I’m broke. Dead broke. So I was looking for the cheapest place I could possibly rent. The realtor, practically spraying spit with enthusiasm, laid out the discounts: “An apartment gets you 10% off. A walk-up, 20% off. Old building? 50% off. Scene of a grisly murder? 70% off. Victim died a particularly nasty death? 90% off.” I nodded so hard my head nearly fell off. “Got anything that’s an old walk-up apartment where the previous owner died a spectacularly gruesome death?” And that’s how I moved into my new place. My rent is three thousand dollars a month. Paid to me. By the realtor. The first night, the bathroom faucet started gushing all on its own. The dim bedroom light flickered on and off, like a dying firefly. I’d had enough. I shot up and yelled at the shadowy figure lurking in the corner. “The landlord bills us at commercial rates! That’s over a buck a kilowatt-hour for electricity!” “And water is five-fifty a ton!” “You gonna pay for that?!” 1 The gushing faucet went silent. The bedroom light stayed off. With nothing but the sheer, unadulterated force of my broke-ness, I had successfully subdued the vengeful spirit haunting my apartment. Silence returned. I curled up on the large, soft bed, feigning sleep, but a pang of guilt pricked my conscience. The ghost, after all, had been living here just fine. I was the intruder. All the spooky stuff was just his way of trying to get me to leave. I clutched my phone, its screen glowing with the three thousand dollars the realtor had just transferred me. A shaky voice message from him followed: [Miss Reed, that place is seriously haunted. If you feel anything… off… just run!] A vengeful spirit? Was he really scarier than a penniless ghoul like me? I scoffed. A place that paid me to live in it? I was staying for the long haul. Just as I was about to say something to break the heavy silence, I felt a shadowy form loom over my head. My eyes flew open. A face, slick with blood, hovered directly above mine. A gaping, bloody crater marred his forehead, as if someone had caved his skull in with a blunt object. He was barely an inch from my face. I could feel strands of his hair, damp and sticky, brushing against my cheek. Through the thick curtain of blood, the spirit’s lips stretched into a horrifying grin. A scream tore from my throat, loud enough to shatter the night… “Ahhh—!” The spirit, convinced he’d finally terrified me, looked triumphant, smug even. I lunged, grabbing a handful of his hair. “If you can touch me, that means you can touch my unfinished project proposal, right?” “Look, you’re not doing anything tonight anyway. Why don’t you finish this up for me? It’s due to my boss tomorrow.” “You’re a ghost. You don’t need light to see.” “And remember—don’t turn on any lights while you work. Save electricity!” The spirit’s grin froze on his blood-streaked face. After a long, stunned silence, a pleasant, youthful voice drifted through the dark. “You have no shame. You’d even exploit a ghost.” 2 Hey, a broke ghoul is still a ghoul. We’re all in the same boat. The only difference is that I spend my days slaving away for a paycheck, while he can only bounce around the apartment after the sun sets and the city is cloaked in darkness. I slept like a baby. The next morning, when I pried my sleepy eyes open, the spirit was gone. My project proposal was sitting on the desk, neatly stacked. The pages were filled with elegant, handwritten script. I praised the empty air. “You’re the best, buddy! From now on, all my unfinished work is yours.” The air in front of me seemed to shimmer for a second. The closet door creaked open, then slammed shut, as if someone I couldn’t see had just hidden inside. Humming a tune, I packed up the proposal. I’d just hopped on my e-bike to head to the subway when the realtor called. His voice was trembling even more than before. “Miss Reed… you’re… you’re still alive?” My face fell. “What, are you regretting that three-thousand-a-month deal already? We had an agreement. As long as I’m living here, you pay me. On time.” “It’s not about the money!” he stammered. “I couldn’t sleep all night. My conscience is killing me. Miss Reed, please, listen to me. You have to move out.” “That apartment is the scene of a murder. The last tenant died horribly. He was full of resentment, and they still haven’t caught the killer!” 