The Joggers

TW: substance abuse, gore

“Don’t you see them?” Esmeralda asked, as she twirled an unlit cigarette between her thumb and index finger.  She and her friend Lucy lounged on an outdated, wraparound couch in her grandma’s 1970s designed home. Despite the age of the décor and furniture, everything was in pristine condition, a time capsule of that era.

It was foggy outside, but Esmeralda could still see the two teens jogging as clear as day, just across the street, where they always jogged in place and in unison. They wore thigh-high jogging shorts, long, fuchsia-colored sweatshirts, bright pink leg warmers, and purple ear warmers. Both teens had ponytails that flopped up and down in unison with their robotic movements. 

“No, I don’t see them right now. But I’ve seen them before,” Lucy replied, licking the chocolate drops off her straw and dipping it back into her chocolate milk. She picked up the joint she had rolled earlier from the ashtray on the coffee table and contemplated it. 

 “Dude, they’re right there,” Esmeralda said, imploring Lucy to look outside, pointing her dainty finger towards the large picture window. The teens appeared to Esmeralda again, jogging, and jogging, and jogging. Staring at her blankly with dead grins on their faces, their braces melted off their gray-yellow teeth. 

     “Okay, sure, dude. They are there,” Lucy said. “Are we gonna smoke this blunt, or what?” 

      “Yes, we’re gonna smoke it, but, first, I need you to acknowledge those two freaky joggers outside my grandma’s big-ass window,” Esmeralda whined, tossing a neon green lighter over to Lucy. Lucy caught it quickly, lit up the blunt, and inhaled deeply, letting out an enormous plume of smoke. 

     “That’s where it’s at,” Lucy said, smiling with deep satisfaction, ignoring Esmeralda’s pleas to acknowledge the two, odd, teenage joggers across the street.  

      “Let me have that,” Esmeralda said forcefully. “Wait,” Lucy said, holding out her hand. She took another hit and inhaled deeply again. “Fine. I’ll come to you.” Esmeralda moved over to the long part of the couch upon which Lucy sat. Lucy blew smoke in her face. Esmeralda giggled softly, momentarily forgetting about the two gauzy, gray joggers outside her grandma’s house. Lucy handed her the blunt. She took it. Esmeralda threw her blue stockinged feet onto the large, wooden coffee table, drew her knobby knees together, perched her elbows on them, and proceeded to take a long drag from the joint. While she exhaled, she leaned back into the deep, lime, green cushions. 

       “Have you forgotten about those teen joggers now?” Lucy inquired, twisting a soft, red ringlet of Esmeralda’s hair between her fingertips, while looking at her lovingly. 

        “Not really,” Esmeralda said, feeling the effects of the marijuana. Her eyes suddenly grew bigger. “Wait. Fuck! They’re still out there!”

         “Christ—not them again. Ez, look, you’ve gotten worse ever since . . .”

         “Shhhhhhhhhh . . . Shhhhhh . . .” Esmeralda got up slowly, placing her index finger to Lucy’s lips. Lucy pushed her finger away, frowning with her mouth open. Esmeralda kept saying, “Shhhhhh . . . Shhhhhh . . . I know they can hear us in here. They’re still out there – I can see them too and they can see us.” She pointed again towards the outdoors.    

          “I’m telling you, dude, I’m not seeing them right now, and I am high as fuck,” Lucy said, sucking on her straw, relishing the sweetness of her chocolate milk. “They don’t always appear to us at the same times.” She took another hit from the blunt and placed it back in the ashtray. “Don’t you want some more, Ez?”

        “Goddamnit, that’s so annoying!” Esmeralda bellowed, rolling her eyes. “Why don’t you see them when I see them? I don’t get it.” She ignored Lucy’s question and grabbed the joint from the ashtray. 

The joggers continued to move up and down in the same place, but now they were doused in buckets of blood. Esmeralda gulped. She took another hit and tossed it aside. The joint hit the side of the coffee table and landed on the lime, green, shag carpet.

       “What the fuck, Ez? You’re gonna burn your Gee-Gee’s carpet, and she’s gonna blame me for it!” Lucy yelped. Esmeralda scooped up the joint quickly, rubbed out the small black stain, and carefully placed the joint in the ashtray after taking yet another huge hit. 

