Three Stories About Ghosts

by Matthew Marchitto

  He was locked mid-step, unable to move.

  You failed me, Marty. The Boneman’s words were echoey and distorted, like whale song. From the mist, like a giant from myth, walked the Boneman. Taller than the streetlights, the red mists swirling around his arms. The buildings rolled, shifted. Marty’s vision blurred as his eyes started to water and panic made his heart hammer.

  “I’m going to get him. I promise. I just need to find his pocketknife.” Marty yelped, his wrist was turning, and turning, tensing as it threatened to break. He cried out: “I’m going to do it, I promise.”

  His wrist snapped, tendons tearing, bones breaking. Marty sobbed, the pain shooting up his arm.

  I cannot abide failure. The Boneman turned his fingers like he was opening a door.

  Marty’s head unwillingly followed the motion, his body immovable, until he felt the tension, the stabs of pain as he was forced to look over his shoulder.

  “Please, I promise, I’ll do it. No matter what, I’ll do it.” Pain shot through his neck, he grit his teeth but that just made it hurt more. “I promise.”

  The Boneman—human-sized—was now in his line of sight. He extended his hand to one of the buildings. Do not trust him, Marty.

  Marty collapsed to his knees, sucking in gulps of air. The fog wasn’t red, the streetlights were their normal orange glow. His wrist throbbed, but otherwise felt fine. Whatever the Boneman had done was just a warning. Keep it together, Marty. In front of him was the building the Boneman had gestured to, a pair of black vans parked outside it. Down the street he saw another two. This was the in-betweener’s house.

  Marty rose on unsteady legs, leaning against the streetlight; half to keep himself hidden from the vans, half to catch his breath.

  I shouldn’t have signed that contract.

  The vans’ windows were tinted: Marty assumed they were BOA agents staking out the place. The front door of the house opened, and a guy in a polo shirt and jeans walked out, making sure to lock the door behind him. He rushed down the steps, got into a beat-up silver car, and drove away. He didn’t seem to notice the black vans, and the BOA didn’t seem to care about him. Maybe a family member taking care of the house? It didn’t matter now—Marty needed to get inside.

  The house was dark, no lights, no movement. He gripped the in-betweener’s keys. Front door was out of the question, the BOA agents would see him. Back door it was, then.

  Marty backtracked until he was out of sight of the vans, dashed into one of the neighbour’s backyards, oomphed his way over a pair of fences—his entire body ached—and dropped into the in-betweener’s backyard.

  The house was a bungalow, with one floor and a basement. The backyard was unremarkable, a square of grass with a chain-link fence and a stubby shed in the corner. A few lights in the neighbours’ windows reminded him that there were still people here.

  Marty walked up the three cement steps to the back door, and breathed a sigh of relief that someone had left the screen door open. He fumbled with the keys, but after a few seconds he was stepping into the in-betweener’s house.

  The back door led into a little horizontal room cluttered with rakes, brooms, shovels, and coats. An empty garbage pail sat nestled in a corner. Marty felt like an intruder, seeing the clutter and detritus of a lived-in home he was never meant to see. After everything that had happened, this was too normal.

  This back room led into a modest kitchen. It wasn’t big, and a circular table made for four people occupied the majority of the floor space. Marty pressed his hand to the countertop: smooth black and white marble. He opened the wooden cupboards, and felt silly for being surprised at finding dishes and cups.

  Next was the living room, with a loveseat and a twenty-inch TV. There were old pictures on the wall, sepia or black-and-white: Marty guessed the in-betweener, his parents, and a brother. In the background of each was the same house. So the in-betweener had inherited it? Marty scanned the other pictures. It was hard to see the in-betweener as Marty knew him in the human in these photos; Marty had to guess. Most were of when he was a little kid, a couple from high school, a graduation photo, then nothing. Marty recognized one of the men in the pictures: the guy in the polo shirt he’d seen leave the house. That must have been the in-betweener’s brother, taking care of his stuff after his death.

