Bang.

Benny woke with a ringing in his ears and a pulsating thrum in his chest.

He'd seen enough movies and lived in enough criminal-oriented neighborhoods in his youth to recognize that sound. That resonating, deafening, deadly noise that usually preceded screams and sirens and yellow tape and badges and hospital staff shouting instructions.

But here? In this dilapidated yet calm motel surrounded by forest and only frequented by truckers and a handful of prostitutes? And coming from so close to his room?

He jumped out of bed, still dizzy from the sound, and shrugged on a T-shirt, wincing as the fabric fell over his wound. Kylie had called a nurse to help her attend to the injury—Benny hated hospitals, and refused to go to one—and he did feel better. But he didn't feel rested, and wondered what time it was.

The clock on his bedside table flashed three AM. "Ah. The witching hour. Great." He slid into his sneakers and plopped his head out into the corridor.

A few others were doing the same, whispering among themselves as they looked towards where they believed the source of the noise was—Benny.

"Did you do that?" one man asked, stepping outside as he wrapped a robe around his bulky frame.

Benny shook his head. "I was asleep, man. But... it was a gun, right?"

"No doubt about it," said a woman in a skimpy negligee, from the room across from Benny's. "Heard enough of those in my lifetime to be sure. But it sounded like it came from you, bud."

Again, Benny shook his head. "I don't even own a gun, so how could I—" He stilled, tipped his head to the left, and gulped. "But I know someone who does."

Kylie? What happened?

A figure came sauntering down the hall, followed by another—the half-asleep front desk clerk and a security guard.

"What's going on here?" said the latter, reaching for his weapon in its holster, pushing through the slowly growing crowd of onlookers. "Gunshot?"

Everyone looked at Benny, who shrugged. "Not me! I... I think it came from..." He sent a hesitant glance towards his next-door neighbor's sealed door and grimaced. "From here. From... her room."

Kylie... are you okay?

He had no doubt she'd been the one to set off the gun, but she was rigorous about that weapon. She kept the security on it at all times, rarely even showed it, and never wielded it unless necessary. In truth, she'd once told him she hated the thing, but it was a requirement for her field that she carry it.

"She's... she's an FBI agent, and as far as I know... the only person nearby who owns a gun." Benny padded out into the corridor and gaped at her door, wishing he could see through it.

Had she been cleaning the thing? Had she heard or seen something that spooked her? She'd been terrified from the scratches and the activity at the house; maybe she was hallucinating, freaking out, panicking.

Or maybe... the ghost had followed her this time.

But wouldn't she know that her gun would have no effect on a spirit?

"Kylie?" He banged on the door, frantic to hear her voice, to be reassured that she was okay. "Kylie, open up. It's me. You all right?" He pounded harder, half-hoping he'd break the door down and find her huddled in bed, whimpering about being haunted. "Kylie, answer me!"

"I'm... gonna go grab some keys," said the desk clerk, his voice shaky as he scurried back the way he came.

The security guard prodded up to Benny and tapped him on the back. "You should step aside, let me handle this." He tugged his gun out and prepared himself. "We've had some weird folks hanging around here lately, which is why they hired me." He flipped to the audience of guests and shooed them off. "Get in your rooms, please, all of you. Lock your doors and windows. Remain calm."

Benny wouldn't budge. "I'm sticking with you. She's my... she's my colleague. Friend." He bit his tongue before saying ex. She would kill him if she knew he claimed they'd officially dated, when in fact all they'd done was have a lot of sex and talk about maybe one day being together for real. But those days had passed, and though Benny would never forget about them, it appeared Kylie had.

"Fine, but get behind me. As soon as it's unlocked, I don't want you to rush in." The guard's spine tensed as he straightened up. "We have no clue what's on the other side."

"She's trained for this shit," said Benny, struggling to imagine Kylie in any situation she couldn't handle. She'd arrested serial killers and psychotic bank-robbers, so a few intruders in a hotel wouldn't be an issue for her, right?

But she wouldn't know how to deal with a ghost.

Minutes later, the once lazy-looking desk clerk reappeared, holding a sleek key-card. "It's the master-key," he said, breathless as he slid the thing into the guard's grasp.

The guard snuck it into the slit, waited for the green light and the beep, then gripped the doorknob. "Okay, going in."

Benny swallowed, but something lodged at the top of his throat, blocking his saliva from safely squeezing down his esophagus. An ominous dread drowned in his gut and a chill cruised from his neck to his calves, rendering him Jell-O-like and shaky.

