American Ghost

by Paul Guernsey

  “No. She had no idea.”

  “So, what was it then?” asked Gib. “All the hubbub?”

  “As far as I can tell, you two aren’t the only people interested in playing chess.”

  By then Melody had temporarily unmuckled from Peter and was bringing up the photos on her cell phone as he eagerly peered over her shoulder. “Here’s one,” Melody said. “But, oh no, there’s nothing there. And here’s the other. Nothing.” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Peter. I took them. I tried. I really did. It doesn’t seem … ”

  “It’s okay,” he said, putting an arm around her. “It’s all right. Don’t worry; they don’t always show up in photos. And sometimes they’ll show up on film, but not in an electronic image. You kept your head; you did what you could. You’re a hero.”

  Amber was staring at the two of them with her arms crossed. She said, “Excuse me, but so, it went down like this? Like, you saw this dude, and then you, like, took his picture, and then you screamed?” With one cheek pressed against Peter’s leather jacket, Melody wore a slight smirk as she lifted her face to Amber.

  “I didn’t scream until he pointed at me,” Melody said.

  “He pointed at you?” said Peter.

  “And he talked to me! Oh, God!”

  “What did he say?” all of them but Amber asked at once.

  “He said … You look just like her. And then he disappeared.”

  They did not go into the church that night. Instead, they took hundreds of photos in the cemetery, many of them incorporating Melody in their composition. After that, they all donned night-vision goggles and wandered among the old headstones as they stared down at variety of handheld electronic devices—fancy thermometers, EMF meters, several types of audio recorders. Every so often one of them would call out a report of an “anomaly,” and they would crowd together to study the instrument that had registered the reading. Peter would scribble a few things onto a notepad, then they would again separate into two-person teams and continue their walkabout. Finally, as dawn began throwing streaks of light into the sky, they moved their video equipment into the graveyard and recorded Melody as she told the tale of her eerie encounter. Four times, standing in four separate locations among the worn stone markers and using four slightly different tones of voice, Melody told her future audience, “He said, You look just like her. And then he disappeared.”

  *

  They spent the next two nights in the cemetery, awaiting some sort of repeat performance by the “old farmer dude” with the oozing bullet hole in his forehead. Melody, claiming still to be “extremely freaked out,” stuck as close as she could to Peter during most of that time—something that he at first encouraged, then tolerated, and then, as disappointingly quiet hours continued to pile upon one another without further communication from the spirit, increasingly avoided. By the end of the first full, fruitless night among the ancient graves, he had begun to make tactical use of tombstones as a means of maintaining space between them; by the middle of the second, dead-in-exactly-the-wrong-way evening, it was the hips and shoulders of a resurgent Amber that served to keep Melody at a distance from him.

  On the third night, the Ghost Hounds reluctantly gave up on Melody’s Halloweenish will-o’-the-wisp, pulled the chain from the double doors, and reentered the church where, after replacing the faded flowers on the chancel with a fresh arrangement, they paired up again—Peter and Amber, Melody and Tall Guy, Ben and a disgusted-looking Shorty—and spent the better part of an evening walking up and down the aisles, in and out of the vestibule and the back offices, and threading their way through the pews with the same set of hand-held instruments they’d used in the cemetery.

  The following evening they returned with yet another heap of expensive-looking electronic equipment—different sorts of sound recorders as well as a dozen tiny video cameras on telescoping tripods—which they set up all around the church. They then spent the next several nights scattered about the floor in sleeping bags, only to wake up each morning to stiff backs and—after reviewing the data from all their devices—disappointment. Gib, Virgil, and I kept waiting for Melody to experience another encounter with the head-shot farmer, but she let us down; apparently she had used up all of her courage on her first and only performance. Finally one morning the Ghost Hounds gathered in the pews for a meeting. Peter said, “It seemed so promising when we started. And, it’s not like we haven’t gotten results. We’re clearly getting results; we’re just not getting consistent results.”

  The tall man said, “Dude, we’re not getting anything we can document. Nothing. That’s the real problem. And that’s as bad as no results at all. So it’s probably time to pack it up and move on, wouldn’t you say?”

