3 Ghosts of Our Fathers

by Michael Richan

  “Steven is making it sound simpler than it is,” Claire said. “Few things irritate a ghost more than having its matter removed. Even if they’re giving it up willingly, ghosts are very unpredictable and can change their minds on a dime. This will be tricky.”

  “I’ll have to defer to your opinion,” Steven said, “since I’ve never done it before. I just know that if we don’t get some, we’ll never be able to revive Daniel. He’ll be comatose forever, until his body gives out.”

  Claire looked down at the floor and nodded her head. “We’ll find a way to get some,” she said. “Somehow.”

  “Pete,” Steven said, “I don’t know how long this might take. If you don’t mind, I’d like to unpack and then get started with Claire. Hopefully we’ll be done quickly, and I’ll meet you all for breakfast.”

  “Of course,” Pete said, rising from his chair and grabbing Steven’s bag.

  “Really, I can carry the bag, Pete,” Steven said.

  “Are you kidding?” Pete said. “After all you’ve done for us, you’ll never carry a bag in this establishment. I’ve got your key right here. You’re in the north wing.”

  Steven smiled and turned to Claire. “I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes? And we’ll get started?”

  “I’ll be here,” Claire said.

  -

  When Steven saw the room Pete was taking him to, he let out a groan.

  “Something wrong?” Pete asked.

  “No, it’s just this room,” Steven said, “I know what happened in it. I met the ghost.”

  “I’m sorry, Steven, I didn’t know,” Pete said. “It’s the only room left.”

  “Don’t worry, Pete, I’ll deal with it,” Steven said. “You’re doing me a huge favor just putting me up.”

  “What happened in this room?” Pete said, opening the door with the key and walking inside.

  “There’s a ghost in here who wanders the room, moaning about a man – her husband, or lover, I don’t know – and after she works herself up into a frenzy, she pulls out a revolver and blows her brains out. They hit there,” Steven said, pointing to the spot on the wall where he’d seen the apparition’s blood splatter.

  Pete stared at the spot Steven was pointing at. It looked fine, without a blemish. His face slowly lost color as he imagined the event. “Oh no,” he said, “is it going to keep you up all night?”

  “No,” Steven said, “I doubt I’ll see her, unless I go into the River.”

  “The River?” Pete asked.

  Steven sighed. He was tired, and he’d slipped up and said too much.

  “It’s a way of seeing things differently. A flow of things you don’t normally see.”

  “Oh, your gift,” Pete said. “It has to do with your ability.”

  “Yes,” Steven said. “That’s how I saw her in the first place. If I don’t go into that flow, I probably won’t see or hear her at all. It really isn’t a problem, Pete. It just creeps me out a little, knowing what she does in here.”

  “It creeps me out too,” Pete said. “That’s not one of the stories in The Ghosts of Mason Manor. Maybe I should have the author contact you, so we could list it in the next edition.”

  “Sure, Pete,” Steven said, wanting to unpack and get back down to Claire. “Next edition. I’d better get a move on if I’m going to meet Claire.”

  “Oh yes, here’s your key, good luck to the both of you. I’ve left the basement unlocked. I’ll see you both at breakfast in the morning, right? Seven a.m. in the dining room.”

  “Yes, I remember,” Steven said. “Thanks for your help, Pete. See you then.”

  Pete left the room and closed the door. Steven placed his bag on the bed and removed a thin object wrapped in leather. He tucked it into his back pocket, grabbed a flashlight from his bag, double checked that he had the room key, and left the room to return to Claire.

  -

  Steven and Claire descended the stairs into the basement. The manor was silent; all guests had turned in for the night.

  “I’ve met a couple of the ones down here,” Steven said, “and they’re intense. One was a little girl who killed her parents. The other was a man with an ax.”

  “Hmm,” said Claire. “Neither sounds promising.”

