A new Ghost of Hong Kong story by Steve Miller

 

Ghost of Hong Kong: One of Many

The Peninsula Hong Kong's presidential suite commanded a view that had seduced emperors and moguls alike—Victoria Harbour spread below like a carpet of liquid obsidian, studded with the reflected lights of skyscrapers that pierced the night sky. Inside, the suite's floor-to-ceiling windows framed this spectacle with the precision of a master painter, while recessed lighting cast amber shadows across furniture that cost more than most people earned in a year.

Michael Mak stood at the window, a crystal tumbler of Hendrick's Orbium balanced in his manicured fingers. The gin caught the light, refracting it into pale blue fragments that danced across his Patek Philippe watch. He was forty-three, handsome in the way that wealth and careful maintenance could manufacture, his tailored Tom Ford suit fitting him like a second skin. His reflection in the window showed a man completely at ease, a predator in his natural habitat.

Behind him, the woman he'd brought back from the hotel bar moved with deliberate grace. She'd introduced herself as Lily—a name as disposable as tissue paper, they both knew. Her Mandarin carried the soft edges of someone educated in international schools, her English flawless and unaccented. She was perhaps thirty, with the kind of beauty that turned heads on the street but didn't photograph well enough for magazine covers. Real beauty, Michael thought, not the manufactured perfection of models and actresses.

"You have excellent taste," she said, her voice carrying just enough warmth to seem genuine. Her fingers worked the zipper of her black Versace dress, the sound like a whisper in the suite's hushed atmosphere.

"In gin or in women?" Michael asked, not turning from the window. He could see her reflection, a ghost image superimposed over Hong Kong's glittering sprawl.

"Both, perhaps."

The dress fell at her feet, revealing a body that spoke of discipline and purpose. Black lace underwear, the expensive kind from La Perla, contrasted against skin that held the faintest golden undertone. Black stockings with seams that ran straight as plumb lines up the backs of her legs. She stepped out of her heels with practiced ease, reducing her height by three inches but losing none of her presence.

Michael turned then, his eyes traveling over her with the assessment of a connoisseur. His gaze caught on the scars—a thin white line along her left ribcage, another across her right shoulder blade, a third that disappeared beneath the lace at her hip. They were old, healed with the kind of care that suggested professional medical attention, but unmistakable in their origin. Violence had marked this woman, and she'd survived it.

The scars made her more interesting. Perfect skin was boring, the canvas of someone who'd never truly lived. These marks told stories, hinted at depths that the carefully constructed persona of "Lily" tried to conceal. Michael felt his pulse quicken, not with desire but with something darker, more primal.

"The bedroom," he said, gesturing toward the suite's master chamber with his tumbler. "Why don't you finish undressing there? Then you can help me with these." He tugged at his tie, loosening the Windsor knot.

She smiled, the expression not quite reaching her eyes. "As you wish."

The bedroom was a study in understated luxury—a king-sized bed with Egyptian cotton sheets, more windows overlooking the harbour, and furniture in dark woods that absorbed light rather than reflected it. Lily walked to the bed, her movements unhurried, while Michael set his gin on a side table and moved to the antique dresser that stood against the far wall.

"You know," he said conversationally, pulling open the second drawer, "I've always appreciated a woman who knows what she wants. No games, no pretense. Just honest transaction." His fingers closed around the handle of the knife—a Benchmade Adamas with a seven-inch blade, the kind of weapon that spoke of serious intent rather than casual violence.

He turned, the knife held low and ready, expecting to see surprise or fear in her eyes. Instead, he found her watching him with an expression of almost clinical interest, her body already shifting into a defensive stance that spoke of training far beyond any self-defense class.

Michael lunged, the blade arcing toward her midsection in a strike designed to open her from hip to sternum. She moved like water, her body flowing around the attack with minimal wasted motion. Her left hand caught his wrist, redirecting the blade's momentum while her right drove into his solar plexus with enough force to drive the air from his lungs.

He stumbled back, reassessing. The fear he'd expected to see was absent, replaced by something far more dangerous—professional competence.

"I love it when they fight back," Michael said, his voice carrying genuine pleasure despite the pain radiating from his chest. "Makes it so much more satisfying."

She didn't respond, didn't waste breath on words. Her silence was more unnerving than any threat could have been.

Michael came at her again, this time with more caution, the knife weaving patterns in the air between them. He'd trained in Kali, had spent years learning to make a blade an extension of his will. The knife became a silver blur, forcing her to give ground, to retreat toward the windows.

She blocked with her forearms, accepting minor cuts to protect vital areas. Blood welled from a slice across her left forearm, another along her right bicep. The pain didn't register on her face, didn't slow her movements. She was counting his patterns, Michael realized, learning his rhythm.

When he committed to a thrust aimed at her throat, she was ready. Her right hand caught his wrist again, but this time she twisted, using his momentum against him. Her left elbow drove into his face, crushing his nose with a wet crunch that sent blood streaming down his chin. Before he could recover, her knee found his groin with surgical precision.

Michael folded, agony exploding through his body, but he kept hold of the knife. He slashed wildly, forcing her back, buying himself seconds to recover. His vision swam, tears mixing with blood, but he could still see her circling, patient as a shark.

"Who are you?" he gasped, the question emerging through broken teeth and blood.

"You should have stuck to murdering street-level sex workers," she said, her voice carrying no emotion, just statement of fact. "At least then I wouldn't be here to kill you."

Michael laughed, the sound bubbling through the blood in his throat. "You're here because of them? For those worthless—" He lunged again, rage overriding caution.

She caught his knife hand in both of hers, her fingers finding pressure points that made his grip spasm. The blade clattered to the floor, and before he could react, she'd swept his legs out from under him. He hit the hardwood with bone-jarring force, the air driven from his lungs for the second time.

She was on him instantly, her knee on his chest, her hands around his throat. Not squeezing, not yet, just holding him in place while she retrieved the knife with one hand. The blade pressed against his carotid artery, the pressure just shy of breaking skin.

"How many?" she demanded, her face inches from his. "How many of the high-end escorts have you killed?"

Michael tried to laugh, but it came out as a wet gurgle. Blood bubbled at his lips, his broken nose making breathing a struggle. "You think I'm some pathetic predator? Some common serial killer?" He coughed, spraying blood. "I've only killed three of your precious high-end whores. Three! Hardly worth the effort, really."

The knife pressed harder. "Three? The pimps counted at least a dozen missing."

"Oh, there are more than a dozen." Michael's eyes gleamed with something like pride despite the pain. "But those weren't all me. I have standards. I only take the expensive ones, the ones who think they're better than what they are." He wheezed, his breathing labored. "The cheap ones, the street trash, the ones nobody reports missing—other members handle those. They enjoy the easy prey."

Her hand stilled. Her mind raced, recalculating. "Other members?"

"The Society," Michael whispered, watching realization dawn on her face with satisfaction. "You thought you were hunting one man killing expensive call girls? We've been operating for years. Dozens of us, maybe more. Some prefer the high-end escorts like I do. Others..." He coughed again, blood flecking his lips. "Others work the streets, the massage parlors, the cheap brothels. The ones where no one cares enough to hire someone like you."