  Ben said, “I found a Ouija board the other day. In my gram’s trailer. Maybe we should try it.” No one paid him any attention.

  Amber said, “We could always come back here if we wanted. But for now maybe we should drive down to Connecticut and check out that haunted swimming pool. That sounded like it might work out.”

  “Anybody mind if I just try the Ouija board? I brought it with me.”

  “Dude, a Ouija board is nothing but a toy,” the short man said.

  Peter pushed his hair back and left his hand on his forehead. “All right. Let’s take a vote. How many for the haunted swimming pool?”

  “I can’t go to Connecticut right now,” Ben said. “I’m broke.”

  “All in favor?” Everyone but Ben and Melody immediately put their hands up. Then, reluctantly, Melody raised hers as well.

  “So moved,” said Peter. “Let’s break it down.”

  The Ghost Hounds carried dozens of vinyl cases and nylon bags into the old church and began packing their gear. Ben, after making a few trips to and from the van, came in with a broken-sided cardboard box and made his way to the chancel. He sat down on the edge of the chancel and with shaking hands removed a masonite Ouija board from the box and opened it in front of him. Melody was walking by just as he set the heart-shaped, plastic planchette in the middle of the board, and he called out to her.

  “Hey, Mel! This really takes two people. You want to do it with me?”

  She stopped and narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re the last person in the world I’d want to do it with, Ben. And, don’t you know that’s dangerous? Peter says people have become demonically possessed by fucking around with Ouija boards.” Then she walked away.

  After a moment, Bern curled the corners of his lips and hissed to himself, “Peter says. Peter says. Fucking around with Ouija boards.” Virgil, Gib, and I gathered around him as he hunched over the board and settled the tips of his plump fingers onto the planchette. After a minute had passed with no movement from that felt-footed plastic puck, he started to look worried.

  Gib winked at us and said, “Maybe I’ll take pity on the little puke.” He bent forward so that his mouth was next to Ben’s ear and he said, “Our father, who art in heaven.”

  The planchette stayed where it was and Virgil said, “You probably have to spell it.”

  “O-U-R F-A-T-H-E-R … ”

  Still the planchette did not move, and Virgil said, “Let me try.” He stepped right through Gib to bend himself to Ben’s ear and he spelled, “D-E-A-R H-O-W-A-R-D.” But Virgil was no more successful with Ben or the planchette than Gib had been.

  “Who’s Howard?” asked Gib. Virgil only gave him an enigmatic smile. Then Gib said to me, “Thumb, before this bubblehead gives up on us, you might as well take your turn.”

  I shrugged, stepped through both Gib and Virgil, and began to spell. To my astonishment, as soon as I opened my mouth the planchette slid a few inches to the left and hovered with its round window and brass pointer directly above a letter.

  P

  I glanced at Virgil before continuing, and the planchette wandered the board like an obedient insect, pausing over each letter I suggested.

  PETER IS A DICK

  When we were fini
shed, Ben sat back for a moment with his mouth half open.

  “Well now,” said Gib, with a touch of envy in his voice. “Looks like you’ve got the magic touch.”

  “It has to be a coincidence. He and I were just thinking the same thing at the same time.”

  Just then Peter walked past and said, “Ben, why are you sitting on your ass? Do some work.” At that, Ben plunged forward again and returned his hands to the planchette, and I resumed spelling.

  A minute later Ben let out a laugh and shouted, “You and your friends are assholes!” The other Ghost Hounds all glanced at him and then continued packing their equipment.

  Virgil said, “Move over, Thumb. This isn’t fair. I want to try again.” I stood aside and watched as Virgil repeated his greeting to Howard and the planchette remained still. After that, Gib tried several different phrases with the same lack of result.

  Gib said to me, “You’re up again, you bastard. Seems you have some kind of connection with him that nobody else does.”

  By then, Ben again had begun to look worried, perhaps suspecting that his moment as a medium had come and gone, never to return. But I spoke to him, and soon he was yelling, “Thumb! Dudes, his name is Thumb! Isn’t that awesome?”

