A Romantic Ghost Story, Page 3

  The screeches of the other passengers were all she could hear as the angry ocean gulped down her body.

  For a while, she struggled but it was futile. She closed her eyes as she prepared for eternity.

  Maybe I’ll get to sing for the Lord in Heaven, she thought, as the water ate her.

  Fortunately for her, the freezing water acted as an anesthesia. She barely felt a thing as Death came for her.

  ***

  Nancy didn’t know it at the time, but her boat was actually quite close to North America. The tiny vessel had veered off course though. It was just off the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, which is in the same time zone as Hollywood, California.

  The closest settlement was a town called Sunrise Beach, a little fishing village just north of Tofino.

  Just a few miles off those waters, Nancy opened her eyes underwater, yet she felt dry. She could even breathe. Or at least she knew she didn’t have to breathe.

  She was standing on the ocean floor, yet somehow, she was still alive. Or at least conscious.

  Maybe I’m dreaming, she thought. Or maybe I’m dead and this is heaven.

  If so, it was a pretty crummy version of heaven. For one, where was that famous white light that everyone had talked about?

  Scanning her environment, she noticed it was dark, but then a huge flashing white light appeared in front of her.

  There it was, that famous white light, in the shape of a rectangular door.

  There was no sound but Nancy could feel something call her, calling for her to step through the door. Somehow, it felt right to do so.

  Come through me, Nancy felt it was saying. Come through me and you’ll be all better. No more pain. No more lies. No more bad people. You’ll bask in love for all eternity.

  She felt drawn to it, like it was her home. The love she felt for it was as strong as the love for her parents.

  But if I leave, then how will I ever get to Hollywood? She asked herself.

  So, against her better judgment, she stayed put.

  The blinding white light lingered for a while, and eventually disappeared.

  Where am I? She wondered, staring at the shadowy grayness of the surprisingly calm ocean.

  “You’ve decided to stay,” a pleasant female voice said.

  Nancy’s eyes widened as she looked about her. “Who said that?”

  A woman stepped out in front of her, coming from nowhere. She was a plump woman, with short white hair and wide spectacles that made her eyes look huge. She was wearing a white evening gown.

  “You’re earthbound now,” she said. “Heaven won’t be open to you for a while, unless you decide to step through again. Let’s hope no demons bind you until that time. If they do, you’ll never get to Heaven.”

  Nancy scratched her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re in the Earthbound Zone. It’s sort of a holding area, for spirits who are trapped on Earth still.”

  Nancy’s heart thudded. “Spirits?”

  The lady looked exasperated. “Well, you are dead, after all.”

  Surprise filled Nancy. She stared at her hands. They were still solid.

  The lady laughed. “Not all spirits are transparent. But, they can all float. Look.” She pointed to Nancy’s feet.

  To her absolute shock, Nancy started floating three feet above the bottom of the ocean floor.

  “Oh my god,” whispered Nancy.

  She realized that she must have died in the water when the boat sank. But that wasn’t right. The last thing she remembered was that she had been on the boat, and then…and then….

  The memory of being dragged under the raging water hit her hard. She didn’t survive?

  The lady, too, started to float.

  At first, Nancy was angry with the world. But then, an even deeper feeling flooded her. A sense of dread filled her, spreading throughout her entire body. Now she would never be able to get to Hollywood.

  “What do I do now?” she asked.

  The lady shrugged. “There’s nothing you can do now. Just wait until the door opens to you now.”

  Nancy nodded.

  “Don’t wander anywhere in the meantime. And get out of the water. Demons are in the Earthbound Zone, just looking to capture wandering spirits like you. Who knows what they would do to you?”

  The lady began to fade away.

  “Wait!” Nancy shouted. “Where are you going? What do I do now?”

  “Just be careful.” The raspy voice sounded like a fading radio transmission.

  She pondered her own death. She was dead now? But she didn’t feel any different. She felt…fine. She felt…no, wait. There was something different. She couldn’t feel anything.