"How many?" she demanded, the knife pressing harder.

"Dozens. Maybe hundreds." Michael whispered, his eyes beginning to glaze. "We've been operating for centuries. You've killed one man, but the Society..." He coughed, blood spraying across her face. "The Society is eternal."

For a moment, she couldn't breathe. The air in the suite had gone thin, or maybe it was her chest constricting, her ribs suddenly too tight around her lungs. The scope of it hit her like a physical blow—not a killer, but a symptom. Not an ending, but a beginning. Her hand trembled against the knife handle, not from fear but from something hotter, something that burned through her veins and made her want to scream.

How many women? How many bodies that would never be found, never be mourned, never be avenged because no one thought they mattered enough? The weight of it pressed down on her shoulders, made her jaw clench so hard her teeth ached. She'd spent weeks tracking this bastard, had risked everything to get into this room, and he was just one. One man in a network of predators who'd turned murder into a fucking membership club.

Her vision sharpened, the edges of everything going crystalline and bright. The rage that flooded through her wasn't the hot, explosive kind—it was cold, methodical, the kind that didn't burn out but settled into bone and sinew and became part of you. One man's death meant nothing if the organism lived on. But now she knew what she was hunting. Now she had a purpose that extended beyond this room, beyond this night, beyond every contract she'd ever taken.

She drove the knife home, the blade sliding between his ribs with the precision of someone who knew exactly where to strike. Michael's eyes went wide, his mouth opening in a silent scream as his lung collapsed. He tried to speak, to laugh one more time, but only blood emerged, thick and dark, choking him from the inside.

The woman who called herself Lily—though that wasn't her name any more than Michael Mak was his real name—watched him die with the same clinical detachment she'd shown throughout the fight. She'd seen men die before, had killed more than she cared to count, and each death was the same. The light fading from their eyes, the final spasms as the body fought against the inevitable, the moment when they became just meat and bone.

When Michael's chest stopped moving, she stood, her body protesting the abuse it had taken. The cuts on her arms burned, shallow but numerous. She'd have scars to add to her collection, more stories written on her skin. The Ghost stories.

 

She moved through the suite with practiced efficiency, wiping down surfaces she'd touched, collecting the few items she'd brought with her. The dress went into her bag, replaced by dark jeans and a black hoodie. The expensive lingerie stayed on—it would be disposed of later, burned along with any other evidence that might connect her to this room.

The knife she left in Michael's chest. Let the police wonder about that, about why a wealthy businessman had been killed with his own weapon in a luxury hotel suite. They'd investigate, of course, but they'd find nothing. The Ghost of Hong Kong didn't leave traces.

She paused at the window, looking out over the city that had become her hunting ground. Somewhere down there, women were dying. Street-level sex workers, the kind society pretended not to see. And there was a Society dedicated to killing them.

A Society. Not one man, but an organization with structure, hierarchy, resources. The patterns had told her as much—too many victims, too many methods. But hearing Michael confirm it changed everything.

She thought about the bodies in dumpsters and back alleys, the ones who'd simply vanished. Migrants, working illegally, with no family to report them missing. They were ghosts before they died, invisible to everyone except the men who killed them.

Would anyone pay her to hunt the Society? Street prostitutes didn't have money for assassins. The people who might care couldn't afford her rates. She could work pro bono—she'd done it before, taken jobs that satisfied something deeper than greed. But every hour spent hunting the Society was an hour not spent on paying work.

She checked her watch. Three hours until dawn. Time to reach out to information brokers, to apply the methods that had worked against other organized groups. Time to hunt.

The Ghost of Hong Kong slipped out of the suite, moving through service corridors, avoiding cameras, fading into the night like smoke.

Somewhere in this city, the Society was operating, confident in their invisibility, secure that no one cared about their victims. They didn't know yet that someone was coming for them.

--

If you enjoyed this story, check out fifteen more in The Ghost of Hong Kong anthology!

A New Feat for d20 System Games: Last Words!

In NUELOW's classic ROLF!: The Rollplaying of Big Dumb Fighters, there's a skill called Strategic Bleeding. Basically, characters with that ability get one final "screw you" toward whoever or whatever is killing them by bleeding all over them, ruining their clothes and just making a mess in general.

With the Last Words feat, we bring the same sort of vibe to d20 System games!

LAST WORDS [General]
You can curse your killer with your dying breath.
   Prerequisites: Cha 13
   Benefit: When the character is killed by a creature, his or her last action can be to place a minor death curse on the killer. The curse has a duration of 1d4 weeks and imposes a -2 penalty to all ability scores. The breaking condition is determined by the GM but should be related to making amends for the character's death.
   Special: This feat activates automatically when the character dies, and instantly grants a free standard action. This action can only be used for dramatically (or even melodramatically) proclaiming the curse on your killer. This free action cannot be used in any other way.

(This feat is presented under the Open Game License and it may be reproduced in accordance with those terms. Copyright 2026 Steve Miller.)

A new Ghost of Hong Kong story by Steve Miller

 The Ghost of Hong Kong has a view to a kill...

Cycles

The rooftop offered Mae Ling everything she needed: clear sightlines, multiple escape routes, and the kind of anonymity that came from being just another shadow among Hong Kong's endless vertical sprawl. She'd been in position for three hours, the Barrett M82 resting on its bipod like a patient predator, its scope trained on the penthouse windows of the Celestial Towers luxury complex four hundred meters away. The suppressor was already threaded onto the barrel—not enough to make the .50 caliber truly silent, but enough to blunt the report and let the city's noise do the rest of the work.

Her target was Chen Wei-han, a mid-level drug distributor who'd made the catastrophic decision to cut his heroin with other chemicals—not just the usual adulterants like fentanyl or xylazine, but actual poisons. Rat poison. Drain cleaner. Whatever increased his profit margins. The bodies had started piling up in emergency rooms across Kowloon and even the regions beyond: teenagers convulsing on gurneys, their organs shutting down from toxic shock. Mothers who'd relapsed finding their last high was literally their last. The kind of senseless death that made even other criminals uncomfortable.

The contract had come through her usual channels, payment already secured in cryptocurrency, the client anonymous but their motivation clear. Someone in Chen's organization had decided his recklessness was bad for business. Mae Ling didn't particularly care about the politics or the money. She cared about the teenagers who died when they were looking to party.

Some targets deserved what was coming.

The evening air carried the scent of street food and exhaust fumes, the city's perpetual symphony of car horns and construction noise providing white noise that would mask the rifle's report. Mae Ling adjusted her position slightly, her body perfectly still except for the micro-movements necessary to maintain the scope's alignment. Professional patience was a skill like any other, honed through years of practice and discipline.

Chen's penthouse occupied the top floor, all floor-to-ceiling windows and ostentatious wealth. But the scope's magnification brought more than just her target into focus. The building's design—staggered balconies and offset windows—meant she could see into multiple apartments simultaneously. Urban architecture as unintentional panopticon.

Two floors below Chen's penthouse, movement caught her attention.