  The second room’s door was ajar, and it squealed as Marty pushed it open. A bedroom that was mostly bed. No closet, a nightstand, a dresser. The bed was made, and Marty got the sense it hadn’t been used in a while, like months or years. The nightstand was empty, and the dresser only had spare bedsheets. Was this a guest bedroom? Marty figured the in-betweener didn’t have a lot of guests.

  There was one more room, its door closed. Marty didn’t feel good about rifling through someone else’s belongings, but he had to find the pocketknife.

  The floorboards creaked as he walked up to the final door. It opened on less noisy hinges. A bedroom, more cluttered, slightly larger. This had to be the in-betweener’s room.

  There were clothes piled in a laundry basket, scattered books and magazines, odds and ends like a comb, hand moisturizer, deodorant. Marty took a deep breath, and then started opening drawers. Socks, underwear, T-shirts. Mostly plain colours, a few argyle patterns, some plaid. No pocketknife. He went through the closet, sweaters—mostly black and white, one red; jeans; a pair of shoes. He checked the pants and sweater pockets, no wallet. Maybe his brother had collected it? There was a small computer desk in the corner: a couple of cables, no drawers, no computer. That must have been it—the in-betweener’s brother had taken all the valuables out of the house. Did that include the pocketknife?

  Marty got on the tips of his toes and rummaged around the top shelf of the closet. There was only one box and an old lamp. Marty took down the box, set it on the bed, and opened it.

  Photo albums, old ones. The whole family was in here, grandparents in black and white, parents in off-tone red, and the in-betweener and his brother in disposable camera colour, their eyes flashing a now ominous red. And then they were adults, the in-betweener—healthy and alive—starting to look sad. Inexplicably so. His brother stood with his arms around someone Marty assumed was his wife, two little kids looking miserable at the prospect of standing still.

  They were nice pictures, but in each one Marty noticed the in-betweener was alone. Off to the side, at the back. There were no pictures of the in-betweener that didn’t have his brother’s family in them. Except one, where he wore a janitor’s outfit, mop in hand, his trolley beside him. Marty squinted at the picture so he could read the nametag: John McKinsey.

  Marty riffled through the papers at the bottom of the box—tax papers, pictures of a dog, high school diploma—no pocketknife.

  For fuck’s sake, John, you couldn’t tell me where you kept it?

  On a hunch, Marty got down on his hands and knees and looked under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies.

  There’s still the basement.

  Marty never liked basements, especially when he was alone. He didn’t know why, or when it started. It didn’t matter if it was at his parents’ house, his grandma’s house, or a friend’s house; going into a basement alone made him jittery.

  And now he had to go rummage through a dead man’s basement.

  Marty set everything back the way it had been in the box, and gingerly put it back on the closet shelf. He didn’t want John’s brother to freak out. It’s weird, thinking of the in-betweener as a “John.” From what Marty could see, there was nothing remarkable about John. He didn’t have any dungeons or secret compartments, no villain’s lair, no shrine to a dictator or some other shit.

  Marty thought of his sticky note wall: right now Marty looked a lot more unstable than the in-betweener.

  He brushed his hands through his hair, letting out a slow breath. To the basement. He gripped the doorknob and opened—Ah, shit. That’s a closet. Wrong door.

  The last door had to be it, and as Marty opened it he stared down the length
of a darkened stair, leading into blackness.

  The wooden stairs screeched as Marty stepped down them. They were backless, which gave him renewed visions of thrusting hands grabbing his ankles. He used the light on his phone to look around. The basement was unfinished: concrete floors and walls, exposed pipes in the ceiling amid cobwebs. Boxes were stacked on top of each other. The entire place had a smell of mildew. Marty hoped the pocketknife wasn’t buried in one of those boxes.

  He made a slow tour of the basement. The place was filled with junk. Lamps, kid’s toys, a rocking horse, a mattress leaning on the wall, a bike unreachable behind an air conditioner unit.

  There were two doorless doorways. One led to the furnace room; Marty had to duck under piping and steel thingamabobs. Nestled in a corner were more boxes, Christmas lights written on their sides in sharpie.

  The second doorless room was the laundry room. A washer, a dryer, stacked laundry baskets. He opened the closet: old dishes and tablecloths. Marty assumed this was where things went to be forgotten. The layer of dust and the millipede saying hello meant he was probably right.

