Whispers of the Dead

The dead never screamed.

Not when I first saw them. Not when they reached for me in the dark. Not even when they died.

That was what struck me most. The silence. They watched. They whispered. They cried. But they never screamed.

The living? The living screamed just fine.

I was five the first time it happened. A woman drifted through my grandmother’s hallway in a nightgown stained with something I didn’t yet understand. Later, a teenage boy appeared at the foot of my bed night after night, mouthing words I couldn’t hear. I ignored him until I couldn’t anymore.

When I finally asked what he wanted, he vanished.

They always find you when you’re young. When you haven’t learned to shut the door.

They never screamed.

They stared. They reached. They waited. Sometimes they would cry or just want to talk.

And I’ve seen them my whole life.

Some whisper. Some watch. Some don’t even seem to know they’re gone.

But none of them scream.

The living, though? The living scream just fine.

I made the mistake of telling a boyfriend once—back in college—what I could see. He swore it would stay between us. Our secret, he said. I should have listened to my mom and grandma when they said to guard my gifts.

Yeah. He told everyone.

Overnight, I went from being “quirky cool” to a walking freak show. A ghost girl. A punchline.

So I dumped him. Cut off the whole circle of friends. Packed my things and moved across the country with no real plan, just the instinct to get as far away as possible.

That’s when I met Ben.

It’s been five years since all of that. Five years of rebuilding, of keeping people at a careful distance, even the good ones. Getting married and settling down with someone who didn’t care that I was different.

I don’t trust easily anymore. But I’ve found a way to use what I am—what I see—for something that matters. I work as a profiler now, consulting with police on cases that don’t make sense. Talking to murder victims helps. So does knowing how the dead move.

“Don’t burn your mouth this time,” Ben said, passing me the mug with a smirk.

Ben stood barefoot in the kitchen, damp hair still dripping onto his shoulders, boxers loose on his hips. His badge and wallet lay untouched on the counter — for once, not in a rush to leave.

“I don’t burn my mouth,” I said, then promptly did.

Ben laughed, warm and sharp. “Classic profiler behavior. No object permanence for hot liquids.”

“You’re lucky I’m not profiling you right now.” I curled up on the stool by the island. “Shirtless, smug, and dangerously close to cocky. Possible narcissistic traits.”

He leaned in. “I’m not cocky. I’m charming. There’s a difference.”

I was still smiling when the text came in.

> Unknown homicide. Female. Ritual elements. > Request: Shaw consult if available. > Responding officers: Det. Corbett, Det. Vega.

I stared too long.

Ben glanced over my shoulder. “Another one?”

“They think so.”

He kissed my forehead and tucked a strand of my ashy blonde hair behind my ear. “Sorry, Babe. Go catch the bastard. I’ll be here when you get back.”

I lingered at the door, something tightening behind my ribs. “You sure?”

“Always.”

We kissed—slow, familiar. He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, that crooked half-smile catching in the dim kitchen light.

“I love you,” I told him as I stepped through the front door.

“Love you too.”

The last words. I didn’t know that then.

Ben: You got your playlist ready?

Me: Obviously. Starting with 90s alt rock, like a responsible adult.

Ben: God help the other drivers.

Me: They’re lucky to witness greatness.

Ben: Text me when you stop for gas, Row.

Me: Will do, Ben. Go easy on the leftovers.

Ben: No promises.

An hour later, I was standing outside a taped-off alley behind a diner, scanning the scene while quietly directing the lead detective. A trash can had been overturned, blood pooling near the back door. Vega stood not too far from me. His impeccably tanned self stood out compared to my own pasty self. Sometimes I wished Ben and I were spontaneous and just went on vacation like Vega did.

I checked my phone. No messages.

Me: At the scene now. It’s a mess. I’ll call you when I’m done.

No response.

Thirty minutes later.

Me: Everything okay?

Silence.

I checked my signal. Full bars.

Another hour.

Me: Ben?

