I am a man who creates ghosts for a living. Ghost Catcher is in its fourth season now and I’ve been there since the beginning as their only cameraman. I’m sure you’ve seen it on the Paranormal Channel, at least the commercials. Two friends dedicated to unveiling the truth about the supernatural after a shared high school experience. In reality, Jamie and Trent are two pretty faces picked up by the production company to run around in the dark and get excited about “orbs.” They’re household names now. You can even buy t-shirts with their fake-tan faces on them. I make fun of them, but they’re genuine guys. They really believe in this supernatural stuff. They know about the fake stuff we pull, but all the things they say on the talk shows about the show being like a big happy family—they mean that.
Today we’re at an old Cape in Connecticut. The owner is typical of who we get writing in: an overweight housewife with a homely face and too bright lipstick. She has good hair, though, and when I look over at Bob, the production manager, his eyes are big and shiny like a puppy. He has a soft spot for women like her.
“Dave,” he says to me, “show the young lady the new camera,” and I oblige. I can see Bob’s round face going red when she smiles at him. He’s been lonely since his wife left him last year. He just wants someone to go home to after work. His ex got bored with him and started going to night classes and retreats. Last I heard she was traveling in Egypt with a women’s group. I should just get him on a dating site. Poor guy is so lonely.
I think about my wife and what she’ll be like at that age. In my head I’ve already divorced myself from Jackie’s future. Divorced myself from her but I don’t have the balls to do it in actuality. I won’t know her when she gets to be that old. I never saw us in the future. When she used to talk about growing old together, I let my thoughts drift away to avoid listening to her and think that one day, I would be sure, stay or leave. But I just keep floating on and am non-committal as ever.
The housewife thinks she’s psychic (they all do), but these days the word is ‘sensitive.’ “I’ve seen a full-bodied apparition,” she says, eyes wide. “A Civil War soldier who walked from here,” she points to a threadbare sofa, “to here.” With a flourish, she motions to the door and I move the camera. Next we’re going to film the attic section. The golden duo isn’t here yet; they show up for the night filming.
People think we just film overnight, but what they don’t know is that it takes at least a week to film enough that is usable, even with all our trickery. Perhaps trickery is too strong a word for it. It doesn’t take much to pause a camera in order to make something appear to move on its own: a chair, a bedspread, a Bible if we’re going for the demon thing, or use a piece of fishing line to pull the back of someone’s sweater. Doors will close on their own with a swift kick, and a disembodied voice can easily rise from the duct system. This is what I spend my life doing.
I’d like to say there is some art to it, but really there isn’t. Most of it we don’t need to fake: an old furnace will produce the bangs, dust makes great orbs, a creaky floorboard is a godsend, and warm breath in a cold room can make a convincing, eerie mist. I’m sworn to secrecy but everyone knows. As long as we spook the viewers and get the ratings, no-one cares. I think the viewers know, too. Most people aren’t that stupid; they just want to be entertained. Occasionally we have the odd thing we can’t explain, but we couldn’t make a show on it.
I follow Bob’s chubby butt up the steps to the attic. Once we’re there, the air is stuffy like any other, and I’ve been in quite a few. Old toys and Christmas decorations spill out of soggy cardboard boxes. My throat starts to clog with dust and insulation fibers. This place is about as paranormal as Chuck E. Cheese.
“We sometimes sense a young presence here…” I miss the rest of what the woman is saying. I can see Bob trying his best not to ogle her breasts. They’re substantial, and heave with emotion as we interview her. Bob has frosting on his chin from eating doughnuts at breakfast. The lady is still talking, “That’s why we keep these toys up here. My children have outgrown them now. I could give them to Goodwill...” I think of Jackie. There will be no toys in our attic.
* * *
It was a month ago and a Saturday, late at night; I was at home in the den flipping through channels. You’d think I’d get sick of TV through work but I find it hard to sleep, too used to staying awake all night filming. Jackie came and stood in the doorway. She was wearing her fluffy white bath robe and her pale yellow hair was floating with static. Behind her was the warm glow from the kitchen light. Her face flickered blue with the screen.
