The Ghost of Ben Hargrove

by Heather Brewer

  In this hand is something sharp. A syringe. The needle plunges into my wrist and my world shifts violently. John is going to kill me. I know it. I know it.

  Dr. Nancy Caraway gasps and steps back from the door, frowning at the now-empty syringe in her hand. Her hands tremble from the shock of Ben’s attack. How he managed to grab her so easily through the small slot in the door is beyond her. Help him? That was precisely what she’d been trying to do. Why couldn’t he see that?

  Capping the syringe, she returns it to the pocket of her white doctor’s coat before rubbing her wrist. It’s only a matter of time before bruises will appear on her skin. Her frown deepens as she glances down the hall toward the waiting room door. Beyond that door are Ben Hargrove’s parents, sitting on the edges of plastic chairs and wringing their hands with ever-shrinking hope that this time, they will get some answers. She doesn’t have the heart to tell them that their son is a hopeless case. She doesn’t have the heart to tell them that as long as he refuses medication, he will never be a productive member of society. More than that, really: they can sneak medicine into his food all they want, but the second they’re no longer there to watch him, Ben will once again be a danger to himself and others. Nancy is the third doctor to try to help Ben, but she understands that she won’t be the last.

  She looks through the small window at her patient and sighs. He lies curled in the fetal position on the floor, clutching a stained teddy bear to his chest. It belonged to his younger brother, John, who died as a result of a careless car accident where Ben had been driving. Strange, what immense guilt can do to a person.

  Nancy beckons for an orderly to come and replace Ben’s sheets. The few times Ben was released into group therapy, he became so violent he had to be subdued. Now, the only time his room can even be safely cleaned is when he is fully asleep.

  On Ben’s cheek is a long scratch, and seeing it tugs the corners of Nancy’s mouth down in frustration. One of the new orderlies must have mistakenly given him a fork or a knife with one of his meals. She’ll have to make sure that never happens again.

  With a deep breath, Nancy scribbles a note on Ben’s chart, indicating once more that utensils are not to be allowed. After a brief pause, she writes one more instruction. “Use of restraints authorized.”

  Putting on a falsely hopeful smile, Dr. Nancy Caraway moves down the hall to the waiting room. One thought occupies her mind: If only he’d take his medication . . .

  I open my eyes, and wonder immediately where I am, but more importantly, who I am.

  Ben, I tell myself. My name is Ben. I am seventeen. And every day I wake up in this cell. A hand brings me food and pills, but no utensils. I never swallow the pills. But that’s all I can remember about who I am and what I am doing here.

  My cheek aches. I reach up and run my fingertips along the scratches on my face. I wonder where I got them. But I know that I deserved them.

  Somehow, I just know that.

  Afterword

  The most important question that writers can ask themselves is “What if?” It’s what leads us to create, to explore fictional worlds. It’s what grabs us by the hand and drags us through the wilds of our imaginations. “What if ghosts/demons/vampires/man-eating narwhal pig-shark hybrids really existed?” “What if I was the only person who could defeat the evil overlord of the man-eating narwhal pig-shark hybrid kingdom?” “What if the odds were against me because the only tools in my arsenal were a toothpick and several cans of Cheez Whiz?” “What if . . . ?”

  It’s a beautiful question, and without it, the world wouldn’t have the entertainment of fiction. But it’s also a question that has haunted my thoughts from a very young age.

  “What if something lies in wait beneath my bed and will grab me and gobble me up the moment I dangle a hand or foot over the edge in the darkness?” “What if something is watching me from my open closet door, waiting for me to look away so that it can devour me whole?” “What if my parents are wrong, and there really is a reason to be afraid of the dark?”

  For most children, such thoughts, such questions, such worries would repel them from the Thing under the Bed. But as frightened of it as I was (as I am), I also felt drawn to understand it. I simultaneously hated the sense of terror that would grip me upon entering a dark room, and found myself drawn to the darkness. I fell in love with my fear at a very young age.