Nothing.

I looked at the last message he sent. The three dots never came.

Me: Bennett? Please answer me!

Silence.

A knot twisted in my chest—not from the crime scene, but something deeper, colder. Something was wrong.

Ben always texted back. Always.

I stared at my phone while detectives murmured around me. The victim’s body was draped across a picnic table in the woods. Eyes removed. Symbols carved into her stomach—shallow enough to suggest control.

Vega caught me glancing at my phone for the fifth time.

“Something up?”

“He’s not texting back.”

“Who?”

I shot him a look. “My husband.”

“Maybe he’s napping.”

“Ben doesn’t nap. Not without letting me know. He knows I worry all the time.”

Vega hesitated. “You think—?”

“I think we need to go.”

He glanced toward Corbett, who was taking statements from two shivering hikers.

“Convince her,” I said.

“You know she won’t be happy.”

“Is she ever?”

“Good point.”

I watched as he walked over to Corbett and whispered in her ear. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. He continued whispering until she waved him away.

“Let’s go,” he said, walking back up to me.

It didn’t take long to get back to the house. The great thing about working with cops—they could speed when the lights were on.

I didn’t have lights so I just got pulled over all the time.

We pulled up.

The front door was ajar.

Vega reached for his holster. I stepped out of the car and walked straight in.

The house smelled normal. Soap, coffee, cedar. The same as when I left.

“Ben?”

Nothing.

I turned down the hallway. Vega stayed close, silent.

I saw the blood smear just outside the bedroom. Not a lot. Just enough to feel wrong. My heart started thrumming in my ears—loud and fast, like it was trying to drown out whatever was waiting ahead.

Then I stepped inside.

He wasn’t mangled. Wasn’t sprawled in fear. Just lying there—like he’d laid down for a nap on the floor and forgot to wake up. One stab wound. Neat. Silent. My scream didn’t sound like me. It came from somewhere deeper. Primitive.

No blood on the bedroom walls. No signs of struggle.

Just a single stab wound under his rib.

Time… broke.

I sank to my knees, the sound that came out of me didn’t feel like mine. It was low and raw and wrong, like it came from the center of the earth.

I touched his arm. It was cold.

The room tilted, then narrowed. The world shrank until it was just me and him and the unbearable silence.

Ben.

His eyes were open.

But he hadn’t screamed. The dead never screamed.

Not once.

I heard screaming still.

I think it was me.

Vega said something—I don’t know what. I think he pulled me back.

I think I screamed again.

Or maybe I didn’t.

Maybe I just sat there, rocking, waiting to wake up.

It didn’t feel real. It still doesn’t.

There are hours I can’t account for. Days, maybe. People came. Voices blurred together. Meals appeared and vanished. Someone handed me tea. I let it go cold in my hands.

They asked me questions. I answered some of them. I think.

I signed papers. Made decisions. Chose flowers I couldn’t name and music I couldn’t hear.

I watched my life unravel through glass. Everything was muffled. Distant. Like I was underwater, watching it all happen to someone else.

I kept expecting my phone to buzz. For his name to light up the screen. For him to say, “Hey Row, I’m fine. It was all a mistake.”

But it never did.

I learned early on that the wind hits differently in cemeteries.

It whistles low and constant, like it knows not to interrupt. Or maybe like it’s trying to fill the silence.

I stood at the edge of Ben’s grave, arms crossed tight over my ribs, watching the priest mumble something about mercy, about life after death. I felt the dirt hit the wood, soft and dull.

I heard nothing. Saw nothing.

Except—

Him.

Ben.

Standing across from me, just beyond the crowd. Jacket zipped, face calm, arms loose at his sides. He didn’t speak. He didn’t blink. But he was there. Watching me.

It should have been raining harder.

The sky above Dunlow was the same thick, dim pewter it always was in March, a colorless ceiling pulled tight over the world, but the rain itself held back, clinging to the edge of downpour, as if unsure whether this moment deserved thunder. Fog hovered low, curling between the rows of headstones like smoke. From the harbor, the low hum of a foghorn rolled in, long and mournful.

