by J G Jerome
I wipe my phone off and dial Zach. “Hey, Zach. Will here...Yeah, I’m all out of the house. I think we’re ready...Yeah, I can meet you this evening if you like...Sure. No big deal. Just call me when you get here. I’m only a block away...Okay. See you then.”
I fill a glass of water, and then logon and check email to see how things are progressing with my project team. I spend the next couple of hours working until Zach calls me.
I log off and head out. Zach is standing on the sidewalk next to the stairs up the curtain wall. We climb the stairs and walk the property.
Zach say, “Looks good, Will. We’ll start by dropping the outer structures to reveal the shack they put down after the original burned down. I don’t know if we’ll be able to salvage anything from that.”
“Don’t sweat it.” I tell him. “I honestly don’t think it can be salvaged. I had to put it in the plan for the historical society. Once you strip it down, measure what’s left. If it doesn’t line up with the plan, salvage the wood. The original house was a much cooler design.”
Zach nods, “True, and I think the way you’ve built on that original design is going to make this house gorgeous.”
We walk around the entire property. Zach doesn’t see anything we need to worry about. He says, “We’re going to start by putting up a perimeter fence at the sidewalk level. We’ll block the sidewalk for two weeks to pull out the trees, clean, and tighten up the bottom retaining wall. Once we have it done, we’ll move the fence up against the wall. The permit only let’s us block the sidewalk for three weeks. We’ll do the top retaining wall afterwards”
I chuckle, “I call them curtain walls. Like on a castle.”
“Pretty close,” he laughs. “Demo starts tomorrow. We’re looking good.”
“Hey, Zack. I heard you lost your project manager for residential projects. How is that going to impact this project?” I ask.
“I’ve got this, Will. I’ve managed projects this size before,” he assures me.
“Okay, Zach, but I’d feel better if I had a copy of the project plan. Can you send me one?”
“Sure, we’re back to using the Open Project. I’ll just send you the file,” he tells me.
“Great,” I say as we walk back down the stairs to the sidewalk. “I will be a pain in your ass.”
Zach laughs, “I’m counting on it.”
We shake hands, and I walk back to the apartment.
I let myself into the apartment in time to get a phone call from Audrey. She’s a young lady from the Phoenix area that I date when I’m in town. We chat for a bit. I tell her I’ve got a three-day workshop in two weeks in the Biltmore area. I’ll be staying at the Embassy Suites next to the Biltmore Fashion Park. Audrey commits to staying with me during my stay. That will make things much nicer. We sign off professing our undying devotion in as melodramatic a manner as possible with much laughter. Her joi de vivre is what makes us work. That and she really likes to be tied up. She knows about Marissa, but she claims she doesn’t care. I don’t ask if she sees anyone else, but I suspect not. The only person she’s ever mentioned outside of family is her roommate, Erica. Apparently they scratch each other’s itch when required. Unlike Marissa, Audrey is happy to share everything.
I down a couple more glasses of water and then decide to hit the gym. I pack up my gear and head out. When I get there, I do some pull-ups, push-ups, and air squats, then some yoga stretches. I follow that with three rounds on the heavy bag. I see Gerry, so I stop to chat for a minute before I head to the pool. I knock out sixteen sprints, with a slow breast stroke in between. When I get out of the pool, I see Marissa in the hot tub.
I join her and stretch as the hot water relaxes my muscles.
“How did everything go today?” I ask her.
“It’s work,” she says with a shrug. “I just about have this deal wrapped up with a client in Cottonwood. I’ll probably have it done by Wednesday next week. How did your day go?”
“Mine started out awesome. It went downhill as soon as my companion left this morning. It took all the color out of the day,” I tease her. She actually blushes. I continue, “We got everything packed out and into storage without any issue. The construction supervisor came by and declared they are ready to start tomorrow. Then I got the apartment cleaned and put stuff away. Now I’m here. I only spent a couple of hours working today.”
“That doesn’t sound like it was too bad,” she teases.
