The Duck Stops Here

I was driving my small truck full of storage pick-ups along the quiet country road on my usual weekly run. I owned a warehouse out beyond the forest that people would pay to discretely store things. Often it was odd stuff that they wanted kept hidden and incognito, with some of it being very peculiar or even spooky.

           Is this thing a part off of an alien ship? I might often speculate at an item. Is this some ancient, cursed tribal totem? Does this locked chest contain the ghost of a pirate?

           But it wasn’t my place to ask questions. People paid me to keep this stuff secret and where no one would find it, and out here in the middle of nowhere was perfect.

           Today’s delivery was a fairly unassuming one compared to some of the stuff I’d previously transported. The back of my truck was full of mannequins all dressed in suits of armor.

           These might be priceless pieces from the Middle Ages that someone wants hidden until they can find a buyer, perhaps? I thought. It was often a fun way to pass the time on these trips, imagining what the stories were that went with these objects.

           Suddenly, upon coming over a small hill, I found the road ahead blocked as I got to the bottom of the slope. In the middle of the road there stood a duck. It just stood there, unmoving, and completely unfazed by my moving vehicle. It wasn’t going to get out of the way.

           Breaking, I pulled up. I didn’t want to run it over. I’d always liked ducks, and I found the creature’s bravery admirable, or its stupidity amusing. Despite my having stopped, the duck refused to budge. I honked my horn, but it still wasn’t going anywhere. It just stared at me defiantly.

           I switched off the engine and got out of my truck. Walking around to the front, I first just stared down at the duck, hands on hips with a humoured look, wondering how I might coax it off of the road. Knowing I was just thinking out loud I said “Look little fella, do you mind? I’ve kind of got to pass.”

           How silly, I thought to myself. As if trying to reason with the duck will do anything.

           “No! You shall not pass!” snapped the Duck. “Not you, nor anyone else!”

           My eyes went wide with shock. The duck just spoke. Am I going mad? I thought to myself.

           “Um… Okay,” I finally said in a tentative voice. “So… why are you not letting anyone pass, Mr Duck?”

           “Excuse me, my name is not Mr Duck,” he responded, still snappy. “And it really annoys me how you humans always jump to that assumption. You wouldn’t expect me to call you Mr Human, now would you?”

           “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, meekly. “What should I call you then?”

           “My name is Wellington.”

           “Okay… so, why are you blocking the road then, Wellington?”

           “Because I’m trying to have the river re-routed this way, human,” he said. “But I can’t do that with this road being here and still in use. So long as people keep thinking that they can come this way, my works won’t get completed, So I must make it a point to stand here and say no more. The duck stops here!”

           I grinned with disbelief. “You do realize that what you’re doing is going to upset a lot of people, right?” I replied.

           “That may be so, but I see no alternative,” said Wellington.

           “To what?” I asked. “Why is it so important to re-route the river?”

           “Because human, at present the river runs past the old Queen Victoria House, and everyone who’s ever gone near that place knows that it is haunted. My family and I live along that river and we travel up and down it every day. Every time we come to the bend that that old house overlooks, our day is ruined right there and then by the ghostly screaming that makes us fear for our lives. My wife and I are not taking our ducklings passed there anymore.”

           I scratched my head now as I thought about the Wellington’s troubles. As much as I sympathized with him, it would be very problematic for me to have this road replaced by a river, and besides, surely such an undertaking would be impossible for one duck.”

           “Look Wellington, surly it’s a bit impractical for you to divert the course of a river?” I stated. “What if I were to help you do something about the house? If it weren’t there to cause you trouble anymore then surely you wouldn’t need to re-rout the river, right?”

           Wellington was silent for a moment, looking thoughtful. “I thank you for the offer, and yes, you do make a good point. Unfortunately, I don’t think simply demolishing the house would be a good idea. Whatever its reason, the ghost that haunts the place is already very agitated, and I dare not think about what it might do should its house be destroyed.”

           “I’m not saying we should demolish the house, not yet anyway,” I replied. “I suggest we do something about the ghost itself.”

           Wellington looked perplexed. “And how would you propose we do that?”

           “I deal a lot in spooky stuff like this,” I answered, confidently. “Let’s just say my work has taught me a bit that might be handy in this situation.” 

* * *

I arrived and parked just short of the Queen Victoria House’s one-kilometer-long driveway. Even from this distance, the intermittent screaming could still be heard, which gave me an unnerving feeling even before I’d started. Finally, I set off toward the house on foot.

           The closer I got, the more I felt my muscles stiffening and the hair on the back of my neck raising.

           As I came to the front door, the screams now louder, I discovered a large padlock on it and a sign that read: Dare ye not enter lest your screams join those doth can be heard coming from within these here halls.

