Broken archives

"This is so odd," Ashley said as she checked her call log and text messages for the seventh time.

She raked her fingers through her twist out and she just could not understand why Kyle had not answered her calls or text messages.

Kyle had been her neighbor for six months, yes he was soft on the eyes, but they were supposed to attend a murder mystery last night. He randomly texted her the night before the show, and told her he could not attend the show with her. He claimed he was sick, but she did not see his car yesterday or today. She assumed maybe he went to a family member's house to heal.

Here it was, he was not answering her phone calls or texts. They lived in Charleston, South Carolina -- surely someone has seen Kyle. Yes the city was huge, but everyone knew each other in the neighborhood they lived in.

Ashley put on her velour baby blue sweatsuit, socks, and sneakers. The Carolina heat was slowly diminishing and cooler weather was here. She grabbed her keys, cell phone, and walked out of her house. She walked next door and knocked on his door. She looked around and tried to find anything in the grass or on the front porch to see if she noticed anything out of the ordinary.

No answer at first, but she heard footsteps coming to the door, and she knocked again.

She started to get excited, but her eyes bugged out when she saw a handsome gentleman in his thirties answered the door. Her heart started beating fast, it was ringing in her ear.

The man was wearing knicker boxers, boxing gloves on each hand, and no shirt.

"I'm looking for Kyle Jamison," Ashley managed to say as she looked at the man.

He cleared his throat and said, "That's not possible. I have not seen Kyle Jamison in about 10 years."

"Ten years?" Ashley said. "That's not possible. I just talked to him the other night. We were going to see a murder mystery."

"Kyle Jamison has been dead for 10 years dear," the man said.

Ashley gasped and took several steps back.

She repeatedly said no.

"Dear," the man said. "I have been dead for the last 80 years. Tammy Tickers for three decades, John Jacobs 20 years and Annabelle Miller was killed in a fire in the 1960s."

All the names he listed were welcoming neighbors when she moved into the neighborhood two years ago. Kyle popped up six months ago, and it felt good to have someone near her age here. She was 26, he was 28. Tammy Tickers in her 30s, John Jacobs in his 40s, and Annabelle Pierce in her 50s.

"That's not true!" Ashley said. "I could not have been communicating with the dead for the last two years I have been here. Who are you?"

"Samuel Myers," he said with a straight face.

Ashley really felt a headache happening. Her head was spinning and she was dizzy.

When Kyle was a teen, he was in a really bad fight in high school that put him in a coma. He said a Samuel Myers would always come to him while in he was in the coma.

Charleston and the surrounding areas are full of ghost stories. But she has read and heard stories about Samuel Myers. He used to be a boxer in Charleston during the 1920s, but died in the ring in 1933.

She panicked. She was always told to be leery when the dead came to you in your sleep because they could be taking you to your death. But she pinched herself and she was not dreaming.

"So am I dead too? Are you going to kill me?"

"No," he cackled. "We actually need you. I know your family has a history of police officers and detectives. You yourself work in the archive section of the library."

Her heart rate was still increased and this made it worse. She was off the porch now. This man knew her family history and where she worked.

"You seem rather anxious. Sit in the rocking chair ma'am. Let me explain why we all need you."

She walked back on the porch and sat on the rocking chair several feet from the dead man.

Instantly, Tammy, John and Annabelle appeared on the porch. Annabelle spoke first, "Help us tell our story. Bring us to justice."

Ashley hopped out of her rocking chair, hopped off the porch, the three blocked her way to the direction of her house and she screamed.

"Please," Tammy said. "We died in different incidents here in town, everything you have heard about us is not the truth."

Ashley shook her and blinked her eyes. This could not be real. She walked back to the porch and sat on the rocking chair.

She cleared her throat and said, "What's the truth?"

John Jacob's spoke up first. As usual, he was wearing clothes from the early 2000s.

"I was killed in April of 2000. I was cheating on my wife at the time. "

That caught Ashley off guard. John did not seem like the type to be promiscuous and step out like that. She must have shown her emotion because he continued.

“I know what you're thinking, why would I do that? My wife was and still is one of the bigger journalists between the tv stations here in town. She is about to retire. We were in our forties with no kids, she was barely home, and I could not handle it. I had my nights when I was lonely. I started seeing a woman in Lincolnville. That was a mistake. After I ended things with her, she started calling and paging me more.

“One night I went to her house and told her she needed to stop. She told me we should continue, I could leave my wife. She tried to give me some of her wine, but I refused. I sped out of her neighborhood into the dark night.”

Ashley knew where this was headed. Lincolnville was very wooded and poorly lit.

“She followed me. I wasn't paying attention around some of the wooded area, and I was speeding to get away from her and I flipped into a ditch. Instead of helping me, she had brought wine with her and poured it into my mouth. I was going in and out at the time. I felt like I was drowning when she poured the wine into my system. Long story short, she left me out there while I was losing blood in the cool April air. When the constable came in the morning, I was dead. It was ruled driving under the influence.”

Ashley did not know how she could prove that one, but she listened anyway. Before she could ask questions, Tammy spoke next.

Tammy was wearing her anti-Vietnam gear again, but with her Scooby-Doo socks.

“I died in 1971,” Tammy said. “I lost too many family and friends to Vietnam. But that's not what killed me. It was me assisting in an uprising. I traveled city to city rallying that war was overrated, it caused too many problems. I also rallied more programs were needed in certain inner cities across America. I believed in women's suffrage.”