I shake my head, “Not really. Had one weird thing happen though. I discovered a puddle of goo on my loveseat in the new apartment. I didn’t even notice. I found it when I sat down in the middle of it over lunch.”
“Where did it come from?” she asks.
“I have no idea. I didn’t see anything on the ceiling. The doors were locked. Nothing else was disturbed,” I tell her.
“What did it look like?”
“Kinda looked like clear corn syrup, but milky and viscous. It smelled a bit like ozone - you know, how it smells right before the raindrops start falling?” She nods. “There was a lot of of it. Maybe three quarts to a gallon of the stuff. It took me about forty-five minutes to clean it up.”
“That’s weird,” she comments.
I nod, “Yep. But what’s really weird is that I keep thinking back to the old Ghostbusters movie where Bill Murry gets slimed by a ghost.”
Marissa scrunches her face prettily, “You think you have a ghost?”
I shrug, “I don’t know. It would clarify some of the weird reviews this place got. It’s probably something explainable, but when you don’t have an explanation your brain goes to weird places.”
She leans in and kisses my cheek. “William, my friend, you are one strange dude. It’s part of what makes you so loveable.” Then she grimaces, “Oooo. Cramps are really bad. I better go before this tampon gives up the ghost. No pun intended.”
I cup her face before she stands. I ask, “Do you need me to take you home?”
“No, but thanks, Will.” She walks up the steps out of the hot tub with swaying hips. “It’s nothing special. Just part of the joy of being female.” She looks over her shoulders and winks at me. I watch her walk away wistfully. I think, ‘That is one fine woman!’ She looks at me before stepping into the locker room and blows me a kiss. I wave, and she disappears.
I stretch a little more until the jets stop, then I shower, and head home to bed.
* * *
In the middle of the night a human-shaped form slowly materializes next to the bed. It watches over Will’s sleeping figure for several minutes. It reaches a hand out hesitantly and slowly strokes Will’s arm. Will barely stirs. After a time it moves to the back corner of the bedroom to squat with its arms wrapped around its torso to keep its watch.
3 - Meeting my host
The next morning I wake up and reach across the bed thinking Marissa is beside me. I jolt awake when my hand hits an empty mattress. I could have sworn I wasn’t alone. I sit up and look around. I scratch my head and look around, thinking back to last night. I remember talking to Marissa at the fitness club, but no - I came home alone.
‘That must have been one hell of a dream,’ I think to myself. I go to relieve myself, brush my teeth, and get dressed.
You know how a house feels different when you’re alone in it. I definitely was getting a ‘not alone’ vibe. I walk through the tiny apartment but find no one. I shrug and get ready to leave.
I’m officially off work today. I work as an IT project manager for a company that delivers software-as-a-service, or ‘SaaS.’ As you might expect, they expect me to be cheaper because I work from home. I get even by not starting until 8:30 a.m. most days. Sometimes I have to start earlier for East Coast and European clients, but they generally try to find project managers in the same time zone as the customers. That makes my life fairly ‘normal’ compared to many in IT consulting roles.
I also do a significant number of side gigs as a test automation developer and technical writer, but I’m
currently not engaged in anything. I’ll have to go drum up some new side gigs - those are what have paid for the renovation project.
Bottom line is I get today off. Normally, that would mean working on the house, but due to the renovation I don’t have any to-do’s for the house. So, I’m going to rent a kayak and paddle among the Dells at Watson lake. I’ve wanted to do this since I moved up here, but managed to not make it until today.
I grab a couple of water bottles, and head to Prescott Junction for a hearty country breakfast. Then I head out to the lake. The weather is gorgeous, low-70s with a slight breeze. I spent about four hours on and around the lake. It’s up to the mid-80s by the time I’m done. It will be in the mid-90s by two o’clock. I turn in my gear and head back into town.
I hit the grocery on the way back to the apartment and pick up a sandwich from the deli counter. Getting used to a two-burner kitchenette is going to take some adapting. Maybe I’ll pick up a small toaster oven.
