The Angry Ghost and Other Stories

by Peter Spokes

  As I left I heard Ryker call out, “Don’t forget to get some pictures…” Then he turned over and returned to sleep.

  So, armed with my thick overcoat, I made my precarious way down the stairs to find Marius waiting. I would have killed for a coffee but little appeared on offer.

  Marius smiled. “Cold make you… alive… Have this,” he said.

  I thought a hot coffee might be coming my way but… it was a lantern.

  “You need it,” he said cheerfully.

  We left the inn and I looked around for a car, a cart, a donkey, anything.

  “A little walk…” he said breathing deeply, and then turned towards an invisible road.

  I ran after him. “Why do we need to do this now? Can’t we do it later… when it’s light… and warmer… and I’m awake?”

  He shook his head. “No, need be there now,” he said seriously.

  I pulled my collar up around my neck and strode forth.

  Twenty minutes later, the monastery’s black silhouette appeared against the sky’s first light and the place I had seen the lady – and her hostile friend – earlier. We walked beyond and towards the graveyard.

  Within a short time, we were making our way past wooden crosses and places where the dead rest.

  It was surprisingly large – and quiet – as we walked on for several minutes before Marius stopped.

  He knelt in the wet mud and looked up at me. I took a deep breath and stepped forward raising my own lantern.

  Ryker should be doing this, not me, I thought.

  I was looking at what appeared to have once been a grave, but this one had been shown very little respect or deference. The grave had been ripped open leaving its bony recipient without its former aspect and symmetry.

  The coffin was rent and the cold, wet bones lay in chaos. As I raised my lantern around me I saw bones – split and broken – several feet from the demolished encasement.

  “How did you know this grave would be… desecrated?” I asked.

  “This is cadavru yesterday,” whispered Marius. “Vârcolac like fresh dead.”

  I watched him shake his head and wipe his eyes. “This not way to death.”

  I slowly moved my lantern around me some more. “I guess whatever caused this is long gone by now,” I said trying to make my question into an assertive statement.

  “Oh no. It still be close.”

  “What!?” I said a little louder than was meant and waving my lantern high around me.

  “Vârcolac home not far. Food near so stay near.”

  I mentally reminded myself of the lady and the big man’s proximity to the graveyard; also, I remembered her wanting to speak to me about some concern or matter.

  I nodded to Marius and despite some obvious loathing, I lowered myself onto my knees and leaned closer to the rent aperture.

  It took several moments before my eyes focussed on the felon’s marks in the wood – and on the bones; they were parallel and deep.

  “Maybe a gardener’s tool… like one of those four-pronged forks you can buy?” I said hopefully and remembering one of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories.

  Marius carefully moved his fingernails onto several broken ribs and shook his head.

  “These caused by big teeth – and claws… long… claws. Michael right,” he continued. “Only vârcolac do this…”

  I took a deep breath and looked for some rationality. He was clearly mistaken – this was a land of legends and myths and the man before me was clearly one of questionable worldly knowledge and so naturally biased towards urban lore. I could see how reasonable it was for him to look to the seemingly established and oddly acceptable legend to look for answers.

  Not unreasonably, I decided I no longer wanted to be here and so rose and turned to leave, but just then I remembered Ryker’s request for pictures and so I reached into my shoulder bag and took out my iPad. I took my time taking several pictures of the grave and surrounding area.

  As Marius stared at me I rather hoped that I might look as though I knew what I was doing and perhaps blasé to the grotesque image before me.

  “This vârcolac fierce,” Marius muttered. “This man buried yesterday. The vârcolac ripped sicriu and cadavru. It need be dead!!” he said controlling his anger badly.

  I helped Marius up onto his feet and we left the graveyard, and the forest.

  As we walked, Marius – much to my delight – discussed possible ways that Ryker and I might catch and kill the vârcolac.

  “There is colibă… hut,” he said, “… over side to cimitir. You stay there. I sure both you see vârcolac.”

  For a moment, I stared at him as if he were some kind of idiot that had been hit by an insanity stick, before he continued, “You say in books you kill… bad monsters…”

  I groaned inwardly remembering my incriminating writings.

  “It was Ryker – not me,” I said lamely. I so badly wanted to shake him by the shoulders and shout at him, ‘IT’S ONLY A STORY! IT’S NOT REAL!’

  Marius stopped and stared at me.

  “What is… way of Ryker and you…?” he asked bluntly.

  “We’re not gay!” I said.

  “No. I mean both different… like… creierul și Brawn?”

  I thought a moment and realised that was fairly accurate.

  Brain and brawn.

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “Well… you not seem… hero…” he said. “But Michael tell me, Ryker is big man and kill beast in sleep though I know not what mean.”

  I paused feeling a little offended. “I guess we were all made for different things and while I prefer academia, Ryker has always found excitement in activity – preferably dangerous activity,” I said remembering a time not long ago when he scaled the north face of the Eiger. On his return his recollection of the event was so great that I felt I had been there myself.

