by Matt Hayward
Coming over like a timid dog, Alan helped me to my feet. I took his hand without a word and we both helped up Ghost. His forehead looked a little red, but otherwise he seemed okay. I took his dirty glasses from the ground and wiped them on my shirt before handing them back to him. I'd wanted to clear those lenses since I met him. He popped them on, a little crooked as they'd been before, and smiled at me.
“Is good,” He said. “Is good.”
I laughed. “It's all good.”
We moped towards the river edge and sat for a moment, waiting for the adrenaline to wash out of our systems. I still shook and needed to calm down. The sound of the river helped. I watched the ripples of the water as it rushed by, not thinking about anything in particular, just letting my brain process what'd happened. Eventually, my body relaxed.
Ghost made a noise and Alan and I looked to him. He pointed at the tree, his lips curled into a smile.
“Good,” He said. “Tree, good.”
I laughed, which made Ghost laugh. Alan stayed quiet, but he smiled, at least. It seemed his brothers couldn't ruin us completely. We sat and talked for the rest of the morning, Ghost chiming in now and again with his usual, limited vocabulary, and when the sun got too high, once more we said our goodbyes. Alan and I needed to go home and get lunch, and I assume Ghost did, too. I still didn't know where he lived, but I knew that there must be some grown-up waiting for him to come back.
I went to shake Ghost's hand and he surprised me with a hug. Alan laughed, but I didn't. Instead, I hugged him back.
Then he hugged Alan, just as enthusiastically, and it made me happy to see Alan return the kind gesture. Without a word, Ghost walked to the edge of the water, and once again, without pause, he began to wade across. We watched him go before leaving too.
“Is good,” Ghost called without looking back. “Is good Ghost.”
That was the last time I ever saw him.
¨¨¨
The next morning, my mother shook me awake. Sweat shone on her face and she still wore her nightgown. The sun was on the rise outside my window, and I placed it to be about half-six in the morning.
“Come on, get up,” she said.
“What's going on?”
“House on fire, down the Green Road. The Thompson's place. Fire trucks and police cars are everywhere.”
“Who are the Thompsons?”
To see my mother so excited shocked me, until I became an adult myself and discovered that any piece of action in a small town attracted people like flies to shit. She bolted down the staircase and I heard her feet pat on the wooden steps before smacking the linoleum of the downstairs landing. Pushing my blanket aside, I slipped on my jeans and rushed after her.
We ran outside and I caught the tail end of a truck, heading past the school, past the cemetery, and down the Green Road.
I felt stupid that it hadn't clicked with me sooner. And when it finally did, it hit me like a punch to the stomach.
“Mom, who are the Thompsons?”
“Weird family. Glad you never got to meet them. The Dad, George, was a local, he must be in his sixties or seventies by now, but he was a barfly at Monroe's for many years. Always smelled like piss and cigarettes.” She shuddered. “Creepy old man. No one knows what happened to his wife, but he had a daughter with him in the house, I know that much. I've even heard people say that he and she were…” She shivered and laughed. “You're too young for that.”
I was, and wasn't. I knew what she meant. Sex. I didn't know how it was done, but playground jokes had at least thought me enough to know about it. And I knew what such things were capable of leading to. I'd heard jokes from older kids about babies being born with retardation because of the couple keeping it in the family. And I felt, not for the first time that summer, like puking my ring up.
“You're very pale, are you okay?” She put her arm around me. “Hey, it's all right, honey. I doubt anyone's dead or anything like that. I'm sure he just left a cigarette lit or something silly. He's a very stupid old man.”
My voice seemed to come from somewhere else. “Did anyone else live there? In that house?”
Mom laughed. “No one, baby. I mean, people joked that they had a kid together because they're filthy, dirty people, but it's just a laugh. Only the two of them live there. I'm sure they're fine.”