  I thought I was weird (spoiler alert: I was right), but soon trips to the library showed me that I wasn’t alone in my weirdness. At the very young age that I fell in love with fear, I began reading books by Clive Barker, John Saul, Stephen King—weird people who understood my undeniable attraction to terror. I watched movies like Motel Hell and Rosemary’s Baby. And the more I read, the more I watched, the more I longed to understand the Thing under the Bed.

  I wrote stories from a young age as well—disturbing, twisted imaginings that likely would have frightened my parents if I’d shared them with anyone. (One I distinctly remember was about a man who removed his own eyelids for fear of what might come for him in the night.) And though with each story, I felt closer to understanding the Thing under the Bed, I could never get close enough to what I was searching for. I wanted to know what it wanted from me. I wanted to explore its hidden home. I wanted answers about why a room cloaked in darkness was so frightening, when that same room in the daylight seemed harmless. Why? I asked myself over and over again. Why?

  The answer has come to me over the years, in bits and pieces that look strikingly like shattered bits of a mirror when I close my eyes. And it seems so simple. What does the Thing under the Bed want from me? From us?

  To be feared.

  It feeds on fear. It lives because we are frightened of it. Because, on some level, we are worried that when we turn the lights off, we might not be alone after all, the way we know we are when we’re basking in the light of day. You can deny it. But a part of you—even the most sensible, reasonable of you—has wondered about the Thing at some point. And if you find yourself drawn to horror, I can tell you with certainty that I understand why. Because you, my friend, like me, like all of us, simply want to understand why.

  I grew up with the blessed freedom to read and watch what I wanted. It’s shaped me (maybe warped me, but only in the best possible sense) and led me to become the author that I am today. Maybe I’m still trying to understand my fears. Maybe I’m trying to solve them with every word I scribble on the page. I don’t know.

  But I still run through dark rooms if I cannot get to a light switch quickly. I still make certain my closet door is shut before I go to bed. And I never dangle my appendages over the edge of the bed . . . just in case.

  Excerpt from The Cemetery Boys

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Heather Brewer’s first stand-alone novel, The Cemetery Boys.

  When Stephen is forced to move to the small Michigan town where his father grew up, he is sure he’s going to have the most boring summer of his life. That is, until he meets twins Devon and Cara. But as the summer presses on, and harmless nights hanging out in the cemetery take a darker turn, Stephen starts to suspect that Devon is less a friend in his new group than a leader. And he might be leading them all to a very sinister end. . . .

  Prologue

  My fingers were going numb, my bound wrists worn raw by the ropes, but I twisted again, hard this time. I pulled until my skin must have split, because I felt my palms grow wet, then sticky, with what I was pretty sure was my blood. The knots were tight, but I had to get loose. Those things were coming for me, I just knew it.

  I looked up at Devon, who was perched on top of the tallest tombstone in the graveyard. His dark eyes focused intensely on the night sky; his bleach-blond hair almost glowed in the moonlight. He had once—no, not once, many times, pounding it into our heads like we were privates in the same army—spoken of loyalty. But sitting there with my wrists tied to the cold headstone behind me, it hit me that he hadn’t been speaking of our loyalty to one another or any o
f that band-of-brothers bullshit. He’d been speaking of our loyalty, my loyalty, to him. And now he was standing there on the gravestone, waiting for those creatures, those monsters, to come and devour me whole, not even man enough to look me in the eye.

  The horrible pinpricks of numbness crawled up my fingers to my palms, then my wrists. Only my adrenaline kept them from going any farther. The air suddenly chilled. My breath came out in quick, gray puffs. And then I heard it.

  Vwumph-vwumph-vwumph.

  I tugged my wrists harder, struggling, hoping that the blood seeping from my broken skin might make the ropes slick enough to slip through. The rest of the gang moved past me, and none of them, not a single one of my so-called friends, dared even to glance at me as they headed for safety. Devon hopped down from his place on the stone, and after a long, hungry glance upward, he dropped his dark eyes to me. “You’re in luck, Stephen. They’re famished, so this should go pretty fast for you.”