“We need to talk,” she said. I felt my stomach plunge with a kind of dread tinged with excitement, like when you’re a kid and you know you have to have a tooth pulled. I looked over at her. Her features were indistinct, mushy.
“What’s the matter?” I thought she was going to tell me it was over. If she ended it then I wouldn’t have to. I turned the TV sound off. It wasn’t like I just woke up one day and realized I didn’t love her. I just coasted along with everything and at some point realized she loved me more than I loved her. She didn’t say it was over, however. She walked over to the couch, sat beside me and took my hand.
“We’re having a baby.”
I looked at her. She squeezed my hand and I looked into eyes that seemed brown in the dark even though they are blue. They were open wide and I could see a reflection of the TV screen in each iris. She was doing that smile where she shows all her teeth. When I didn’t say anything, her smile got smaller. Her face diminished.
“We’re having a baby, David. I’m three weeks along.” She raised her hand and picked at the dry skin on her lip. I’d seen her do this many times.
“Have you taken a test?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yes, of course. You were away filming and I couldn’t wait.”
I sat and looked at her and tried to re-arrange my face into something that was appropriate. Her eyes were searching my face and I couldn’t quite keep up with them, make it right.
“Aren’t you happy?” she said. I almost looked around to see if she was talking to me.
“You have to get rid of it,” I said.
She looked at me in silence. It may have been seconds, it may have been minutes, but time seemed to stretch and slow. I noticed an itch behind my knee. When time sped up again she began to sob, dry, heaving gulps that didn’t make a sound. She didn’t look away or close her eyes. Her gaze didn’t move. I sat there with her limp hand in mine and wished I was somewhere else.
* * *
We kill the lights in the Cape as the sun goes down. I film Jamie and Trent as they stalk through the kitchen. Trent holds up an EMF reader and shouts out readings while Jamie explains to the audience: “Some people believe electromagnetic fields are evidence of spirits. Ghosts use this energy to manifest. We could be in the presence of the supernatural.” More likely it’s the refrigerator kicking out rays, but who am I to say? Next Trent pulls out a digital sound recorder to capture EVPs. We’ll review them later and see if we can get the white noise to say “Get Out!” but for now we wander into the hallway, asking questions into thin air. I found a talking doll upstairs that’s going to go off on its own, and later we’ll walk up and down the stairs for the camera’s microphone to pick up. Jamie turns and gives me a wholesome grin; I wish someone would tell him that the infra-red doesn’t pick up tan.
Off camera, Bob is talking to the housewife, “Of course we believe that this house is haunted. It’s not just for the TV. Spirits don’t work on a schedule, I’m afraid, but we do. It’s just to help it along. I really hope that we do catch some real activity and then we won’t need all this.” He smiles at her crestfallen face. It occurs to me that I don’t even know if Bob believes in the paranormal. I know about his failed marriage, his problems with his weight and the fact that he’s borderline diabetic yet I don’t know his opinions on the very thing we work together on.
I want to tell him about Jackie but I know he’ll be disa
ppointed in me. I can just imagine the look in his eyes when I tell him that my wife is pregnant and I’m making her get rid of the baby.
We move to the living room. Trent and Jamie try to make contact with the ghost of the soldier. We don’t mix it up much on this show. There’s a formula we stick to. It’s a formula that works, though—for the ratings, rather than finding actual ghosts. Jamie asks: “Is there anyone there? Give us a sign. Show us your presence,” and nothing happens. They make a big deal on this show about it being dark but what they don’t mention is that I’m in the dark, too, and walking backwards; I have the torn up ankles to prove it. What I see is the little square on the viewing screen in front of me as I stumble backwards into the unknown.
