by Nigel Henry
“Where’s my mommy?” He yells. “What did you do to my mommy?”
“Your mommy’s fine, Jacob,” I say. It’s half true: salt won’t kill a revenant, it’ll just get it off your butt for a little bit. We still have to find whatever’s left of her and torch it.
I start to catch my breath right as I hear a crash from the next room, followed by a grunt from my dad. The next sound I hear is the deafening scream of the revenant.
Three
“Jacob, I will give you the biggest piece of candy if you stay right here for a few minutes and don’t move.” The kid’s face lights up and I take that as a sign that he’s on board. Good enough for me.
I tear out of the room with the quickness and head across the hallway. The bedroom door’s already open, so I get another salt-shot ready as I barrel in.
Everything’s already gone crazy. Dad’s slumped against a dresser by the back wall, and I can’t tell whether he’s conscious or not. Ghost-Mom’s in the middle of the room approaching Derek, who is shrinking back onto the bed with a look on his face that says he’s seen a… you get the point.
“Hey!” I shout, and the revenant turns its head toward me. I say “turns its head” because the rest of its body doesn't move as its skull spins around 180 degrees. I hate when they do that. It’s all part of their act to scare the crap out of you.
The revenant’s eyes turn red again, and I can tell she remembers me from earlier. She raises a hand toward me, and I let a salt shot fly right as her ghost mojo sends me flying across the room, where I crash into the closet door left shoulder-first. God, I’m going to feel that one tomorrow.
The ghost’s on top of me before I can get up, and she lowers her face down to mine. Shit, she’s going to scream. Can’t let her scream.
My hands are digging into my pouch-belt for another salt-shot. I don’t need the slingshot at this range, I can just throw it at her. I raise my arm, but the ghost pins my wrist down as her mouth gets wider.
Shit, shit, shit. I close my eyes.
“Get off my kid!”
I open my eyes in time to see Dad swing a crowbar across the revenant’s head, making her vanish again. My hand drops free, and I exhale as I push myself to my feet.
Dad offers me a hand. “Are you okay? Did it hurt you?”
“Let’s just say it’s a good thing I don’t play baseball,” I say, rolling my shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”
“And Jacob?”
“Salted in his room. I think he’ll stay put for another minute.”
He nods. “All right then, that’s the kid’s room and the bedroom. She’ll be in the living room next. That gives us a little bit of time to search for whatever’s keeping her here.”
Dad turns to Derek, who is catching his breath. “Do you still have any personal items of your wife’s? Hair brushes, a swim cap, eyeglasses, old dresses?”
Derek snaps his fingers and rushes over to the dresser, where he pulls out a ratty old stuffed bear. It’s missing its left arm and the socket was patched up with tape a long time ago. Both of its eyes are gone, too. “Arlene had this from when she was a child. She protected the damn thing with her life.”
My dad grabs the bear and turns to me. “Okay, you check on the kid. I’ll take this to the bathroom and get rid of it."
I nod and make my way out of the bedroom in time to see Jacob crossing the salt circle and moving into the hallway.
And this is why I’m never having kids.
“Jacob go back!” I yell, running and grabbing him by both arms. He’s looking up, but not at me. Behind me.
“Mommy!”
I can barely think “aww, crap” before I feel a backhand connect to my cheek, sending me tumbling toward the stairwell. I’m up in time to see the revenant scoop up Jacob in her pale, burnt-tipped hands. She turns to me, her eyes going red again.
“Stay away from my son.”
She waves her palm at me as if she’s telling me to talk to the hand, and a gust of wind sends me backward, down the stairwell. I go tumbling, head-over-heels, each step connecting painfully with my unprepared body before I crash at the bottom in a heap.
For a moment I lay there, too stunned to try to process what just happened. It isn’t until I hear hurried footsteps and feel my dad’s hands do I start to piece it back together.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
I groan for a moment and realize that I’m bleeding from the mouth. Must’ve bit my tongue on the way down. I am so taking this bitch out.
“Jacob broke the circle,” I mumble. “She came for him, knocked me down the stairs when I got in the way.”
“The top of the stairs?” He casts a glance back up to the second level, his face frantic. “They’re gone.”
I shake my head and my neck is killing me. “What?”
“She must’ve pulled Jacob and jumped to a different part of the house.”
Dammit. “So what now?”
Derek comes running down the stairs. “Where’s Jacob?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” Dad replies.
“What do you mean, 'figure it out'? I thought you two were experts. Where the hell did she take my son?”
“She can’t leave the house. They’re somewhere in here, we just have to find them.”
Derek’s face flashes and his brows come down and he goes from being Mean-Face to being Epic-Ass-Face. “You’ve been here three minutes and all I’ve seen is your girl getting tossed around like a doll. I thought you said she could handle it.”
“You weren’t complaining when I saved your butt back in the bedroom,” I shoot back.
“Enough!” Dad shouts. He crosses over into the living room and tosses me another can of salt. “Circle him in the living room. I’m going to torch the bear.”