After I eat lunch, I go walk around the square. There is some kind of market there, which is fairly unusual for a Friday. However, it is summer, and the tourists from Phoenix do like to show up to escape the heat. I love walking through the markets, but I rarely buy anything. This time is no exception, but I see a strange guy there. He does a double-take initially, and then I see him checking me out a couple of times. I don’t recognize him, but apparently he thinks I’m a serial killer. Strange.
I decide that rather than letting him follow me back to the apartment, I need to ditch him. I walk north on Montezuma to the Starbucks across Sheldon. While I’m waiting on my drink, I summon a Lyft. As I get in, I see the guy squatting by the bank across the parking lot. I can’t see his expression very well, but his body language indicates he’s frustrated he can’t follow me. I guess I better start carrying again.
I got my conceal carry permit ten years ago after a similar situation. I caught a fairly normal-looking guy lurking about as I was shopping for a Christmas present for my Ex. I picked up a sense of hostility from him. I was carrying a lock-back knife and a collapsible police baton with me at the time. I led him into an alcove around the backside of Biltmore Fashion Park. I hit him with the baton before he saw me. He had a gun. Fortunately, I was able to disarm him before he could pull the trigger. His attack was fierce, and despite twenty years of martial arts and wielding a club, I was still hard pressed to put him down. He was well-trained. He rolled over to protect himself, and I stepped on the back of his neck and dropped my weight onto it. He died, and I walked away. There wasn’t much mention of it on the news. I bought a gun and went to the concealed carry course immediately thereafter.
About two years ago, a very attractive woman exhibited the same behaviors while I was in New York on business. I noticed her scoping me out, but she didn’t appear attracted to me. She kept showing up, and I got a hostile vibe off her. Of course, my gun was in Arizona, I didn’t even have the knife and baton because the TSA decided not to like those in carry-ons. It was my third trip to our New York office, so I knew the streets pretty well and was able to shake her.
Regardless, the Lyft driver drops me off at the apartment without incident. I drop my empty water bottle off in the kitchen and finish my coffee. I get a glass of water and drain it twice. Then I strip down and head to the bathroom. I start the shower, and turn to the sink. I open the medicine cabinet to retrieve some razor blades. I close the mirror to see an emaciated young woman with disheveled dark hair, dirty skin, and vacant eyes staring at me in the mirror.
4 - Rebecca
I spin to find no one standing behind me. I look back into the mirror to see no one there either. I know I’m spooked from the guy in the square, but that doesn’t feel the same as this. This is more the ‘not alone’ feeling from before.
I decide that even if I am crazy, there is no one here to see me. So I call out, “Okay, you have shown yourself. The hard part is over. Why don’t you come back and say ‘hello?’ I won’t bite if you don’t.”
I look around the bathroom as the steam starts to build. I turn back to the mirror, and there she is. She’s wearing a dirty white night gown - like in historical movies but filthy. She has sunken eyes, stringy dark hair, and what looks like a dirty face. I slowly raise my hand and wave gently.
She slowly raises her hand and gently waves back. I smile and say, “Well hello. My name is Will. Can you tell me your name?”
She opens and closes her mouth a couple times. Then she gets a cute exasperated look on her face, and her eyes look weepy rather than vacant. She slowly shakes her head.
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “Can you draw the letters on the mirror? If you do them big and draw them slowly, I might be able to follow them.”
She smiles gently and reaches up and draws. I have to transpose because it’s like she’s writing on the inside of the mirror. She draws the first one.
“R?” I ask.
She nods. Then she draws again.
“E?”
Next letter looks like a …
“B?” I ask. She nods. I ask, “Is your name Rebecca?”
She nods with a small smile.
I tell her, “Rebecca, it is my pleasure to meet you.” She gives me a genuine smile and there appears to be more life in her eyes than in the eyes of some living folks I know. I think, ‘Ironic.’
I look at her and say, “I understand you don’t have a choice about putting up with me, but I will try to be a good guest.” Her smile brightens. It looks like she might be chuckling a little.
