Hi Everyone!!!
I hope you had a great weekend!
I have some excellent news...
Night Walker finaled in the On The Far Side contest from the Paranormal RWA chapter AND thanks to all of you, Across the Veil made it to Round 3 of the Paranormal Fight Club!!!! WOOT!!!
The third part should be posted on Thursday! :) I'll be sure to put up a link once it's up... Thanks for all your support!!! I really appreciate your votes!
I've also been busy editing Moonlight and I've got 100 pages done so far. I feel like I'm going for broke right now! LOL
One last piece of news... I've got more Christmas songs posted from my new Christmas CD! You can hear them here... http://myspace.com/LisaKesslerVocalist
No musicals this time, no My Fair Lady, just Christmas songs... :)
Ok on to the story!!!
With Halloween so close by, I wanted to bring something spooky and paranormal your way, plus I'm wearing my Wolfram and Hart t-shirt (The evil law firm in the tv series Angel) so I thought, what if you could still prosecute people after you die? Hmmm...
Now if only I were really magical like Harry Potter and Professor Snape, then I could wave a magic wand and my blog would be posted... *dreamy sigh*
Sadly, I'm over here typing the old fashioned way!
I hope you enjoy Lowell's story!!!
Thanks SO much for all of your support!!!
Lisa :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Final Cry - By Lisa Kessler
If you are reading this then I am already dead. Damn! Sorry, I don’t mean to curse, but I was really hoping to get out of this mess alive. I wonder how it all ended. Was it quick and painless? God I hope he didn’t drown me. I’ve always hated the water. But I guess I’ll never know now, will I?
Anyway, I’m writing all of this down so that if I do lose my life, and I guess I have if someone is reading this, I might still beat these assholes at their own game. And yes I know I’m cursing again, but hell I’m dead, who’s going to care now, right? And they are assholes, so watch your back.
First and foremost, I want you to know that I did not take my own life. No matter how it might have looked, I have never wanted to die. I don’t care if they left a suicide note scrawled in my own handwriting; I did not want to die.
That said, I guess I should start at the beginning. A very good place to start, right? Wasn’t that in a musical? Never mind I’m just delaying the inevitable. Can’t blame me for being afraid to write this down though, right? None of what I’m about to tell you was a joke or a fantasy, it really happened. And if someone is reading this, then I’m really dead…
It all started when I answered an ad in the paper. Help wanted… What an understatement that was!
I was hired on as a courier for a large law firm in downtown Los Angeles. The city of angels left a lot to be desired, but my bus ticket from Kansas was one way, and my pockets were empty, so I was stuck in Los Angeles. Looking back on it now, that’s probably why Thinkman & Turner hired me in the first place.
No one would miss me if I disappeared.
I loved my job at first. I got to work outside, riding my bike all over downtown and even up into Beverly Hills and Hollywood, which is nothing like you would think. Back in Kansas, I always envisioned Hollywood being full of glitz and glamour, with polished sidewalks and the stars on the walk of fame, but once you drive through it you realize it’s less of a paradise and more of a city of broken dreams and even more broken hearts. The stars don’t shine very brightly underneath some homeless man’s sleeping bundle. I can’t call it a sleeping bag because most of them are lucky to own a blanket, but I’m getting a little sidetracked here.
Truth of the matter is I’m scared to death to write any of this down. By writing it, I’m admitting that this is real, and I really wish I could wake up from this impossible nightmare.
The dream job didn’t turn dark at first. In the beginning I was just taking contracts from here to there, and then back to the Thinkman & Turner office, nothing out of the ordinary for a law firm courier.
Until a week ago.
Last week Mr. Turner called me into his office. I’d never been up in the tower. I usually picked up my parcels down in the mailroom, and later I delivered them back to front desk. She then forwarded the packages to the appropriate counsel.
I only knew what Mr. Turner looked like from his photo hanging right inside the front door of the high-rise office building.
His secretary was gone when I exited the elevator. His wing of the office building was silent. Nothing moved or announced my arrival. When I got to his office, I rapped my knuckles gently against the door and waited. I couldn’t hear anything. I turned to leave, when the sound of a voice stopped me.
