[Currently reading Hell House by Richard Matheson]

Edith Barrett was a haunted person. When she escaped Hell House, she felt the specters following in her wake—wisps of the tortured, demented, and lonely. Donning masks of comedy and tragedy, their ghostly laughter and lament formed an ever-clinking chain that restrained Edith through her daily existence.

She thought a cruise to a distant island would allow her escape, or at the very least a brief respite from the noise. The dead usually preferred to stay in the comforts of home, drifting only as far as the borders of their home town. But such was the case only for spirits linked to a place. The demonic power of Hell House had warped the rules of the spiritual realm itself, mutating the physical energies the dead and somehow binding their essences to Edith herself.

In effect, Edith felt a perpetual chill around her. Her hands and feet were unable to hold warmth and, for the first time in her life, she could feel her ears because of their sheer coldness.

It was only a matter of time before her exhausted body and brain collaborated, urging her on a visceral level to hop on board a cruise ship and bathe in the sun of the Caribbean for a good thirty days.

As soon as she booked her ticket, Edith stuffed a gigantic suitcase full of her most colorful summer wear, three pairs of flip-flops, a few bathing suits, and a stack of romcom and thriller novels to stave off any boredom on slow days.

At exactly 1pm on the day of the cruise, Edith left her home, rolling suitcase and holdall in one hand and gigantic summer hat in the other. As she stepped off her doorstep and basked for a moment in the light of the sun, a piercing chill bloomed within her, emanating from the very center of her sternum.

"Alicia," Edith warned. "Now is not the time."

The chill receded but remained lapping at the fringes of her lungs so that she felt a mild tightening there, persistent yet tolerable. Maybe a visit to the tropics would kill that chill inside of her once and for all.

'Do ghosts like the sun?' Edith mused to herself as she continued down the walkway to the waiting cab.

"Pop the trunk please?" she asked the driver, lifting her suitcase and holdall to show him. The tiny padlock on her suitcase rattled as she hitched into the trunk, and the sticker of the racing bunny on its hard shell casing smirked up at her before she slammed the trunk shut.

A light shiver passed through her as she walked to the open door of the cab. Sudden doubt made her stop in her tracks. She stood there a few moments, eyes transfixed on something in the distance—something she didn't know or care to know. She began to feel like the cruise was a bad idea—terrible, in fact.

"Is anything the matter, miss?" the driver asked, not unconcerned.