The Unfortunate Ghostification of Ava Phillips - Prologue

Ava was not suicidal.

Which is why it occurred to her as very odd that her body was attempting to drop the toaster in the bathtub.

“No!” She shouted, trying to will her arms to put the device on the floor beside the tub, and her arms betrayed her, like things possessed, shaking as they struggled to maneuver the appliance into the water. The jerking, dangerous struggle went back and forth between Ava and her body, and Ava wondered if it was possible to be murdered by your own body.

Maybe it was.

This had been a very, very strange day, after all.

Perhaps some explanation was in order.

Ava Phillips had woken up that morning from the same nightmare she’d been having for months, a full hour before her alarm was set to go off. Grumpy and sleep deprived, and unable to remember what sort of dream it was that had her wake early and covered with a film of cold sweat, she had gone to get herself some coffee, and instead of bringing the cup to her lips, her arms has spontaneously begun to shake and jerk, spilling the burning liquid all down her front.

The rest of the day had gone downhill from there. At odd moments her hands reached out without her permission or command and done things inappropriate or dangerous, from sticking themselves out of the subway doors as the door was closing, to slapping a man she was on the elevator with (that had been awkward to try and explain). From there, her legs had tried to jump her off a balcony, and had tripped her down the stairs (a tumble cut short by collision with others).

By the time she returned home from work, she’d come to the conclusion that her body was rebelling, and had called her mother to tell her so. Of course, her mother was only so much help, insisting that all Ava needed was to relax in the bathtub and perhaps take some time off work, it must have been stress, after all. Ava’s mouth responded by (to her horror) telling the older woman to do many horribly unpleasant and unsanitary things.

So Ava went to take a bath, and found herself rather confused when she was standing in the bathtub, water running around her legs, holding a plugged-in-toaster as opposed to the lavender bubble bath she’d bought and had been saving since last year’s lonely Valentine’s Day.

“Oh, no.”

She breathed in deep, trying to force herself to throw the toaster away from the bath.

Her body didn’t listen, and finally, her shaking fingers released the toaster. The kitchen appliance seemed to fall forever, and Ava thought to herself.

What an awful waste to be killed by a toaster. Could this be worse?

To her brief surprise, something else that wasn’t her answered her own thought.

Yes.

What the fu-

And then she thought no more.

Chapter One