  I asked him where he lived, and he answered me aloud saying, “I live right here in Maine, in a little shithole called Cairo.”

  I smiled at the other two ghosts. I said, “Alice showed me how to get there. That’s where she lived. She showed me how to go almost anywhere in Cairo I wanted.”

  “How nice for you,” Virgil said. He seemed irritated.

  “Ben!” shouted Peter from the back of the church. “If you were communicating with a spirit, which you aren’t, you’d be getting yourself in deep, deep trouble there. You could end up possessed for the rest of your life. Maybe for longer than your life.” That was when Ben stopped looking so completely delighted with himself and his hands began to tremble once again. He held his hands over the planchette for a minute without touching it. Finally, even as he seemed to resist, his fingers curled downward until they were touching plastic.

  I NEED UR HELP WITH A COUPLE THINGS WILL U HELP ME

  He didn’t immediately answer, so I continued.

  I CAN HELP U 2

  Still he did not respond, so I spelled out

  I KNOW WHERE THERES MONEY I KNOW WHERE THERES BURIED TREASURE

  Ben sat up stiffly. His eyes were wide and he was breathing hard. He looked around at the other Ghost Hounds; he pushed his fingers into his hair; he gnawed his lip. A drop of sweat slithered from beneath the hair on his temple. “Come on,” I said, “Come on,” but he didn’t get that message because his hands weren’t touching the planchette.

  Finally he whispered, “I don’t know. Maybe. I gotta go.” Abruptly he packed up the Ouija board and hurried out to the van. He didn’t come into the church again.

  *

  After they had removed all of their things and had replaced the plywood over the rear window through which Ed’s Posse had entered, Peter insisted that rest of the Ghost Hounds wait outside in the idling van while he made one last inspection of the church. Carrying nothing but a flashlight, he slowly and methodically stepped his way through our haunt, from the front doorway around one sanctuary wall to the small offices in back, then out again, across the chancel, and up the other side. After he had finished pacing the perimeter, he began to go through every row of pews, using his light to inspect both floors and seats.

  When Peter arrived at the place where Virgil and Gib sat playing chess, he paused and let his flashlight beam linger on their checkered cocktail napkin, which lay there on the pew.

  “Hark!” said Gib in a mocking voice. “The mighty nimrod spots his quarry.” But Gib’s tone turned to one of alarm as Peter stooped and reached right through his back and belly to pick up the napkin. “Hey, you bastard! That’s ours. Put it back!”

  Peter seemed to study the napkin for a moment. Then he opened it, brought it to his face, and loudly blew his beak-like nose into it. Gib and Virgil roared in helpless rage as Peter squeezed the now-soiled napkin into a marble-sized ball and flicked it off into the darkness.

  Then he went out the double doors, closed them, and padlocked the chain behind him.

  CHAPTER 12

  His full name is Benjamin LeBlanc. It didn’t take me long to find him again after he and his companions called it quits and drove away from our church. There were just two convenience stores in Cairo, and I spent no more than a couple of days ghosting from one to the other before he made his inevitable appearance. He arrived on foot, wandered up and down the aisles casting wistful glances at the plumpest of the three young women who worked behind the various counters, and finally bought himself a slice of pizza and a bottle of Moxie. Then he hiked back home with a ghost hot on his heels.

  Ben’s bedroom in his grandmother’s trailer overlooked a backyard littered with derelict cars, tires flat and dented hoods gaping, a half-dozen discarded appliances, and the rusted, wheeless frame of an old Harley-Davidson, to which a lethargic black billy goat stood tethered by a rope. His bedroom’s limited space was further constricted by its own heaps of clutter: layers of clothing flattened against the floor, crusty dishes and toppling stacks of empty Moxie cans, cardboard boxes full of old toys and broken electronic devices. But I was happy to see that the room also contained a card table, and that on the table lay the vintage Ouija board with the planchette resting at its center. This meant he had been hoping—and probably trying—to hear from me.

