Moments later, he sat by a hot fire, drinking a cold beverage. The moon was particularly bright, but not full. Through the leafless trees he could see just about every constellation. It wasn’t a sight he hadn’t seen before, but that night he said it felt different.
Like the universe was wide-awake gazing back at him.
The sensation spooked him. He’d never believed in ghosts or the supernatural, not since he was little. But he didn’t feel alone that night. Every time he brought his eyes down to the pitch-black woods surrounding him, his heart raced a little. The hairs on his neck stood up and his eyes played tricks on him.
There was something in the woods standing at the start of the trail to creek. He knew it was there. He said he couldn’t really believe his eyes, but he could feel it like its breath had traveled the 100 feet to his campfire.
He made noise as you should for most bears, but he thought it too small to be a bear. Still he banged on a pan and talked nonsense at it.
He knew it didn’t move. It had no reaction at all and because of that he was certain it was just his mind playing a trick on him.
He remembered yelling one final thing at it before dousing his campfire and going inside his cabin. He said, “Come on out, coward!”
The next day he woke up laughing at himself as he made coffee and breakfast. He figured it was a sign he was getting closer to needing to retire, just a senile old man. To further prove his point, the hook he used to close the screen door was unhooked and he must’ve tracked some mud in as he followed it all the way back to the cot he had set up next to the wood stove.
He swept it up before he noticed his boots were not muddy. Well he was determined not to believe in anything spooky happening so he chalked it up to the previous weekend and getting in late last night and not taking a notice at all.
He went about his day working on the cabin, adding a bookcase I believe. So he was indoors most the day, but by lunchtime he had to get out in what was for December, still exceptionally warm weather. He decided he’d investigate his visitor by taking the trail down to the creek.
There were no tracks to cause any alarm and by the time he reached the creek he felt like he had just been spooked the night before, nothing to worry about at all.
But he was wrong.
He told me he had never been more wrong in his life. And he knew he was wrong because nothing in his mind or body prepared him for what happened next. It had told him, everything is okay. Everything is fine.
That night he even stayed outside again, having a cold beverage or two and roasting hot dogs. Not a care in the world as he waxed nostalgic about his days before having such a fantastic getaway.
He went to bed around 10 o’clock or at least tried. It was a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. Something was in the cabin with him. Something mocked him with echoes and stirrings. Every time my friend found the cause of a noise—a banging pipe, a fallen book, then a new sound would occur luring him elsewhere in the cabin until he was certain he had been running around in circles all night. He told me in confidence that he lost his wits that night. He had gone feverishly insane as every little sound bothered him. His heart shook in his ribcage like it wanted out and finally in a panic unlike anything he’d ever experience he got in his truck and drove the three and half hours back to his home. Leaving his wallet among other items he had intended to take home with him at the end of the weekend.
He didn’t tell me about this weekend right after it happened. It was a couple of weeks at least. We had kind of grown tired of seeing pictures of the cabin and hearing him talk so poetically about retirement that we didn’t even notice he’d stopped feeding us updates every Monday morning.
When he finally did tell me, he told me he had not been back to the cabin since. He told me he had tried to contact the previous owners and had finally decided to show up at their front door unannounced hoping not to sound so crazy.
“It makes sense, don’t it?” he asked me after every revelation. “Why else would they have abandoned such a great spot at that price?”
I wondered if my friend was having buyer’s remorse, but one thing my friend was, was good with money and I couldn’t imagine the cabin had brought him to ruin. But perhaps the amount of work he’d given himself now felt too daunting.
I reminded him that his realtor had to tell him if the cabin was haunted or a murder had happened there. But that’s not true in Virginia. You don’t have to say anything at all. Just remember that when you are getting ready to buy a house. You might just want to investigate it a little before you plop down a deposit, if you believe in that sort of thing.
My friend was a true believer now. I could tell there were events of that night that he did not share.
Still I wasn’t the only one who tried to talk some sense into him and keep him from scaring the family he’d bought the cabin from. But there was no stopping him and I was only surprised by the fact that he called me at home the night after he confronted the family on their doorstep.
“They called the cops,” he told me as he headed back to the cabin. “They didn’t tell me anything.” I could hear how upset he was and I told him he should just give the cabin another rest this weekend. But he was determined.
Now I know I couldn’t have stopped my friend. But guilt is a funny thing and if you don’t know that you’ll learn it at some point. I still wonder to this day if I had the words in me to tell my friend to take it easy, to go see a doctor, I would’ve. But I didn’t think I needed to at the time. I didn’t believe in ghosts and goblins and things.
I was wrong. When work didn’t hear from him for several days, they called the police and sure enough his body was found at his cabin. He’d had a heart attack and died.
I was wrought with guilt and so when we were asked by the police to come up and collect his things since he had no next of kin, I felt required to help out.
I was there three hours, boxing up his things when a pickup with a trailer arrived. A bunch of young Latinos jumped out of the truck followed by an older white man who introduced himself as Pastor Crosby or something. And I just figured he was from my friend’s church and was there to help as well until I noticed all the trees in the back of the trailer.