I stood among a semicircle of people I barely registered—neighbors, co-workers, officers from the precinct I’d been unofficially tied to for years, even Mrs. Keene from the bakery, who hadn’t spoken to me since I told her dead people lingered in her basement and her grandma didn’t want her to give out the recipe for her gobs.

They were all dressed in black, heads bowed respectfully, eyes flickering to me now and then, the way one might glance at a spider in the corner of a room—aware, vaguely anxious, unsure whether to ignore it or kill it.

I kept my arms folded tightly across my chest, not because I was cold, though I was, but because I wasn’t sure my hands wouldn’t shake if I let them go.

The priest was saying something else. I couldn’t hear the words. I was staring past him.

Ben continued to stand on the other side of the grave.

He wasn’t translucent like some ghosts. He wasn’t a flickering image, or a blur, or a shadow at the edge of sight. He stood there like a man who had never died.

He wore the same soft charcoal shirt I’d bought him for his birthday last year, the one he insisted made him “look too respectable,” though he wore it constantly. It was the shirt he died in. His hands were at his sides. His mouth was closed. His face was—God, it was the same except maybe a little grayish.

But there was no warmth behind his eyes. Not even cold. Just stillness.

I wanted to call his name.

I wanted to scream it.

Instead, I stood there like a statue.

“Rowan,” said a voice close to my left, low and familiar.

I blinked. Uncle Bob was there. Ever since dad died, he really stepped up to help mom raise me. He was dad’s brother and was with him the day he had the boating accident. He wore a deep navy overcoat and a burgundy scarf. The scarf looked soft. His eyes, behind thin-rimmed glasses, were red at the corners.

He touched my back with a kind of practiced tenderness, not overbearing, not dramatic, just enough pressure to say he was there. I flinched anyway. People touching me was always something I tried to avoid. People always came with baggage.

He noticed. He always noticed.

“Sorry, kiddo,” Bob said quietly, withdrawing his hand. “I just… thought maybe you shouldn’t be alone.”

I nodded once. Words were complicated, and he wasn’t the person I wanted.

He stood beside me, following my gaze. I could feel him searching for the shape I was staring at.

“Are you seeing something?” he asked, very softly.

I said nothing.

A lie might have been easier. I didn’t have one ready.

“It’s okay,” he added. “I know it’s… hard to process. Loss. Especially like this. Unexpected. Violent.”

He didn’t say murder. Most people didn’t. Even the ones who worked homicide preferred softer language when it hit close to home.

He leaned slightly closer. “Have you eaten today?”

I just shook my head.

The priest was wrapping up now, folding his prayer book as if dragging the moment out might help. The crowd began to shift—the murmuring of wet coats, shoes shifting in gravel, the subtle rustle of tissues.

Ben didn’t move. As if the earth had given him back—but only part way.

“Rowan,” the priest said gently, stepping forward through the crunch of wet gravel and dead leaves. His hands were clasped over the prayer book, the white of his collar impossibly bright against the gray day. “Would you like to say something?”

There was a hush—the kind that doesn’t happen in churches or living rooms or normal places. This was the quiet of held breath, of expectation wrapped in etiquette.

Bob shifted beside me. His voice low. “You don’t have to. No one expects—”

But I was already walking forward.

I stepped to the edge of the grave, where the dark rectangle of earth swallowed everything below. The casket—plain, dark wood sat at the bottom of the hole. Roses and dirt covered a part of it.

Ben had always said he didn’t want anything fancy. Don’t spend good money on a box, he’d told me once, grinning over a glass of whiskey. Put me in a damn shoebox if you have to. Just don’t let anyone read poetry. I hate that shit.

I kept my eyes on the coffin. Not because I couldn’t bear to look at the people, but because if I met even one glance, I might start screaming.