  “No,” Steven said, leading Claire to the spot where Roy had gone into a trance and Steven had seen the portal. “We could use some new ones. How should we do this?” Steven removed the leather pouch from his back pocket.

  “Is that it?” Claire asked.

  “Yes,” Steven said. He unwrapped it. It looked like wooden tube, about an inch thick. On one side there was a hole in the tube. Next to the hole a rock was worked into the wood. The rock was thick with minerals that looked like crystals.

  “Nasty device,” Claire said. “I had hoped to never use one.”

  “I’m thinking maybe the way to do this is for you to conduct the trance, see if you can find a willing donor,” Steven said. “Once you find them, I’ll collect the matter.”

  “By scraping them with that blade,” Claire said.

  “Yes, I believe that’s how it’s done, based on what Roy told me.”

  “How will you know if you’ve collected enough?” Claire asked.

  “Roy said if I filled half of this tube we’d have enough.”

  “Can you imagine if I asked you to fill half that tube with your flesh?” Claire said.

  “No, I can’t,” Steven said. Claire was starting to get on his nerves.

  “It’s barbaric,” Claire said.

  “It’s for Daniel,” Steven said. “Trust me, I wouldn’t be down here otherwise.”

  Claire shot him an unhappy but resigned glance and placed her hands at the side of her head, her fingers touching her temples. Steven realized she was starting her trance. He watched silently as she rubbed the sides of her head as though she had a headache. After a while her head began to tilt, and she abruptly opened her eyes.

  “The ghosts here are far too evil to talk to,” she said. “None of them are going to help us. Let’s try another room.”

  They walked together to the next room. The basement was a series of open rooms, housing the water heaters and furnaces of the manor. It also held Pete’s workshop. They walked up to it, and Claire stopped to try a trance again. She went through the same routine. After several minutes, she spoke.

  “Steven, I think you should see this.”

  Steven entered the flow and saw Claire in her trance, surrounded by a thin membrane. Claire pointed to a man who was strapped to a wall. As Steven watched, another figure materialized, holding a metal rod. The end of the rod was glowing red, as though it had been resting in a fire. The man brought the glowing rod up to the body of the strapped man and pressed it into his flesh. Steven saw it sink deeply into the man’s skin. The strapped man let out an ungodly howl.

  “Where’d you bury it?” the man with the rod asked. “You’ve got a lot of skin left to burn off, Williams, and I’ve got all night.” He raised the glowing end again and held it by the man’s face. The strapped man turned his head from the heat, and the man with the rod touched it to the strapped man’s ear. It sizzled and turned black under the rod.

  Steven turned his head away. None of these people are going to help us, he heard Claire think. They’re degenerates.

  Steven exited the flow and Claire came out of her trance.

  “We’ve got to keep trying,” Steven said.

  “I’ll try the whole basement if you want,” Claire said, “but I’m not hopeful.”

  They moved to another area and Claire went into a trance again. She was only in it a minute when she abruptly opened her eyes and began walking into another area.

  “What’s wrong?” Steven asked.

  “A woman,” Claire said. “Extremely evil. I can’t be around that.”

  Steven sighed. He didn’t know if Claire was telling him the truth or exaggerating. He followed her as she rounded a corner. Steven recognized the area as the spot wh
ere he, Pete, and Roy had dug up some gold through a hole in the wall. He shined his flashlight on the wall and couldn’t see where the hole had been made. Admirable patch job, he thought.

  Claire closed her eyes. Once again her hands went up to her temples, and she rubbed. This went on for several minutes before she began to cry.

  Steven entered the flow to see what was going on. A young man sat with his back against the wall. He held a long blade in his hands. He was sobbing, occasionally raising his eyes upward as though looking for guidance from above.

  He’s just lost his little boy, he heard Claire think. Just a baby.

  As Steven watched, he raised his blade to his throat and ran it across his neck. Blood emerged from the cut and ran down his throat; his sobs stopped. His head fell back against the wall, looking upward.

