Free Ghosts of Chinatown by Wesley Robert Lowe

from his head. You almost pushed the damn thing into his eyeball.”
    “That’s not what it looked like to me.”
    “Look, Jasmine, this guy’s a tough nut. You’re the one wanting proof. He’s stonewalling, lying, two-facing for years.”
    The two glare at each other in complete exasperation.  
    Cam snaps, “Stop interfering with the plan.”
    “What plan? You have no plan,” Jasmine snarls. “And why are you here? You’re not supposed to hurt him.”
    “For Christ’s sake, Jasmine, recalibrate your mind. It makes no sense. If I wanted him dead, he’d be dead. I am very good at my job and it’s a job that I like a lot. We gotta squeeze this bastard. If you want real answers, why don’t you start helping and stop trying to hold things up.”
    Jasmine takes a breath. She looks at the ignorant, sleeping musician, then her eyes travel to the knife imbedded into the bed frame. She paints a mental portrait of her father, the director of this escapade. Let me play it out, Jasmine , she hears him saying to her.
    “What do you want me to do?”
    Cam beams like a Christmas light. “Now you’re talking, baby doll. Let’s boogie and I’ll tell you.”  
    Chauvinist asshole. Jasmine nods and she and Cam soundlessly leave.
    Todd snorts and curls up even tighter.  
    He puts the pillow on top of his head. The room chills and Todd pulls the blanket over his body.

Chapter 16
    Grating sounds of scraping strings on the inside of a piano waft the  
    air. Under the blanket, Todd’s eyes strain open at this avant-garde piano music that is found in so many cheesy horror films. However, this is no fantasy and he’s not on a concert stage. This is reality and he cringes as he hears the sound of random pizzicato plucking of the strings, a chromatic sweep of the strings with the fingers, harmonic overtones… He whispers, “Not again.”
    A loud thunk on the piano of someone striking the strings with their fist jolts Todd upright and he pulls the blanket off him. “No!”
    He sees the Tibetan knife imbedded into the bed’s wood frame.  
    “No, no, no.”
    He gets on his knees and pulls on it mightily. Initially, there is resistance but then he yanks the dagger from the bed frame. The force of pulling it out knocks Todd tumbling off the bed and the knife flies in slow motion through the air.
    Todd watches transfixed as the knife falls to the ground, bouncing across the room with smacking, booming sounds that resonate many times louder than it should have.  
    Todd gapes at the knife as the music ends abruptly.  
    There is silence. Deafening silence. Deadly silence.  
    Todd crawls to the knife, picks it up and rises to his feet. He noiselessly moves out of the bedroom.
    Todd, brandishing the dagger like a ready weapon, enters the living room. The totally freaked pianist flicks on the light to discover that there is no one. However, the bloodstained piano keys are pure again and the room has been restored to neatness. The music books are back in place and the laptop is back on the desk.
    “What? How?” he asks out loud but as his guts churn, he suspects the answer.
    He spent long enough in China to know that the Western worldview is flawed. For the Chinese, there is a free flow between the natural and supernatural, between the dead and the living. You worship your deceased ancestors because maybe they will intervene in life on your behalf. Maybe they will provide justice… but… there is always a “but.”
    Todd gingerly steps to the piano and places the knife on the music stand. He pats the piano expectantly, as if something unique was about to transpire... but nothing does. He sits on the piano bench, his worried, frantic eyes searching the room... nothing is out of the ordinary.  
    A moving shadow makes him twist lightning fast... nothing.
    He surveys the room again but sees nothing unusual. Everything seems peaceful. Everything is peaceful except for Todd.
    He gets off the piano bench and paces carefully. Each