Phantoms

by Marie O'Regan

  “We are. But your client can’t prove he hasn’t obtained these images from someone else,” Stein said. “When forensics have finished with his computer, we’ll know for sure.”

  “And how long will that take?” Kyle groaned.

  “As long as it takes.”

  * * *

  It took the rest of the day. Kyle returned to a dark, empty cottage, tired and hungry. He’d first had to call round, shame-faced, to the elderly neighbours he hardly knew, to retrieve Bertie from his emergency accommodation. Apparently, the old boy had been “no trouble at all”, which was something. And Kyle struggled to get away from the woman who wanted to know what had happened at the police station.

  Much as he wanted to forget everything, Kyle felt the strands of a mystery tugging at his mind like a jacket sleeve caught on an old nail. He didn’t have his computer, and so he looked to his phone, ignoring the notifications flashing for attention on ViewFindr. He found scant information on Amanda Bartlett, just a quote from her brother, Tom, from years ago.

  “Our lives were never the same after she met those people on the internet. Sending her messages day and night. And then one night she got something that rattled her. I’ll never know what it was – they never found her phone. But those people, whoever they were; maybe they didn’t kill her, but they might as well have. I’ll not rest until I’ve found out the truth.”

  Kyle checked the phone book. No Bartletts in the village, unless they were ex-directory. He wasn’t sure what good tracking them down might do anyway, except upset a bereaved sibling. Instead, he called Steve.

  Half an hour later, he was on the bus into town, feeling guilty about leaving Bertie once more. Half an hour after that, he was in a pub, taking as much comfort as possible from the chatter of regulars, garish lights, modern décor. He told his story to Steve as best he could, leaving out only those parts that made him sound neurotic. Or worse, a coward.

  “So, what… are you a suspect?” Steve looked grave.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. They kept my computer and my external drive. Five years of work on there; if they mess up those image files I’m screwed.”

  “So you and I both know that someone’s messing with you. Hacker? But it has to be someone who knows you live in the village, right? Someone who knows the crime scene, and might even have taken those photos ten years ago.”

  “Shit, that’s right. What if… what if the person that did it killed her?”

  Steve took a big gulp of his lager. “Let’s not get carried away. You said it was someone on that app who pointed you towards the walk?”

  “Yeah, yeah… Bokeh-something. The police have already been through my account with a fine-tooth comb. God knows what they made of all my weird stuff. I’m probably on a bloody watch list now.”

  “Focus, mate,” Steve said. “This Bokeh fella – he on there still?”

  “I’ll have a look.”

  Kyle took out his phone, opened the app – ignoring the unread messages this time – and instead cycled through the notifications, scouring them for the message in question. But he stopped short.

  “You alright, mate?” Steve asked. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Just… a reminder. When I uploaded the first pictures of the shed, I got a new follower, instantly. It stuck in my mind because it had a blank username, and a black avi. Thought it was a spam-bot, y’know? But it just feels like too much of a coincidence now.”

  “Okay, can you click on it, see if there’s any info?”

  “Yeah. Oh… bugger.” Kyle had tapped the blank username, and was met with a placeholder profile, and the message: This user has deleted their account.

  “What’s up?”

  “They’ve deleted their account. What if… they’re the ones who set me up? They might have even reported it. And now they’re gone, anonymous.”

  “Or it could be a spam-bot like you said. Is there anything you can find out about it? Any info at all.”

  Kyle tapped on the black avatar and pinch-zoomed. “Huh, I thought this was just solid black, but there’s an image here.” Kyle saved the image to his phone gallery and opened it up in an editor app. Now he felt sure there was something organic there. Was that the shape of an arm maybe? So what was that above it? He pinch-zoomed as far as he could on some dark grey, pixellated blobs in the middle of his phone screen, clicked on brightness and contrast, and did what he could to bring the shapes into view. If he could just brighten it a little more…

  “Fuck!” Kyle leapt out of his seat. The phone flew from his hands, hitting hard laminate with a crunch. Steve nearly jumped out of his skin at the abruptness of Kyle’s reaction; every head in the pub turned to look.