  Let’s try him, Steven thought.

  He’s in pain, he heard Claire think. You’ll just make it worse.

  He’s lost someone, Steven thought. Maybe he’d be willing to save someone else.

  The young man disappeared from view. In a few moments, he reappeared, holding his knife as before, crying into his arms.

  “You there,” Steven said to the young man.

  “What?” the man said, his head still in his arms.

  “You’ve lost your child?” Steven said.

  “Yes,” he cried. “He’s dead.”

  “What happened to him?” Steven asked.

  “He fell,” the man said. “And now he won’t move. He’s not breathing.”

  “My friend can’t move either,” Steven said. “He’s trapped. And I need your help to save him.”

  “Leave me alone,” the man said.

  “Your son is gone, but you can save my friend,” Steven said.

  “How can I do that?”

  Steven removed the matter knife from his back pocket. “By giving me a little bit of yourself,” he said, showing the knife to the man.

  The man raised his head from his arms and looked at Steven and the knife. “You can go to hell!” he said, lunging at Steven with his blade extended. Steven felt the blade enter him just below the shoulder. He slipped out of the flow.

  Claire opened her eyes. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Steven inspected his shoulder. It hurt, but there was no mark, no blood. “That felt real,” he said. “I think you may be right. This is going to be more complicated than I thought.”

  “Don’t misjudge the damage,” Claire said. “Just because you can’t see a wound physically doesn’t mean you aren’t wounded.”

  What does that mean? Steven wondered. The knife wounded me elsewhere? In the flow? Do I believe her?

  “What do we do?” Steven said. “These ghosts are so wrapped up in their own experiences you can’t really appeal to them rationally.”

  “We need one that will work with us, that knows it’s a ghost,” said Claire. “Think back to the ghosts you met here before. Which of them were cooperative?”

  “Well,” Steven said, “there was Dennington, in the north wing hallway. Appears only around midnight. He’s trying to find his room, and he’s been cut or stabbed. And there was a little girl, down here in the basement, who explained what was happening here to Roy. She was the one who had killed her parents. Those two were probably the most cooperative.”

  “I met the woman in the pantry,” Claire said, “and she talks a lot, and remembers people she’s met. But I don’t think we’d get her to help us until after she goes out to hang her laundry and gets killed. Sarah and I met a met a woman who was…”

  Steven turned to look at Claire. She had lost her train of thought, and was looking at the entryway of the room. Steven turned to look at the entryway she was staring at, but saw nothing.

  “What is it?” Steven asked.

  “He’s listening to us,” she said. “Over there.”

  Steven slipped into the flow, but the entryway still appeared to be empty. Then, as he watched, the faint image of a man’s head emerged from view on the left, as though he was spying on them. When he made eye contact with Steven, he quickly pulled his head back behind the wall, hiding.

  “Hello?” Steven said. “Are you listening to us?”

  “Yes,” came a faint voice from behind the opening. A tingle crawled up Steven’s neck; the man’s voice had something wrong with it, and the feeling he got listening to it disturbed him.

  “You want some matter, like those harvesters,” he said from behind the wall.

  “Yes,” Steven said. “We do. It’s to help save someone’s life. Would you be willing to give us some?”

  “I would,” the man said, still behind the wall. “As long as you’re willing to do something for me?”

  “What’s that?” Steven asked.

  “That man leaning against the wall,” he said. “The man who stabbed you so viciously. I need to talk to him. I know something important that will stop him from killing himself. It will set him free. But he’s too obsessed to listen to me. If you will talk to him, convince him to walk over here to me so I can talk to him, I’ll give you some matter.”

  Steven turned to look at Claire. It’s worth a shot, Steven thought.

  Something’s not right, Claire thought.

  We’ve got to get this matter collected somehow, Steven thought. I don’t mind giving it a try.

  Be careful, Clair thought.