  I bit down on my tongue, consumed with rage. A million curses ran through my mind, but I could barely speak through my fury—fury with him for all that he’d done, but mostly fury with myself for having followed his lead. I spat at him. “Go to hell!”

  I pulled until I thought my shoulders might come out of their sockets, not caring that I was bleeding freely now, praying to anyone and anything that the knots would give way at last. But it was no use. The ropes refused to budge.

  And then, the flapping stopped.

  I looked up—up into the dark, my eyes settling on a shape in the night. And what I saw . . . oh god. My screams tore through me, my throat burning.

  From the distance came Devon’s laughter—cold, quiet, hollow—and his reply, muted by the sounds of my screams. “You first.”

  Chapter 1

  We’d left my old house as if we were stealing away in the night. Which, really, I guess we were. We’d driven out of Denver in the dark, stopping in Omaha, Chicago, and several forgettable truck stops over the course of the next day, coming full circle when we reached the sign at the edge of my new town at eleven thirty. Darkness to darkness. Welcome to Spencer, the sign had read. Population 814.

  Shit.

  It wasn’t like I had anything against small towns in theory. But there were small towns . . . and then there was Spencer. My dad had grown up here, and every story he’d ever told me about his hometown had begun with an exhausted sigh and ended with the relief of moving away. So how else was I supposed to feel when Dad came to me a week ago and announced that moving to Spencer was the only answer, only option to contain the avalanche of debt that had befallen our family? I could still see him when I closed my eyes, standing there in the hall just outside my bedroom, his hair disheveled, a shaking hand clutching yet another stack of hospital bills. There was no arguing with him, but he acted like I was going to argue. “Stephen, we’re moving in with my mother. We’re moving to Spencer.”

  That was it. Just “we’re moving.” Just that.

  After he said it, he’d looked at me, an almost angry glint in his eyes. I didn’t say a word. There was no point. It was over. Our life in Denver, our hope that maybe Mom would get better, or Dad would find another job—it was all over. We were moving.

  Finally, Dad had nodded, turning from my door. I’d listened to the sounds of his heavy footsteps retreating to his office down the hall. I’d had the same thought then that I had tonight upon seeing the Welcome to Spencer sign.

  Shit.

  As we pulled into the driveway, my dad started rambling about how my grandmother was very particular about the way she kept her home. That we couldn’t leave a mess anywhere. There was no worry over meeting her just yet, as Dad explained she’d be out of town until Monday. It was the first piece of good news I’d heard the whole trip.

  The rest of the night was a blur after that. Loading boxes into my grandmother’s house, falling into bed in a strange room.

  The blur was still with me the next morning when I cracked my eyes open—my first waking moment as a resident of Spencer, Michigan: population now 816. Guess they’d have to change the sign.

  I held my hand up to the sunlight that was pouring in through my curtainless window and flipped it the bird. Morning came too early sometimes. I preferred night, when you’ve spent all day getting stuff done so that you can just bask in the darkness. Night hid the ugly of the world. And sometimes, when I was feeling ugly, I was grateful that it would hide me, too.

  I gripped my pillow and yanked it out from under my head, placing it over my face. I’d better find the box of curtains before I went to bed again or the sun and I were going to have some serious issues.

  I pressed the pillow down hard on my face until I felt a familiar sensation of panic wash over me. What a stupid thing to feel. Like I was really capable of suffocating myself. It was funny the things a person reacted to instinctively, without rational thought. Like when I’d take a shower and get water up my nose, for instance. It always felt like I was drowning. Maybe I hoped that I would. Maybe Dad was right and I had some kind of death wish. Maybe he’d moved us here in the dark of night hoping to give me some distance from the thoughts I wouldn’t admit to having back home. But that’s where he was wrong. I didn’t need distance. I just wanted to feel normal again. The way I had before Mom started rambling about monsters. Before we’d had to have her medicated and locked away, so she wouldn’t hurt herself . . . or us.