  Marty went back out into the main floor area, passing his light over the boxes. If the pocketknife wasn’t upstairs, then it had to be down here somewhere.

  He started sidling through the stacked boxes, bending this way and that to get a look behind them or for any labels. He felt like he was searching through three generations’ worth of crap.

  A typewriter. A lamp that looked like a woman’s leg. A clown doll? Eek. A box of G.I. Joes. A toolbox. A box filled with fishing stuff; must have been his dad’s or something. Old crayon drawings. Elementary school certificates. Dog toys, aww. More pictures of grandma and grandpa. A baby’s crib covered in a tarp, a little creepy. Tricycle. God, John, throw some of this shit away.

  Marty sat on one of the boxes, exasperated. This was impossible. There’s just too much shit. But a chest pulled Marty’s attention. It was rectangular and padded with leather. It had been hidden under one of the boxes Marty had moved. He wiped away a layer of dust and flipped the lid open. More junk.

  But sentimental junk?

  There was a plastic jar filled with marbles. Pins and buttons with odd patterns. A binder with loose papers and a leather notebook. Marty flipped the notebook open. Oh. It was a journal, the first entry dated 1955. Did it belong to John’s dad?

  There were more pictures, all of John and his dad. One of them fishing, where a young John looked miserable. Another of them in a zoo. One of them at the Statue of Liberty, and a few others taken around Times Square. A plastic bag filled with brightly coloured fishing lures, a toy boat, a travel book about New York, and—Marty’s heart stopped—a pocketknife.

  He picked it up, holding it like it was made of glass. Engraved on the wood inlay was, To John, from Dad.

  This is it. He put the pocketknife in his pocket, and started for the stairs. Movement in his periphery snapped his head around; a figure stood in one of the doorless doorways. Tall, thin, clean shaven. The ghost who’d been with the BOA agents.

  “Marty, right? I didn’t think we’d find you here.” Light arced in from a small two-foot window and the ghost stepped into it, revealing his pallid complexion and sunken eyes. He wore a tailored suit that was ragged around the edges.

  “How do you know my name?”

  The ghost smirked. “Just a guess. I’m Gil, nice to meet you. You’ve really fucked up.”

  “I’m fixing it. I’m going to take care of everything.”

  Gil, hands in his pockets, stepped forward. “I’m sure you think you are. But you’re in over your head, Marty.”

  “That’s what everybody keeps telling me.” Marty edged toward the stairs.

  “Maybe you should listen to ‘everybody.’”

  “Or maybe everybody should have some faith in me.”

  Gil laughed, a half-concealed throaty chuckle. “Doesn’t matter how much someone believes in you, jump out of an airplane without a parachute and you’re dead.”

  “It’s not that bad, I’ve almost got it.”

  “And you trust the Boneman?”

  “The in-betweener needs to be sent away. He’s hurting people.”

  “He is.” Gil stepped between Marty and the stairs. “But why do you think you can do it?”

  Marty bit his lower lip, gnawing the question in his mind.

  “The Boneman is using you,” Gil said. “Why else would he pick a deadbeat nobody to do this job?”

  “Maybe he saw something in me.”

  Gil bent at the waist, barking a laugh. “If you’re really that fucking stupid then we’re all dead.”

  A shadow swept past the window and then was gone. Was that a person? Shit, they’re closing in.

  “Because the BOA has been doing a great job at dealing with this.” Marty edged closer to the stairs.

  “Listen, you little shit—”

  Marty bull-rushed Gil. The thin ghost couldn’t hold his ground against Marty’s weight and went tumbling to the floor as Marty clomped up the stairs.

  “You’re going to regret this, Marty,” Gil called from the basement. “The Boneman is going to fuck you over.”

  Subtlety forgotten, Marty thrust the back door open and ran for the neighbour’s yard. He heard raised voices from the house, but he was already turning a corner and out of sight.

  It’s almost over. I can do this.

  MARTY TRUDGED UP the stairs to his apartment. Wallace was there, pacing, muttering to himself.

  “Wallace, something wrong?”