The air felt thick. Damp in my lungs. Full of static. Or ghosts.

“I’m not going to tell you what kind of man Ben was,” I said, my voice flat, thin, loud enough to carry. “You already know. That’s why you’re here.”

The priest hesitated, unsure whether to nod or frown.

I licked my lips, tasting salt and something metallic that wasn’t really there.

“I’ll just say this: Ben was the only person who ever believed me. Not politely. Not in a smile and nod until she stops talking way. He believed me the way a cliff believes the ocean. Constant. No matter how insane it sounded.”

I glanced up—only for a second—and caught the eyes of a woman from the town council. She dropped her gaze immediately, adjusting her scarf like she was cold.

“Most people tolerate me,” I continued. “Ben loved me and I love him.”

My throat tightened. I thought I might break open. But I didn’t. Instead, I stepped back from the grave.

“That’s all.”

I turned and walked away before anyone could ask me to say more.

Behind me, I heard the silence.

Not respectful. Disturbed.

They’d expected anecdotes. Warmth. A quote from Ben’s favorite book. His aunt probably expected the poetry. Instead, they got the truth. And the truth, raw and unpolished, made people uncomfortable.

Bob tried to catch up with me as I moved across the muddy path toward the tree line. My shoes slipped a little, but I didn’t slow down.

I just needed to breathe.

Behind me, the wind shifted.

And when I looked over my shoulder—Ben was gone.

But I wasn’t alone.

In the shadows beneath a pine tree, just beyond the furthest gravestone, a figure stood.

A girl stood at the edge of the trees. No more than twenty. Barefoot, soaked, her thin dress plastered to her frame like it had been painted on in water. Her hair hung heavy over her face, slick as kelp.

She wasn’t looking at the grave.

She was looking at me. They always looked for someone who could see them. Help them. I didn’t want to help today though.

The path behind Dunlow Cemetery narrowed as it curved toward the forested slope, where old pines leaned into each other like conspirators, whispering secrets the living weren’t meant to hear. Fog drifted low across the ground, snagging on tree roots and the broken bases of headstones, thickening with every step.

I didn’t look back.

I didn’t need to. The crowd was still gathered and murmuring, unsure whether to follow or pretend they hadn’t noticed I’d left mid-service. I also knew if I turned around and Ben’s ghost was standing there again, I might never come back from it.

I reached the tree line and stepped beneath the canopy, where the light dulled further, taking on the color of wet paper. The silence here was different—not the hush of respect or grief, but a deep, waiting quiet, like the earth itself was holding its breath.

Ben had disappeared like all ghosts do. But not slowly. Not with a shimmer or a fade, like in movies or old ghost stories.

He was just... gone. The same way he’d been gone when I touched his arm that afternoon we found him. Not cold. Not stiff. Just absent.

My hands were clenched into fists inside my coat pockets. I only noticed because I couldn’t feel my fingertips anymore.

“Ben?” I said quietly, not expecting an answer.

I didn’t get one.

I leaned against the trunk of a gnarled pine, its bark scraping my jacket, and let my head fall back. It thudded gently, grounding me for a moment.

Then I saw another.

She stood maybe fifteen feet away, half-shrouded by fog and the drooping branches of an old cedar, bare feet pale against the damp leaves. A girl—no older than twenty—dressed in a lace-trimmed nightgown, the kind you’d find buried in a cedar chest or forgotten in a thrift store. It was stained. Torn in places. Her skin damp, her hair hanging in dark, tangled ropes down both sides of her face.

She didn’t move.

She didn’t speak.

But she was watching me, her stare pressing against my skin like cold fingers.

At first, I thought she might be someone from town—a cousin, a sister of one of the victims. Grief could look feral. I’d seen it twist people before. But no one at the funeral had worn anything like that.

And then I realized what I wasn’t seeing.

No breath. No twitch of fingers. No shift of weight.

The kind I knew too well.

“Who are you?” I said aloud, stepping forward, the words more breath than sound.

