Don't Follow Me Home

YA Urban Fantasy/Horror October 2025 YA - A. E. Costello

Don’t Follow Me Home

It was 2:30 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon.

The dead were restless. A storm approached and the blue-black sky trembled with thunder. Nature stirred up the dead, spirits, ghosts, ghouls, all of that good stuff. Thunderstorms and lightning strikes made them antsy. The cemetery was on my walk home. Me in a cemetery with the restless dead?

I pushed on my headphones and hit the music app on my phone. The rock band Havoc’s crashing drums, shrieking chords, and steady beats blasted too loud to be safe for my eardrums.

I headed down the clear path through the cemetery. I could go around, and add fifteen minutes to the walk home, or take the lanes through and come out only a block away from my shared apartment with my mom. I swiftly took to the familiar road, I started at a brisk pace and began my walk through my hometown’s cemetery.

Not that being from Fairwater Narrows was anything to brag about. It was a small town nestled in a forested area and an extremely dreary place. Everyone seemed to grow old and sick early, lose hope or not have many aspirations. Families tend to be broken here. And no one seemed to really be able to leave. I’m 17, and I’ve been here my entire life.

I hadn’t been walking long when a shiver went up my spine, and that burning rock settled in my stomach. The dead knew I was there.

I hit pause on my music. I took in a breath, steadied my shoulders, and kept walking when I heard the tattle-tale sound of a hoarsely drawn breath. Like someone inhaling that shouldn’t have, their lungs long since shriveled up dry.

I slowly turned around to face what my powers had risen from the grave. Hulking over three gravestones, and two more crouched over the lanes were ghouls. They were greenish-black in color, with overlong limbs, tattered burial clothing, and dank thin hair that curled to the ground. Their stretched misshapen faces twisted into expressions of frozen horror. They all stared at me with black eyes.

“Stay,” I said.

I turned around and kept walking. The skittering noises from behind me had me whirling around. The ghouls followed me, on their knuckled fingers and clawed toes, blackened eyes on me, earnestly coming after me.

I sighed heavily.

“Don’t follow me home,” I said sternly. “All of you, be still, be gone, and be at rest.”

I pushed my hand forward at them then swiped my hand up, down, across, and pushed my palm forward again. At the last sign, the ghouls all swirled backwards in a gust of wind, their specific graves opened wide in a maw, and swallowed them up in silence.

I breathed out with relief. Then a gentle warmth brimmed through me and like a pale and translucent wisp with two dark holes on the smooth white face, Maddy Scott, my ghost best friend appeared next to me.

“You okay?”

I shrug a shoulder and put on a brave grin.

“Yeah,” I say.

Maddy smiles again, her smile curls up to her ears, her pitch black grave eyes stretch down into her cheeks and up into her forehead, her nose pulls into a small dot.

“Goodie.”

Maddy claps her ghostly hands together and swirled around me excitedly. If she had feet, they’d be kicking back and forth like she was swimming, but Maddy’s lower body ended in a wispy tail.

“Let’s do something fun,” says Maddie. “It’s Saturday, and you don’t have to go home until dinnertime. We should hang out!”

“Do something like what?” I ask.

Loud voices had me look over.

I was standing outside of Vinci’s Pizzeria. The big glass store front was decorated with large signs of their menu. Besides pizza, they also serve meatball subs, calzones, and garlic breads.

And coming out was a large group, Teyana, Curtis, Jon, Leslie, Peter and Lacy.

They had all been laughing and smiling, but seeing me, the smiles slid off their faces. Their expressions went from being happy to dark and cold.

“Look,” says Curtis with a quick, harsh laugh. “It’s the spook. What are you doing out of the cemetery, spook?”

Spook.

That’s what they call me.

As in ‘spooky.’ Because I can raise the dead. It’s definitely not a nice word to call me. They’re using it to hurt me, to point out that I’m not one of them.

Yeah,” says Jon, and glares at me behind his glasses. “Don’t you have some roadkill to raise?”

Pain struck me in the chest. They must have seen me with the roadkill dog following me home Friday after school. Other people get little kittens who want to adopt them, I get ghouls and roadkill.