  Wallace’s head darted in Marty’s direction, his expression going from angry, to sad, to angry again. Wallace pressed himself against Mrs. Hubbard’s door, like he was trying to sink into it.

  “What’s the matter?” Marty had never seen Wallace so agitated.

  A coughing, bent over figure limped from around the upper landing. “Did you get it?” the in-betweener—John McKinsey—asked.

  Marty held up the pocketknife, a surge of triumph in the way he brandished it. “I told you I’d do it. Now you have to keep your promise.”

  The in-betweener limped down the stairs, bubbling black tar dripping from his mouth to the floor. “Yes, I will, I will.” He reached out a hand, his fingers bent and stiff. “Give it to me.”

  Marty gripped the shark tooth dagger in one hand, the pocketknife in the other. He held out the pocketknife.

  Stab him, The Boneman’s voice rattled inside Marty’s head. Do it now.

  Marty’s hand hovered over the in-betweener’s. John’s red-rimmed eyes were wide, desperate.

  Do not give it to him.

  “Please,” the in-betweener stifled a cough, “just give me this memory of my father.”

  Stab him, Marty.

  Marty’s grip on the shark tooth dagger tightened.

  Don’t trust him Marty. Stab him. Stab him now.

  Marty let go of the pocketknife.

  NO!

  The knife tumbled end over end, landing in the in-betweener’s palm. Marty’s ears popped, and there was a distant thunderclap.

  The in-betweener clutched the pocketknife close to his chest. His pallid skin grew rosy, his coughing subsided, and with a strong arm he wiped away the last of the bubbling tar from his mouth. His eyes were no longer bloodshot and yellow-tinged, but a healthy white. He looked more like John McKinsey and less like the in-betweener.

  John breathed deep, and when he breathed out, there was no wheezing cough. “Thank you, Marty. I feel so much better now.”

  STAB HIM STAB HIM STAB HIM!

  Marty held out the shark tooth dagger. “Okay, that’s good. Now it’s your turn.”

  John stepped away from Marty. “No, no that’s not happening.”

  “But you—”

  “Promised? Kid, you know what? Fuck you. You’re not sending me anywhere.” John was walking backwards, toward the stairs that led outside. “I don’t have to do anything you say. Not now. I’m not going to hell, understand? I’m not going.”
John turned on his heel and ran for the stairs.

  Marty followed, but as John passed Wallace, he raked his fingers through the old ghost’s chest. Wallace screamed, a guttural horrifying sound. Marty stopped in his tracks, seeing John running down the stairs in his periphery.

  Wallace started to change. His ribs distended, pustules growing between each one, popping as more flesh oozed from the boils. His face tore in half, a coruscating display of tendons shifting and moving as his skull was crushed and reformed into a lopsided shriek. It—Wallace—writhed on the floor as meat popped and squelched and slurped. There were too many mouths, all vomiting pus-filled blisters. Too many eyes, yellow and bloodshot. Too much movement beneath the mound of flesh that had once been his friend.

  Marty pressed his back to the wall, afraid to go near the monstrosity, afraid to move. He screamed. He couldn’t help it.

  The monstrosity slowed, frozen in time. The hallway’s lights grew red, and behind the creature stood the Boneman.

  “I told you not to trust him,” the Boneman said. “This is the consequence. It will happen again, and again.”

  Marty couldn’t find any words. His eyes were locked on the frozen form of what had been Wallace. He wished he could look away.

  “You made a deal, Marty. A favour is owed.”

  “I’ll do it.” Marty’s voice broke.

  The red light faded with the sound of stomping boots. As Marty returned to reality, the grotesque creature before him let out a keening wail of pain that rattled Marty’s teeth.

  A pair of burly men in suits came up the stairs. Mrs. Hubbard’s door started to open, and one of the men grabbed the handle and held it shut. The other stood in the path of the upstairs residents as the voice of the landlady rose in concern.

  Another pair of men came up the stairs, carrying hooks attached to chains. They thrust the hooks into the undulating flesh of the thing that had been Wallace, ignoring its scream of pain, and dragged it slopping and squelching down the stairs.

  The man holding Mrs. Hubbard’s door looked at Marty. “You Marty?”