Four Ghosts

by James Ward Fiction

"I'm fine, Marta," Mark croaked, surprised at the sound of his own frightened voice.

  "You don't sound fine. Did you fall? I heard a crash."

  "I just tripped over my own feet. I'm OK."

  "Mr. Sampson, let me in. My Nana is afraid that you're hurt. She won't let up until I see for myself. You know how she is."

  Mark knew exactly how the old woman was. She was suffering from late stage dementia. There had been many occasions when Mark had taken her back home after finding her wandering the halls in her dressing gown, unable to speak.

  "Just a minute," he called out, straightening his shirt and slicking his hair back.

  He hoped that he looked presentable as he walked to the door and opened it just enough that Marta could see he was all right.

  "Oh my God," she exclaimed.

  "I'm perfectly fine, Marta."

  "You are not! Look at that bump on your head!" Marta pushed her way into his apartment, followed by her grandmother.

  "Please, I'm really fine. I just fell."

  "And knocked all of the dishes out of your cabinets?"

  "No," he replied, embarrassed that he had forgotten the condition of the apartment.

  "What the hell happened here?" Marta looked around at the destruction. "Was there a break in?"

  "Yes! Someone broke in while I was in the shower," he said with a little too much excitement.

  "Did you call the police?"

  "No, nothing is missing. Just kids, I'm sure. I was just cleaning up and I fell down."

  "I'll help you clean up, then. Nana, have a seat."

  Her Grandmother obeyed, and sat on the edge of the chair. Marta walked over and adjusted the old woman's housecoat. She removed the music player from her pocket and placed the earbuds gently into her Nana's ears. When she turned the volume up and started the music, Nana smiled as if she was experiencing rapture.

  "It keeps her calm. I record my voice on it sometimes, explaining how to do things, too," she explained as she turned from her Nana and knelt down on the rug.

  "Please don't trouble yourself. I'll clean it up."

  Marta had already started picking up the debris from the floor.

  "No trouble at all, Mr. Sampson. I'm used to cleaning up messes."

  She shot a glance at the sofa. It was a look filled with pity, hate, sorrow and regret.

  Mark watched her as she picked up pieces of broken china and splinters of wood. She was somewhere around thirty-five years old, but the circles around her eyes made her look more like fifty-five. She had lived in the building longer than Mark, and had been caring for her ailing grandmother for almost a decade. As far as Mark knew, she never went out. He had never seen a man around, or a woman for that matter, that was not a doctor or nurse. She lived in a prison, guarded by a sentinel that was unable to remember her name or face most days.

  It seemed to him that Marta was biding her time until her oppressor died and she could free herself from the bondage of guilt and shame that bound her to the old woman.

  Mark retrieved the garbage can from the kitchen and brought it to her. He knew there was no use in protesting any further. He winced as he knelt down to help pick up the mess on the floor. His knees protested and his head screamed in pain, but he did not want Marta to see the agony on his face. At this point, he just wanted her to go.

  He kept his head down and gathered the large pieces of glass in his hand, Marta by his side, before depositing them in the trash. The woman continued picking up the evidence of his tormentor, her own head down.

  He stole occasional glances, noticing the swell of her breasts under her thin tank top as she moved and the fine curve of her hips, swaying with every action. Her hair was a shade lighter than black, and her skin was the color of fresh cream.

  Beyond the tired mask, she really was a beautiful woman.

  It had been many years since Mark had even looked at a woman in that way. After his wife died at the end of a long battle with cancer, he simply shut that part of his life down. He had no desire to even appreciate the beauty of another woman, because it always seemed like cheating and it only caused his heart to ache for the loss of his lovely Vanessa.

  It had been ten years since her passing, and he still missed her as much on this day as he had on the day she was taken from him.

  Cancer had taken his soul mate from him in a flurry of doctors, hospitals and chemotherapy that withered her beautiful body into a shell that housed only a tired and broken soul. All of her chestnut hair had fallen out and her green eyes had become the sickly color of decay.