        “You’re right, Luce. I don’t want Gee-Gee to chew you out like the last time. I’m sorry,” she replied, trying her best to regain her composure after seeing the joggers covered in blood. “But seriously, why the fuck don’t you see them too? Like I said, I don’t get it.” Esmeralda grabbed the joint again and inhaled more deeply than before. After she placed the blunt back in the ashtray, she got up and went into the kitchen to grab a huge bag of chips, ignoring the two freaky, blood-drenched joggers across the street. 

       “I dunno. Why don’t you ask them?” Lucy suggested, pointing outdoors into the dispersing fog of the night air. She picked up the joint to take another hit. 

       “No fucking way will I talk to them! They freak me out,” Esmeralda hollered from the kitchen, munching on chips. “They’re covered in blood right now!”

      Truth be told, Lucy was lying when she claimed she’d seen the two mysterious, jogging-in-one-place teens. She thought Esmeralda was whacked out of her mind and hadn’t been acting like herself ever since her abusive father had died six months earlier. It had gotten especially worse since she’d moved in with her grandmother three months ago, and she’d begun describing frequent visits from this invisible jogging duo.   

     The sounds of wheels squeaking on the driveway could be heard. Lucy suddenly saw lights flash across the old tv set in the corner of the room.  

     “Oh my God! Put it out! Put it out!” Esmeralda squealed, waving her arms around wildly as she ran into the living room. 

      “Shit! Is it your grandma? Is she back already?” Lucy moaned. “I thought you said she wasn’t coming back for another couple of hours.”

       “Yes, it’s Gee-Gee. She’s already fucking back!” Esmeralda exclaimed, as she grabbed the joint out of Lucy’s fingers, and smashed it into the ashtray. Esmeralda looked out the picture window again; she was struck by terror. 

       “Ez – it’s just Gee-Gee. She isn’t gonna be that mad at you,” Lucy said.

       “It’s them again!” Esmeralda whispered. 

The joggers had reappeared and did what they always did – they jogged in unison. But this time they weren’t in their usual spot, across the street from her grandmother’s picture window in the living room. Instead, they were right in front of it, on the grass. 

 Their long, giraffe-like legs bounced up and down in unison, as did their ponytails. Even worse, the amount of blood dripping down their bodies was more profuse. 

“Goddamnit! I can see them again, Lucy! They usually disappear when my Gee-Gee is around. They look totally disgusting, too!” 

      “Yeah, about those girls,” Lucy said. 

     “They’re right fucking there!” Esmeralda said, crying. “And they’re bleeding. It’s horrible.” 

      “Ez . . . we need to talk,” Lucy said firmly. The two girls could hear Gee-Gee unlocking the door that led from the carport to the dining room that was affixed to the kitchen. The jogging girls turned their heads in unison to look towards the door where Gee-Gee entered. 

     “Girls, girls, are you still home?” Esmeralda’s grandma asked. “I bought Kentucky Fried Chicken tonight for all of us to eat.” The girls could hear her rustling around in the dining room and then in the kitchen. About ten minutes later, she entered the living room from the kitchen. 

       “Hi there, Gee-Gee,” Lucy said, waving nonchalantly, sucking on the last remnants of her chocolate milk. Gee-Gee moved closer to the coffee table and discovered the joint in the ashtray; she could also smell the pungent odor of pot.  

       Gee-Gee first looked at Esmeralda and then at Lucy. She crossed her arms across the many gold-braided belts wrapped around her waist and 1970s, brown, bell-bottom pants. The bands of gold bracelets she wore on both of her arms jingled, too, as she looked at the two of them sternly. She flipped her dyed red hair back and asked, “Have you two been smoking that Mary Jane again?” 

      “Gee-Gee, we don’t call it that anymore,” Esmeralda explained. She looked back at the bloody joggers. They both waved at her simultaneously. 

      “Well, I don’t care what it’s called, Ez. I’ve asked you many times before. I don’t want you smelling up the house. If you’re gonna smoke weed, you need to take it outside on the porch out back. You know that already,” she said smiling while gently grabbing a small bit of Esmeralda’s cheek. 

       “I know, Gee-Gee. I’m sorry. I am just irritated and really scared by those two joggers again,” Esmeralda replied. 

       “Oh, honey. Let’s go have dinner. I know those joggers keep bothering you. They bothered me, too, when your mama first died. God, rest her soul,” Gee-Gee said, crossing herself, and then leaning down to kiss Esmeralda on the forehead. “Don’t you worry one little bit about them. They’re harmless. They’ll go away as soon things start looking up,” Gee-Gee said assuredly. 

