by Ron Ripley
He was always alone.
As he sat upright on the bench, slowly dying, he heard the crunch of feet on the crushed gravel of the pathway. Hope sprang up within him as he turned towards the sound, but it was crushed by the sight that greeted his eyes.
A tall man, dressed in clothes similar to his own, walked beside a young girl, perhaps no more than eight or nine years old. She held his hand, and in her free hand, she carefully balanced a long, .22 caliber rifle on her thin shoulder. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a pair of pigtails, and she wore pink overalls. Sneakers decorated with dancing bears clad her feet, and there was a pleased smile on the girl’s face.
One almost identical to the smile on her father’s.
“Go ahead, Ariana,” the father said, his voice bearing a slight accent. He let go of her hand and took the rifle from her.
The girl skipped the last few feet to the bench, ignored Alden’s pained gasps, and deftly turned his wrist over. She stripped the watch off and showed it to her father.
“Good,” the man sighed. “Very good. Let us go now.”
“Help me,” Alden finally managed to beg, his voice no more than a croak.
The father raised an eyebrow and looked at his daughter.
She, in turn, faced Alden and said, “No.”
Alden Park died on the bench, watching the father and daughter walk away from him while the pigeons ate the breadcrumbs around his feet.
Bonus Scene Chapter 2: An Important Conversation
Ariana’s mother hadn’t returned from grocery shopping when she and her father walked into the basement through the bulkhead. Her father, the great, strong man that he was, hummed cheerfully, smiling down at her.
“Ah, my dear daughter,” he said in Russian, “I am very proud of you. You are so smart.”
Ariana beamed and wrapped her arms around his neck as he picked her up.
“Now, let us clean our weapon before we put it away, yes?” he asked.
Ariana nodded. She disliked speaking when he was visiting. Every word was important, and she savored them, wanting to make certain she missed nothing he said. In her pocket was the watch that she had killed the old man for. She didn’t think much about the act of murder. Her father had said it was a necessity, and if Ivan Denisovich Korzh said something, then it was to be taken as gospel.
At least that’s what Ariana’s mother had taught her, and Ariana believed her.
Her father carried her to his special room and set her down in front of the heavy, iron-bound door. From under his shirt, he withdrew a small key that hung on a length of silver chain. He slipped it over his head and handed the key to her.
Ariana jumped up and down with excitement as she fit the key into the lock, her father chuckling behind her. It took her a moment to work it back and forth, and when she finally twisted it far enough to the left, the tumbler clicked. She extracted the key and handed it to her father, who pulled playfully at one of her pigtails before he put it back under his shirt.
When he finished, he turned on the light, and they entered the room.
It was small and windowless, lined with wooden shelves that held a variety of objects both mundane and obscure. There was a small, grinning figure her father referred to as a netsuke, and beside that was a Star Wars action figure. A pair of chairs; one for him and the other for her, were seated across from each other at a narrow, rectangular wooden table. The air in the room was cold and, not for the first time, Ariana thought she could hear people whispering. Yet as soon as she and her father took their seats, the whispering stopped.
She started to take the watch out of her pocket, and he shook his head, smiling.
“The rifle first,” he reminded her as he set the weapon down on the table. From underneath he retrieved a cleaning kit, and as he opened it he asked, “How has school been?”
She told him, refusing to leave out any detail, however insignificant her mother might think it would be. Ariana told him about looking at cursive writing, and about how Chris Tatum was going to be moving to North Carolina.
Her father listened attentively as he guided her hands in the cleaning of the rifle. He asked pertinent questions and was quite pleased to learn that she had already mastered her times' tables up to number six.
“I am very proud of you,” he said, putting the cleaning kit away and reassembling the rifle. He stood up, placed the weapon in its rack, and returned to his seat. “You are a smart young woman, Ariana, and you will do great things when you are older. I know it.”
She felt her face go red with pride as she swung her feet back and forth.
Ivan Denisovich chuckled and said, “Now, let us see this watch we retrieved.”
Ariana reached into her pocket, took hold of the timepiece, and placed it on the table in front of him. Her father twisted a thick black ring on the index finger of his right hand and nodded. The watch, Ariana saw, was running backward. And much too fast.
“Is it broken?” she asked.
Her father shook his head. “No. Well, yes, to the rest of the world it is. For us, my daughter, it is working exactly as it should. This watch is possessed.”
She frowned and tilted her head.
He smiled, and in the same gentle voice he had used to teach her to shoot, and to explain the necessity of killing, Ivan Denisovich told her about ghosts. She listened attentively as he spoke of ghosts who lived in buildings or homes, of those who were bound to various roads and bridges. Others, who remained in graveyards, close to their mortal remains. And then there were those who would not be separated from favorite possessions. Not even through death.
“Some of them,” he continued, “are possessed by murderers. Killers whose dark souls are too terrified to move beyond to the next world. Others who simply hope to continue killing. These are the ones that I am interested in, Ariana.”
She looked at the watch on the table between them, thought about it for a moment, and then asked, “And this is haunted?”