  “Stephen, are you up yet? I could use some help out here.” I tossed the pillow to the foot of the bed and glared at the sun. Morning, man. I needed a little less morning in my life.

  I rolled out of bed, still yawning as I navigated the piles of boxes that were sitting in my way. Recognizing one of them by the word Fragile written on the side, I popped open the lid and took out a framed photo of my mom. In the picture, she was standing outside our house in Denver in a pile of fresh snow. I remembered Dad pegging her with a snowball right after I’d snapped it, and then we’d all gone inside and had hot cocoa. A smile threatened to lift my lips, but reality settled my mouth again. I set the picture on my nightstand and kept moving.

  My dad was standing on a chair in the kitchen, carefully lifting Mom’s favorite china teapot over his head. He was wearing jeans from back in his college days and a blue T-shirt, his feet clad in white sneakers with tiny polo guys stitched on the sides, which told me he was dressed for hard labor. It didn’t bode well for my day. If he was unpacking, that meant that I was unpacking, too.

  There was a space between the top of the cupboard and the ceiling, and apparently, he’d determined that it was a good place to put Mom’s teapot on display. Maybe he thought it would be nice to have a reminder of her at the center of the house, an unspoken promise not to forget why we were here, all the while getting on with our lives.

  I leaned against the kitchen table, which looked a bit like something I once saw on The Twilight Zone—on that episode where Captain Kirk gets advice from a devil fortune-telling machine. Dad and I used to watch that show together all the time. At first, I didn’t really get it. A series of weird stories in black and white, featuring a guy named Rod Serling and always something bizarre, like aliens or robots or evil beings. But after a while, I realized how cool it was. Not just that I could see an evil kid wishing people he didn’t like into a cornfield. That I had something I shared with my dad.

  But that was before. Before our lives turned into an episode of The Twilight Zone and the show sort of lost its appeal.

  Anyway, the table was totally retro. Chrome lined and shiny red, just like the four matching chairs. I plopped down on one of those chairs and yawned again, contemplating just how desperate someone would have to be to move to a town like Spencer. Pretty desperate, by the look of things.

  From where I sat, I could see a pile of boxes near the front door. Most of our furniture was still on the truck. Dad had mentioned something about taking it to a storage unit today, so if I wanted anything for the foreseeable future, I’d better grab it this morning.

/>   He turned the teapot slightly before climbing back down and admiring it. It was only then that he noticed me sitting at the table. “Oh, you’re up. Good. Would you mind unpacking the sheets and towels, while I get all of my clothes put away? I don’t want to be an inconvenience to your grandmother any more than we have to.”

  Grandmother. Right. He was referring to the woman who hadn’t reached out to me, her only grandson, even once in my entire life. I’d hate to inconvenience her.

  A sigh escaped me. “Can I get breakfast first?”

  “Help me with this stuff and I’ll take you out to eat. Besides, there’s not really anything of ours to eat here at the house just yet. We still have to go grocery shopping, and everything has to be put away and taken care of before your grandmother gets back tomorrow.” He was wearing his expectant look again. The same look that he’d been wearing two days ago when he told me we’d better hurry up and get the moving truck packed or we’d never make it to Spencer.

  Promises, promises.

  My stomach rumbled vaguely, and I thought about the half-empty bag of beef jerky I’d shoved into the glove box of the moving truck last night. “I’m starving.”

  “You’ll live. At least long enough to get off your butt and put the towels away. They go in the closet across the hall from your room. Our sheets and blankets go in the closet across from my room. Get moving.” He nodded to the boxes by the front door. It took an effort for me not to point out just how stupid this whole endeavor was. We were only supposed to be here as long as it took for Dad to find another job. Nobody would invite someone to stay in their home and expect them to bring their own towels. Would they? And what was that crack about buying our own groceries before we ate anything? What, was my grandmother going to freak out and start throwing things if I grabbed a bowl of cereal that I hadn’t actually purchased? What kind of nuthouse had he moved us to?