  She flailed around in the water. At that time of year, the Canadian Pacific Ocean should have been freezing, but she felt nothing.

  She tried again. Still nothing.

  If she was a spirit now, then where was her body? Decomposing somewhere in the water? Just the thought of her own body floating somewhere in the water as fish food made her sick to her stomach.

  Just then, she spotted something gleaming in the moonlight beside her. She moved closer to check it out. It was Lucy, her brass guitar.

  She moved toward it as relief filled her. At least her precious guitar was still there.

  But before she could reach it, green seaweed-like tentacles zipped through the foggy ocean water and snatched it away from her.

  “That’s mine now,” a deep male voice said. “And so are you. You’re in my domain now.”

  Nancy peered around her, but couldn’t see anything in the misty water. She felt her heart bang against her chest. “Who’s there?”

  “I’m known by many names, little Spirit Girl. Call me Your Majesty the Ocean King. I control everything in these parts of the ocean. Little Spirit Girl, you’re in my domain now. Trespassers will be punished.”

  She felt thick, green seaweed-like tentacles wrap themselves around her chest, tightening it. If she were still alive, they would have restricted her airflow, causing her to pass out. They lifted her higher and higher, and then pulled her quickly toward the shore.

  She let out a gasp.

  Panicking now, she felt as horrified as she did when the boat capsized.

  As the Ocean King pulled her closer, he asked, “How should I punish her?”

  A murmur of voices filled the ocean. Nancy wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw clayish, lobsters, crabs, salmon and rocks circle around her in a frenzy.

  The voice agreed, “Yes, I will make her my bride. I will marry her and we’ll have little seaweed children.”

  A beautiful black evening gown materialized next to her.

  “You will wear this dress on our wedding day,” the rich male voice said. “In the meantime, you will clean for me. You will entertain me. Most importantly, you will find food for me.”

  She tried reaching out for her guitar, but the tentacles yanked it farther away.

  Panicked filled her throat but she realized that resistance was useless. The more she struggled, the harder the tentacles constricted her.

  As she was being pulled through the water at lightning speed, she passed by a lot of things. Rocks, seaweed, crustaceans, and corpses.

  Yes, corpses.

  Corpses of her fellow fallen passengers. She even saw the Asian girl.

  But that wasn’t the most terrifying part. The most terrifying part was that she saw a body that looked uncannily like herself. Long dark hair covered a face frozen in terror. The body was suspended a feet above the ground, hanging onto a rope.

  She confirmed that it was her body. That was how she knew she was really dead. It was eerie to look at herself.

  As they zoomed past, the tentacles grabbed her corpse and as they took her body and spirit closer and closer to the beach, the last thing she heard was “Your body is mine. You are mine forever.”

  Nancy couldn’t believe her bad luck. Every worst poss
ible scenario had happened.

  As the tentacles slowed to a stop, Nancy had only one thought in her mind: the worst part was that she never had a chance to make her dream come true.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  One year later

  Sunrise Beach, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

  In the sleepy seaside resort town of Sunrise Beach (population 1247), five miles north of Tofino, nothing much ever really happened. Life was always the same old, same old. Same old people in the tavern, same old gossipy housewives and same old waves rolling back and forth on the beach.

  That’s why it was such a shock when something actually did start to happen. Something big, something mysterious, something shocking.

  On the morning of October 6, 2011, the headline of the Sunrise Beach Daily Journal read: Young man, age 20, drowned in ocean, Authorities still investigating.

  The next day, the headline was: Another drowning, this time, two teenage boys.

  The next day: Three drownings in Sunrise Beach, all middle-aged men.

  The townspeople knew that something was up, so the local RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) detachment assigned a special detective to investigate. A few days later, he declared all the drownings to be accidental.

  But the townspeople weren’t so sure. In Moe’s Tavern, people were talking.

  “You think it’s the Ocean King?” asked Moe the bartender, a fat middle-aged guy.