Leslie says, “Is it just me, or did I see you talking to yourself just now?”

“Yeah, for real!” Teyana glares at me. “Who are you talking to? God, you’re such a creep, Keira Hason! You talk to the air! Schizo spook!”

I lift my chin.

I say, “No, actually, I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to Maddy.”

They laugh, shake their heads and made loud jokes.

“Who the hell is Maddy?” Jon made circles at his temple at me. “You are a schizo spook, you got that? Talking to yourself, hanging around in the cemetery, having dead dogs following you home.”

“Please,” I say, starting to feel desperate.

Lacy shot back. “You don’t even look like us! You’re so creepy! You’re so thin. Like a skeleton.”

It’s not like I wanted to be thin. But it was like I couldn’t gain weight. I’m taller than everyone since sixth grade, lean with no figure, so I’m a skinny tall weirdo and I have yellow eyes. That was more than enough to be singled out.

But it gets worse.

When I was younger, I didn’t really see a difference between the living and the dead. One time I brought home a friend to play with not realizing he was dead child who had drowned at the local pond. I’ve raised the dead frogs and fetal pigs in science class as ghouls and made all the specimens get back up in dissection class. Roadkill gets up and follows me home, then I’d ask my mom if we can adopt an undead pet.

Maddy swung around them all, and a wind blew about their hair, and clothes. Curtis and Theo met eyes and slightly shook their heads. I deal with the dead. Ghosts and ghouls. I can’t read minds, still, I am a pretty good judge of character and intuition. I can read the unease on their face.

Kai accuses, “Cut it out with that creepy spooky shit, Hason! Whatever you’re doing it, make it stop! You’re such a weirdo spook! Just get away from us already!”

Then he shoves me hard with both hands. I trip over my feet, and land hard on my butt, and my hands behind my back. My right palm presses flat against the ground. I burned a hot strong command into the ground.

Rise! Come to my aid!

I stare up at the scowling seventeen year olds as the call pulsed from my palm through the ground, coursing through vines, tumbling off rocks, bursting into graves and sinking into buried bodies. Then the call is answered.

I hear the shuffled steps coming from behind me the same moment I see from the look on their faces that they saw the ghouls coming. I know what ghouls look like, and I glance over my shoulder to look at them approaching from The Narrows Cemetery.

The ghouls. Their skin is greenish color, and they wear tattered burial clothes draping on shrunken bodies. Their stretched misshapen faces into expressions of frozen horror. Shriveled, dank, thin hair twisting in the wind. A blue light shines from the depths of the eyes. I know that light. My call bringing the dead back to life. They thud up the sidewalk with lurching footsteps and raised their arms up at the bullies.

I held up my right palm. Everything built up in me. The name calling. The bullying. The rejection. They didn’t even see me as human. I couldn’t take it anymore. If they didn’t want me…then I’d give them a reason to fear me.

I gave the order.

“Get them.”

With groans and growls, the ghouls lunged at the teens.

Screaming, Teyana, Curtis, Jon, Leslie, Peter and Lacy all ran in the opposite direction. Maddy followed, using ghostly wind to pick up sticks and stones and leaves to pelt at their heads and backs.

I yell after them, “And keep the word spook out of your mouths! Got that!”

Once they’re around the bend Maddy soars upwards, then swoops around my body several times.

“We did it!” she says. “We got them back!”

I speak in soft dull voice as tears fill my eyes, “Is that you call it? Winning?”

Maddy swung down to hover at my side. She held out her semi-transparent white hands

“How about a draw?”

Maddy swirls around me a few times, and rests on my shoulder, like a friendly weightless warmth.

I get harassed by those my age but I have a friendly ghost by my side, and give me silent warm comfort.

I say, “I don’t want to raise the dead by accident. I don’t mean to make ghouls follow me. I don’t want to make friends with ghosts.”

“We’re not so bad,” says Maddy.

Maddy smiles and her smile curls up to her ears, her pitch black grave eyes stretch down into her cheeks and up into her forehead, her nose pulls into a small dot.

She said, “And I won’t take that as an insult. I know you want living friends.”