Her eyes didn’t change. Not curiosity, not fear, not even that eerie vacancy the dead usually carried.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” My voice cracked on the last word. I cleared my throat and tried again. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

She didn’t answer.

I moved another step closer, slowly, hands visible. I’d learned long ago that the dead didn’t respond well to sudden movement—like whatever part of them remained here remembered what it was to flinch.

“I can help you,” I said. “I’m not really having a good day today, but you look like you’ve had worse.”

At that, she blinked. Just once. It hit me harder than if she’d spoken.

The air between us grew colder. A layer of chill slithered over my skin, raising goosebumps beneath my coat. I exhaled, and my breath fogged in front of me.

“I don’t know what happened to you,” I said, more softly this time, “but I might be able to find out.”

She took a step backward.

Not a retreat. More like an invitation.

Then, without sound or signal, she vanished.

Not like Ben—clean and sudden.

No. This was different. The fog pulled around her like a curtain, then folded inward.

She was simply... absorbed.

Gone.

The clearing was empty again.

“Goddamn it,” I whispered, adrenaline punching through grief, hot and sharp. “Don’t run. I’m trying to—”

“Rowan?”

The voice behind me made me jump hard enough to stagger sideways.

Uncle Bob.

He was coming up the slope, panting slightly, coat flapping in the wind. One hand gripped a low branch for balance. “I’ve been calling your name. What are you doing out here?”

I didn’t answer right away. My mouth was dry. My pulse kicked against my collarbone.

“You shouldn’t be back here alone,” he said. “It’s cold, it’s wet, and frankly, it’s a goddamn funeral. People are asking about you.”

“There was someone here,” I said, my voice too flat to be convincing. “She was standing right there. A girl. Young.”

He followed my gaze into the trees, then turned back with something between pity and concern stitched into his brow. “There’s no one here, Rowan. And even if there was today is not the day.”

I tried to ignore the insinuation I should ignore who I am.

“She looked like she drowned.”

He hesitated, then took a few steps forward, hands slightly raised. “Are you sure it wasn’t—?”

“I know what I saw,” I snapped.

I stepped away before he could try to put a hand on my shoulder again.

He exhaled through his nose, his breath fogging. “Okay,” he said carefully. “Let’s get you home. You don’t have to stay for the rest of the service. Nobody would blame you.”

I didn’t move.

Not because I wanted to stay—but because part of me expected the girl to reappear. Or worse—Ben.

Some irrational part of me believed if I kept looking into the trees long enough, if I didn’t blink, didn’t speak, didn’t breathe too loud, she might step forward again. Say something. Confirm what I already felt slithering beneath the surface of this day like a live wire under concrete.

But no one came.

Just fog. Just silence. Just the smell of pine and wet stone.

“I’ll drive,” Bob said behind me. “You can ride with me.”

His tone had changed. Softer now, coaxing—but not quite free of that quiet directive he used when I was a teenager coming undone. That tone that always masked itself as kindness but never really left room for disagreement.

I hated it. The syrupy sweetness always bothered me.

I didn’t turn to look at him when I answered. “No. That’s okay. I should stay. It’s expected.”

A pause long enough to make my ears ring.

I heard the slight hitch of breath he took. Heard the way his foot shifted in the moss, the faint creak of aging leather as he crossed his arms. Let him disapprove. Let him look at me the way everyone else was—like I’d cracked in some private, quiet way they didn’t know how to name.

Eventually, he exhaled. “I’ll wait by the car.”

I didn’t nod.

I just started walking, following him back toward the grave site.

I didn’t look back at the trees.

I already knew I hadn’t imagined her.

The crowd had thinned while I was gone. Only the most loyal lingered now— Detective Lynne Corbett, jaw clenched, coat collar turned up against the wind; Detective Niko Vega standing just behind her, eyes locked on me as I approached; a few uniformed officers, tight-faced, uncomfortable in their pressed coats.

And Ben.

He was there again.