Her father nodded and waited.
Ariana considered the item for several more seconds before she said, “And so it is a murderer who is in it?”
“Indeed there is,” he replied, smiling at her understanding. “This man, Thurman Park, was a killer. He enjoyed using a blade. Do you understand?”
Ariana nodded. “He liked knives.”
“He did,” her father agreed. “And he liked his watch.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He enjoyed seeing how long it would take a man to die,” Ivan Denisovich said. "He was also of the belief that each minute he stole from someone’s life was added to his own. That is why the watch runs backward. He never saw the watch as telling time. No, child, he saw it as letting him know how much time he was stealing back from Death.”
Ariana nodded, then frowned and asked, “How many?”
“Did he kill?” her father asked, surprised.
She nodded.
"He confessed to over three hundred before he was killed in 1941," her father answered. "Some doubted him. I do not. His confession was made to a priest, and that priest wrote it down in a journal, horrified at what he had heard. I came into possession of the journal two years ago when the priest died, and they auctioned off his things."
“Hm,” Ariana said, and she continued to stare at the watch. After almost a minute, she looked at her father and asked, “What do you do now, then?”
Her father let out a pleased laugh, his voice booming off the walls and filling the room. Ariana smiled happily and waited for her father to speak again.
“Now, my dear daughter,” he said, “we will seek to converse with our newly acquired murderer.”
“Why?” she asked.
Her father leaned forward and gave her a conspiratorial wink, whispering, “Because we can, and nothing more. Are you ready?”
She nodded that she was, and her father picked up the watch.
“Thurman Park,” he said in a commanding tone, “I would have words with you, man. Come out a
nd speak.”
Thurman Park burst out of the watch, a roiling, shimmering mass that forced Ariana to bite back a squeal of surprise and fear.
The ghost rushed at her father, and Ivan Denisovich slammed his fist into the mass.
Instantly the ghost vanished, and a chorus of voices rose up around them. The possessed items on the shelves screamed and catcalled, and Ariana's father bellowed, "Silence!"
The dead went quiet.
Her father gave her a questioning look and Ariana, in turn, gave him the thumbs up, smiling through her fear.
He winked at her, focused on the watch again, and said, “I told you to come out and speak.”
The dead man came out, and it was a repeat of what had happened the first time. Then a third, a fourth, and a fifth.
After the last, a glimmer of anger could be seen in Ivan Denisovich’s eyes.
“Listen to me now, Park,” her father growled, “if you like remaining on this plane of existence, I would suggest you come out and speak to me.”
A moment later, the ghost stood off to one side, near the iron door, but not quite touching it.
Ariana examined him with curiosity. She had never seen one of her father’s ghosts before, and this man was exceptional.
None of the others had ever disobeyed, at least not that she knew of.
Thurman Park glared at them both, his fingers opening and closing with frightening rapidity as if they longed to hold the handle of a knife.
He was an average looking man, his face neither remarkable nor memorable. His hair was a sandy brown, and he wore a gray suit.
Ariana didn’t think he was very special at all.
“How did you do it?” Thurman demanded, his voice a low, dull monotone.
“Never mind how,” her father replied, “remember only that I did it. I will not do it again.”
“No?” Thurman asked, glancing from Ivan Denisovich to Ariana.
“No,” her father reiterated. “I’ll shatter the watch and scatter what remains.”
The dead man stiffened. “You wouldn’t.”
"You're a fool then if you believe the lies you speak," her father snapped.
In a tone that seethed with anger, Thurman asked, “Why did you call me out?!”
“I wanted my daughter to see a dangerous ghost,” her father replied. “And I want information.”
Thurman frowned. “What information?”
“Your nephew, he was a collector of antiques, yes?” Ariana’s father asked.
Thurman shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Ariana,” Ivan Denisovich said, “I need you to get the hammer off the workbench for me.”
“No!” Thurman shouted. “No. Yeah, you’re right. The kid had a ton of antiques in his place. What about them?”
“Were there any others that were possessed?” her father asked.
Ariana watched as the dead man hesitated, and she got up out of her seat.
Thurman winced as if he had been struck and answered hastily, “Listen. There were one or two. He didn’t know it, but he kept them separated anyway.”
“In his home?” her father asked.
Thurman nodded.
“Where?” Ivan Denisovich asked.
“He had a shelf in the basement, next to a bunch of his golf trophies,” Thurman answered.
“Excellent,” her father said, standing up. “Ariana, are you hungry?”
She nodded and walked to the door, the ghost moving away nervously.
“What about me?” Thurman asked when her father reached the door.
“You?” Ivan said, smiling. “You are my guest now. You will stay here, amongst others of your kind. We will have more discussions, but my little girl needs her lunch.”
“Are you going to give me back to my nephew?” Thurman asked as they left the room.
"I don't see how," her father replied. "My daughter killed him."
The ghost’s howl of rage penetrated the iron door and followed them up the stairs where Ivan Denisovich Korzh made his daughter a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. With the crusts cut off.