I nod, and wipe the tears on my face.

She smiles again, the corners of her mouth touch her ears.

“It’s okay, Keira.”

“As Mom says,” I said, and swallowed hard. “If my father was here, he’d show me how to control it…make it stop.”

I fell silent as it was getting dark and colder. Maddy inclined her black-eyed face towards the road and cocked her head.

“Yeah I know,” I sighed. “I gotta go home. Thanks for keeping me company.”

“Anytime…”

I got up, waved at the dearly departed spirit, and the ghost shimmered into a gust of transparent wind.

I shoved my headphones on back on, and scrolled the music app until I clicked the rock group Phantasm, song “Hypnotize” and played my music. I head home, It didn’t take long to reach the apartment, and head to the elevator. I freeze.

Darcy Clarkson, the landlady of our apartment building stood there in the lobby, on the way up. I backed up. I was on the tenth floor, but I’d rather take the stairs than ride with Clarkson. She is fine with Mom because my mom always paid the rent on time and respected the property. As for me…ever since I accidentally raised her dead son who had killed himself, and brought him from the grave back home, she’d hated me. I laid him to rest and apologized profusely, I didn’t mean to do it, but Darcy has never been able to forgive me.

She stared at me with dark brown eyes, rife with old pain and fresh hatred at the sight of me. She was short and plump with a steel-gray lumpy afro. Dark marks patterned her cheeks and nose from popped pimples.

“Aren’t you getting on?” she asked in a sharp tone.

“Yes ma’am,” I said respectfully, stepping into the elevator, and pressing the tenth floor button.

The doors dinged closed and suffocated me.

Darcy Clarkson was staring at me.

She asked in a harsh crisp voice, “Raised the dead lately?”

I gripped my fists and hid them in my hoodie’s front pocket.

What kind of question is that? Does she expect me to answer honestly?

I said, “Not really. Some ghouls earlier today, though.”

Darcy stared at me, her dark eyes burning as I dumped fuel on the fire. I quickly turned my face away, and scolded myself for saying anything. The elevator opened on the third floor, and Darcy stormed off without looking back. I hit the close door button and rode the elevator to the tenth floor. I used my key to unlock the door. I turned off my music as I came inside the small two-bedroom apartment.

“I’m home,” I call.

My mom, Rion Hason looked up from the kitchen table. The spread of papers and books on the table told me she’d brought work home with her. She worked on a number of committees and did grants for city council.

“How was class today, Keira?” she asked.

I slipped out of my shoes and hung up my wet coat, pushing my headphones to hang around my neck. I threw myself down on the chair across from her.

I debated what to tell her. Go into a full-blown rant about how horrible it all was? She’s busy, she has so much work to do. Burden her with my problems…no. I’d give her the rated G for General version.

I said, “Same stuff. Kids talked smack about me in class. Teacher seemed afraid of me. And a few ghouls tried to follow me home so I put them to rest. That’s about it.”

“Mm hmm,” said Mom, adjusting her glasses on her nose, and looking down at a series of grant paperwork. “I’m sure if your father was here he’d teach you about not raising ghouls by your presence. You must be using magic instinctively. He’d teach you how to control it.”

“Right, right,” I said, crossing my arms on top of the table, then laying my head down. “This father of mine who’s never been around.”

She said quietly. “I’m sure something very important must be keeping him away.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. I saw the misshapen droopy face of the ghouls, with their black eyes and frozen horrified expressions. Life after death must be really bad for a ghoul.

I opened my eyes.

“Keira Jolie Hason.”

The disapproval in her tone only made me flinch a little.

Mom says, “I also got some very concerning calls from the parents of your friends at school about getting chased by ghouls.”

“They’re not my friends!”

I whirl around and face her, my fists clenched, my eyes wide all around, mouth grimaced.

Mom stares at me and put her hands on her hips. She raises her brows.

She says, “Friends or not. Is that true?”

I mutter, “I did sic the ghouls on them.”

She sighs, “Try to get along, okay? Siccing ghouls on kids is why they are beating you up rejecting you. It’s not funny.”

She says that because I had begun to laugh.