A woman in her mid-thirties, her face twisted with rage, stood in a modest living room. A boy, perhaps ten years old, cowered before her, his school uniform rumpled, his backpack still hanging from one shoulder. Mae Ling watched as the woman's hand connected with the side of the boy's head—not a slap, but a closed-fist strike that sent him stumbling sideways into the wall.

Not your concern, Mae Ling reminded herself, shifting the scope back to Chen's empty penthouse. Stay focused.

But the scope drifted back down two floors, drawn by the morbid fascination of private cruelty magnified through glass.

The boy had recovered, standing now with his head down, shoulders hunched in the universal posture of a child trying to make himself smaller. The mother's mouth moved in what was clearly a tirade, her finger jabbing toward his face. Then she struck him again, this time an open-handed slap that snapped his head to the side.

Mae Ling's jaw tightened. She'd seen violence in every form imaginable—had delivered most of those forms herself—but there was something particularly corrosive about watching an adult brutalize a child. The power imbalance. The betrayal of trust. The way it poisoned everything it touched.

The boy retreated to what appeared to be a bedroom, and Mae Ling forced her attention back to Chen's penthouse. Still empty. She checked her watch: 6:47 PM. Chen's pattern was consistent—home by seven, usually with takeout from one of the high-end restaurants in Central. She had time.

The scope found the family's apartment again.

The boy had emerged from the bedroom, his face still red from crying or rage or both. A little girl, maybe six years old, sat on the floor playing with dolls, her dark hair in pigtails. Mae Ling watched as the boy walked past her, then suddenly lashed out with his foot, kicking the girl hard enough to knock her over.

The little girl's mouth opened in a wail Mae Ling couldn't hear but could imagine perfectly. The boy stood over her, his face a mirror of his mother's earlier rage—learned behavior, violence as inheritance. The mother appeared from the kitchen, and for a moment Mae Ling thought she might comfort the crying child.

Instead, the woman grabbed the little girl by the arm and shook her, her mouth forming words that were clearly a command to stop crying. When the girl's sobs continued, the mother struck her across the face.

Then she turned on the boy again, delivering another blow that sent him reeling.

Mae Ling's finger rested against the trigger guard, not on the trigger itself—professional discipline even in the face of visceral disgust. She'd killed men for less than what she was witnessing, but those had been contracts, sanctioned eliminations with clear parameters and compensation. This was just the casual cruelty of domestic life, the kind of everyday horror that happened in ten thousand apartments across the city every night.

This is the contract. Stay bound to the contract. But even as she thought it, she knew it was a lie.

Movement in Chen's penthouse pulled her attention back. Still empty, but lights had come on in main room. His housekeeper, preparing for his arrival. Mae Ling settled deeper into her shooting position, controlling her breathing, letting her heart rate slow to the steady rhythm that preceded a shot.

But the scope drifted down again.

A man had entered the apartment below—the father, Mae Ling assumed, based on the way the children immediately ran to him. He was tall, thin, wearing a cheap suit that suggested office work, probably accounting or middle management. The kind of man who disappeared into crowds, unremarkable except for the gentle way he knelt to embrace both children simultaneously.

Mae Ling watched as he examined the boy's face, his expression shifting from concern to anger as he registered the marks. He stood, turning toward the mother, his body language shifting from gentle to confrontational. The mother's posture changed too, becoming defensive, aggressive.

The father gestured toward the children, then toward the mother, his mouth moving in what was clearly an argument. The mother's response was to grab a frying pan from the stove, brandishing it like a weapon. The father raised his hands, placating, backing away.

The children huddled together in the doorway to their bedroom, the boy's earlier violence forgotten as he wrapped his arms around his sister. They watched their parents with the kind of practiced wariness that spoke to this being a familiar scene, a recurring nightmare they'd learned to navigate.

Mae Ling shifted her view to the penthouse windows. The housekeeper had moved out of view, but she had left the lights on.

The scope swung back to the family drama below.

The mother was screaming now, her face contorted with rage, the frying pan still raised. The father had his back to the wall, literally cornered, his hands still raised in a gesture of surrender. The children clung to each other, the little girl's face buried in her brother's shoulder.

Mae Ling calculated angles, wind speed, bullet drop. The distance was the same whether she was shooting Chen or the woman two floors below. The Barrett's .50 caliber round would punch through the window glass like it wasn't there, would end the threat with absolute finality.

This isn't the job, the professional part of her mind insisted. You're here for Chen. Everything else is noise.

But she'd seen what happened to children raised in violence. The boy's casual cruelty toward his sister—learned behavior, abuse perpetuating itself across generations. The way both children flinched at sudden movements, their bodies trained to expect pain. She was watching the cycle repeat in real time.
Chen appeared in the doorway to his penthouse, carrying bags from what looked like Din Tai Fung, his bodyguard trailing behind. Chen put down his takeout bags and shrugged off his jacket. He moved to the bar and poured himself a drink, the amber liquid catching the light as he raised the glass to his lips.

Mae Ling's scope found him instantly. She let the family scene fall away—the screaming, the children, the frying pan raised like a weapon. That wasn't her contract. That wasn't her responsibility. She'd already made her choice about that, and now she needed to be what she'd always been: a professional.

Her breathing slowed to the rhythm she'd practiced ten thousand times. Her finger moved from the trigger guard to the trigger itself, taking up the slack. Chen raised his glass in a solitary toast to his own reflection in the window.

Mae Ling's breathing slowed to the rhythm she'd practiced ten thousand times. Her finger moved from the trigger guard to the trigger itself, taking up the slack. Chen raised his glass in a solitary toast to his own reflection in the window.

The shot broke clean, the rifle's report a sharp crack that echoed across the rooftops. Through the scope, Mae Ling watched Chen's chest explode in a spray of red, his body thrown backward by the round's massive kinetic energy. He was dead before he hit the floor, his drink still clutched in his hand, expensive whiskey mixing with blood on the marble tiles.

Professional. Efficient. Justice delivered to a man who'd poisoned children for profit.

Mae Ling worked the bolt, chambering another round with practiced speed. The scope swung down two floors, finding the family's apartment again. The father was still backed against the wall, the mother still advancing with the frying pan raised. The children still huddled together, watching their world tear itself apart.

The crosshairs settled on the mother's center mass. Mae Ling's breathing remained steady, her heart rate unchanged. This wasn't the contract. This was something else entirely.

Her finger rested on the trigger, taking up the slack. The woman was still moving toward the father, the pan raised. One squeeze. Two pounds of pressure. That's all it would take.

Mae Ling's breath caught—just for a second. The professional rhythm faltered.

She'd killed so many people in her career that she was losing count. Every one of them had been a choice made long before she'd been pointed at them. Research. Verification. Moral certainty built in layers until the trigger pull was just the final punctuation on a sentence already written. But this—this was different. This was a decision made in real time, with incomplete information, based on thirty seconds of observation through a scope.

What if she was wrong? What if the mother had reasons Mae Ling couldn't see from up here? What if this family's violence was more complicated than abuser and victim, more tangled than the clean narrative she was writing for them?

The crosshairs drifted slightly. Mae Ling steadied them, but her finger didn't move. The woman was still advancing. The children were still watching. The father's hands were still raised in surrender.

You don't know enough, a voice whispered. You're not judge and executioner. You're a professional.