  When she finally surrendered to her pain, Mark had lost his mind and his will to continue living. His job was no longer important enough to go to at all and his bills sat in piles amongst the trash that littered the house that Vanessa had made into a home. The only solace he could find in the following five years always came in liquid form, and he drank from every bottle he could get his hands on to try to capture it.

  His reminiscing ended when he suddenly noticed that Marta was no longer moving. She sat up on her knees, perfectly still, with her arms hung at her sides and her head down.

  "Marta, are you all right?"

  She didn't answer, but her head tilted very slowly until her temple connected with her shoulder. Mark watched, unable to look away as her head snapped back to her left shoulder and then came to rest in the center with her chin touching her chest. Her eyes were wide and had turned completely white as if she had suddenly been afflicted with thick cataracts. Her mouth contorted in a vicious grimace as she spoke in a voice that did not belong to her.

  "Liar."

  "Oh God," he cried.

  "God has no pity for liars, Mark. Liars have no soul."

  "Please, just tell me what you want!" Mark yelled at the thing still sitting on the floor with its arms slack.

  "I want you to join all of the liars waiting for you in Hell, Mark. Vanessa is there, too. She's waiting to kiss your lips again, so she can give you the sickness. She wants to put worms in your eyes and rats in your gut that will gnaw on your insides forever."

  The Marta-thing slowly picked up a chunk of broken glass from the ground and brought it to her thigh. Mark tried to stop it, but before he could reach out, she cut a six-inch gash into the tender flesh. Blood poured from the shallow wound and fell in little rivers, pooling with the dust and debris on the floor. He grabbed her wrist and shook the weapon free sending drops of blood flying everywhere. Grabbing the blanket off the nearby chair, he pressed it against the wound on her thigh as Marta laughed, throwing her head back. Her body shook as the gales of demonic laughter coursed through her. Suddenly the laughter stopped and she looked back down into Mark's panicked face. The voice that came out of her mouth was all too familiar.

  "Mark? Why did you lie to me? You told me I was going to be fine. You swore that everything was going to be all right. You promised me that I was going to be okay." Vanessa's sweet voice pierced his heart like a hot iron.

  "Vanessa, I'm so sorry, Baby," he said through the knot in his throat and the tears in his eyes. "I love you, and I'm so sorry."

  "You lied to me," she repeated. "Now you're going to Hell, where you belong. Something worse than cancer is waiting there for you. It's waiting there to eat you alive from the inside out."

  She leaned in and put her lips to his. He sighed as he felt her warm tongue part his lips. Her hand moved up to caress the back of his head, and he remembered nights that he and Vanessa had sat on the couch for hours, just touching and being together. He closed his eyes and surrendered to her kiss.

  He opened his eyes wide as he felt her grip on his head tighten, holding him to her. He felt the moist movement in his mouth and he tried to struggle from her grasp, but it was no use. Finally, she set him free, and he scrambled back away from the giggling monster.

  Mark opened his mouth and watched as dozens of worms fell from his lips onto the floor. He felt them sticking to his lips and squirming around his tongue. He gagged as he felt a large worm making
its way down his throat. He reached into his mouth, trying to grab it with his fingers, but it squirmed and writhed out of his grasp, completing its journey down his throat.

  He wretched and heaved, trying not to throw up, adding to the mess on the floor. Marta's hand on his shoulder snapped him back to reality.

  "Mark, what's going on? Are you all right?"

  He opened his eyes, expecting to see a mass of wriggling night crawlers in front of him, but there was nothing. He looked up at Marta with wide eyes that were filled with fear and the beginnings of madness.

  "Your leg," he croaked.

  "What about my leg?"

  "You cut yourself."

  "No, I didn't. I'm fine. Gosh, are you that sensitive about blood?"

  "Yeah, sorry," he lied, trying to cover his behavior.

  "I'm all good. No blood, see?"

  She rubbed her hands over her thighs and brought her palms up in front of her to show that all was well.

