and I stay.

“Proof, he told me everything. About you doin’ what you did. Going nuts and shit,” Em speaks quietly, looking at his hands in his lap, only sometimes reaching up to wipe away a tear. Yeah, I’ve seen him cry when I told him about Proof. But that was retelling, that was just verbal. Em got to see the real, physical Proof. As an Angel, yeah, but still, it was Proof. “You killed Meddy.”

I swallow thickly. I’m a murderer. My self-disgust swallows itself and duplicates in size.

“But Proof told me, he said she knew it was gonna happen. That what that demon does is, it was taintin’ you and fuckin’ around wit the way you think. Mostly.” Em goes on, and I look at him and frown.

“Mostly?”

“I’m sorry about how you died, Alexus. But, that demon was feedin’ you bad memories. Yeah, we did meet when you were a little girl. You played with Hailie and even with Lily. But your dad was gettin’ mad because you didn’t want to leave, you wanted to stay with me,” Em pauses, and I’m leaning forward and my head is spinning on the inside. “At one point, you were hidin’ behind me when Colton came to take you home, and he got real mad and threatened to buy over Detroit.”

I stare out at the sun again.

“I shoulda realized he was beatin’ you, Alex.”

I don’t want to hear the apologies I know are coming. I hold up a hand.

“If I had to die for anything, I’m glad I died over something related to you. This is, this is the cliché thing to say but you literally saved me, I lived a life because of your music, and Daddy hated me for it but you made every day bearable for me, and there are millions of people out there, alive, who feel the same way I do.” I topple it all out, all over my jaw and down my chin, an endless stream of words and when I finish, there’s a lightness inside of Em. I twiddle my thumbs.

“Is it cool if I come inside now?” I venture. Eminem’s mouth quirks up in that little smile, and without falter, without a second to debate with himself, he says yes.

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