But she'd already seen enough, hadn't she? The boy's instinctive violence. The girl's practiced silence. The father's defensive posture. The mother's rage. She knew what this apartment held, what it had held for years. She knew what those children would become if nothing changed.

Mae Ling's breathing slowed again, falling back into the rhythm. Her finger tightened on the trigger. This was a choice made in the space between professional obligation and personal conviction—and she was choosing to cross that line. Not because it was sanctioned. Not because it was clean. But because some cycles needed breaking, even if her hands weren't supposed to be the ones to break them.

The second shot followed the first by less than ten seconds. Mae Ling didn't lower the rifle immediately. She kept her eye pressed to the scope, watching the mother fall, watching the father's world collapse into that single moment of violence. There was no taking it back now. No way to frame it as collateral damage or a miscalculation. She'd made a choice, and the woman downstairs was dead because of it. Mae Ling exhaled slowly, steadying herself against the weight of that certainty.

The mother's body jerked backward, the frying pan clattering to the floor as she collapsed. Through the scope, Mae Ling watched the father's face cycle through confusion, shock, and horror in rapid succession. He stood frozen for a moment, staring at his wife's body, then dropped to his knees beside her, his hands hovering over the wound as if unsure whether to touch it.

The children remained in the doorway, their expressions unreadable at this distance. The boy's arms were still wrapped around his sister, protective despite his earlier violence. The little girl's face was visible now, her eyes wide but no longer crying.

Mae Ling broke down the rifle with efficient movements, her hands steady despite the weight of what she'd just done. The Barrett went into its case, the case into the duffel bag she'd carried up six flights of stairs. She stripped off her shooting gloves, replaced them with regular ones, checked the rooftop for any evidence of her presence.

The sirens would start soon—two shootings in the same building, even blocks apart, would bring every cop in the district. But Mae Ling had planned her escape route with the same precision she'd planned the shot. Three buildings over, a fire escape that led to a back alley. A motorcycle waiting two blocks away. An apartment in Mong Kok where she could disappear for a few days while the investigation ran its course.

As she moved toward the roof access door, Mae Ling allowed herself one final thought about the family two floors below Chen's penthouse. The police would find no connection between a drug dealer's assassination and a domestic shooting. They'd look for jealous lovers, business rivals, anyone with a motive—and find nothing.

The children would grieve. Children always grieved their mothers, even the cruel ones. But she'd seen the father's gentle touch, his protective instinct, the love buried under layers of learned helplessness. They'll be better off, she told herself. The cycle will break.

It was a rationalization—a way to justify an unsanctioned kill. But the world wasn't divided neatly into contracts and civilians, targets and innocents. Sometimes justice required improvisation. Sometimes mercy wore the face of violence.

Chen Wei-han had poisoned children for profit. The mother had poisoned her own children with rage. Both had received the same medicine, delivered with the same precision.

The motorcycle carried her deeper into the city's maze of streets and alleys, away from the crime scene, away from the questions that would never be answered. Her phone would buzz soon with confirmation of payment for Chen's elimination. The client would be satisfied. The contract would be closed.

The second kill would remain an unexplained act of violence that would exist only among the unsolved cases in police files, her memory, and in the lives of two children who might now have a chance to grow up without learning that love and pain were synonymous.

She navigated through traffic with practiced precision, her hands steady on the handlebars, her breathing controlled. Everything in its place. Everything compartmentalized. The contract kill in one box, the spontaneous kill in another, both sealed and stored where they couldn't bleed into each other.

But somewhere beneath the professional calm, a question flickered: What are you becoming?

Mae Ling accelerated into the night. By the time the police finished processing the scene at the Celestial Towers, she was already planning her next contract, her next target, her next delivery of justice to those who'd earned it. The machinery of her life continued its rotation, smooth and efficient and utterly relentless.

A New Ghost of Hong Kong Story -- By Steve Miller

 For those readers out there who want to know what happens next in "The Target", that story has bloomed into a novelette which will be included in the next Ghost of Hong Kong anthology (which is a few months away at this point).

Meanwhile, here's another tale of Mae Ling's adventures with bad guys and bullets...

The Ghost at the Opera

The Hong Kong Cultural Centre gleamed like a jewel against the dark waters of Kowloon's shoreline and historic pier, its angular white facade catching the city lights in geometric patterns that shifted with each passing moment. Mae Ling adjusted the diamond bracelet on her wrist—borrowed from Jackson Wang's personal collection—and allowed herself a small smile as cameras flashed around them. The photographers were eating it up: Hong Kong's most eligible bachelor, the real estate titan who'd reshaped half of Kowloon's skyline, arriving at the opera with a woman young enough to be his daughter.

Jackson Wang preened under the attention, his hand possessive on the small of her back as they ascended the red carpet. At fifty-eight, he maintained the physique of a man twenty years younger through expensive personal trainers and even more expensive supplements. His tailored Tom Ford tuxedo probably cost more than most people's monthly rent, and he wore it with the casual confidence of someone who'd never questioned his right to occupy space.

"You're absolutely stunning tonight," he murmured in Cantonese, loud enough for nearby guests to overhear. "Every man here envies me."

Mae Ling tilted her head and offered him a practiced smile, the kind that suggested mystery without promising anything. She'd spent three weeks cultivating this persona—the sophisticated companion who appeared at charity galas and private dinners, beautiful enough to turn heads but discreet enough not to embarrass. Wang had been delighted when his usual escort service had recommended her, never questioning why someone of her apparent caliber would be available on such short notice.

The lobby buzzed with Hong Kong's elite, their conversations a polyglot mixture of Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. Women in couture gowns air-kissed while their husbands discussed property values and stock portfolios. Mae Ling catalogued faces automatically, noting the shipping magnate who'd recently survived a hostile takeover attempt, the tech entrepreneur whose company had just gone public, the politician whose anti-corruption platform had made him remarkably wealthy.

Wang worked the crowd like a politician himself, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries while keeping Mae Ling prominently displayed on his arm. She played her part perfectly—demure but engaged, laughing at appropriate moments, touching his arm with just enough familiarity to suggest intimacy without vulgarity. Several men gave her appreciative glances that their wives pretended not to notice. Several women gave her looks that suggested they knew exactly what she was and disapproved accordingly.

"Mr. Wang," a silver-haired woman in Chanel approached, her smile sharp as broken glass. "How lovely to see you. And who is your charming companion?"

"Mrs. Chen, always a pleasure." Wang's grip on Mae Ling's waist tightened fractionally. "This is Lily. She's been keeping me company this evening."

Mae Ling offered a slight bow, noting how Mrs. Chen's eyes assessed her jewelry, her dress, her shoes—calculating the cost of Wang's generosity. The older woman's smile never wavered, but her eyes held the cold judgment of someone who'd spent decades navigating Hong Kong's social hierarchies.

The first bell chimed, signaling fifteen minutes until curtain. Wang guided Mae Ling toward the grand staircase, his hand never leaving her back. They climbed to the third level where the private boxes offered both prestige and privacy. The corridor was quieter here, carpeted in deep burgundy that muffled their footsteps. Gilt-framed mirrors reflected their passage, and Mae Ling caught her own image—the emerald silk gown that hugged her figure, the artfully styled hair, the diamond earrings that caught the light with every movement.