  Marius, once again, brought me back to the present.

  “What you think?” he asked.

  “… Ermm… about what? … Oh, yes…” I nodded, “… an excellent idea… a hut – I guess – beside a graveyard… at night… and waiting for a werewolf… I’ll suggest it to Ryker, though I would rather not be there,” I said and cringed as I affirmed my somewhat cowardly being to Marius.

  “We’ll spend some time in this hut and… vanquish the… werewolf…” I said with a grandeur I didn’t feel.

  “It’s a plan,” I said smiling with no interest at all.

  Scene 2: Ryker

  “You agreed to what!?” Ryker said – his voice rising as he paced around the room.

  I was telling him of the plan.

  “But you’re scared of nothing; you are a fighter – a black belt in Shotokan karate.”

  “In the dojo hall we follow rules and protocols of etiquette; we bow to show respect before and after a kumite… a fight. Outside of the dojo… there are no such niceties,” he continued. “But why am I telling you that? You were a karate-ka yourself before you… lost it.”

  I smiled sadly. I had enjoyed it – and been quite good but then… I remembered better times.

  “Ryker,” I said, “we know werewolves are nonsense and so we must be dealing with a real wolf, though that one that pinched our tyre iron yesterday looked too cute to rip up a coffin and a corpse… and didn’t seem too hostile when I stroked its muzzle.”

  So much like Lucia, I thought.

  I looked down. Or did I dream that bit.

  Ryker stared at me. “You know as well as I, wolves may dig but don’t eat old meat.”

  “So, a man pretending to be one then?” I persisted. “I still have a nagging doubt that we could be being set up. Do you want to see the pictures I took?” Ryker took a deep breath and wandered over.

  Once again, I looked at the scattered bones an
d splinters of wood.

  “What do you think?” I asked as Ryker swiped along the photos.

  He stared at me overlong.

  “You know more about wolves than anyone…” he said before sighing and looking closely at the iPad images.

  “These are long claws, and oddly narrow – and the teeth marks appear odd too.”

  “So, you don’t think a wolf did it?”

  “It doesn’t seem right but more so is the fact that wolves are not carrion and don’t split bones.”

  “Why would anything do that?” I asked.

  “Because only the long bones – the leg bones – contain marrow. There is much protein and nutrients in the marrow though all creatures can get this from other sources yet I believe that there is a vulture that lives off bone marrow.”

  “So, you think we might be on the lookout for a giant bird?”

  It was good to see Ryker laugh. I watched his shoulders lower and the tension leave his frame.

  Then I saw him look closely at an image before swiping back at a previous picture and forward again. His smile grew wider and he looked excited.

  “You missed this,” he said with some excessive smugness.

  “This is most definitely not a normal wolf; look again at the claw marks on this femur.”

  I looked closely and immediately saw what he meant.

  “How had I missed that?” I thought out loud.

  When a wolf strikes out with its claws, they are initially wide apart and splayed but become closer as it draws its claws in.

  These ones were parallel.

  “These were made by something human-like…” he said.

  “Human-like?”

  “Yeah. Human-like nails caused this… but they are much longer and clearly more powerful.”

  “So, we are being set up,” I said disappointed.

  “Or, it’s a real werewolf.” Ryker looked up smiling.

  “Good Lord, not you too!” I said looking heavenwards.

  “Maybe a few nights in this shack could be fun,” he said with more enthusiasm than I would have believed.

  We left the room and descended the stairs for a bite to eat and more beers than were necessary in readiness for the long, cold and dark walk to the shack.

  Scene 3: Natalia

  That evening I found myself lying on another very uncomfortable bed and musing on how it was that fate had decreed that one day I would be inhabiting an old shack beside a dark graveyard and awaiting an apparent creature from superstition – or perhaps someone dressed up as one!

  The single lantern lit up Ryker’s face as he held it up to the window and stared out – the only source of light in not only the shack but quite probably the surrounding acre or two.

  I wondered what the lady from the monastery was up to… and what she looked like.

  Just then I noticed Ryker moving his head from side to side as he gazed into the darkness.

  “There’s something out there…” he said.

  “What is it?” I said rising.

  “I’m really not sure…” he said squinting.

  “You sure it’s not just… shadows?” I asked.

  “I’m going to look – you coming?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I said. “Let’s just stay inside here… where it’s safe… maybe it will go away,” I said.

  Ryker stared at me. “Remember the man you were,” he said.

  What the hell did he mean by that? I thought.

  I looked around for a weapon, but in the absence of a bazooka or rocket launcher, simply picked up a baseball bat leaning incongruously in the corner, and followed Ryker out of the door and into the darkness.

  Slowly – and without the lamp, for obvious reasons – we crept between the trees and towards a dim light close to the graveyard.

  Within a short time, we stood looking at a small lantern sitting on a low branch.

  “I doubt a werewolf would need a lantern,” I whispered.