I let her enjoy it for a moment. After her chuckle dies down I ask, “Rebecca, I’m guessing you died. Is that correct?”
She nods.
“In this building?”
She looks around and tilts her head back and forth for a moment. Then she points down to the ground and nods. Then she waves her hands around to indicate her surroundings, shaking her head.
I think about that for a minute. After I think I have it put together I say, “On this property, but not this building.” She nods. “So, you are a ghost who died on this property.” She nods again.
“The building burned down?” I ask. She shrugs. “You don’t know.” She shakes her head.
I smile, “Was that mess on the couch you?”
She clasps her hands over her face and nods her head. She looks embarrassed.
I chuckle before saying, “Don’t worry about it, Rebecca. I don’t mind you coming in to say hello, or taking a break on the loveseat. I’ll put a sheet or blanket on the loveseat, so you don’t have to worry about a mess. I read somewhere that it takes a lot of energy for a ghost to build a physical form.” I intentionally don’t tell her I thought the article was written by a kook.
She looks at me and slowly nods.
I tell her, “I don’t know if this will work for you, but in physics there’s a concept called ‘conservation of energy.’ If I understand it properly, it means you should be able to harvest energy back from your physical form because the energy you poured into creating it is still there. As you start to lose energy you can convert matter from your form to energy. If you can manage to do it, you’ll be able to persist longer even if your form gets smaller or less substantial. If you can manage to make it work, when your energy drops too low to hold a form, you will make less of a mess because you will have harvested much of the mass of your physical form.”
She crosses her arms and taps her lips with her index finger as she considers this. Then she shrugs.
I ask her, “May I ask a couple more questions?” She nods readily.
“The year right now is 2019. Did you die before the year 2000?
She looks sadly at me and nods.
“Before the year 1900?” She nods.
I think Prescott’s only been around since the 1860’s, so I start there. “Before the year 1860?” She shakes her head slowly.
“Okay,” I respond. “Before 1890?” She shakes her head. “Before 1895?” She nods.
“Before 1893?” She
nods. “Before 1892?” She nods. “Before 1891?” She shakes her head.
I nod, “You died somewhere on this property in 1891?” She nods.
I tell her, “Is this what you looked like when you died?”
Rebecca nods her head from side to side before nodding. Her image flickers slightly and returns.
I tell her, “You look emaciated and dirty. Like maybe you were locked in the cellar and starved.”
Her eyes get huge, and she nods her head slowly.
“How old were you when you died, Rebecca? It’s hard to tell as emaciated as you look,” I say.
She holds up ten fingers, and then she holds up seven fingers.
“Seventeen?” I ask. She nods. Her image flickers again.
“You poor girl,” I tell her. “I’m guessing most people freaked out when you introduced yourself.”
She nods sadly. Her image flickers and blinks out for a moment.
When she returns, I say, “Well Rebecca, I’m here for three months. My house is being rebuilt on the corner of Aubrey and Cortez. It’s close enough I could probably come visit periodically after my lease is done. You let me know if you want me to do that when I get ready to move out. Okay?”
She nods as her image starts to flicker again.
“Are you getting tired, Rebecca?”
She nods. Her image is flickering constantly. She gives me a sad look and waves.
I wave back and tell her, “Come visit when you get enough energy, Rebecca.”
Just before her image disappears she flashes a bright smile.
That was a new experience.
I load a blade onto my razor and step into the shower. I wash my hair, shave, and shower. I run a squeegee over the glass of the enclosure and then towel off. I hang the towel and go to pull on clean jeans and a t-shirt.
After I’m dressed, I go to my fire-safe. The thing weighs 25 pounds empty. I unlock it and pull out my Sig P365. I grab my cleaning kit and give the weapon a good deep cleaning. I even clean and lube the magazines. I load two 10-round magazines. Finally, I do a functions check and let the slide close. Then I seat a magazine and set the safety. I slide the weapon into a clip-on holster and put the second magazine with my car keys. Then I lock up the safe and pull on a red gingham sport shirt which I leave hanging loose.