I asked him what all the trees were for and he pointed at the trail my friend had made down to the creek.
He told me, “You should never make a path for evil to find you. Trees have always confused dark forces. They toil in circles as they should, and they leave us alone until we are foolish enough to guide them back to us.”
I asked him what he meant, but he seemed irritated to be delayed so what he said was terse. “There is a hunter waiting for each of us. Our own personal predator, remember that. All it has to do is find you.”
It found my friend.
THE END.
WHEN THE FLOOR GROWS COLD
When the floor grows cold it is a sign. Winter has come to Richmond. If the rain should choose to fall, it will not stink of sewage, but of the matted leaves. If the children are lucky the rain will freeze and when it turns to snowfall, it may just stick.
For a day a blanket of beauty can shroud the city streets. The appearance of a virgin bride is just a tradition these days. It is just another white dress on a harlot just for a day, just for tradition. But she will be beautiful.
Most of the children in Regina Johnson’s third grade class have heard the story of the Chimborazo Ghost Janitor. The young artist signed his name larger than the image itself. Proud that he might gross out his teacher. He must’ve just heard the story and thought he’d have a laugh drawing red everywhere. But it didn’t disturb her it just made her sad.
To think one man would be doomed to walk these halls for the rest of his life thinking they weren’t clean enough. Scaring little children in the bathroom who dared to make a mess. Sadly that kind of propaganda had failed to promote cleanliness but luckily the faculty bathroom users practiced some kind of honor to the superstition. As far as Regina knew th
e story had never been true to begin with it was as much a fabrication of word mouth as the Richmond Vampire himself, W.W. Poole.
Regina decided to not make a fuss of the drawing and was about to shove it under the more pleasant drawings when her classroom door opened and the drawing dropped right back on top of the stack.
“Pretty spooky out there right now.” The stubby white man complete with dated mustache and brown suit said. The superintendent was almost in his sixties and had known Regina for years. “I guess you can’t hear it in here, but the wind is really blowing out there.”
Regina smiled letting John Cahill know it was alright to join her. She looked outside to see if she could notice the wind he was talking about. But it was too dark outside.
The night comes too quick in December. The sky falls to a light gray blue every object across the school parking lot is little more than a blurring silhouette. From her classroom she can see the abandoned basketball court where a man was gunned down back in May. She knew it wasn’t occupied now only because it was so cold. Too cold for cigarettes to warm the children.
“Sounds haunted out there.” He said and then paused seeing the drawing of the bloody janitor on the desk.
“You’re not telling ghost stories are you Miss Johnson?” It was Mrs. but Regina didn’t correct him.
“No.” She laughed at him.
“Jesus, the violence these kids are exposed to.” He shook his head and let the moment of seriousness pass by him. “Well I don’t want to keep you if you have work to do, just thought I’d stop in. The building felt empty. I think everyone has snuck home.”
Now Regina could hear the howling of the wind. It was high pitched and tinny like an old black and white movie.
“Told you.” He said with a wink. It surprised Regina when he sat down on top her desk. Wasn’t he about to leave? He stared out on her students’ desk and sighed.
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
She shrugged even though he wasn’t looking at her. He continued nevertheless.
“I don’t know. As a kid I really wanted there to be ghosts. I thought one of them could be my friend, scare away all the bullies. Oh, I was teased. But it seems like nothing nowadays. I would think kids wouldn’t kill me. But I couldn’t expect kids to kill me. You know?”
He cleared his throat. He was famous for being longwinded and Regina now realized she was trapped. He was going to talk her ear off. She shuffled the drawing of the janitor under the more pleasant one like she had intended. She settled back into her chair. It gave a creak that flicked John Cahill’s eyes back at her.
“I was absolutely obsessed with catching a ghost. We were raised Catholic so we didn’t go messing with Ouija boards. We knew better. Invented our own little game, basically the same thing. We called it Ghost in the Glass and we had this really nice Crystal vase of my mother’s that we’d turn upside and pretend we’d trapped a ghost inside and it would tell us what we wanted to know. “
He laughed, “We were all very dramatic. It was me, my sister and my neighbor and his sister. Since we were all close in age and living next door in Chester it meant we had to be friends. So we had to find ways to entertain each other and pretending we were getting haunted was exactly the kind of entertainment we were into, except my neighbor Matt. Years later he told me how much he would hate playing Ghost in the Glass. I guess I kind of remember him getting upset. But he was one of those kids that was always getting angry cause we weren’t doing things the way he wanted.
“And years later we went and saw the Exorcist in theaters. I forced him to go with some girls and me. He cowered the entire time right along with the girls. I remember hating that movie, being so irritated by it, not sacred and so when we left I teased and teased and teased Matt. But he was obviously pretty shaken up. Went on this whole tirade about how horror movies are stupid and people who watch them are stupid. I loved horror. Still love it.