  “It’s possible,” said a young barfly named Larry. “I think we haven’t sacrificed enough for him. We should have hunted for a whale this season. Maybe then he’d be full and wouldn’t need to feed on humans.”

  “That’s a bunch of hogwash,” said a lady in jeans. “People drown. It happens. I can’t believe you believe in that kind of crap. It’s almost heresy.” Bowing her head, she made the sign of the cross.

  “But we haven’t had this many accidental drownings in over 20 years,” countered the bartender. “The last one was in 1976. And we know that young man drowned accidentally.”

  “Yeah,” said the barfly. He took a swig of beer and scratched his head. “That’s because they made a sacrifice to the Ocean King that year. My grandpa remembers it really well. They fed him a live dolphin. That year, our bounty from the ocean was the largest up to that point. Fish, shrimp, lobster, crab, prawns – you name it.”

  The lady scoffed. “Baloney.”

  The barfly placed his glass of beer down. “You won’t think it’s baloney if you’ve actually seen the Ocean King. I was a young boy back then, but I remember seeing him rise in the ocean, like a giant tidal wave. He had these terrible yellow eyes. He told me that if the town kept him full by serving him big fish, then he wouldn’t feed on humans. But we stopped in the last couple of years because we’ve been fishing the ocean dry.”

  19 year-old Ryan had been listening to the conversation the entire time. He had first arrived in Sunset Beach the day after the third drowning was reported. He was a drifter, or as he preferred to be called, a musician, looking for any kind of work to pay his bills. Yes, he was that kind of artist. The poor starving kind who never had any gainful or steady employment, the kind that wandered from place to place, always in search of an audience to appreciate his music. His trusty guitar in hand (his only possession), he had fled Vancouver and the rest of the Lower Mainland when he heard that there was money to be made in fishing, at least enough to pay for food and lodging. Unfortunately, the owner of the largest fleets of fishing vessels in Sunrise Beach had refused to hire him, citing that he had already hired enough staff.

  Ryan had spent all his money on the ferry ride across the Strait of Georgia, and so, he was trying to make enough money in town to pay a ticket back home.

  He had just sat down in the bar after a long day of playing his guitar at the local lodge to passersby who ignored him.

  After this conversation, Ryan was thrilled. He was the kind of guy who loved adventure and mystery. Anything intriguing got his heart racing.

  That was why he was disappointed when the conversation stopped when he accidentally called attention to himself by knocking over his glass of beer. Ryan was a tall, well-built man due to years of athletics and training, so he was extremely uncomfortable in the tiny chair and table.

  All eyes turned to him.

  He started wiping his table with a cloth.

  Larry wandered over to Ryan and stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Sunrise Beach. Haven’t seen you around before. I’m Larry.”

  “Name’s Ryan.” Ryan shook the barfly’s hand.

  The patrons started to whisper among themselves.

  “Don’t mind them,” said Larry. “It’s a tight-knit town. They don’t see strangers much. You shouldn’t trust them either.”

  Ryan held up both hands innocently. “Hey, I’m just a drifter passing by. I mean no harm.”

  He brushed his shoulder-length jet-black hair behind his shoulders and stretched his muscular arms and upper body.

  Ryan leaned in closer to Larry, as though about to ask his new friend to reveal a secret. “So is it true? About the drownings and the Ocean King?”

  Larry stared at Ryan with blue eyes and let out a breath. “I know it is. I’ve seen. My grandpa – God rest his soul –saw it back in the 70’s. And unlike most old people here, he didn’t tell tall tales.”

  Ryan fixed his clear green eyes on the horizon, taking in the gray skies and angry waves. If it was true, then he was truly intrigued.

  It was just the thing he needed to take his mind off the accidental death of his childhood sweetheart, a sweet premed young lady called Sylvia. Another reason he had drifted to Vancouver Island from the Lower Mainland was to escape the pain, but so far, it hadn’t helped.

  Ryan asked Larry, “How do you know all this?”