She looked like exactly what she was supposed to be: expensive decoration for a wealthy man's ego.

Wang's private box was positioned perfectly for both viewing and being viewed. Through the curved glass window, Mae Ling could see the orchestra tuning below, the audience settling into their seats like birds finding perches. The box itself was appointed in the same burgundy and gold as the corridor, with four plush seats arranged in two rows and a small table for champagne service.

"Wait here a moment," Wang said, his hand trailing down her arm. "I need to greet someone in the adjacent box. Business, you understand. I'll only be a few minutes."

Mae Ling nodded, watching as he slipped through a connecting door she hadn't noticed before. The moment he disappeared, her entire demeanor shifted. The practiced smile vanished. Her posture changed from decorative to predatory. She moved to the box's entrance and locked it from the inside with a soft click, then crossed to the window and adjusted the curtain to obscure the interior from outside observation.

The maintenance access was exactly where her reconnaissance had indicated it would be—a narrow panel in the wall that led to the crawlspace between floors. The Cultural Centre's original blueprints, obtained through a contact in the city planning office, had shown these spaces as necessary for ventilation and electrical systems. They also provided perfect sight lines to several private boxes, including Wang's.

Mae Ling slipped off her heels and moved in stockinged feet, silent as smoke. The Walther PPK strapped to her inner thigh came free with practiced ease, its weight familiar and comforting in her hand. She'd chosen it specifically for this assignment—compact enough to conceal beneath an evening gown, reliable enough to trust her life to, and equipped with a suppressor that would reduce the report to something that might be mistaken for a champagne cork in the opera house's ambient noise.

The maintenance panel opened soundlessly. She'd oiled the hinges herself two days ago, posing as a cleaning contractor during the venue's routine maintenance window. The crawlspace beyond was dark and cramped, barely three feet high, with exposed pipes and electrical conduits running along the ceiling.

She moved through the darkness with the confidence of someone who'd memorized every inch of the space. Thirty feet forward, then left at the junction where the ventilation shaft branched. The air was stale and warm, carrying the faint smell of old insulation and electrical components. Her dress whispered against the rough concrete, but the sound was swallowed by the building's ambient noise—the orchestra's tuning, the audience's murmur, the HVAC system's constant hum.

The sniper's position was exactly where she'd calculated it would be. A crack between the wall and ceiling, widened slightly with careful work, provided a perfect sight line to Wang's box. The angle was steep but manageable for any skilled marksman andt he distance was child's play for a professional with a scoped rifle.

And there he was.

He lay prone on a sheet of plastic, his body positioned for maximum stability. The rifle was a Remington 700, chambered in .308 Winchester—a classic choice for urban assassination work. Reliable, accurate, and common enough that the weapon itself wouldn't provide useful forensic leads. He wore black tactical clothing and a balaclava, though Mae Ling could see enough of his profile to recognize him.

James Chow. Former PLA sniper, dishonorably discharged after a gambling scandal, now freelancing for whoever paid his rates. She'd worked with him once, three years ago in Manila. He'd been part of the support team on a complex extraction, providing overwatch while she'd infiltrated a drug lord's compound. Competent but not exceptional. Professional but not particularly imaginative.

He was so focused on his scope that he didn't notice her approach until the Walther's suppressor pressed against his spine, just below his left shoulder blade. A kill shot if she chose to take it—straight through to the heart.

Chow froze, his finger carefully away from the trigger. Smart. He knew that any sudden movement would end with a bullet through his vital organs.

"Don't move," Mae Ling said softly in Mandarin. "Don't speak. Don't even breathe too hard."

She could see his mind working, trying to place the voice. His head started to turn, slowly, and she allowed it. Recognition flashed in his eyes when he saw her face, followed immediately by confusion.

"The floosy," he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. "Wang's arm candy. I was wondering where you'd disappeared to."

"Keep your hands where I can see them," Mae Ling instructed. "Slowly move your right hand away from the rifle. Good. Now the left. Excellent."

James Chow complied, his movements careful and deliberate. He was smart enough to know that resistance at this range would be suicide. But she could see the wheels turning behind his eyes, calculating odds and possibilities.

"I know you," he said, his voice taking on a note of recognition. "Manila. Three years ago. You were running point on the Reyes extraction."

"Good memory."

Chow's laugh was bitter. "So the mighty has fallen. The great Ghost, reduced to serving as eye-candy bodyguard for real estate moguls. How the world changes."

Mae Ling's expression didn't shift, but she pressed the suppressor a fraction harder against his spine. "I'm still on the job, James Chow. The difference is that my target was never Jackson Wang."

She watched the realization dawn in his eyes, saw the moment he understood. His body tensed, preparing for what he knew was coming.

"My target," Mae Ling continued, her voice soft and precise, "is the person I'm speaking to right now."

"Wait—"

"No." She reached into the small clutch purse she'd managed to carry through the crawlspace and extracted a folded piece of paper with her free hand. With her free hand, she tucked it into the breast pocket of his tactical vest. "You're going to deliver a message to your employers. Tell them that Jackson Wang is protected. Tell them that any further attempts on his life will be met with extreme responses. with the same response. Tell them that the Ghost of Hong Kong is back in business, and her rates for protection are considerably higher than her rates for elimination."

James Chow's breathing had become shallow, rapid. "You're making a mistake. Wang is dirty. He's laundering money for the Triads, using his real estate empire to clean hundreds of millions. My employers won't accept this. They'll send someone else. Someone better."

"Then they'll die too," Mae Ling said simply. "And they'll keep dying until they understand that Wang is no longer available."

"You can't protect him forever."

"I don't need forever. I just need long enough."

Chow's voice took on a desperate edge. "Listen to me. The people I work for, they're not going to accept this. They'll send someone else. Someone better. You can't protect Wang forever."

"I don't need forever. I just need long enough."

"Long enough for what?"

Mae Ling didn't answer. Instead, she shifted her aim slightly, moving the suppressor from his spine to his right shoulder. "This is going to hurt. Try not to scream too loudly. We wouldn't want to disturb the opera."

"Wait, we can—"

The Walther coughed twice, the suppressed shots sounding like sharp exhalations in the confined space. The first bullet punched through James Chow's right shoulder, shattering his clavicle and rendering his dominant arm useless. The second took him in the right thigh, missing the femoral artery by design but ensuring he wouldn't be walking without assistance.

Chow's scream was muffled by his own hand, which he'd instinctively clamped over his mouth. His body convulsed with pain, but Mae Ling had positioned her shots carefully. Painful, debilitating, but not immediately life-threatening. He'd live to deliver her message, assuming he got medical attention within the next hour or so.

"The note in your pocket contains the address of a private clinic in Wan Chai," Mae Ling said, already backing away. "They're expecting you. They'll patch you up, no questions asked, and send you on your way. Consider it a professional courtesy."

She paused at the edge of the crawlspace, looking back at James Chow's crumpled form. Blood was already pooling on the plastic sheet beneath him, dark and viscous in the dim light.