  As Ben ate his lunch, he watched part of a game show on the tiny TV that shared the table with the Ouija board and a laptop computer. Lunch finished, he flipped through the channels for a couple of minutes before flopping onto the bed for a nap. Finally, just as I was beginning to lose my patience with him, he got up from the bed, sat down at the table and, after a moment’s hesitation, settled his fingers onto the planchette. I let him chill for a few seconds and then, to grab his full attention, I shouted, “Yes!” which sent the pointer on the longest trip it could take.

  Ben’s eyes opened; his Adam’s apple rose and fell. “Thumb?” he whispered. I made the planchette back off and then hit YES again.

  “I was starting to think I wouldn’t hear from you.”

  R U READY

  He sat back. After a moment he turned his eyes to the ceiling and answered, “I don’t know. How do I know you won’t hurt me? How do I know you’ll go away when I want you to?”

  I JUST NEED U 2 WRITE SOMETHING WHEN ITS DONE ITS DONE

  “Writing? That’s all?”

  I hesitated, because I don’t like to lie.

  YES

  “What about the money? You said there was money.”

  YES AFTER

  “What if I need some now?”

  AFTER

  He sat back again, blinking. Finally he asked, “How much money is there, Thumb?’

  MORE THAN U HAVE SEEN

  When he didn’t immediately respond, I repeated myself.

  R U READY

  Ben took his hands from the planchette and lifted them to his head. He pressed his palms against his temples as if he were trying to keep his skull from flying apart.

  *

  It was autumn, probably a few days past the first anniversary of my murder, when I sent Ben to visit Fred Muttkowski at his farm. Under his arm Ben carried two spiral-bound notebooks—in all about three hundred hand-written pages, representing about half the story I intended to tell. Though most of it was just as I’d dictated it to him, I’d come to realize that this draft was not much more than raw material; it badly needed reorganizing and revising, and there was no practical way for Ben and I to do the job together. For one thing, revising an entire book was a monstrous chore, and since I’d never done it before, I just didn’t have the insight or the skills. For another, it would take forever, and I knew that Ben sooner or later would run out of patience—in fact, he was showing signs of it already.

  A furthe
r problem—one I knew would make it difficult to enlist Fred’s assistance: the manuscript was damn near illegible because Ben’s handwriting and spelling both were awful. In spite of my repeated requests, he had stubbornly and consistently refused to switch to a computer with a spell-check program; apparently—and in spite of the fact that he spent roughly half his waking hours playing games on his laptop—the mere idea of actually writing something on the machine invariably brought on a traumatic high-school flashback that threw him into a panic attack.

  Ben’s feet crunched through fallen leaves as together we traveled the length of Fred’s long barn. He seemed rock-steady until we reached the back of the barn and he saw the pigs; then he froze. There were perhaps three dozen porkers milling around behind the electric fence, all big as barrels and outweighing Ben by a good hundred pounds. The black-and-white swine reacted to his appearance by wheeling in his direction and stampeding to the wire, where they stopped in a scrum and tilted their snouts at him, their nostrils oscillating as they attempted to determine whether he might have brought them something to eat, or might himself perhaps be edible.

  “Dude,” Ben said under his breath as he gazed out over the backs of the pigs, afraid of looking directly into their pea-sized, nearsighted eyes. He was probably considering bolting back to his grandmother’s old station wagon at the bottom of Fred’s driveway. I was “standing” at his shoulder then, but without the Ouija board, there was no way I could encourage him to brace up and hold his ground. At that moment, I might as well not even have been there.

  I think Ben would have given up in a moment or two if we hadn’t suddenly heard Fred’s voice coming from inside the barn. Fred was talking, or singing—perhaps a bit of both—and it was unclear whether he was communicating with his animals, or merely keeping himself company. A minute later he stepped out of the barn holding a rake in one of his rubber-gloved hands, and as soon as he stood beneath the open sky he thrust the tines of the tool high into the air, lifted his chin to the heavens, balled his empty hand into a fist, and howled, “I am Ulysses!”