“But he didn’t want to stay at his parent’s house. They’d been fighting pretty rough lately as far as I had understood and so I didn’t think anything of it until much later when I realized how much the movie had scared him. And the next day we stopped into his house to grab some food and I decided to tease him in front of his mother. Man, did she correct me. She said in all seriousness.
“’Oh no, poor Matt, he’s seen a ghost.’ Then she continued on about how Matt used to have an imaginary friend that was a little girl. And how even she had heard the girl talking and playing with Matt. I could see Matt was getting uncomfortable as his mother told the story but he wasn’t denying it.
“One day she had heard them jumping on the bed, carrying on, laughing and talking and so she came up the stairs and when she went into Matt’s room he stopped jumping and said:
“Hey where’d she go?”
“Where’d who go?’ She asked.
“The little girl I was playing with.’ He told her. But that wasn’t the first time spooky things had happened in the house. She told me about how they would spot an old woman at the bottom of the stairs. And how their dog, Mister Mustard, would growl and bark like crazy at a rocking chair in their living room. To the point where they got rid of the chair and then the dog started to bark at a different chair in a different corner of the room. I didn’t really believe it, liked to, but I could tell his mom really did. But she was a dramatic woman much like her daughter. She was convinced they were haunted. That maybe some little girl had gone missing during the Civil War and maybe the old woman was looking for her.
“She’d had this whole story worked up. But the house and our house were brand new. The land had been farmland during the Civil War and for a brief time there were Confederate soldiers camped there, but no battle. But it was the kind of story I liked hearing. The kind of story that gives you goose bumps of awe. Ah the wonder of the unseen world.”
John Cahill shared his smile with Regina.
“Matt’s parents went through a rough divorce soon after. He and I rented an apartment down in the Fan and I remember my shock when he was taking his father’s side. His father had always been that kind of father that when he got home, we’d all stop playing. We’d get quiet and then my sister and I would say we probably needed to get home for dinner. He was reportedly abusive and so again, I was just shocked that Matt had turned his back on his mother.”
Regina watched as John Cahill shook his head in disgust and thought for a moment before she realized she had missed her chance to excuse herself. His story started up again.
“It was because she cheated on their father. Good for her, life is too short not to do what makes you happy. Remember that, Regina. Too short.
“So I urged him to talk to his mother again, meet the guy, give her a chance. And eventually he did. He told me he was going off to meet them and I remember being at the apartment when he returned. God he looked exhausted. So much so I had to ask, which I normally wouldn’t do. Guys don’t talk about things, you know?
“How did it go?’ ‘Oh fine, fine. The guy was actually not bad’
“But Matt still looked like something had happened. So I asked again. Matt’s voice was distant as if he was making sense of something when he said, “He had a daughter that was dead.’
“You know I’m still at the age where I can’t respond to that better than, ‘oh, I’m sorry.’ So that’s what I said then, too.
“Matt just looked at me and asked me if I remembered that Ghost in the Glass game. He said he heard a voice and that’s why he refused to play. The voice was of a little girl and she told him, ‘I’ll be your sister one day.’
“I was somehow mature enough not to laugh and start teasing him when he added, ‘he showed me a picture of her. I remember playing with her.’
“Matt got weird after that and eventually we went our own ways and I knew he thought maybe the little girl had caused his parents’ divorce. But he saw his mother was happy now.”
John Cahill laughed, “That’s the kind of ghost story I like. The kind that sa
ys there are ghosts who stick around to make life better for people.” With that he swung off Regina’s desk without another word and left her classroom.
Regina sighed and listened as his footsteps disappeared down the hallway. She noticed red and blue lights flashing outside her classroom window and her soul sunk. She could only imagine what horror had beset Church Hill again. At least, she thought, with cops on the scene she wouldn’t have to clutch her mace on the way to her car.
She packed up her things, turned off the lights and looked back at her classroom, now only illuminated by the flashing lights. She hadn’t heard the sirens when they had arrived. Perhaps the police felt it was unnecessary, wasn’t like it wasn’t a tune that was overplayed in that area.
She walked towards her car and kept eyeballing the scene of a body bag being raised up on the gurney and shoved into the back of an ambulance. She saw her principal wave to her with a look of sadness in her eyes.
Not one of the students, Regina begged and walked quickly over to her principal, eyebrows raised and asking her to break it to her gently. The wind whipped against her and she almost lost her balance before she reached the principal.
“They found him stabbed.” The principal said. “Mr. Cahill.”
“Mr. Cahill found who?”
The principal shook her head. It was Superintended John Cahill who had been stabbed. It was his body shoved into the back of the ambulance.
“But I was just talking to him.”
THE END.
THE BONES
-A tale of the Hatchback Woman-
She buried it.
Jeff Simms stood and watched from his window. He couldn’t help it. A pretty woman stepped out of a beat up red car and started bending over. Jeff was an old man but he wasn’t dead yet.
Uncollected Blood Page 5