           How old-timey, I thought. So that’s ghost-speak for ‘No Soliciting’. Almost sound like a pirate wrote it or something.

           Fortunately, I’d come prepared for a locked door. I took the bolt cutters I’d brought and, after straining to cut it for a while, I eventually got the lock to come off.

           I flung the doors open and entered. Almost immediately another scream rang out, after one of a number of silent intervals. Only having one foot in the door, the muscles of my other leg had locked tight preventing me from moving. Eventually, as the noise again subsided, I stepped fully inside.

           Then there was another scream, which seemed to come from the northern end of the house. This meant going left, so I began tentatively tiptoeing that way.

           I tried to move in a way that seemed determined rather than terrified. As I moved through the dark and dusty old rooms of the house I noticed as I shone my torch into the corners of each of the rooms that the whole building was crawling with bugs. Aside from this, the rooms themselves were surprisingly empty, and all of them seemed to be an eerily similar shape. It almost felt as though I was walking through the same room over and over again.

           With the next scream, it now sounded like the ghost was behind me and over on the west side of the house.

           After reaching the rough area of it, I decided to head up a floor, thinking it to be above me. With the staircase leading into the room on the opposite end of the house to where I was looking to be, I had to loop back around.

           I then came to the estimated spot. My goosebumps were like hedgehog spikes at this point. I trembled in anticipation of the next scream, expecting it to come from right in front of me, but there was nothing.

           The room felt colder that the others, but it was silent. Eventually, I forced my shaking hands to move the torch about the corners of the ceiling. The first one was completely bare, not even any of the multitude of bugs that had been in the other rooms. The next corner was the same.

           Then, as I was running my beam across to the next corner, it passed something in the blink of an eye. My immediate reaction was to flick the beam back, and then, in that moment, what looked like a mix between a cloud of dust and a silk curtain in the vague shape of a figure became caught in the beam, unmoving.

            My muscles all clenched tight. It made a sound, but this was not a scream but a sad whimpering wail.  

           “It’s okay. I just wanted to talk to you,” I said, stepping forward. “Can you understand me?”

           The entity only moaned in response, not being at all intelligible. It then appeared to wave it’s arms in a gesturing motion toward one corner of the room. Turning my torch in that direction I noticed something small and reflective. Forcing my legs to move again, I went over and picked it up, discovering it to be a zippo lighter.

           “Oh, thank goodness,” then came a voice from the figure’s direction.

           Shocked, I lurched back in its direction. “Who’s that?” I said in a panic.

           “Finally. Someone’s actually touching it and I can talk to them,” said the being. “You have no idea how frustrating it’s been all this time.”

           “What’s going on?” I asked, only just realising that touching the lighter allowed me to understand the ghost.

           “I’m so glad someone actually had the nerve to try and seek me out and not go running in terror for once,” said the ghost. “Trying to get someone’s attention enough so that they’d come in here and find that lighter hasn’t been easy. All my attempts have seemed to just make the situation worse.”

           “Well, you’ve made contact now,” I said. “What is it you want?”

           “I’m bored,” said the ghost. “I want to leave this place and be free, but I didn’t feel comfortable leaving that lighter here. It’s my… attachment to the physical world, my only way of communicating with anyone. I wanted someone to find it who’d be willing to hold onto it for me and keep it secret. Someone I can count on.”

           Suddenly a thought came to mind. “I might well be the perfect contact for you,” I said. “See, I’m kind of in the business of keeping secrets and discretely holding onto items for people. I own a property hidden away out here away from poking noses.”

           “My goodness, you’re a life saver… metaphorically speaking,” said the ghost. “But why are you being so generous? I hadn’t even gotten to trying to bargain with you yet.”

           “Let’s just say that you continuing to haunt this house is troubling for some people, and I need to solve that problem for them, so they don’t create more problems for me,” I answered.

           “Then we have a deal,” said the ghost. “Just be sure to keep that lighter safe, and if you ever need to speak with me, just light it.”

           “Thanks. Will do,” I answered.

           With that the ghost vanished.

           “Well, that was… easier than expected,” I said to myself.

* * *

On my way home I drove back along the road where I’d previously been stopped by the duck, coming from the opposite direction, I could see that he was still there guarding his post. Pulling over, I got out of the vehicle once again.

           “Hello again, Wellington,” I said. “Your problem is solved. The Queen Victoria House has been un-haunted, and the ghost has left on good terms.”

           He gave a small but exuberant jump on the spot. “Oh. Well, my sincerest thanks to you, human,” he said. “Apologies for any rudeness or inconvenience I’ve caused you. You’ve done me and many others a tremendous service, especially now that I’ll not be needing to reroute the river. I will return to my family now, but before I go, I’ll give you my promise to make it know that you are a friend to all the wildlife in this region.” With that, Wellington flew off toward the forest.