"One more thing," she added. "Tell your employers that the next person they send won't receive the same courtesy. The next one dies. Make sure they understand that."

James Chow's response was a pained groan, his good hand pressed against his shoulder wound. Mae Ling didn't wait for anything more articulate. She slipped back into the darkness of the crawlspace, moving quickly now. The shots had been quiet, but someone might have heard something. She needed to be back in Wang's box before anyone came to investigate.

The return journey took less than two minutes. She emerged from the maintenance panel, secured it behind her, and had her heels back on and her weapon concealed before the orchestra finished tuning. A quick check in the box's mirror confirmed that her appearance was still immaculate—not a hair out of place, no visible signs of the violence she'd just committed.

The connecting door opened, and Jackson Wang returned, his expression pleased. "Sorry about that. Business never sleeps, as they say." He settled into his seat and gestured for Mae Ling to join him. "I hope you weren't too bored."

"Not at all," Mae Ling replied, her smile returning as if it had never left. "I've been looking forward to the performance."

The lights dimmed. The conductor raised his baton. The first notes of Puccini's Turandot filled the opera house, soaring and dramatic. Mae Ling sat beside Jackson Wang, her posture perfect, her expression serene, looking every inch the beautiful companion he believed her to be.

In the maintenance crawlspace, above the auditorium, James Chow was dragging himself toward the exit, leaving a trail of blood on the plastic sheet. He'd make it to the clinic. Mae Ling had calculated the wounds precisely—painful enough to make her point, but survivable enough to ensure her message reached its intended recipients.

Wang leaned close during the first aria, his breath warm against her ear. "Thank you for accompanying me tonight. You've made this evening truly special."

Mae Ling turned to him, her smile mysterious in the darkness. "The pleasure is mine, Mr. Wang."

And it was, in its own way. She'd been hired to protect Jackson Wang from assassination, and she'd done exactly that. The fact that she'd also sent a clear message to the Wo Shing Wo about the consequences of targeting her clients was simply good business practice. In her line of work, reputation was everything.

And in Mae Ling's case, it was a reputation of discretion when needed and audacious displays when unadvoidable. 

On stage, Princess Turandot sang of riddles and death, of princes who'd failed her tests and paid with their lives. The audience sat rapt, absorbed in the drama unfolding before them. None of them knew that a different kind of drama had just unfolded in the shadows above their heads. None of them suspected that the beautiful woman in the emerald gown, sitting so demurely beside Jackson Wang, had just put two bullets into a professional assassin.

That was how Mae Ling preferred it. The best work was invisible work—the kind that prevented attacks before they happened, that made potential enemies reconsider their plans, that established boundaries so clear that crossing them became unthinkable.

Jackson Wang reached over and took her hand, his grip warm and slightly possessive. She allowed it, maintaining her cover as the beautiful companion, the woman no one would ever suspect of what she'd done in the darkness above.

The aria reached its climax, the soprano's voice soaring above the orchestra. The audience erupted in applause, and Mae Ling joined them, her hands coming together in perfect rhythm with everyone else's. Just another opera patron. Just another ghost, moving through Hong Kong's shadows.

The lights came up for intermission, and Jackson Wang stood, offering his hand to help Mae Ling to her feet. "Champagne?" he suggested.

"That would be lovely," she replied.

They joined the crowd flowing toward the lobby, and Mae Ling caught her reflection in one of the gilt mirrors. The woman looking back at her was elegant, poised, perfectly composed. No one would ever guess what she'd done. No one would ever suspect that the Ghost of Hong Kong had just sent a message written in blood and pain.

That was exactly how she wanted it.

---

If you enjoyed this story, you can read more in The Ghost of Hong Kong, a collection of 15 exciting stories!

Safety Tools (and more) for "Graveyard Shift", a new game coming soon!

Next week (or perhaps even as soon as this coming weekend), we're going to release a new mini-RPG. It's a zombie horror game, and we've been discussing "Safety Tools" and whether or not they really need to be in something released by NUELOW Games.

It's clear we're releasing a horror game. It's clear from the earliest stages of character creation that it's a horror zombie survival game, inspired by films like Evil Dead, Return of the Living Dead, and any number of second-rate (and even a few first-rate) Italian George Romero rip-offs. We don't think there's going to be any surprises for any players as far as what they are getting into.

But, just in case someone misses all the obvious clues and hints, here are some Safety Tools. We are very unlikely to put these in the game, however.

SAFETY TOOLS

Horror games can be intense. Use these tools to keep everyone comfortable:

Step Out: Anyone can tap out of a scene that’s too much, at any time, no questions asked.

Lines and Veils: Discuss what topics are off-limits (lines) or should happen off-screen (veils)

Check-Ins: The GM should periodically ask if everyone’s okay
Breaks: Take them when needed

Remember: The goal is to have fun being scared, not to actually traumatize anyone.

And, as a preview, here's the Quick Reference rules that may be cut from the booklet:

QUICK REFERENCE

Stats: BODY, MIND, NERVE. Distribute 9 points between them, minimum 1 and maximum 5.  
Making a Skill Roll: Roll dice equal to your stat. 4+ is a success. Need at least 1 success.
Combat: Your BODY/NERVE vs. Undead Threat Level. Winner by most successes.
Advantage: Roll twice, pick the best result. 

Disadvantage: Roll twice, pick the worst result.
Physical Injury: Lose Health equal to difference in successes (usually 1-3).
Sanity Loss: 1-3 points depending on the horror witnessed.
Flashlight: 6 uses before battery dies.
The Night: 6 hours from 11 PM to 5 AM. Dawn ends the nightmare.
Victory: Survive until dawn.

A must-have feat for d20 System action hero characters!

DRAMATIC SLOW-MOTION DIVE
You've mastered the art of diving dramatically through the air while firing weapons, even though physics suggests this shouldn't help (or even be possible) at all.

   Prerequisites: Dex 13+, at least 3 levels in any class (or combination of classes)
   Benefit: Once per encounter, you may declare a Dramatic Slow-Motion Dive as a full-round action. You leap through the air in an unnecessarily theatrical manner while firing your weapon. You take a -4 penalty to AC/DR until your next turn, but you gain a +4 bonus to all ranged attack rolls made during this action and automatically confirm any critical threats. All allies within 30 feet who can see you must succeed on a DC 15 Will save or spend their next action saying "Whoa" or "Did you see that?" instead of acting.
   Special: If you miss all your attacks, you land prone and take 1d6 non-lethal stun damage. Your allies may mock you mercilessly.

A brand-new horror story by Hundal & Miller!

 A tale of terror by L.L. Hundal & Steve Miller. If you like it, consider checking out Shadow Stories and Moonlit & Other Stories -- anthologies with stories by them writing together and separately.

'Til Death

The cemetery gates had been locked for hours, but Veronica knew the gap in the fence behind the maintenance shed. She'd used it three times before—once to confirm the burial, once on what would have been their anniversary, and now tonight, when sleep proved impossible and the bourbon wasn't working anymore.

Her heels sank into the soft earth as she navigated between headstones, their shadows stretching long and skeletal under the half-moon. October had stripped most of the leaves from the oaks that lined the cemetery's eastern border, and their bare branches clawed at the sky like arthritic fingers. The air carried that particular autumn smell—decay and damp earth and something else, something that made her think of endings.