"Freeze!" The security guard lunged into the room, gun pointed straight ahead at the window. He maintained the position for a few seconds, before shifting slightly to the left and stopping dead in his tracks. "Oh. Oh, shit." He lowered the gun and pivoted to Benny, bracing to push him out. "You... you shouldn't see this."

Benny glared at him. "The fuck do you mean I shouldn't see this? Shouldn't see what?"

To his surprise, he had no trouble shoving the guard aside and barreling into the room. He'd expected to find the window open, a bit of broken glass on the floor, maybe a note requesting a ransom—but what he saw instead brought him to his knees.

Kylie's laptop was to the right, on the ground, shattered. All her paperwork was messed up and clumped at the bottom of the desk. Sheets drooped off the mattress, pillows were on the ground, everything was in disarray.

And there was blood, so much blood. It caked all over the wall to the left—the one separating this room from Benny's—and it drizzled down onto the headboard. It stained the blankets and sheets. And it flowed from a lifeless body on the bed, dripping into a pool that had formed on the floor. A curtain of blonde hair dipped into said pool, coming from a head hanging from the limp body. And in the middle of the forehead was a bullet hole. Smoke still emanated from it, along with thick rivulets of deep, crimson-tinted liquid.

An arm dangled off the bed, fingers resting near the gun that had dropped next to the growing puddle of blood.

Benny crawled closer—as close as he could without getting his hands into the crime scene—to be confident he wasn't losing his mind. To be assured it wasn't Kylie, his beloved, beautiful, bold Kylie, who lay there, dead. Dead. It was a nightmare, right? He'd imagined the gun shot, imagined the people spilling into the hallway, imagined the blood splattered across the room. Imagined the horror splaying out before him, the nightmare that couldn't be real, it couldn't.

Yet as he leaned in, there was no mistaking those plump lips, those chunky but tamed eyebrows, that golden-blonde shade of hair. No mistaking that smooth skin he'd always yearned to touch and her recently manicured beige nails, now tinted with blood.

He'd seen so much in his life; so many things that should have made him sick to his stomach and should have caused him to faint, but he never did. Yet this scene—Kylie's gruesome death at the hands of a weapon that was meant to protect her—was like nothing else Benny had ever witnessed, and he had no means to contain himself.

He released the contents of his belly at the foot of the nightstand, and fell backwards, gaping up at the off-white ceiling. A few dots of blood had reached that surface, too, so he turned to his side, away from the bloodbath, inhaling and exhaling, convulsing, wishing he would wake. He pinched his arm once, twice, three times—until his skin burned and his fingers were numb. But the rushing around him, the screeches of despair, the faint sirens in the background signified that no, he wasn't dreaming.

Kylie was dead.

No one dared move him as they wandered in. Benny listened as the security guard related some information, "she was an FBI agent, that was her gun, it went off at about three AM." Professionals snapped pictures of Kylie's corpse, documenting every aspect of the area, jotting down notes and muttering under their breaths about positions and blood-loss and wounds. The hotel manager arrived, expecting an explanation, and being told that this was a possible suicide scene.

Suicide?

Benny couldn't envision Kylie being the type to kill herself. Sure, she'd been scared after the events at the house, but she was more inclined to solve the occurrences, not run away from them. She'd made it clear she never wanted to return to the house again, but she wouldn't murder herself to ensure that. No, she wanted to hire demonologists and exorcists and get answers for Arielle's death. Answers that would hopefully lead to information about Stella's and Jade's deaths, too.

And now she is dead, and can no longer investigate.

He sat up, rubbing his temples, squinting at the early morning sunlight pouring through the windows. He wasn't certain if he'd been asleep, or unconscious, or too petrified to move, but the detectives and medical staff had apparently chosen to leave him where he was.

"That fucking ghost," he said to himself, averting his gaze from where Kylie's body remained, still being looked at by police and coroners. He brought his knees to his chest and tucked his face between them. "It... didn't want us to get answers. And it... chose to kill, to hide its secrets?"

He felt something prod at his stomach linings, and he feared he'd throw up again, so he clamped his mouth shut. He couldn't lose control; not here, not in front of so many people who'd likely be demanding his statement once they realized he was lucid. Not when he needed to be strong, to figure out why Kylie might have killed herself.

It made no sense. She'd never take her own life. Someone, something, did this, and he'd stop at nothing to avenge her.

Can ghosts kill?