  “OK, I’ll talk to him,” Steven said to the man still hiding behind the entryway. “Why don’t you come out from there so I can see you? It’ll make it easier for him to come over and talk to you.”

  “No,” the man said, “I can’t do that. Whenever he sees me he becomes more hysterical. I need you to bring him to me, and help calm him.”

  Steven turned to look at the man against the wall. He was in the same position he’d been in before he stabbed Steven, crying with his head down on his arms. How am I going to get this guy to get up and follow me?

  “You there,” Steven said.

  “Leave me alone,” the man said, his head in his arms. Steven could see the knife in his right hand.

  “This man can help you,” Steven said.

  “What man? How can he help me? He’s not breathing anymore.”

  “He can help,” Steven said. “Come with me, you’ll see.”

  The man looked up at Steven, tears streaming down his face. “He can bring my boy back?”

  Steven didn’t know what to say. He just knew he needed the man to get up and follow him to the entryway, so he could talk to the man there.

  “Yes, he can help your boy,” Steven said, uncomfortable with the lie, but not knowing how else to get the man to move. “He might be able to save him.”

  A ray of hope flashed across the man’s face. “Where is he?” he asked Steven. “If he can help my boy…”

  “Over here,” Steven said, backing up and turning to the entryway. “Through here.”

  The man rose from his seated position and stood facing Steven. The knife was still in his right hand, but he didn’t seem angry or ready to use it. He stumbled towards Steven and the entryway. As he approached Steven stepped out of his way and pointed to the dark entryway. “There,” he told the man, “he’s right around the corner.”

  Steven saw the look of appreciation on the young man’s face as he stepped towards the entryway, searching for the man who would help save his son.

  The moment he passed the entryway, the man behind the wall descended on him. The man grabbed the young man’s head with both hands, holding him still.

  Wait! Steven thought. I’ve led him to a trap.

  It was too late. The mouth of the man behind the wall opened and rapidly grew until it was a foot in diameter, pushing up and distorting his other facial features. His eyes turned yellow and a row of large fangs appeared inside the lips, which were stretched so far they looked like they would snap. In a quick motion reminiscent of a snake, the transformed man attacked the head of the young man he was holding, snapping three quarters of t
he head into his mouth. Steven heard Claire scream behind him. The young man swung his arms wildly trying to get free of the creature, the knife cutting through the air, trying to make contact with it. The arms of the creature swiftly changed from human arms to long, bent legs, coated with fine hair. They had crab-like pinchers on the end of them, and in a swift movement one of them shot out and clipped off the young man’s hand at the wrist. His hand and the knife fell to the floor.

  Steven could hear the young man screaming inside the mouth of the creature, which was pulling the young man’s body to the ground. As it descended the creature continued to morph until it looked like a cross between a lizard and a spider. Once it reached the ground, it lunged forward towards the young man’s body, taking his head further down its throat. The young man continued to thrash.

  What do I do? Steven thought. How do I help him?

  You can’t help him now, Steven heard the creature think. But you’re welcome to take some of his matter while I ingest him. It’ll take me several minutes to swallow all of him.

  Steven’s mind reeled. He’d just helped feed this man to this creature, and now he was invited to add insult to injury by taking the man’s matter against his will.

  You wanted the matter, the creature thought. Take it, your share for helping me.

  I didn’t know you intended to kill him, Steven thought.

  He’s already dead, the creature thought. I’m merely ending his endless cycle of torment. Doing him a favor, really.

  Looks more like you’re eating him, Steven thought.

  Well, yes, the creature thought, that I am. Doesn’t mean you can’t have some too.

  Steven was disgusted. He turned to look at Claire, who had turned her head away from the scene.

  Should I take it? he thought to Claire.

  I don’t know what to tell you, Claire thought back. It’s up to you.

  Steven saw the creature lunge forward again, its mouth expanding to take the young man’s shoulders. The yellow eyes of the creature stared at Steven.