Robert's plot was in the newer section, where the grass hadn't fully established itself and the headstones still looked too clean, too new. She'd paid extra for the marble angel, though she couldn't say why. Perhaps because his mother had been there, watching with those red-rimmed eyes, silently accusing. Perhaps because appearances still mattered, even when you were standing over the grave of a man who was supposed to be gone.

She stood at the foot of the grave, swaying slightly. The bourbon was catching up with her now, warming her from the inside despite the October chill. Her black dress—the same one she'd worn to the funeral—clung to her curves, and she was suddenly, acutely aware of how alive she felt. How free.

"Hello, Robert." Her voice sounded strange in the silence, too loud and too intimate at once. "I know it's been a while. Nine months, two weeks, four days. Not that I'm counting."

A laugh escaped her, sharp and bitter. She pressed her hand to her mouth, but it bubbled out anyway, echoing off the surrounding headstones. As the echo died, she took a swig from the bourbon bottle she was clutching in her other hand.

"God, you'd hate this. Me standing here, drunk, talking to your corpse like we're having one of our little chats." She took a step closer, her heel catching on the edge of the grave marker. "You know what's funny? Sometimes I actually miss you. Not you-you, but... having someone there. Someone to cook for. Someone whose dry cleaning I had to pick up."

The wind picked up, rustling through the dead leaves scattered across the cemetery grounds. Veronica wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite the alcohol in her system.

"But then I remember." Her voice dropped, hardening. "I remember the bruises I had to cover with makeup. The ribs you cracked when I overcooked the roast. The time you held my head underwater in the bathtub because I'd smiled at the waiter. The hospital visits I explained away as clumsiness, as accidents, as anything but what they were."

She crouched down, running her fingers over the engraved letters of his name. Robert James Holloway. Beloved Husband. The lie of it made her stomach turn.

"So no, Robert. I don't regret it. I don't regret finding that number in the back of that dive bar in Newark. I don't regret the meetings in parking garages, the cash withdrawals, the careful planning. And I definitely don't regret spending thirty thousand dollars—your thirty thousand dollars, from that account you thought I didn't know about—to have someone put a bullet through your skull."

The memory of that phone call still sent a thrill through her. It's done, the voice had said. Professional. Detached. She'd asked if it had been quick, and the voice had paused before answering. Quick enough. He didn't suffer.

Good, she'd thought. But not good enough.

"You know what would have made it perfect?" She stood, brushing dirt from her knees. "If it had been a woman. A hit-woman. Wouldn't that have been poetic? You, who always said women were weak, who said I was nothing without you, taken out by someone with tits and a trigger finger."

She laughed again, the sound carrying across the empty cemetery. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted, and she wondered if anyone could hear her. If anyone would care.

"The undertaker wanted to fix your face. Did you know that? He said he could make you presentable, that he could fill in the hole, use makeup and prosthetics. But I told him no." She smiled, remembering the man's shocked expression. "I told him to leave it. To let everyone see what you really were—a man with a hole where his brain should have been. Closed casket, Robert. You didn't even get a proper viewing."

The satisfaction of that moment still warmed her. His mother had wept, had begged to see her son one last time, but Veronica had been firm. The damage was too extensive, she'd said, her voice appropriately broken. You wouldn't want to remember him that way.

"I hope that hole is still there." She kicked at the grave marker, her heel leaving a scuff on the marble. "I hope it's with you wherever you are. I hope every time you look in a mirror—do they have mirrors in Hell?—you see it. That perfect, round reminder that you're not invincible. That you're not God. That you're just a dead man in a box."

The wind gusted harder, and Veronica stumbled slightly, catching herself on the angel statue. Its cold marble face stared down at her with blank eyes, and for a moment she felt a flicker of something that might have been shame. But no. She'd earned this. She'd earned her freedom, her life, her right to stand here and spit on his memory.

"You're probably in Hell right now." She straightened, smoothing down her dress. "I hope you are. I hope you're burning, Robert. I hope every day is agony. I hope you're surrounded by demons who do to you what you did to me, over and over, for eternity."

The thought made her bold. Made her reckless. She took another long pull from the bourbon bottle, letting the burn settle in her chest, fortifying her. Her fingers trembled slightly as she reached down, finding the hem of her dress.

This was it. This was the line. Once she crossed it, there was no taking it back—no pretending she was just a grieving widow, no hiding behind propriety or shock or the convenient amnesia of trauma. She'd be choosing to desecrate his grave, choosing to stand here naked and defiant in the dark. Choosing to reclaim what he'd tried to own.

She thought of his hands on her. His voice in her ear, whispering mine, always mine. She thought of the fear, the smallness he'd made her feel. And then she thought of that perfect, round hole in his skull, and something crystallized inside her—cold and sharp and absolutely certain.

She hurled the bourbon bottle at the headstone. It shattered against the granite with a satisfying crack, and she hiked her dress up around her thighs. The night air was cold against her skin, raising goosebumps along her legs.

"You remember these legs, Robert? You used to say they were your favorite part of me. That they were the reason you married me." Her voice dripped with venom. "Well, guess what?"

She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties—black lace, expensive, the kind he used to buy her before the honeymoon phase ended and the real Robert emerged. She slid them down slowly, deliberately, stepping out of them and holding them up in the moonlight.

"You'll never touch them again." She let the panties fall onto the grave, watching them settle against the fresh earth. "You'll never touch any of this again. And all those side-whores you thought I didn't know about? Jennifer from your office? That bartender at O'Malley's? The personal trainer you were fucking in our bed? They're done with you too. You're nothing now. Just bones and rot and that beautiful, perfect hole in your head."

She pulled her skirt higher, exposing herself to the night, to the grave, to the memory of the man who'd tried to own her. The gesture was crude, obscene, and absolutely liberating.

"This is mine now, Robert. My body. My life. My—"

A sound cut through her declaration. A scratching, scraping noise that seemed to come from beneath her feet. Veronica froze, her skirt still bunched around her waist.

But the sound came again, louder this time. Deliberate. And the earth on the grave—the fresh earth that had been smooth and undisturbed moments ago—seemed to shift. To bulge upward, as if something beneath was pushing against it.

"No." The word came out as a whisper. "No, that's not—that's not possible."

Run, her mind screamed. Run now.

But her legs wouldn't obey. She stood frozen, watching in horror as the grave continued to shift and buckle. Her panties, still lying on the disturbed earth, began to slide down the mound as the dirt beneath them gave way.

A hand burst through the surface.

Veronica screamed, the sound tearing from her throat raw and primal. The hand was gray, desiccated, the skin hanging loose on bones that looked too white in the moonlight. Dirt clung to it, falling away as the fingers flexed, curled, grasped at the air.

She stumbled backward, her heel catching on a root. She went down hard, her palms scraping against stone and earth, but she barely felt it. All she could see was that hand, now joined by another, both clawing at the earth, pulling, dragging something up from below.

"No, no, no, no—" The words tumbled from her lips as she scrambled to her feet, her dress still hiked up around her waist, her legs shaking so badly she could barely stand.