I turn to Mean-Face. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
My body is aching everywhere, and each step feels like I’m getting kicked in the butt, but I manage to fully circle Derek.
“Shouldn’t you be finding my son?”
I glance up at him. “You know the way she approached you in the bedroom? I didn’t take the full semester of 'Ghost Body Language One,’ but that’s revenant-speak for: ‘be-afraid. I’m going to put your insides outside.’ I put this salt around you, you stay in the circle, and that can’t happen.”
“And what about Jacob?”
“Well, if the teddy bear’s what’s keeping her here, then she’ll vanish when Dad burns it and Jacob will pop right back up.”
“And what if he’s wrong?”
I shake the rest of the salt can onto the floor. “Then she’ll be pissed that we torched her favorite thing.”
Dad’s voice rings through the house. “Burning!”
“Got it,” I shout back. “I’ll sweep.” I turn back to Derek. “Now stay here and prove to me that you can listen better than a six-year-old.”
Derek sneers as I leave the living room and I consider letting the revenant chomp him. Jacob could totally be my new little brother, right?
I pick up my slingshot as I head to the kitchen. The lights are out and I’m struggling not to bump into the table or trip on scattered toys as I search high and low. No dice. I sweep the bathroom with no luck before moving into the den. Again, nothing.
Come on, Arlene, you’re keeping me from Fallon.
I do another sweep of the kitchen and I’m about to head back to the living room when a sound catches my ear. I stop still and listen again when I hear it. Laughter.
Jacob’s laughter.
I strain my ears to find where it’s coming from when I notice a brown door at the other end of the kitchen. I slowly open it up and see another stairwell.
“Shit,” I whisper as I remember when Mean-Face told my dad. The ghost shows up in the master bedroom, Jacob’s room, the living room, and the kitchen. So what's it doing in the basement?
I hear Jacob laugh again. He’s definitely down there, and I need to be.
“Okay Ria Miller,�
� I tell myself as I ready my slingshot. “Time to be a hero.”
Four
My stomach’s in my throat as I make my way back to the duffel bag in the living room. I grab a flashlight and tuck a crowbar into my belt as Dad arrives. “What are you prepping for?”
I point the flashlight back toward the kitchen. “Jacob’s down in the basement.”
Derek’s face goes wide in shock. “The basement? How? I keep that locked.”
“Well, you don’t do a good job with it because the door’s unlocked.”
He’s about to say something else, but my Dad holds up his hand. “We go in together. If she’s down there, I distract, you dismiss.”
“Got it.”
“I don’t understand,” Derek says. “Can’t you draw her upstairs? It’s dark down there. How can you fight a ghost in the dark?”
“We’ll worry about that” Dad replies and starts quietly creeping toward the kitchen. I follow and we huddle at the basement door.
“On three,” Dad whispers. “One… two—”
We head down on two, Dad in front, clutching a crowbar and a flashlight, me behind with my light off. Standard procedure: the ghost will be focused on the light and on my Dad, leaving me free for an open shot. That is if I don’t trip on these stairs and give away our position.
The basement leads into a small hallway with two rooms on the left and right. Jacob’s laughter is coming from the left. Dad slinks up to the door and presses himself against the wall as he turns off the flashlight and peers in. He looks back and my adjusting eyes can just barely see him nod.
He holds up three fingers, then two, then one, and barrels into the room, shouting “Jacob! Over here!”
I wait for half a second and then slowly slink in through the door in time to see the ghost pin him against the wall by the throat. Though it’s dark, I can see exactly where the revenant is by the slight glow she gives off, so I raise the slingshot and sent a salt-ball her way.
It hits her right in the shoulder and she vanishes again as my dad falls to the floor. I click on my flashlight and scan the room for Jacob. I find him, over in the corner tottering back and forth on an old wooden rocking horse.
Oh my God, creepy.
Without waiting for the ghost to reappear and deliver another blow to my head I grab Jacob and haul it back upstairs. Dad’s a step behind me, but we tear into the living room together. I hand Jacob over to Derek, who takes him with a look of shock and relief. “Keep him in the circle,” I say as I turn back toward Dad.
“Upstairs,” he grunts, and I follow him to Jacob’s room. He steps into the salt circle—somehow it’s still intact—and beckons me toward him.
“Something about that not seem right to you?”
I nod. “Yeah, she had him downstairs in that rocking chair like it was freaking Six Flags.”
“Exactly. She was watching him when I ran in. It was almost as if she just wanted to be around him.”
Revenants that play house, that’s not strange at all.
Man, I can’t wait till I get out of here. I sigh and rub my back; it’s still sore from falling down the stairs and landing on that damn toy truck.
Wait a second…
I bend down and pick up the monster truck. “Jacob said the ghost comes out and plays trucks with him every night.” I turn the truck over and start examining the gap between the wheels. “He said this is his favorite. What do you want to bet his mom used to play with this one when she was alive?”