I stopped laughing, because she didn’t get it.

I say, “Mom, those kids don’t want to be my friend, or get along with me. I raise the dead, and that’s all they need to never want anything to do with me.”

Mom looked at me with sad, deep brown eyes. Yes I didn’t get from her, my eyes are yellow, like an eagles. One more thing to get picked on about, something I can’t even control.

“But it doesn’t help with you using your magic on them,” she says.

I shook my head, and say, “You don’t get it.”

Mom stood up quickly. “If I don’t get it, it’s because you won’t explain. You aren’t making good grades-”

I snap, “The teachers discriminate on me, Mom!”

She sighs and hugs me, and presses a kiss to the top of my head.

“My only baby,” she whispers. “And you’re doing this to yourself!”

Hot, frothy tears fill my eyes.

“I don’t belong here, Mom,” I whisper in a dull voice and press my face into her soft, full chest. “Everyone makes it clear I’m not one of them.”

“You’re a half one of us,” she says softly, and squeezed me. “If you act enough to fit in-”

“They don’t let me fit in,” I say angrily, and push away from her arms. “That’s the point! At every time I’ve tried to they just point out how I’m not one of them.”

Mom looks at me helplessly.

“So that’s it then,” she says. “They insult you and reject you so you sic ghouls on them. When does it end? When one of you severely gets hurt?”

I shake my head, and stare at the ground. I don’t know when it ends. They make it clear I don’t belong. And never the twain shall mix.

Then I say, “They called me a schizo spook, that I’m creepy.”

Mom sighs.

Then she says, “Maybe there is something else you can do to-”

I cut her off. “They told me I’m not human like them, Mom, and to stay away from them.”

Mom flinches. Then she put her forehead in her hands, and stares down.

I put my hands down and look at her.

I say, “Mom, you have to face it. These kids…they don’t want anything to do with me. They don’t accept me, they won’t accept me. I might as well be a monster to them.”

Mom protests, “Don’t call yourself a monster!”

I say, “Mom, that’s how they see me. Mom, I am telling you. Let’s leave Fairwater Narrows! It sucks here! This town is a miserable hellhole!”

Mom moves her hand from her forehead down to her face, like she was shielding herself from me.

I step back from her, shaking my head several times. I clench my fists tightly, hot bubbles in my stomach, flooding up my chest and burning up in my throat. My jaw fused together and wrench apart.

Mom watches me as I yell at her. Everything came out. How the kids talk about me in class, how much they hate me, how I don’t belong, how ghouls want to follow me home, and how ghosts comfort me and my father abandoned me before I was born and how much I hate it here-

A loud banging on the door had us jumping up, right as Mom gasps.

I’ve definitely raised something, and considering how angry I am, it’s probably nothing good. But the knocking on the door doesn’t sound good either.

“Keira Hason! Rion Hason! Get out here!”

That didn’t even sound like the police.

I walk over angrily to the door.

“Keira, wait!”

I swing the door open, my Mom scrambling behind me.

Outside on the front lawn is a group of parents, and I recognize with them, Teyana, Curtis, Jon, Leslie, Peter and Lacy. They’re all holding random household objects, pitchforks, baseball bats, crowbars, tire irons.

It’s an angry mob.

“Oh my God,” whispers my Mom.

Jon’s father points a baseball bat fitted with nails at me.

“You, Hason ghoul girl,” he says with gritted teeth. “I’ve had it with you and your tireless bullying of my son!”

My jaw drops. “I bully him? He-”

Jon’s father cut me off. “He tells me how you torment him with some ghost at school! And then you chase him with ghouls! You purposefully taunt and scare him! All the kids here have the same story!”

Everyone is nodding, agreeing with each other, glaring at me.

There it is.

The line in the sand.

Them against me.

The normal, and the other.

My fists clench.

Mom whispers, “Keira, please.”

Teyana’s father hosts a steel pipe against his shoulder.

“We all had a town meeting last night,” he says.

Mom says sharply. “Shouldn’t I have been a part of this meeting?”

Lacy’s mom, who was armed with a drillmaster, says quietly, “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Rion.”