I hoped she was right. But deep down, I knew she wasn't. Something inside me twisted and turned, telling me what I already suspected. The Thompsons did have a son. And two hours later, as we waited for the official word like the rest of the town, I got proven right.
The house had burned to cinders.
The Thompson's place was an old, decrepit home, tucked far in the woods on the other side of The Brook. Two bodies were found in the ashes, both burned. Another body, that of a child, was found in the basement. The official diagnosis came as suffocation. My friend had choked on the smoke.
I remember the smell around town that day, the sharp and bitter stench of ash that stung my nose. Little black specs floated all around, landing on the streets and the cars. I remember wondering if that could be wood ash, or perhaps the cremated bodies of one of Ghost's parents. Or Ghost, himself.
I stayed in my room all day that day. My mom asked if I felt okay and I lied, telling her I felt ill and just wanted to play video games.
I cried a lot.
It was the first time I had lost someone, and I wasn't prepared. How could I have been? I was eleven years old. I couldn't confide in anyone besides Alan, but to get to him would have meant leaving my room, and I wasn't prepared to do that. Besides, if I'd seen Jerry, I'd most likey have tried to kill him.
I blamed myself for bringing it all into Ghost's life and for not dealing with Alan's brothers better. But mostly, I blamed myself for not paying more attention to that damn lighter.
I don't think I ate all day. My mom said I was pale as a ghost, and even that had made me burst into tears. She took care of me that day, not knowing the real reason I felt down, but sensing something the same way all mothers do. I couldn't bring myself to tell her, but the results were the same. She really helped. I hardly slept that night, but the next day, I felt good enough to look for Alan.
When I knocked at his door, his mother told me that he didn't want to see me. That was the first time that had ever happened. My stomach knotted at the thought, and I went back home, rejected. Guards were still milling about the town, and that's all people spoke about. That, and the backwoods family of three that were dead on the Green Road.
Two days later, the body of the young boy was identified.
His name was Gregory Thompson. He was twelve years old.
The whole town seemed genuinely shocked. Stories that had spread at late night bars about George and Margaret Thompson were funny to tell, but no one really believed them. Just another way to poke fun at those less fortunate. “Old George Thompson,” they'd say when the beer got flowing. “The filthy old creep, out there in his dirty little house in the woods, fiddling around with his broken daughter. And you know they even have a handicapped kid together, right?”
Every story has a grain of truth, though. And on this occasion, it turned out they were right.
No one knew what the deal with Margaret was. My own theory is that George messed her head up so much that she didn't know her up from down or her left from right. Didn't have a single free-willed thought of her own or question her situation. A depressing thing to imagine, even to an eleven year old.
The shock at the discovery of Gregory’s body didn't affect me because I had expected it. Apart from Alan, his brothers and me, I don't think anyone else in town knew he existed before that. When they had found the basement, word got out it was where they had kept him locked up. Someone said he had a waste bucket sitting in the corner, a shabby mattress, a couple of spare changes of clothes thrown about the floor, and not a whole lot else. Pre-internet days meant everything traveled like Chinese-whispers, but still, I believed it. I couldn't not believe it. Even t
hough small towns had a tendency to exaggerate any kind of scandal, this seemed to fit what I'd seen.
The Thompson family name stayed on people's lips for the next month or so. It'd surfaced that a cigarette lighter had been the tool used to start the fire. The lighter had been found in the basement, at the top of the stairs. People said the house had been old, and must've gone up at record pace. Some speculated that old George couldn't live with himself, too many secrets, and had tossed the lighter into the basement to bring it all with him. But I knew the real reason.
I still wonder if Ghost knew what he was doing. And I still can't find the answer.
Alan and I never spoke again, and when I saw him back at school that September in 1996, he never even made eye contact. Whether he didn't want to or simply couldn't, I don't know. I'd like to think it's because he felt bad, more than bad, and needed to allow the tension inside him to rest. Some things never get closure, and that's something important I began to learn that year.
That whole story took place twenty odd years ago.