Bonus Scene Chapter 3: The House
The home of Alden Park was a blue and white ranch, the yard small and well-kept. There were no vehicles in the driveway, and the mail had not been brought in.
Ariana knew it wouldn’t be.
Alden Park was dead on a bench.
She and her father walked around to the back of the house and stopped at the nearest basement window. It was small, the frame made of old wood, and the caulking around the panes was missing in large chunks. Ariana stood aside as her father put on a pair of gloves and used a small pry bar to remove the window from its frame. When he had set it aside, he handed her a pair of leather gloves.
“These are lined with cotton,” he told her. “They may become warm, but you must keep them on. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father,” she answered, sliding the gloves on.
“Good. Now, if Thurman spoke the truth about his nephew, then you will find the objects we seek amongst the trophies.” Her father hesitated and then asked, “Do you know what golf is?”
“A stupid game,” she answered. “They hit little white balls with clubs.”
Her father chuckled as he nodded. “Yes. Very good. So, whatever you see that is not a golf trophy, you must take and put in this bag.”
He handed her a canvas back that felt heavier than it looked.
“Are you certain you can do this, Ariana?” he asked, concerned.
“I’m small,” she replied. It was what she had told him over lunch. She wanted to help her father, and Ariana knew she could retrieve what he wanted.
“Yes,” he replied, “you are small. And you are my daughter. Call me, Ariana, and I will come. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and without another word between them, he lowered her down into the basement.
It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the poor light, and when they did, she was surprised to find that the basement was clean and orderly. She had seen other people's basements, and they had all been a mess.
Once she could see, Ariana moved forward, looking around. She saw a television and a couch. Boxes labeled Taxes, others that said Family Records. Ariana passed them, turning left at the bottom of the stairs and entering a long, narrow room. Rows of trophies lined the walls and light filtered in through the window set high in the wall.
Then, in the center of the trophies, she saw a smaller shelf, and on it were three items. A broken piece of a statue, an old, black rotary phone, and a silver ring.
She walked to them, realized she couldn't reach the shelf and found a chair to drag over. When she had it in place, Ariana climbed up onto the seat, stood up on her tiptoes, and took down the piece of the statue, placing it in her bag. Next, she reached for the phone, and it rang.
It was a loud, piercing sound that caused her to wince.
Frowning, Ariana looked at it, wondering if the phone should be ringing.
After the second ring, she shrugged and answered it.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Who’s this?” a woman asked sweetly.
Ariana felt uncomfortable, butterflies slipping into her stomach. There was something wrong about the woman’s voice.
“Who are you?” Ariana asked in return.
The question seemed to catch the unknown caller off-guard. She cleared her throat and stated, “I asked you first.”
“You called me,” Ariana said, picking up the ring and dropping it into the bag.
“No,” the woman argued, “you called me.”
“You’re a liar,” Ariana stated. “Liars aren’t nice. You’re going to be in trouble.”
“Who are you?” a voice demanded from behind her, and Ariana turned to face the speaker.
It was a short, thick woman wearing a battered and faded housecoat that might have been yellow. Her black hair was in pink rollers, and her short, stubby feet were clad in matching pink slippers.
T
he woman’s voice, Ariana realized, had been the one she had heard on the other end of the phone. The air had become cold, and she knew that the woman before her was dead.
Hanging up the receiver, Ariana held onto the phone and sat down in the chair. She looked at the woman and said, “I already told you, you called me.”
The woman's face darkened in the dim light, and she scowled, saying, "Listen to me, you little brat, you better tell me your name or your parents are going to hear about this."
Ariana tapped her fingers on the phone and said, “My parents already know about this. What’s your name?”
“I’m not telling you my god-damned name!” the woman screamed.
In the distance, Ariana heard her father call her name, and before she could answer her father, the woman slammed into her. Ariana was knocked back, the chair crashing to the floor. The phone went skidding into a shadowed corner, but she kept her grip on the bag with the other two items. Her head slammed against the floor and stars exploded in front of her eyes as the dead woman rushed towards her.
Ariana rolled away and got to her hands and knees.
Even as she did so, Ariana felt the woman grab hold of one of her pigtails, jerking her backward, her neck exploding with pain. The dead woman lifted Ariana up off the floor, holding her at eye level. Waves of cold slammed into her, and the ghost snarled as she examined her.
“You little brat,” the woman hissed. “You answer me when I talk to you. I didn’t take this kind of lip from my own kids, you think I’m going to take it from some little punk?”
The dead woman shook her and snapped, “Answer me!”
Ariana didn’t want to, and she didn’t have to.
Her father was there.
His huge fist crashed into the dead woman even as he took hold of Ariana with his other hand.
“Which was it, child?” her father asked, his voice shaking with rage.
“The phone,” she answered.
The woman appeared a moment later, glaring at Ariana and her father.
“Are you her father?” the woman spat. “Maybe you ought to teach your kid some manners, huh?”
Ivan Denisovich ignored her, asking Ariana, “Where is it?”