We return to the kitchen. We debated having some plates fly around but in the end decided to go for the Civil War angle. It’s a popular one in New England. Bob begins to go upstairs with his boots on to do the heavy footsteps. We joke about him being the heaviest and he laughs. I wonder if he ever regrets not having kids. Maybe his wife would have stayed if they had. Once we get the footsteps wrapped up I go into the attic to check the camera.
* * *
After Jackie had finished crying we went to bed. I stared at the ceiling while she lay with her back to me. We didn’t talk. What could we say? I stayed awake for a long time, and it wasn’t just the usual insomnia. I could tell by her breathing that she wasn’t asleep either. She lay very still. I could hear her gulping and snuffling. I reached out to touch her but stopped before my hand connected with her skin.
Years ago she had said things like, “When we have kids.” That had changed to, “if we have kids” and then it had stopped. I assumed the matter had been dropped, that she was thinking along the same lines as me. I thought about the madness of me being a father, of something swimming around in Jackie that we had made. How could I have created that spark of life without some sort of sign? I wondered if the thing was a person yet, if it had a soul. Where does its soul go if we get rid of it? If Jackie doesn’t have this kid will I be making a ghost?
The next morning, she wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t look at me but once I’d been away to work and come home again, she thawed. We talked, awkwardly, about nothing important. Later, she showed me the appointment letter. I nodded and told her I’d be away filming.
* * *
Despite the mustiness, I like hanging out in attics. Give me an attic rather than the basement any day. The camera is set up fine, so I root around in a few of the boxes, flip through some old magazines, and find a stack of yearbooks where the pictures of bad eighties haircuts are spotted with water damage and mold. Right at the back, I see a lawn chair and wonder if I can balance it across the joists. I walk across the beams and drag it over to where it’s not in shot. I figure I have a bit of time to relax before the others get here to film the next section. I turn off the light and settle into the chair. My shoulders are knotted and I’ve been clenching my jaw so hard I have a headache. I open my mouth a couple of times to ease the pressure.
I’ll call Jackie in the morning. She deserves more than that but she has her appointment at the clinic tomorrow. I’ll tell her I think she should go ahead with the abortion. Tell her that everything is going to be alright. Tell her we’ll get through this, even though I don’t believe it myself.
The chair is comfy and the attic is hot. I close my eyes, tilting my head back on the head rest. The tension drops from my shoulders; my arms dangle over the sides of the chair. As I start to drift into sleep, all my body hair stands on end. I sit up and look around. It’s dark but I see the outline of boxes in the light filtering from downstairs, where the others are bumping around. It won’t be long before they’re up here. The air in the attic gets colder and I wonder where I’ve left my jacket. I rub my arms with the palms of my hands. For once, I am desperate for sleep and settle back into the chair. Not very professional, but it’s not the first time someone has fallen asleep on this job.
I half-dream about Jackie, the way she sits on the bed and brushes her hair. How the blonde strands rise up to meet the bristles as she moves to the crown of her head. I fall into the rhythm of it, the rise and fall of her arm, the tilt of her head.
It is then I feel a tiny hand rest on my forehead. It wakes me. I know I’m not asleep. I am not dreaming. It is not a breeze and it is not a spider web. It is a child’s hand that is so soft and so small that I want to grab hold of it and squeeze it. I feel the fingertips and the palm and the side of the thumb resting as if checking whether I have a fever. Only two people have ever felt my head like this: my mother when I was very young, and Jackie. I do not move because I don’t want to disturb it. I open my eyes wide but even in the dark I can see there is no one there. The hand feels warm and dry. I think of what the woman said about the presence. I don’t want it to go. I can feel it breathing on me. Small, feathery breaths, warm and quick. How the hell can it be breathing? I sit there for two or twenty minutes—I lose track—with the hand placed on my forehead. It never moves and the pressure doesn’t change. The breathing on my face gets closer and closer. I think about Jackie and her blue eyes that look brown in the dark. I think about how I am making her get an abortion. I think about her blond hair. I tell whatever is there, “Sorry,” and the breathing gets really close then. Small, dry lips indent my cheek.