I came back to town for my school reunion yesterday, but I couldn't resist going to The Brook. The place hadn't changed, and unsurprisingly, a lot of the people hadn't, either. That came as a sad realization. Alan hadn't come to the reunion, so I had asked around, and word was after school he'd gotten a job at the sawmill. Most of the men in town went that route. I thought about trying to visit, but decided against it. If he wanted to forget about our friendship I thought perhaps I should let him.
I stood in the clearing where my world had changed back in 1996, and just as before, I listened to the river. No hooting came from the other side. No noise whatsoever, save for the rush of water.
I missed my friend.
Making my way to the single pine, I smiled at how it still stood tall and proud, only now it looked a lot bigger. My heart stung at the sight of the three names carved in a belt around the bark, still visible, even after all those years. ALAN - OWEN - GHOST.
It'd been a good thing Alan went so deep with his pocketknife, after all.
I got to my knees, dug at the ground, and didn't stop until I found what I came for. My fingers grazed against paper, and I pulled the comic free. Moldy and rotten, but definitely the same book I'd seen all those years ago. I looked at Casper, noting how the pages had faded, the text blotted and the paper hardened. The paint-smeared ghost on the cover had faded, but I could still make him out. I sat and read the comic then, pulling the pages apart while trying not to rip them. The whole time, a troublesome snot tried escaping my nose, but of course, I sucked it back in like a pro. I'd learned from the best.
I missed my friend more than ever at that moment.
The world had real monsters, and they weren't the tropes you expected as a child. That long-gone summer, I'd stopped believing in movie monsters, and started fearing the real kind… But ghosts? I believe in ghosts. If fact, one still haunts me to this day. He might have been Gregory to the rest of the world, but to me, he was my Ghost. And even friendly ghosts, it seems, still haunt.
That’s The Price You Pay
The second time he came into my shop, I knew that he was definitely one of them. He'd aged by at least a decade.
Even the first time he came by, I knew he had to be one. You see, he had that benchmark look I've grown to associate with his type. That youthful, but off-colored skin, the darkness around the eyes, the fingers of a pianist, but most of all, his staggering good looks. I hate all of them for that. They seem to be very handsome or very pretty, but seem to be is the important part of that sentence. When people of his association change, you'd prefer your eyes were gouged out with a rusty spoon than admit that what you were looking at could be real. That kind of thing messes with your head.
I asked him his name and he told me. James. James Lewis.
He had nothing to hide, and telling me that information wouldn't make a difference to anything. After all, I was a man in my fifties who ran an antique shop in downtown Seattle. What damage could I possibly do to him or his reputation?
James Lewis was a vampire.
Sure, you might think, dream on, old man. But I'm telling you, they're as real as mumps and measles. They're like both of those things, too, in a way. They're dangerous to humans, but only if you let them get out of control and don't understand them. Thankfully, after a lot of time to digest the information, I do understand them. In fact, more so than a lot of the recently turned understand themselves. That's some PC bullshit right there, huh? 'Recently turned'. Anyway, a vast number of them can't accept what's happened, and because of that, there's a large suicide rate among the newly undead. It's understandable. I mean, think about it. Their whole lives have been forever changed in an incomprehensible manner. They're forced to live off the blood of the living, and to stay indoors for the most part. Sunlight doesn't kill them, that's exaggerated like most myths, but it does hurt them. Something to do with the pigmentation of their skin, or something like that. And besides their youthful appearance, they have an air of sickness about them, like the disease has crawled onto the surface for everyone to see. In some sense, I pity them. Once they understand, most normal people do.
From the stories I've heard, a lot of vampires confide in their loved ones, who, once they see with undeniable evidence that the victim is telling the truth, accept them. A lot of these loved ones will buy hypodermic needles and stock up their fridges with pints of their own blood to keep undead friends and partners happy. The vampires need that blood to survive. That part of the myths you've heard is true. Tragically.