  Larry scratched his blond head. “Because I’ve seen the supernatural in this town. Ever since I saw the Ocean King myself when I was a little boy, I started to believe. Almost everyone in this town has seen ghostly things around here. It’s enough to make anyone a believer. Are you?”

  Ryan put his hand on his scruffy chin. “I really don’t know. This town sure has a lot of legends and paranormal stuff.”

  The patrons began to return to their own conversations.

  He got up and shook Larry’s hand. “It was nice to meet you. I should get back to the hotel.”

  Larry nodded. “If you need anything, I’m usually here.”

  Ryan got up and left the bar. He really wasn’t sure whether he was a believer. He didn’t want to rule it out.

  When he returned to the Sunrise Beach Hotel, he went straight to his room and tried to go to bed, but found that he couldn’t. He tossed and turned for a long time.

  Finally, sick of being awake, he grabbed his guitar from the desk and put on some clothes. He decided he would go to the beach and practice his music.

  He went down to the lobby, just in time to see Kimberly, a leggy Asian girl who was the hotel receptionist, being harassed by a drunk guest. The middle-aged balding man reeked of Vodka. He was standing in front of the desk and trying to aim for the girl’s breasts.

  “Come on, Kimmy. Just one cup.”

  The receptionist frowned. “Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to leave the hotel.”

  “Non-sense,” he said. “I’m a paying customer.”

  This time, he managed to grip onto the girl’s breast, and that was when Ryan got mad. He could never stand the sight of a girl being harassed, and he could never resist helping a girl in need.

  He marched up to the man. “Sir, you heard the girl. Leave.”

  The drunk guy turned around and smirked. “Go away, little boy. This is none of your business.”

  Ryan scowled, curling his fists. “You go away.”

  The drunk guy grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. “And what if I don’t?”

  Using his karate moves, Ryan expertly swatted the man’s hand away with one smooth motion. “Then it�
€™ll get ugly.”

  The man ignored Ryan and continued to badger the girl.

  Ryan approached the man from behind and let him have it. He punched the drunkard in the face and tackled him to the red carpet floor.

  The middle-aged man, taken by surprise, tumbled and hit his head on the floor.

  Soon, security arrived and Kimberly explained what had happened. The security guards took the man away.

  Kimberly looked at Ryan with gratitude. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Ryan glanced at her with his still-enraged green eyes and left the hotel with his guitar before she could say anything more. Although he found the girl attractive, he just wasn’t ready to move on.

  His defined muscles and his balance allowed him to take down the guy. Ryan was glad he had kept in shape. He never knew when an injustice would happen. He had always been a fighter and a protector, but ever since he saw his childhood sweetheart get mowed down in the middle of the road by a drunk driver, the protector instinct in him awoke and became stronger with each passing day.

  He just couldn’t stand by and allow injustice to happen. Too much of it already existed in the world. But the truth was that he’d have gotten into that fight any way. Ryan was the kind of guy who wasn’t happy unless he was doing something physical – be it playing basketball, swimming, dancing or even fighting. He didn’t like to admit it to himself. He had always justified his getting into fights.

  The night air was crisp and brisk, cooling him down from the scuffle in the lobby. He admired the beauty of nature. It was so simple, like his life before moving on from Cindy. They were going to elope. They were going to have children. She was going to go on to medical school and he was going to keep reaching for the dream. Such simple times.

  He willed himself to calm down. He knew the accident wasn’t his fault but he couldn’t help but feel responsible somehow.

  “I’ll be fine,” Cindy had said. “You don’t have to come pick me up. I can walk home from the college.”

  Her voice resonated in his mind. But he had gone to pick her up, a little late though. He arrived just in time to see her get hit by that driver.

  The guilt ate at him day in and day out, although he had already atoned for his mistake with his many sleepless nights and days by her grave.

  The drunk driver had come out of nowhere, and collided directly into Cindy, and then sped away without slowing down.

  If only I could have been there, he thought. And then maybe….