  "Seriously, Mr. Sampson, I think you should see a doctor or something."

  "No," he said, more vehemently than he had intended. "I'm fine, really."

  He smiled at Marta and looked closely at her face once again. She smiled back, looking even more beautiful than before.

  Mark sat up, finally feeling steady enough to get to his feet. He walked over to the bottle of gin and picked it up from the table. Staring at the clear liquid inside, he thought about how it had always made all of his problems disappear in the past. He had spent five years bathing his sorrows with this twisted antiseptic, using it to wash away the lines of Vanessa's face and to drown out the sounds of her crying in pain and begging to die.

  He held the bottle and walked across the layer of powdered china, dodging the pieces of glass, toward the sink. Mark paused for a moment before unscrewing the cap and turning the bottle upside down. There was a twinge of pain in his chest as he watched the last drops of gin slip away down the drain.

  Marta had risen to her feet, abandoning the task of cleaning the floor. She had been watching the ceremony in silence and was giving Mark a look of confused pity.

  "Maybe we should just go," she said, obviously uncomfortable.

  "Yeah, that's probably best. I think I'll try to get some rest and clean this up tomorrow."

  He didn't turn away from the sink as Marta gathered up her Nana and headed toward the door.

  The old woman silently protested at first, pulling the earphones from her ears and looking defiant, but after a moment, got up and followed her granddaughter.

  Mark felt guilty about not initially walking the women to the door. He had no desire to appear rude, so he stepped away from the sink as Marta navigated her Nana through the debris. Even more so, he realized that after the spectacle of the last ten minutes, he needed to appear as normal as possible. If Marta believed that he had lost his marbles, she was more likely to come back, or to call someone else to "help" him. He walked over to the door as the two women made their way out.

  Both Mark and Marta were startled when Nana whirled around to face Mark and took a pointed step toward him, stopping only inches from his face. The fog of dementia had seemingly lifted from her eyes. The old woman appeared to be as lucid as anyone half her age as she spoke to him. Her voice no longer contained the crackle of advanced years, and her skin even appeared to have lightened, giving him a glimpse of the beauty she had been in her youth. She put her hands on his chest and spoke in a hurried whisper.

  "Don't let it happen. You don't want the blood of the innocents on your hands. God will judge you for the outcome, not the path. Turn back to righteousness while you still can, Son. Turn back before it's too late. He will not stop until the wrong is righted. He will never stop."

  As quickly as the cloudiness of her failing brain had lifted, it settled itself back into the familiar vacancy. The old woman's eyes took on a pale haze, her face went slack as any trace of animation or recognition drained away, and her shoulders slumped. Without another word, she turned back to the door and began shuffling out into the hall.

  Marta looked at him with an expression of disbelief and confusion.

  "What the hell was that all about?"

  "I don't know," he replied as he shrugged his shoulders and tried to look innocent.

  It did not seem to work, since Marta waked out of the apartment while keeping her eyes focused directly on his, searching for some clue to understand the events of the last two minutes. She turned her gaze away, seemingly satisfied with whatever conclusion she had come to.

  Mark thanked her again and shut the door. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood and sighed heavily. For the third time that day, Mark began to cry. His shoulders heaved with each painful sob as he allowed the floodgates of emotion to open. He knew what he needed to do. The shame he felt for his role in this tragedy had become an overwhelming burden, eating away at this pitiful thing he called an existence. He had to release his demons and grab at one last chance for redemption for the sake of his own soul. After a few minutes, the sobbing slowed and he reached up and wiped the tears and snot from his face with the back of his hand. He was determined for the first time in a very long time to be a better man.

  Just as Mark got himself under some sort of control, there was another knock at the door.

  "Holy shit, just leave me alone," he mumbled as he turned back to the door.

  Mark opened the door, expecting to see Marta standing there. What he saw was a weasel-like little man of about thirty years old, dressed in a very expensive suit. The young man's dark blond hair was brushed back into a perfect little wave and held there with an impossible amount of hair gel. A slick smile spread over his face, ending just below his moisturized cheeks and perfectly sculpted eyebrows.