  Kyle slid back into his seat. Steve was asking him if he was okay, but he could barely register his friend’s words. He shook like a man with pneumonia. His head swam. He thought he might be sick.

  Steve picked up the phone. “Crap, mate. You’ve done a number on this. Completely dead.”

  “I… I think I should go home.”

  “What the hell did you see? Was it a message or something? Has someone threatened you?”

  “No. I don’t know. Look, it’s all been a bit weird. I think I might have imagined it. I appreciate you coming out with me… maybe I could call you tomorrow, when I’m not so stressed, yeah?”

  Steve frowned. “You don’t seem yourself. Why not come and stay at my place?”

  “No… I need some time alone, to get my head straight. Besides, the police will probably be calling tomorrow. It’ll look suspect if I’m not home.”

  “Fair enough. Look, don’t catch the bus. Let me get you a taxi.”

  “I… I can’t really afford a taxi.” That was the first time Kyle had admitted any such thing to Steve. He reddened.

  “It’s on me,” Steve said, without pausing for breath.

  Kyle staggered out into the cold air like a drunkard. He felt numb, in shock. Steve helped him into a black cab and gave the driver a twenty.

  Kyle just needed tomorrow to come. He wanted daylight and normality, and then maybe he could work out what the hell to do. When he got home, it was all he could do to drag himself to bed, where he lay awake, trembling, for what seemed like hours, until he grew so tired that even the strangely unfamiliar creaking of the old cottage could no longer keep him from sleep.

  * * *

  The ground slid beneath him, wet and glistening, ice-cold on his bare skin. Kyle felt groggy, his mouth dry and cottony. He felt strong hands around his wrists and forearms; felt them yank at him, and his knees hit concrete and scraped across a hard floor.

  Footsteps echoed in darkness. Robes swished. Kyle thought he must be dreaming. It wasn’t so bad if he was dreaming. He tried to speak, but his lips were dry and his throat claggy, and no sound came from his mouth except for a phlegmy rasp.

  Rusty hinges groaned. The door. He knew where he was. Another yank. He was over the threshold now, where it was so dark he couldn’t even see the floor anymore.

  Someone whispered. Kyle didn’t understand what they were saying.

  Then came the noose.

  Must be dreaming. Must be dreaming.

  The rope pulled tight, pressing on his Adam’s apple, making him gag.

  His feet scrabbled on the rough ground. He felt himself rise, like he was flying, and he couldn’t breathe. He spluttered a last breath, then no more would come. He couldn’t feel the ground anymore. His eyes felt like they would pop out of his head. The whispering stopped. Footsteps receded. He was alone, dying.

  When his own grunts ceased and all he could hear was the creaking of the rope, he spun, weightless, on the end of the noose. Turning in darkness.

  Turning to see a woman, face-to-face in a sliver of moonlight, hanging, like him. Pale and bruised and dirty.

  Her eyelids rolled open to reveal bulging bloodshot eyes. She was dead. But her cracked, blue lips curled into a smile.

  All resistance slipped away. He didn’t wake up. He
just swayed on his rope, and she on hers. Her glassy eyes were black circles, and he thought he saw a shape reflected in them, indistinct and grey. Was that an arm? A face? It was a hanged man. Kyle Watson. That was him, wasn’t it? Kyle couldn’t think straight.

  He’d seen this before, in another life maybe. It had frightened him then, but not now. Now he understood.

  They looked at each other until the light went out of his eyes, and there was no one left on Dewberry Farm.

  Not a living soul.