3 The realtor spammed my phone with links to news articles. I vaguely remembered hearing about the sensational murder case. A young tenant, with no known enemies, was found brutally killed in his apartment. The security footage was too blurry to identify the culprit, leaving the police with no leads. After the horrific incident, the once-bustling apartment building emptied out within a week. My eyes scanned across the victim’s name. Danny Osmond. Twenty-three years old, just a year out of college. He should have been in the prime of his life, but instead, he became another statistic in a cold case file. Below the dense text was a slightly blurry photo. In it, a young man was grinning at the camera, a flash of pearly white teeth. It was a loving smile, as if he was looking at the person he adored most in the world, the one holding the camera. The man in the photo had a sharp jawline and gentle eyes. He looked exactly like the vengeful spirit I’d seen last night. I closed the news articles and sent the realtor a voice message. [Don't worry, I'll be fine. Just remember to send the three thousand on time every month.] He was a vengeful spirit. I was a penniless ghoul. We were practically family. What was there to be afraid of? He was full of resentment? You think I, a corporate drone, am a little ray of sunshine? My resentment is off the charts, thank you very much. Besides, with him around to do my work, I could cut back on my overtime. The apartment was a long way from my office. The commute home—shared bike to the subway, then subway to my e-bike—took a solid two and a half hours. In the sweltering summer heat, the slightest movement left me drenched in a sticky sweat, my clothes clinging to my skin. By the time I reached the apartment building, it was pitch black. The dark tower loomed like a giant beast in the suburbs, ready to swallow me whole. The building had been neglected since the murder; the elevator had long since stopped working. I began the slow climb up the stairs. In the empty stairwell, the only sound was the echoing clack-clack of my high heels. My apartment was on the sixth floor. After what felt like an eternity of climbing, I looked up, exhausted, at the faint green glow of the floor number. — 4 — I’d climbed so many flights, but I was still on the fourth floor. It was a ghost loop. 4 The high heels were rubbing my ankles raw. I kicked them off, grabbed one by its three-inch stiletto heel, and hurled it at the flickering light on the landing. “I’ve been slaving away at the office all day, and right now, my resentment levels are higher than a thousand-year-old demon’s!” “If you don’t let me go home, I’m going to find your ashes, mix them with gunpowder, strap them to a skyrocket, and whoosh! You’ll be scattered all over Ashton!” The words were barely out of my mouth when the distorted air around me snapped back to normal. Barefoot and carrying my heels, I climbed two more flights. Finally, I was standing in front of apartment 608. I pushed the door open. Danny, his head still a gruesome mess, shot me an eye-roll and continued to float aimlessly around the living room. Why did he get to be so idle? I couldn’t stand to see him doing nothing. I chucked a pile of documents from my bag straight at his hovering form. “Have you got no sense? I get home, and you can’t even be bothered to make dinner or clean up a little?” Danny huffed, his voice indignant. “Ghosts can’t use an open flame.” “So you can’t use the rice cooker?” “Did you buy a rice cooker and rice for me to cook?” “Can’t you go to the store and get them yourself? It’s not like you have to pay! Just grab them and run. Besides a priest, who’s gonna catch you?” Defeated, Danny grumbled a few more times before turning his back on me completely, leaving me with a view of his proud, sulking silhouette. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a handful of spaghetti, and quickly boiled some for myself. The moment the steaming pasta was ready, I started shoveling it into my mouth. At some point, Danny had drifted silently closer. This time, he wasn't trying to scare me. His eyes were fixed on the spaghetti, a look of intense craving on his face. Feeling generous, I pushed the bowl towards him. “Want some?” 5 Danny’s head drooped. “I can’t eat. I’m a ghost.” “I don’t feel hungry,” he mumbled, “but watching you eat… it looks so good. It makes me hungry… I haven’t tasted food in so, so long.” Danny was trapped in this small apartment. He couldn’t go out. He couldn’t see the sun. Even the simple, lifelong habit of eating three meals a day was gone. He couldn’t taste anything—not sweet, not sour, not salty, not bitter. He couldn’t even smell. I sighed. We were both ghouls, but right now, the vengeful spirit seemed a lot more pitiful than the penniless one. My tone softened. “Do you remember what your favorite food was when you were… alive? I’ll buy it for you after work tomorrow. You might not be able to eat it, but you can look at it. Touch it.” He happily touched the mangled part of his skull, trying to remember. “I don’t recall much from before… but I think… I think I liked durian.” Of course. The most expensive thing on the menu. I glanced at my bank balance. Three thousand and fifty dollars. If it weren’t for the realtor’s payment, I wouldn’t even be able to afford spaghetti. My anger flared. “You had to pick the priciest thing, didn’t you?” “Fine. You finish the rest of my work tonight, and I’ll reward you with a durian to touch tomorrow.” 