At first, many of them can't control themselves. Did you ever get so aggravated that your brain scrambles and all you see is red? You just want to hurt someone, and nothing else matters. One of the poor bastards told me it's like that but amplified to an unbearable degree. After a while, if they decide to live with themselves, they learn to get it under control. Those who can't come to me. Because I'm the doctor. I'll get back to that.
The garlic bit you've heard about is pure bullshit. The wooden stake through the heart? I'm not so sure. I've never personally tried it, and as far as I'm aware, there's no Buffy around to confirm it. Holy water? Once again, never tried, never will. I have something that works much better.
I have a mirror.
And a vampire cannot see it's own reflection. Unless of course it's my mirror that you're talking about.
My shop sits at the harbor, just under the Viaduct at the bottom of town. I've run the place for twenty-three years now. They say an underground city lies beneath Seattle, did you know that? I have a theory about that city and the vampires, but it's not relevant to what I'm trying to tell you, so we'll save it for another day.
I've always had a fixation for vintage collectibles, especially those of the exotic variety. The stranger the item, the more interest I tend to have towards it. Once, when a local circus went out of business, I approached the owner about buying most of his freak show display.
He was a friendly man, but when I spoke to him, something in his eyes countered the good-humor vibe. A fear lingered in those eyes, one I'd never seen before, or since. And, comically so, he looked like every ring master you've ever seen or heard of. He had a pot-belly, a dark waxed mustache, the works. But those eyes...
He sold me a fetus in a jar, said to be a daemon's love child. Looked like a putty-made baby floating in formaldehyde to me. Sold it to a lovely young couple from Japan for one hundred dollars. Hell, I only paid fifteen, myself. I got facial hair in a ziploc bag said to belong to a bearded lady. That got snapped up on eBay from an international buyer for three-hundred. An extra five for postage. Luckily, I had a certificate of authentication and a photograph of the woman to go with it. There was a taxidermy two-headed duckling, too. That one made me laugh. Looked like Norman Bates had a little too much to drink before getting to work. Still, got me a solid one-fifty. A whole trailer full of this stuff waited, and I took it all, gratefully. I stocked up a new section in the shop for a niche market, and I pl
anned on making a mint.
What I didn't plan on was getting the mirror.
It really was a thing of beauty. A thick black wooden frame held it, adorned with symbols carved deep into the grain.
Riccardo. That's the ring-master's name. Just remembered.
He told me he'd come across the mirror while traveling somewhere in Southeastern Europe. Bulgaria, I believe. Said it to be a local superstition that if any mirrors were left uncovered in the wake of a death, a gateway to the Otherworld would be opened, and evil spirits could cross through at will. Hence, the locals would cover all mirrors in their homes until a suitable time had passed. The only thing I know to be fact is that a Bulgarian woodworker made the frame. He'd carved his name on the inside. Nikola Daskalov. Where the glass got forged? No idea.
You know how some people describe the surface of a lake to be glassy? I never knew what they meant until I saw this mirror. And, in fact, I'd go the opposite and say that this glass looked lakey. Bear with me here. When you look at it, and I mean truly pay attention, sometimes I swear you can see something lurking just beneath the surface. Like some sea creature is prowling below the water, waiting to pounce. I'm convinced that just like beneath the surface of the ocean lies an underworld, beneath this glass waits an Otherworld.
Riccardo had informed me he was done with the mirror. The thing brought too much trouble, especially when word got around it was in his possession and in the United States. He wanted to be up front with me and have no secrets. He needed it off his hands. He gave it to me for free.
And I took it.
He told me that the vampires called him the Doctor, and that I needed to get used to the name. Did I believe him? You've got to be kidding me. However, I knew a funny attraction like that mirror would drive business, so I took it with a smile, despite his warnings. I set it up in the back room which used to serve as storage. Pinned some dark silk drapes to the walls. Got a low wattage bulb for the overhead light. Place looked gothic and tacky as shit.