  “Maybe it’s old and its eyesight not what it once was…” Ryker said smiling.

  It was as we looked at one another that there was a sound behind us and a dark shadow entered the glow.

  “Natalia?” I said. “What are you doing here… at this time?”

  “I here to protect vârcolac,” she said angrily.

  “You are here to protect a werewolf?” I asked with some surprise and wondering if those words had ever been uttered before.

  “Someone need to! What give you right to kill rare and magnific beast?”

  Both Ryker and I backed off a pace from the vitriolic onslaught.

  I wondered how it was I had found myself at odds with someone with a shared appreciation for wild creatures.

  “Natalia… Natalia!” I said louder. “If this beast is in any way… wolf-like… I will not harm it,” I said awkwardly but with more assertiveness than I would have believed.

  “I do not believe you. You all like hunt… like kill,” she said angrily.

  “Not me…” I said looking over at a nodding Ryker.

  I sighed. “Natalia. I once looked after… I took care of wolves and was devastated when my favourite – Lucia – became ill and needed to have the pain… taken away.”

  Despite my attempt at emulating Ryker’s general machoness, I felt my eyes well up to the point that I had to wipe them.

  I spoke for a while about Lucia and saw Natalia’s visage slowly soften.

  Once finished, she looked up. “So if you see vârcolac then… you not kill?” she said.

  I paused, surprised by my own lack of rationale. Clearly the time I had spent with Lucia had made me seriously prejudiced.

  But was I being blind to a danger?

  In a kill or be killed situation, I knew what I would do.

  “No. I will walk away,” I said lying and feeling surprisingly bad for doing so.

  Natalia paused a moment before smiling and leaving.

  She took with her the lantern and so we were left in darkness.

  Ryker looked at me.

  “So now we are not going to kill the vârcolac?” he said.

  I was tired and embarrassed by my getting upset a moment earlier.

  “Jesus, Ryker! There is no such thing as a vârcolac or werewolf or whatever goddamn name you want to call it!”

  We walked back to the shack in silence.

  Once there Ryker looked over at me.

  “Maybe she is the vârcolac werewolf. Very odd for any young girl to be in the woods at this hour whatever her reasons, and that she doesn’t want anyone to harm it.”

  I shrugged. “We’re really not very good at this, are we?” I said with a sigh. “I thought it would be easier.”

  Ryker shrugged and I felt his hand squeeze my shoulder.

  “Your problem is that you have no control over this.”

  I looked at him questioningly. “We never have control over life,” I said.

  He smiled. “But you expect it all to go like in one of your books, but this story is not of your creation.”

  I said nothing.

  Ryker continued. “Your stories hold a theme – a plot and direction – acted out by a cast of players. These ‘players’ are doing their own thing. In your stories, you always know where you are going, but life and reality have much uncertainty and aimless direction.”

  I nodded. He always seemed to know what to say to make me feel better.

  I found the lack of controlled direction a little unnerving. For a rare moment, I felt a nauseous twinge of unpleasant memory as briefly I found myself revisiting my earlier period of ill-health – a time I so suddenly, desperately needed direction and support with every decision.

  I saw in my mind a sudden image of a dead wolf, prone and bloody, but it was too fleeting and spurious to focus on
.

  I took a deep breath and focussed on the present.

  I had Ryker; he took care of the ‘scarier’ aspect of life – those things that I would fret and otherwise worry over.

  Not for the first time I wondered how I would get by if he were no longer there.

  Scene 4: Lucia

  It was about two hours later that Ryker – still gazing out of the window like some kind of sentinel – spoke.

  “There’s something out there… again… and coming this way… It appears to be walking upright …”

  I listened to Ryker with no small feeling of déjà vu.

  “Is the door locked?” I asked.

  He looked over, “You pussy!”

  “Well, is it?” I said seriously.

  “Yes, it is… but you really need to be looking into getting some balls surgically sewn in place… You used to have some,” he added rather unnecessarily, I thought.

  I felt a little smug, therefore, to see Ryker jump slightly when there came a sharp knock at the door.

  “Perhaps you should check on your own,” I said rising to answer the door.

  I doubted a werewolf would follow the courteous protocol and etiquette of requesting entry.

  The knock came again, and a familiar voice.

  “Hello?”

  On opening the door, I saw the lady – or at least the cowl – we had seen the previous evening.

  “Hello…” I said genuinely happy to see her though aware of some of the suspicious opinions some were having of her – including myself.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  The state of my mind was becoming worryingly obvious to me as I remembered Chris Sarandon – and countless other actors portraying vampires – requesting the same thing; and of course, once they were invited in – once welcomed across the threshold – they could visit anytime… though, I believed that did only apply to vampires…

  I shook my head. Don’t be ridiculous, I thought.

  “Erm… sorry… Certainly,” I said.

  She came in and slowly looked around. “I knew a casa was out here but never visited it.”

  She ignored Ryker and walked towards me.