  A HAUNTED HOUSE IS A WHEEL UPON WHICH SOME ARE BROKEN

  Paul Tremblay

  ARRIVAL

  Fiona arranged for the house to be empty and for the door to be left open. She has never lived far from the house. It was there, a comfort, a threat, a reminder, a Stonehenge, a totem to things that actually happened to her. The house was old when she was a child. That her body has aged faster than the house (there are so many kinds of years; there are dog-years and people-years and house-years and geological-years and cosmic-years) is a joke and she laughs at it, with it, even though all jokes are cruel. The house is a New England colonial, blue with red and white shutters and trim, recently painted, the first floor windows festooned with carved flower boxes. She stands in the house’s considerable shadow. She was once very small, and then she became big, and now she is becoming smaller again, and that process is painful but not without joy and an animal-sense of satisfaction that the coming end is earned. She thinks of endings and beginnings as she climbs the five steps onto the front porch. Adjacent to the front door and to her left is a white historical placard with the year 1819 and the house’s name. Her older brother, Sam, said that you could never say the house’s name out loud or you would wake up the ghosts, and she never did say the name, not even once. The ghosts were there anyway. Fiona never liked the house’s name and thought it was silly, and worse, because of the name pre-existing and now post-existing it means that the house was never hers. Despite everything, she wanted it to always be hers.

  – Fiona hesitates to open the front door. Go to here THE FRONT DOOR

  – Fiona decides to not go inside the house after all and walks back to her car. Go to here LEAVING THE HOUSE

  THE FRONT DOOR

  It’s like Fiona has always and forever been standing at the front door. She places a hand on the wood and wonders what is on the other side, what has changed, what has remained the same. Change is always on the other side of a door. Open a door. Close a door. Walk in. Walk out. Repeat. It’s a loop, or a wheel. She doesn’t open the door and instead imagines a practice-run; her opening the door and walking through the house, stepping lightly into each of the rooms, careful not to disturb anything, and she is methodical in itemizing and identifying the ghosts, and she feels what she thinks she is going to feel, and she doesn’t linger in either the basement or her parents’ bedroom, and she eventually walks out of the house, and all of this is still in her head, and she closes the door, then turns around, stands in the same spot she’s standing in now, and places a hand on the wood and wonders what is on the other side, what has changed, what has remained the same.

  – Fiona opens the door. Go to here ENTRANCEWAY

  – Fiona is not ready to open the door. Go to here THE FRONT DOOR

  – Fiona decides to walk back to the car and not go inside the house. Go to here LEAVING THE HOUSE

  ENTRANCEWAY

  Fiona gently pushes the front door closed, watches it nestle into the frame, and listens for the latching mechanism to click into place before turning her full attention to the house. The house. The house. The house. Sam said because the house was so old and historical (he pronounced it his-store-ickle so that it rhymed with pickle) there was a ghost in every one of the rooms. He was right. The house is a ghost too. That’s obvious. That all the furniture, light fixtures, and decorations will be different (most of everything will be antique, or made to look antique; the present owners take their caretakers-of-a-living-museum role seriously) and the layout changed from when she lived here won’t matter because she’s not here to catalogue those differences. She’ll only have eyes for the ghost house. Fiona says, Hello? because she wants to hear what she sounds like in the house of the terrible now. She says hello again and her voice runs up the stairs and around banisters and bounces off plaster and crown molding and sconces, and she finds the sound of the now-her in the house pleasing and a possible antidote to the poison of nostalgia and regret, so she says hello again, and louder. Satisfied with her re-introduction, Fiona asks, Okay, where should we go first?

  – Fiona turns to her right and walks into the living room. Go to here LIVING ROOM

  – Fiona walks straight ahead into the dining room. Go to here DINING ROOM

  – The weight of the place and its history and her history is too much; Fiona abruptly turns around and leaves the house. Go to here LEAVING THE HOUSE