Mom gasps.

I slowly began to not feel anything. They were all here to kill me. Take care of their annoying little dead-raising pest problem.

Teyana’s father continues. “She’s got to go, Rion. She’s getting older, and her power is out of control. She’s too dangerous. Siccing ghouls on our kids now?”

The mob is getting louder with angry scared sounds, glaring at me, and the Common kids bend down, looking for stones to throw.

This was how it ends.

Except…I can see the ghouls coming up from behind the mob, who are so focused on me that they aren’t watching their six.

It’s a horde of maybe twenty or thirty ghouls. And these guys aren’t like the ghouls I normally raised, placid, timid, and sometimes able to hold a conversation. These ghouls are slavering, arms outstretched, and the gnashing of their teeth, and how they groan, told me these ghouls were not only wild, but hungry. My anger had raised them like this. And the fact this is a horde of them, meant I had put much, much more power into my unbidden call.

I say nothing as the ghouls came closer, and closer, then before the first stone could be thrown, the ghouls leapt onto the angry mob. I turn my face away as seconds later, I hear the desperate screams at the same time goosebumps riddle up my skin.

Mom cries out, “Keira!” as the screams continue. “Keira, stop! What are you doing!”

I look now, and I’m frozen. I’ve never seen ghouls mauling anyone before. The horde is fueled by my pain and anger and desire for revenge. Fairwater Narrows is a smalltown and anyone who saw the ghouls raising from The Narrows cemetery knew they were heading to “The Hason house.” Since Jon’s dad said there was a town meeting, they knew that there was going to be stoning this Sunday morning.

Now there is a massacre happening right outside.

Mom grabs my shoulder, and pushes me back and forth.

“Do something Keira, please!” she cries. “You can’t just do nothing!”

I feel dissociated, divorced, distanced, as I dimly watch the scene of ghouls vs them who have done nothing but berate me, reject me, treat me like trash. Isn’t getting eaten alive by ghouls more than fitting?

They deserve this.

Mom grabs onto my forearm so tight, and dug in her nails, the sharp pain tugs into me, and I finally manage to look into her deep brown eyes, normal human eyes that I don’t have. Maybe if I had them, I’d have been accepted.

“I’m begging you Keira,” she says, looking at me with watery eyes. “There has got to be another way. But not this way. Please. Call them off.”

I stare at her.

Then I say, “For you, Mom.”

I turn to face the ghouls feasting, I hold up my right hand as I call on my natural gift, my curse.

I say loud and clear, “Stop!”

The ghouls froze mid-devouring of the angry mob, the kids who bullied me, and their parents who came to kill me.

I walk forward and kept my hand up. “Release them.”

With some shambling moans, the ghouls backed away from their Common meals.

I look at the waiting horde. They look at me, standing mostly still or slouched. The wild hungry glaze in their eyes was gone and instead the calming blue light of my sorcell within them. Blood covers their mouths and hands and down their clothes.

I faced them. “Go back to your graves, go back and rest. Don’t roam anymore.”

With soft groans, they turn and shuffle away. I knew they would do as told, go and lay down back in their graves then rest. The mob laid around in piles of blood and ripped clothes and wounds, groaning in pain. My Mom came over, on her cellphone calling emergency services.

No one was dead, not yet.

Unlike fairytales, people bitten by ghouls don’t automatically become ghouls themselves like some sort of virus or curse. They’ll just die of their injuries, game over. Not unless someone decides to raise them as a ghoul, like the way I do.

As the sirens wails, my Mom hugs me from behind. She presses her face behind my shoulders, and squeezes me.

“No matter what,” she whispers. “I won’t let them take you away. You stay home with me, where you are safe. I’ll protect you, I promise.”

I don’t say anything.

That’s all! Thanks for reading, Storytellers!

Question: Was it bad that Keira sicced the ghouls on her bullies, or should she have been “the bigger person” and let them keep bullying her? I was pretty conflicted! Did I go too far in letting someone who’s been bullied getting their revenge and did Keira simply become a villain herself? Also would you read a novel-length version of this story? Let me know!

Until next time,

A. E.