       “Thanks, Gee-Gee,” Esmeralda said. “But they keep getting closer to me and they’re disgusting to look at.” Esmeralda got up, trying her best to ignore the joggers who were now jogging in place together in the living room. Blood seeped from bullet holes in their heads into the carpet. Lucy stood up as well. Blood pooled around her feet. 

Gee-Gee gave Esmeralda a big hug. “I know, honey. I know. We’ll do something about it later tonight,” she said. “Now let’s all go into the dining room and have some dinner.” 

      “Okay, Gee-Gee,” Esmeralda said. “I love you so much.”

       “Oh! I love you too, Ez,” Gee-Gee replied, giving Esmeralda another kiss on her forehead. “We’ll get through this journey, and those ghost joggers will go poof! I promise.”

      “Well, anyway, I’m super hungry, Gee,” Lucy chimed in, bewildered by this odd conversation. “And Kentucky Fried Chick-Chick sounds like the perfect choice since I’m feeling high as a fried Frito.”

       The three of them laughed.

       “I’m sure it does, you goofy girl,” Gee-Gee replied, rolling her eyes playfully. 

        The three of them walked into the large dining room. Gee-Gee had already set the table with soda pop for the girls, a glass of Franzia for herself, and the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in the middle of the table. 

       The joggers continued to jog in the middle of the living room. The bones to both of their right legs were now fractured, exposed, and bent backwards. 

       Esmeralda looked at them in horror just as she bit into a drumstick. “Gee-Gee! The joggers keep looking worse! It’s like they are disintegrating before my eyes!” Both of their right eyeballs popped out of their skulls right out as Esmeralda put down her chicken. She gagged.

     “That’s what you want, honey. You’re passing them onto someone else. Just let them do their thing,” Gee-Gee said softly. “I can see them now, too.” Unlike Lucy, she wasn’t lying. She could see the two girls as well. “Try and ignore them and finish your dinner." Gee dipped her spork into the red and white cup of mashed potatoes and gravy. 

      Lucy’s bewilderment had suddenly changed to curiosity. Ever since she was a little girl and had known Gee-Gee since that time, she respected and loved her. Gee-Gee had practically raised Lucy, since Lucy’s mom was a drunk and her dad had disappeared when she was a month old. Thus, Gee-Gee could do no wrong in the eyes of Lucy. Lucy’s eyes widened as Gee-Gee spoke of these dead girls. 

    “Why can’t I see them, Gee-Gee?” Lucy asked earnestly while munching on a fried wing of chicken. 

     “Well, honey, I think it’s because you aren’t experiencing a type of deep grief like Ez and I are. And perhaps you will never have to see them – some people don’t.”

      “Ohhhhhhhhhhh, I see. I think I get it now,” Lucy said with keen interest. She put her chicken thigh down and took a sip from her grape soda pop. “That makes total sense.” 

      “You see, I saw those ghost joggers for well over two years when Ez’s mama died. Ez probably saw them as well, but she was just a baby back then, so she’s probably forgotten when they appeared to her. Her daddy was always drunk in his grief, so I can’t say for sure if he ever saw them – if he did, he probably just thought it was a hallucination from a night of heavy drinking. God, rest his soul.” Gee-Gee crossed herself again, adding, “As for those two ghoulish joggers . . . At first, when they appeared, they were fully intact. They’d come around every morning, smiling at me, outside the picture window. It lasted for months. I thought they were girls of one of our neighbors who had just moved in . . . but then their appearance became more gruesome over time, so I realized I was contending with a form of death that had to do with my own grief. The more I let go of Ez’s mama, the more grotesque they became and the closer they got to me.”

      “Gee-Gee, what happened to you, and to them, when you truly let go?” Esmeralda asked with desperation. 

       “Oh, honey. I’m afraid to tell you. Because those two ghost joggers,” she said, looking at their broken bodies and now severed heads. “They took me to the absolute pits of hell. I’m afraid to tell you what it was like. I’m just hoping it will be easier for you when the time comes.” Gee-Gee crossed herself once again. 

        “Oh, Gee-Gee, I’m so scared.”

        “I know, Ez. I know. I’m scared for you.” 

         Nightfall was upon them and so were the girls.