This was no shocker to Ashley. Tammy was always encouraging her to vote, step up for what she believed in. She still could not believe she has been conversing with dead people for over a year.

“I got caught by the police one night when I was assisting members of a Black Panther group. There was a shootout where I was shot in my rib cage and my knee. People tried to heal me because I knew hospitals recognized me, and would probably not assist me. But I went anyway. I was a white woman married to a Vietamenese man, who disagreed with the war, helped Black Panthers, and it was perfect I was lying in a hospital bed with a fever from my wounds. Two white nurses suffocated me with pillows two days later. If you look at hospital records, newspapers or tv, it will say I died from infections from my wounds.”

Again, Ashley felt like she could not help with this one either. Ashley knew police sometimes crafted police reports to change the situation, but that is low right there. Before she could speak, Annabelle told her story.

Once again, Annabelle looked like a 50 year-old woman from the 1960s that wore an ugly polka dot dress. It covered all her curves, she had her stockings on, and she wished Annabelle showed her skin more, but Ashley knew Annabelle had burns on her arms and legs that she kept concealed.

“So you know I have burns on my arms and legs?” Annabelle said.

Ashley nodded her head yes.

“My husband was one of the police officers that did not agree with individuals like Tammy. He was so respected back then, but he used to beat me until I had blurry vision.”

Ashley was shocked. She didn't even know Annabelle was married. Who would harm a sweet woman like her, who made the best biscuits and gravy Ashley ever ate? She was a great person to talk to.

“He would smack and choke me on several occasions. I found out he murdered someone who shared the same beliefs of Tammy. I packed my clothes and tried to leave, he burned me with the iron on my arms and legs. I had to put aloe vera on my burns, but as you can see I still have burns. Nobody would listen to me when I tried to describe everything my husband did to me.

“A few weeks after I tried to run away, he was alone in the kitchen cooking breakfast. I could not believe it,” Annabelle said. “ He never cooked, unless I was out of town visiting family. I would not eat the meal he would cooked and boy did we fight. He threw the dish cloth on our gas stove. I did not know the stove was still on. It started a kitchen fire, and we could not distinguish it. He ran out the house and I followed, but I slipped on one of our rugs. He called me a bitch and said, if I had just eaten the food, the fire would not have started. I made it outside and I coughed hard. He just watched me and did not help at all, the fire department came and his friends on the police force. He lied to his buddies and said I started the fire. I didn't want help from the city folks. I ran away to Summerville on foot.”

Ashley's eyes got big. It only takes 35 minutes to get from downtown Charleston to Summerville now. She can only imagine being on feet for several hours to get to safety.

“I found an abandoned house and lived there for a few weeks. I was afraid to go into public, but there was clothes at the the abandoned house and a decent washboard. I washed the clothes, went into town overly clothed and grabbed items I needed. As you may know, I did not have much money on me. I ran away from a fire for God's sake.

“It just felt great to not get hit anymore. I saw a family known in Charleston, in Summerville one Friday. The husband worked at the fire department and knew my husband. He confronted me. I lied and said he was mistaken. Later that night, my husband came to one of the broken windows of the abandoned house. He entered the house and we started yelling and fighting. He knocked me out so cold, when I awoke, I was strapped to a chair and the abandoned house was on fire. Unlike everyone else's story, my story never was in the newspaper.”

Ashley cleared her throat. She really wondered how she could prove this story. The crazy thing was, she was ready to dig into the microfilm at work. She looked to Samuel.

“Let me guess. You really did not die in the ring as a boxer?”

“I died just the way I said I did. However, my connection to Kyle is deeper than you can think,” he said.

Ashley wondered how. Kyle only mentioned the famous boxer, Samuel Myers a few times.

Kyle appeared in front of her with a small smile, and she fainted in her rocking chair.

When she awoke, it was still light outside and Kyle had her in his arms. She started crying because she was afraid of what he was going to say.

“So what is it?” She said as Annabelle passed her tissue. “Are you dead or have you been in a coma for 10 years? You told me you were in that coma when you were 18, now you're 28.”

Kyle noticed her crying calmed down and he made sure to put her upright in the rocking chair. He held her hand and said, “I died a decade ago. However, Samuel is right. Our connection is deeper than you think. He's not my family member, but the guy I got into a fight with is a nephew of Samuel's somewhere on a family tree. The craziest thing is, me and this guy was fighting over something so frivolous – sneakers and a girl.”

Ashley shook her head.

“Long story short. I was doing well in the fight, but a final blow to my head, and he stomped on my ribs and I had a seizure. The seizure sent me into a coma. Apparently, I was in the coma for a year. But Samuel came to me several times while I was in the coma. I never awoke, but I heard everything my loved ones said. I was better off dead. Samuel came to me while I was in my coma, and told me I would be a vegetable for the rest of my life.”

A few things made sense now. When Ashley and Kyle would talk, he sometimes would think before he would speak. He had a slower reaction to things, and he never wanted to go anywhere with her. She totally understood now.

The others never went anywhere when she asked, they always cooked for her, but never wanted any food. In fact, there was no one in their neighborhood, but them. Ashley could not lie. It bothered her that she could never fall in love with Kyle. However, everyone had a story, and justice needed to be served.

Her breathing was calm now. However, she sat straight and said, “I'm in.”

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