Then the hand is gone. I whisper, “come back,” but I know it is no longer there. I wipe the grit of fiberglass from my eyes and squint into the room. When Bob throws open the attic door, appearing in a square of yellow light, I am still in the dark, exploring my forehead with my fingertips and trying to hide from him that I am crying.
Later, Bob will walk away with the housewife’s phone number. Turns out she’s divorced and lonely too. Jamie and Trent will finish their close-ups and then swan off in their top-of-the-range RV. I will walk down those attic stairs on wobbly legs, call Jackie and tell her to stop. Cancel the appointment. If she wants that baby, then she should have it. No matter what my opinion is. As for me and her? I still don’t know. I just know that this particular ghost is not mine to make.
But for now I have to put batteries in this doll. It says “Mama” and the whole attic space is filled with its electronic voice.
The Pick Apart
Paul McMahon
Ashley had come to bury her father. Nothing more. Jimmy knew this, she’d made it abundantly clear, and yet he kept pushing closure on her as he steered the rental car toward her father’s home.
“Something drove him to it,” Jimmy said. “You said he seemed happy over the past year. I can’t believe you don’t want answers.”
“I didn’t drive through three states to solve a mystery,” she said.
“Of course not, Ash. No one ever sets out to solve a mystery, but sometimes mysteries fall out of the sky.”
“Jimmy—”
“Leaving them unsolved only makes us feel antsy, you know? Like there’s something we were supposed to do, but we’ve forgotten. Don’t you want to know why your Dad’s friend refused to take over his business? This is a motor head, a mechanic we’re talking about. This guy should have jumped at a chance to own a junkyard.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Jimmy.” Ashley resumed looking out the car window. Men were so full of shit. Dad, with his monthly “everything is rays of sunshine” lies, that fat lawyer with his “your Dad wanted you to inherit his land” lies, and now Jimmy and his goddamned “mysteries fall out of the sky” lies.
“I’m just saying, is all,” Jimmy muttered.
She hadn’t wanted him to come. They’d only been dating a few months. Last week he’d bought a toothbrush to keep at her apartment, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. He’d hovered at her elbow throughout the afternoon’s wake, constantly asking if she was “okay,” if she “needed anything,” if he could “do anything for her.”
He had stepped up, though, when the big, unshaven man had leaned much too close to her and introduced himself as Rollo. Dad�
��s friend, she realized. The one who’d refused to accept Dad’s business. She and Dad had Skyped monthly, so she knew he and Rollo had been close for a long time, but they’d suffered a falling out over... she wasn’t sure what. Dad had used the pronouns “she” and “her,” but these days that could refer to a woman or a car. He’d never specified, and Ashley never asked.
Rollo had spoken in a hoarse whisper, saying he and her father had been best friends for years. Said he was sorry for her loss, couldn’t imagine how he would fill the hole in his life that her father’s death had left behind. More lies. Dad hadn’t suffered a death; he’d committed suicide. Plus, the last time they’d Skyped, Dad had said he and Rollo hadn’t spoken for a month. Of course, Dad had also insisted everything was hunky-dory, but later actions had put the lie to that.
Rollo had asked nonchalantly if she’d gotten a motel room for the night. As if being a school teacher gave her money to throw around. The rental car had been enough. She’d told him she was staying at her father’s house. He’d gaped at her. Told her she was a fool if she stayed there. That’s how he said it, there, set off in tone as if he feared the place would hear him. He’d grabbed her arms and begged her to stay somewhere else.
“You don’t know,” he’d said. “You don’t know.”
Jimmy had stepped in then, signaling to the men who worked for the funeral home.
“Are you staying there as well?” Rollo had asked Jimmy.
“I’m with Ashley, so....”
Three funeral home workers had surrounded Rollo and herded him toward the door. “Neither of you has the sense God gave a duck,” he’d yelled.
As soon as they were gone, Jimmy had wrapped her in a hug.
“Is this our left?”
Ashley blinked, surprised to find herself back in the rental car.
Wicked Haunted: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers Page 18