6 In the most bizarre way imaginable, Danny and I began to live together. The apartment was a one-bedroom. I slept in the bedroom, he floated in the living room. After my shower one evening, I walked through the living room in my thin pajamas. He covered his eyes. “Could you please wear something… more?” It was scorching hot, and since the building used commercial electricity, I couldn't afford to run the AC constantly. I moved closer to him. His ghostly presence was like a personal cooling unit. The air around him was heavy and cold. We were too close. The only sound was my own breathing. Even though Danny was a ghost, his face pale and bloodless, I could have sworn he was blushing. His hands and feet seemed to fidget, not knowing where to put themselves. “Wh-what are you doing so close to me…?” he stammered. “Aren’t you afraid of me? I died a horrible death. Everyone who’s seen me has screamed in terror.” A flicker of confusion crossed his face. “But you… you don’t seem scared. In fact, from the moment we met, I haven’t seen a trace of fear in your eyes.” I stared at his high-bridged nose and the sharp line of his jaw. If his forehead weren’t smashed in, Danny would have been incredibly handsome. I forced a smile, leaning in even closer, treating him like a human refrigerator. “What’s there to be afraid of? A handsome guy like you is worth three thousand dollars a month! Thanks to you, as long as I live here, the realtor pays me to stay.” “You know, I slave away at my nine-to-five, work all the overtime, and my boss only pays me five thousand a month.” Danny shot me a disdainful look. “I don’t get it. You work so hard, and you make decent money. Why are you so broke you have to live in a murder house for an extra three grand?” “Do you want to touch that durian or not?” “Yes…” “Then shut up and get back to work!” Reluctantly, Danny picked up my work files and started frowning at them in the dark. Being a ghost had its perks. Saved a ton on electricity. 7 To coax Danny into doing my overtime, I begrudgingly spent a hundred and twenty dollars on a durian. On a sweltering evening, I parked my e-bike under the apartment building and stepped into the fire escape stairwell. Just as the heavy fire door was swinging shut, a greasy, overweight figure squeezed in behind me. This building had been empty for a long time. It was supposed to be a dark, silent monolith. But the light I left on every night was like a tiny pearl, a beacon announcing that someone had moved in. I’d only been here three days, and I already had a stalker. His heavy, labored breathing followed me up the stairs. His sticky, greedy eyes felt like a razor scraping across my skin, examining every inch of me. He knew the building was empty, so he kept his distance, always half a flight of stairs behind me, unhurried. Every so often, he’d look up at me, a predator sizing up its cornered prey. My palms were slick with nervous sweat. I quickened my pace. Suddenly, the thought of Danny and his mangled head seemed almost comforting compared to the man following me. I scrambled up to the sixth floor, my hand trembling as I fumbled for my keys. The stalker finally made his move. He closed the distance in a few quick strides and wrapped a thick arm around my waist. “Hey there, beautiful. I’ve been watching you for a few days.” “You’ve got guts, you know that? This whole building is empty, and you dare to live here all alone.” “It’s just the two of us here tonight. I’m gonna keep you real good company.” I swallowed hard, acutely aware of the power difference. I had to stay calm. I tried to find an excuse to make him back off. “Who said I live alone? I live here with my boyfriend.” The greasy man roared with laughter. “You must not know. There was a murder here three months ago. Everyone moved out that same month. I’ve been watching. You’re the only one here.” “Boyfriend? If you really have one, tell him to come out. I’d love to meet him.” My key hadn’t even touched the lock.
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