The House

The House

It took a few seconds to realize I was utterly and completely lost. Why is this house so big? I thought maybe Leo was right; I should have found the blueprints. The red wallpaper was giving me a headache, and I couldn't describe it, but the rug was very uncomfortable to walk on. It was almost too soft, too contradictory to the sharp angles of the rest of the house. The support beams had such severe edges a stubbed toe could cause you to lose a foot, and the tables had decorations on the corners that looked like blades. Even the roof looked like a geometry problem, and a torture device had a baby. I felt like whoever had built this house was a psychopath. Or maybe a horror story enthusiast.

Either way, when you go hunting for ghosts with only some tin cans, candles, red ink, and sand and end up lost in a crimson-colored hallway that looks like it could kill you, you start to rethink your choices. Whoever had coined the phrase "just retrace your steps!" had never been in this house before.

Technically, it was a manor, but if I started calling it fancy names, I would feel guilty about the mud my shoes were smudging on the carpet. The cherry on top of this ironically stereotypical haunted mansion was every once in a while, lightning would strike by the windows, causing me to jump out of my skin with my tin cans clinking in my backpack. Overall, it was pretty creepy and seemed like the right place to start. I didn't like the idea that I couldn't find my way back if something did appear, but I doubted it would. I was pretty certain the homeowners were just paranoid, but they were paranoid and rich. I pulled my backpack off and started pulling out my supplies. Each object clunked onto the carpet. One of the candles began to roll away, and I had to stop it with my foot.

Interestingly enough, I realized something was still in the bag. Odd, I always packed the same stuff in my bag. I even remembered which beach I supplied my sand from. Hope suddenly fluttered in my chest as I thought maybe Leo snuck the blueprints in. When I reached in, I did not feel paper, and my hopes were dashed, quickly replaced by disgust as I realized it was hair. I wrapped my hand around it and pulled the object out. The object was a cleanly severed head.

My mom's severed head.

Several memories hit me at once

The song "Girls Just want to have fun" blaring over the car radio

Leo is looking out the window.

Wearing a little black dress

"Leo? What's wrong?"

I gasped and pulled myself back to reality. My heart was beating fast. The head was still in my hands, eyes glazed over, and pale skin bloated and pockmarked with scars she'd never earned. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream and cry and shred the carpet with my nails. I wanted to cut my own head off. But I knew that's what they wanted. I could feel them in my ears and behind my eyes. So, instead, I tossed the head away from me and said, "Ew," When the head landed, I heard it squelch like a burst tomato.

I set the five tin cans up in a circle and filled them with sand, then I placed the candles in the sand, balancing them. Ghost hunting is just one giant balancing act, I thought. It was true, except there was no practice and certainly no net. Finally, I grabbed my retired blackberry jam jar, now filled with red ink. I gently unscrewed the lid and dipped my finger in. Pressing it to the floor, I traced a line connecting the first two cans. As I did so, I recited the verse:

Your heart and your lungs

Your eyes and your tongue

gone be the young

For whom the angels sung

Over and over, I did this until there was only one line left to draw. This was my least favorite part. The waiting, the suspense. To quote Jonathon Fickle, author of Ghosts And You, "Ghost hunting is inconsequential; ghost finding is the true beast."

Actually, that might not be related. I'm not good with double meanings. I gathered up the courage, muttered the verse one last time, and drew the line, completing the circle.

The first thing I noticed was someone was screaming.

The second thing I noticed was it was me.

The darkness was completely unbroken except for the wavering light of the candles and the spirit that crouched inside them. The terror inside me had nothing to do with the distorted and dismembered face of the being but the fact that I knew who it was.

My throat was raw, and I heard myself sobbing but couldn't feel it. I was numb, viewing myself from a third-person perspective. "This is a trick," I hissed through ragged breaths. "You're not him." The ghost did not nod, smile, or even blink. It just stared at me. It didn't even move when a bit of blood raced through its hairline and dripped into its eyes. I stood up and ran. Screw my clients. Screw this house. This place was messing with my head.

I was going to go home and get scolded for not bringing the blueprints over coffee and takeout and forget this ever happened.

This would be easier if I could see.

The whole house was cloaked in darkness so thick it felt palpable. I was running blind. Behind me, I heard the thunk of footsteps behind me, slow and calculating.

I'd once heard that gray wolves didn't run after their prey. They just slowly loped after it because the wolf knew the prey would never make it out. That's how it felt like a wolf was slowly chasing me as if it had all the time in the world. It was suffocating.

I tripped over the edge of a rug and rolled. My ribs bent thanks to the sudden contact, and my breath escaped from my lungs. Wow, poetry, I hadn't done that in a while.

It came back to me again.

The police station in autumn

The book of poetry in the corner of Deputy Taylor's office

Leo's face was numb and unfeeling.

"Leo? What's wrong?"

I forced myself to breathe, and I rolled over and tried to get up on my hands and knees. But my hand slipped off of the edge of the landing. I was floating over an abyss. The world seemed to come into focus, and I felt more aware and alert than ever before, like for the first time, my brain had dusted off the cobwebs and put on its finest suit. I heard loud footsteps only three feet away from me.

Then I was rolling down the stairs. I didn't even have the good sense to scream. I was tumbling like a boulder, my head striking the banister with every slight twist. If I don't get killed by this ghost, I'm gonna die from brain damage, I thought. Then, with no warning, the ground flattened, and I was spat out into the foyer. My head lolled to the side; then everything went dark.

I blame my mom's death on the supermarket. She was driving there for groceries right after she had picked me and Leo up from school. I don't remember how it happened. All I remember is one moment I was staring outside, watching the world pass by, weighed down by the math homework I knew I had later; then I was in the hospital. In my memory, I remember them sticking a tube down my throat, but my brain might have made that up. They had stitched up a gash on my forehead and leg and had pumped me full of meds to numb me, so I'd felt groggy for hours. Once it wore off, I began to cry. I hadn't even gotten the news my mom was dead yet, but I just knew something horrible had happened. Some call it a sixth sense. I call it just knowing. Knowing nothing will ever be the same again. Once the tears had stopped, I just muttered her name over and over again.

Mom

Mom

Mom…

"Mom?" I said in shock. She hovered over me, her brown hair brushing my face. She had the same scarred and pale look of the severed head except, you know, not severed. She was staring right at me. I took in a startled breath, and with it came the smell of rotten flesh. How is she here? How is she here? How is she here?

The ghost that had been chasing me leaned over me, too, his face somber. I felt my thoughts halt, and all the weight they had fell down behind my eyes until they came out in tears. It wasn't my imagination, was it? It was no trick.

The ghost was the owner of Grayson's Auto Repair, the world's best spaghetti maker, and my brother and best friend.

Leo.

I didn't want to see this. I should have never taken this job. I should never have set up those posters. I should never have advertised my "gift". Most importantly, I should grab the fucking blueprints. The two ghosts, my family, reached out and touched me. They touched my soul, climbed down my throat, and wormed their way into my lungs. They weaved their emotions into my heart, and with every knot, my body felt more numb. Fear and complacent men had a civil war in my stomach and veins.

I muttered incoherently to them as they coaxed my soul from my body.

Mutters turned to please.

Pleas turned to screams.

They all went unheard.

Far above, the angels sang.

The end