  This was Aaron, assistant to Congressman Fielding.

  "Mark! How are you, buddy?" He spoke as if the two were old friends.

  "I am not your buddy," Mark replied coldly and turned around, walking back to his chair.

  "What the hell happened here?" Aaron asked as he entered the apartment.

  He looked around, surveying the damage.

  "Hell?" Mark asked, laughing. "You have no idea what Hell is like."

  "Listen, Mark. You are going to have to get it together. In less than," Aaron checked his watch, "eighteen hours, this will all be over."

  "Over? Over? You don't know what the fuck you are talking about, you little shit."

  The even demeanor of the young man slipped as he lost control of himself.

  "Listen, you crazy old bastard, I don't need this shit right now. I have more important things to deal with than your breakdown. You agreed to this and you were paid well. Do not start growing a goddamn conscience now, you stupid drunk."

  Mark sat still in his seat as Aaron walked up to him and placed his hands on the arms of Mark's chair, leaning in close to his face.

  "Do you want to go back to sleeping in cardboard boxes and eating out of trash cans?" Aaron smiled again, but this time it was a smile filled with menace. "Or maybe something worse?"

  Mark sat up straight in his seat until his nose was almost touching Aaron's. The younger man did not flinch.

  "Don't you threaten me, you sanctimonious little shit. You have no idea what is going on here, or what you and your sick, twisted fuck of a boss have done."

  Aaron rose up slowly, adjusting his jacket. He reached up and patted his perfect hair to make sure that it was still cemented in place.

  "Congressman Fielding deeply regrets any undue stress or anxiety that his generosity may have caused you. His only intention was to help a man to get back on his feet. It is obvious now that you are having some sort of psychological breakdown and that you require medical assistance."

  "I am not having any sort of breakdown and you know it."

  "I called earlier. Hearing the distress in your voice, I decided to come and check up on you. I found your apartment in complete disarray and you in a heightened emotional state. I noticed that you had been drinking," he s
aid, indicating the empty gin bottle on the counter, "even though, with the assistance of the Congressman, you had been sober for several years. I was worried that you might be suicidal."

  Aaron reached up and yanked at the pocket of his jacket, ripping it.

  "You son of a bitch."

  Aaron continued with his story, unaffected by Mark's interruptions.

  "So, I tried to calm you. You became even more agitated, to the point that you attacked me. I had no choice but to defend myself."

  Aaron ruffled his own hair and loosened his tie. He took both hands and ripped his dress shirt open, revealing a white undershirt. Mark looked on, incredulous.

  Aaron continued talking as he walked toward the kitchen.

  "I didn't want to hurt you, but I had no choice." He reached over the counter and pulled a large knife from the cutlery block, turning the blade in his hand.

  "They won't believe you."

  "Won't they? A respected advisor to a popular Congressman versus a formerly homeless drunkard with a history of psychiatric issues; who do you think they will believe?"

  Aaron walked back into the living room. Mark watched as the young man turned the knife in his hand. With no expression on his face, Aaron sunk the tip of the blade into his own thigh, making a shallow cut. Mark watched with his mouth hung open. He couldn't believe what was happening.

  "You are just as sick as that piece of shit you work for."

  "Sick? I don't think so. Fielding and I are cleaning up the streets. We tried to get this area under control. More arrests for hookers and drug dealers, harsher punishments, nothing was working. One would get arrested and be back out on the street the very next night. All of those whores had to die. There was no other way. Don't you see that? Do you know that crime is down in our district? That's because they are afraid. Fear is a great motivator."

  Mark rose from his seat, but Aaron stepped closer, holding the knife in front of him. Mark gingerly lowered himself back into the chair.

  "Where do you think you are going?" Aaron asked.

  Before Mark could answer, the television buzzed to life. A young woman with dark hair and serious eyes began the special report.