"Come in Lowell," he gasped.
Once I was inside his spacious office filled with dark cherry wood furniture, I couldn’t stop fidgeting. I wanted to put my hand in my pocket, but I didn’t want to seem disrespectful. There were chairs, but I wasn’t sure I should sit in them. How long was I going to be there?
Finally the high-backed leather executive chair, pivoted around to reveal a gaunt older man with thin transparent skin. His blue-tinged veins made a roadmap all over the back of his hands, and along his tall forehead. When he smiled, his coffee stained teeth made him resemble a zombie more than a top notch litigation attorney.
"Lowell," he coughed and cleared his constricted throat. "Thank you for coming. Please take a seat."
He gestured to a chair across from his desk. I hurried over to the chair and sat with my hands in my lap like I’d been instantly transported back to first grade. The chair felt cold against the back of my legs, sending a chill up my spine. He slid a large manilla envelope toward me on his desk.
"I have an unusual delivery for you to make for me."
I took his parcel and tucked it under my arm. "What’s unusual about it?"
The old man’s steel gray eyes sparkled, "Just take my word for it." He slid another piece of paper across the desk with a contact name and address scrawled in red ink. "The recipient is difficult to find, so you’ll need to be discreet."
I nodded, folding the slip of paper before I tucked it into my pocket. "Will do, Mr. Turner."
"Another man will meet you at the delivery to assist you in making contact with the recipient."
I shrugged. "I don’t need help, Mr. Turner. This is straight-forward."
He laughed. It was really more of a raspy, chest-rattling guffaw.
"Nothing about this delivery will be straight-forward." His laughter died away. "Or simple."
In an effort to end the meeting, I stood up. "I won’t let you down, Mr. Turner."
He got up and gave me a handshake. His hands were bony and ice cold.
"Good luck Lowell," he rasped.
When I got to the meeting place, I couldn’t find a woman named Louise Nabern anywhere. When another tenant showed up to check his mailbox, I interrupted.
"Excuse me, I’m looking for Louise Nabern?"
The man frowned. "She hasn’t lived here in over a year."
"Do you have a forwarding address?"
The man tipped his head back and laughed, shaking his head.
"For her sake, I hope it’s heaven."
"Heaven?"
"Yeah. She died just over a year ago."
"She’s dead?" No wonder Mr. Turner said she would be hard to find.
"She hung herself in her bathroom up on the third floor."
I thanked the man, then jotted down the details surrounding her death. With my notebook securely tucked away in my messenger bag, I got back on my bike, but before I could pedal away another man was walking toward me with one hand inside of his coat.
"Lowell?" He called.
I almost answered him, but my instincts were screaming to run. I spun my bike around and took off at full speed. In the distance I could hear the man yelling that Mr. Turner had sent him, but I didn’t slow down.
Mr. Turner had just sent me to deliver a lawsuit to a dead woman.
I didn’t slow down until I got back to my apartment. With the door locked and all the windows closed, I logged on to my computer and headed to google. A few quick searches later, I found the story about the woman’s suicide.
Mr. Turner must not have known. That’s what I told myself.
Until I saw a related story further down the page. The headline read: Respected defense attorney, Redmond Turner, shot in the head by his estranged wife.
That’s when I decided to write this letter.
See, I don’t believe Louise Nabern committed suicide. I think Mr. Turner still has contacts in the living world. Contacts who are willing to exchange their morals for money.
I know it sounds insane, but how else could you explain it?
A ghost lawyer hired me to deliver a lawsuit to another ghost. No wonder his goddamn chair was so cold.
The next question was, if Mr. Turner was dead, and he already knew Louise was dead, why would he be trying to serve her with legal documents? And how was I supposed to deliver docs to a dead woman?
Unless I was dead too.
The realization felt like a truckload of sand had just been poured over my shoulders. That’s why Turner’s "other man" was still following me.
It’s only a matter of time before I’m a ghost too.
But it won’t be suicide.
And I want justice...
Even if it comes after the grave.
The End
(For Marvin I had Going for broke, my Audrey Hepburn movie was My Fair Lady and I used Harry Potter and Professor Snape :)