  LIVING ROOM

  Dad builds a fire and uses all the old newspaper to do it and pieces glowing orange at their tips break free and float up into the flue, moving as though they are alive and choosing flight. Fiona and Sam shuffle their feet on the throw rug and then touch the cast iron radiator, their static electric shocks so big at times, a blue arc is visible. Mom sits on the floor so that Fiona can climb onto the couch and jump onto her back. A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. The fire is out and the two of them are by themselves and Sam pokes around in the ashes with a twig. Sam says that Little Laurence Montague was a chimney sweep, the best and smallest in the area, and he cleaned everyone’s chimney, but he got stuck and died in this chimney, so stuck, in fact, they would not be able to get his body out without tearing the house apart so the homeowners built a giant fire that they kept burning for twenty-two days, until there was no more Little Laurence left, not even his awful smell. Sam says that you can see him, or parts of him anyway, all charred and misshapen, sifting through the ash, looking for his pieces, and if you aren’t careful, he’ll take a piece from you. Fiona makes sure to stay more than an arm’s length away from the fireplace. Of all the ghosts, Little Laurence scares her the most, but she likes to watch him pick through the ash, hoping to see him find those pieces of himself. There are so many.

  – Fiona curls into the dining room. Go to here DINING ROOM

  – Fiona walks to the kitchen. Go to here KITCHEN

  – This is already harder than she thought it was going to be; impossible, in fact. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to here LEAVING THE HOUSE

  DINING ROOM

  Fiona and Sam are under the table and their parents’ legs float by like branches flowing down a river. The floorboards underneath groan and whisper and they understand their house, know it as a musical instrument. Dad sits by himself and wants Fiona and Sam to come out from under the table and talk to him; they do and then he doesn’t know what to say or how to say it; her father is so young and she never realized how young he is. Mom isn’t there. She doesn’t want to be there. Sam says there was an eight-year-old girl named Maisy who had the strictest of parents, the kind who insisted children did not speak during dinner, and poor Maisy was choking on a piece of potato from a gloopy beef stew and she was so terrified of what her parents would do if she said anything, made any sort of noise, she sat and quietly choked to death. Sam says you can see her at the table sitting there with her face turning blue and her eyes as large and white as hardboiled eggs and if you get too close she will wrap her hands around your neck and you won’t be able to call out or say anything until it’s too late. Of all the ghosts, Maisy scares Fiona the most, and she watches in horror as Maisy sits at the table trying to be a proper girl.

  – Fiona walks straight ahead and into the kitchen. Go to here KITCHEN

  – Fiona turns right and walks into the living room. Go to here LIVING ROOM

  – Fiona bypasses the kitchen entirely and goes to the basement. Go to here BASEMENT

  – This is harder than she thought it was going to be; impossible,
in fact. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to here LEAVING THE HOUSE

  KITCHEN

  Dad cooks fresh flounder and calls it “fried French” and not fish so that Fiona will eat it. The four of them play card games (cribbage, mainly) and Fiona leaves the room in tears after being yelled at (Dad says he wasn’t yelling, which isn’t the same as saying he’s sorry) for continually leading into runs and allowing Sam and Mom to peg. Mom sits at the table by herself and says she feels fine and smokes a cigarette. Her mother is so young and Fiona never realized how young she is. Sam screams and cries and smashes glasses and dishes on the hardwood floor and no one stops him. Fiona and Mom stand at the back door and look outside, waiting for the birds to eat the stale breadcrumbs they sprinkled about their small backyard. Sam says there was a boy named Percy who was even smaller than Little Laurence. He was so small because the only thing he would eat was blueberry muffins, and he loved those muffins so much he crawled inside the oven so that he could better watch the muffin batter rise and turn golden brown. Sam says that you can see him curled up inside the oven and if you get too close he’ll pull you in there with him. Of all the ghosts, Percy scares Fiona the most because of how small he is; she knows it’s not polite but she can’t help but stare at his smallness.

  – Fiona saves the basement for later and walks through the dining room, the living room, and then into the den. Go to here DEN

  – Fiona backtracks into the dining room. Go to here DINING ROOM

  – Fiona goes to the living room. Go to here LIVING ROOM

  – Fiona goes into the basement. Go to here BASEMENT

  – This is harder than she thought it was going to be; impossible, in fact. Fiona doesn’t think she can continue and leaves the house. Go to here LEAVING THE HOUSE