The thing—because it couldn't be Robert, it couldn't be, the dead didn't rise, the dead stayed buried—pulled itself further from the grave. Shoulders emerged, covered in the remnants of what had once been an expensive suit. The fabric was stained and rotting, hanging in tatters from a frame that was far too thin, far too angular to be human.

And then the head.

Veronica's scream died in her throat, replaced by a sound that was more animal than human. The face that emerged from the grave was Robert's face, but wrong, so terribly wrong. The skin had pulled tight against the skull, gray and mottled, the lips drawn back in a permanent grimace that exposed yellowed teeth. One eye was sunken, milky white, while the other socket was empty, just a dark hollow that seemed to stare at her anyway.

And the hole. The perfect, round hole in his temple, just above where his left ear had been. She could see through it, could see the dark cavity of his skull, could see things moving inside that she didn't want to identify.

The corpse pulled itself fully from the grave, dirt cascading off its body as it rose unsteadily to its feet. For one terrible moment it stood there, swaying, that empty eye socket fixed on her—and then its legs gave out. The thing collapsed forward onto the ground with a wet, heavy sound, and immediately began to crawl.

Not slowly. Not like something weak or dying.

It moved with a grinding, relentless speed that defied everything she understood about the world. Its arms pulled it forward, fingers digging into the earth, dragging its ruined body across the cemetery floor. The sound it made—the scrape of fabric against dirt, the crack of joints, the wet rasp of its breathing—was worse than any scream.

Veronica ran.

 

She didn't think, didn't plan, just turned and bolted through the cemetery, her heels sinking into the soft earth with every step. Behind her, she could hear it following—that grinding, dragging sound, getting closer, always closer, moving faster than anything crawling should be able to move.

This isn't happening, she thought wildly, dodging between headstones. This is the bourbon. This is a nightmare. This is—

She glanced back and immediately wished she hadn't. The thing that had been Robert was pulling itself across the ground with inhuman determination, its body pressed low to the earth, moving like some terrible insect. Its arms reached out toward her with each lurch forward, those gray fingers grasping, and she could see her panties clutched in one hand, the black lace stark against the dead flesh.

She screamed again and pushed herself harder, her lungs burning, her legs aching. The cemetery stretched out before her, suddenly vast and maze-like. Where was the parking lot? Where was the gap in the fence? Everything looked the same in the darkness—headstones and shadows and dead grass.

Left, she thought desperately. The parking lot is to the left.

She veered right instead, panic overriding logic, and found herself running deeper into the cemetery, toward the older section where the stones were weathered and crumbling and the trees grew thick and close. The ground was uneven here, treacherous, and her heel caught on something—a root, a stone, she didn't know—and she went sprawling.

She hit the ground hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs. For a moment she just lay there, gasping, tasting dirt and blood where she'd bitten her tongue. Then she heard it—that wet, dragging sound, getting closer. The scrape of dead hands pulling a dead body across the earth.

"No." She pushed herself up, ignoring the pain in her hands and knees, ignoring the way her dress had torn, exposing even more of her skin to the cold night air. "No, please, no."

She ran again, this time in the right direction. She could see the lights of the parking lot now, could see her car sitting alone under the single working streetlamp. So close. Just a little further.

The thing behind her moaned, a sound that was barely human, barely anything at all. But she heard words in it, or thought she did. Syllables that might have been her name.

"Ver...on...i...ca..."

"Shut up!" she screamed over her shoulder. "You're dead!"

She could see the gap in the fence now, could see freedom just beyond it. Her car keys were in her purse, which was—where was her purse? Had she brought it? She couldn't remember, couldn't think past the terror that had her in its grip.

Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten.

She was going to make it. She was going to—

She dropped to her knees at the fence gap, already pushing herself through, when the hand shot out from ground level and locked around her ankle.

Veronica shrieked as she was yanked backward, dragged out of the gap, her body slamming against the earth. She kicked out wildly, her free foot connecting with something that gave with a wet, sickening sound. But the grip on her ankle didn't loosen. If anything, it tightened, those dead fingers digging into her flesh with strength that shouldn't have been possible.

She was dragged backward across the ground, her nails scrabbling at the earth, leaving furrows in the dirt. She twisted, looking back, and found the thing that had been her husband pressed against the ground beside her, its body stretched out along the earth, pinning her.

That hole in its head wept something dark and viscous. The empty eye socket seemed to bore into her, and the remaining eye—that milky, dead eye—held something that might have been recognition. Might have been rage.

Its mouth opened, the jaw working with a sound like grinding bone, and it spoke. The voice was hoarse, ruined, like gravel being dragged across concrete, but the words were clear enough.

"Remember... the pool..." Its face was inches from hers now, and she could smell it—rot and earth and something chemical from the embalming. "How you... couldn't breathe... how I held you... under..."

"No!" Veronica kicked again, her heel connecting with its shoulder. The joint gave with a crack, but the thing didn't release her. It just adjusted its grip, pulling itself closer along the ground. "Let me go! You're dead!"

"I know... where you go..." The corpse's head tilted, considering, its body still pressed flat against the earth. Its remaining eye fixed on hers with terrible clarity. "Every coffee shop... every friend's house... I always... knew..."

It reached toward her with its free hand, those gray fingers trailing up her exposed leg, over her thigh, higher. The touch was cold, so cold it burned, and Veronica felt bile rise in her throat.

She wrenched her body sideways with everything she had left, her ankle twisting in that cold grip. For a moment—just a moment—the corpse's hold faltered as its body shifted on the uneven ground. She felt the fingers loosen.

That was all she needed.

Veronica tore herself free and scrambled backward, her bare feet scraping against the cold earth. She didn't look back. She ran—past the headstones, past the angel monument, toward the gates that suddenly seemed impossibly far away. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her heart hammering so hard she thought it might burst in her chest.

She burst through the cemetery gates and into the parking lot, her keys already in her shaking hand. The car door slammed behind her, the lock clicked, and she fumbled the key into the ignition.

The engine roared to life. She peeled out of the lot, tires screaming against asphalt, and didn't stop until the cemetery was miles behind her.

But as she drove through the empty streets of the sleeping city, his words kept circling back, relentless as a predator. I know where you go. Every coffee shop. Every friend's house. She gripped the steering wheel tighter, her knuckles white, and tried to convince herself it was just the bourbon talking, just her own fear echoing in her skull.

Except it wasn't. Because he was right. He'd always known. He'd always been there—in the background of her life, watching, tracking, controlling. And now, impossibly, he still was.

She pulled into her apartment complex and sat in the car for a long time, engine off, hands still shaking. The parking lot was empty. The building was dark. Everything was normal.

Tomorrow she'd go to the coffee shop on Fifth Street. Her mother's house on Wednesday. The therapist's office on Thursday afternoon at two.

And he would know.

She'd killed him once. She'd buried him. She'd danced on his grave and poured bourbon on his headstone and reclaimed every piece of herself he'd tried to destroy.

But she would never escape him.

--

If you enjoyed that chilling bit of horror, you can find more from the same team of writers in Shadow Stories and Moonlit & Other Stories.