I keep fiddling with the wheel until it pops off in my hand. I feel around the tiny axle until I remove a tangled clump of black hair. “Bingo.”
Dad looks impressed as I hand him the hair and wheel. “Well played.”
“Thanks,” I say as I work on the back wheels. They won’t budge, and eventually, I get tired of wasting time. “Okay, I think we—“
I look up at my dad as I speak and I almost drop the truck in shock as I see the revenant standing behind him just outside of the circle. I take a step back and catch myself before I stumble out, thankful that I made the circle large enough.
Dad turns around and the revenant screams like a banshee in his face. It’s loud enough to force us to cover our ears, but thanks to the circle we’re not dead. Revenant screams are no joke if you’re not protected.
Even without the threat of death, I’m still forced to turn my head away, and when I finish my spin I come face-to-face with the ghost. She jumped across the room to get in my way. Great.
She screams again, and I’m clasping my hands against my ears with all of my strength as I turn away again. And, oh surprise, there she is in front of me once again.
I can barely hear my dad’s shouts over the noise. “I don’t think she likes you!”
“She should hear what I think of her,” I yell back as I pull out another salt-shot. She can’t grab my arm this time, so I try to block out the pain in my ears as I aim and let the shot fly at the ghost’s stomach.
The shot looks good as it hurtles toward her, but at the last second she vanishes and the shot splashes harmlessly against the wall. I stare dumbfounded for a second before the scream returns behind me and I can’t bear to keep my ears uncovered for another second.
“Looks like she wised up!” Dad yells.
“Just my luck! What now?”
“Take another shot!”
“What?”
Dad moves up and shouts directly into my ear. “Take another shot!”
I nod and pull out another shot. I’ve got three left. I aim directly at the ghost’s head and fire. As expected, she jumps right before impact. I spin, knowing that she’s going to appear on the other side of the room, but Dad beats me to it, swinging his crowbar across her face as she appears and sending her back into the ether in a cloud of black smoke.
My ears are ringing, and I’m about to crack a joke, but Dad’s already off and running to Derek’s bedroom, where he grabs a salt can and lines the doorway with it.
Almost the instant he finishes, the revenant reappears in the bedroom and charges at us. I throw my hands up for impact, but she’s stopped short by the salt line. After realizing that I still have a face, I eye the doorway. “Is that going to hold?”
“Not for long,” Dad says as he pulls a lighter from his pocket and sets the tangle of hair from the truck on fire. He holds it up to the revenant, which shrieks and starts reaching for it desperately. Of course, it can’t get past the salt, so it lets out a giant scream. But this scream’s different. It’s not of anger, it’s of pain.
The revenant’s hurting.
Consumed in its shrieking, the ghost falls to the floor before training its red eyes back up at me. “Do not touch my son,” it growls before vanishing.
Dad pokes his head into the bedroom. “Well then, I think that did it.”
I mime a hail-Mary. “Good riddance.”
“Come on,” Dad says. “Let’s get downstairs and check on the other two.”
I cast one last glance at the bedroom before I follow Dad downstairs and step over the now-broken monster truck along the way. I can’t help but be creeped out by the fact that the same ghost that tried to kill me and my father multiple times might have just wanted to watch her son play. Talk about bipolar.
I start packing up the duffel bag while Dad and Derek hash things out. From the corner of my eye, I see Derek reach into his pocket and pull something out, and Dad immediately refuses. It was probably money. God Dad, would it kill you to take what’s being offered to us once and a while?
I catch a glimpse of my watch as I pack the bag. The time says it's a minute before ten o'clock. I don’t pay it any mind. The gears have a tendency to stop working when ghosts are nearby. Maybe that’s why revenants go crazy and get so mad: every time they look at a clock the time’s exactly the same, even if they’ve been around for a thousand years.
I still like the watch, though. It’s one of those old-school ones with the hands that tick every second. People at my old school made fun
of me because it can’t check email or anything like that, but I kind of like being forced to think about the time.
“Okay,” Dad says to me, “one more sweep of the house to make sure it’s gone and then we can head home.”
I shrug my shoulders and head back upstairs, tapping the watch face and feeling relieved when it starts ticking again. Then I try to figure out the actual time. The revenant was in my grill pretty much the entire night, so I’d guess I lost about half-an-hour. Which would make it actually closer to 10:30 or 10:45.
Crap, I’m going to miss Fallon again. And I heard he was doing an epic rap battle with that Sam Jackson. Guess I’ll have to catch all of the f-bombs on the internet.
I’m still grumbling when I roll into Jacob’s room. It’s clear, so I head into Derek’s bedroom. This place definitely looks worse for wear, with a dented closet door and an overturned dresser, not to mention all of the salt they’ll be cleaning out of their carpet. But it’s certifiably ghost-free.
I take my time heading back into the hallway, not wanting to get flung down the steps again. When I’m sure the coast is clear I head into the bathroom and throw some warm water on my face. There’s a clock in the room that reads 10:27. Okay, I’ve got a slight chance, as long as the stupid Verrazano doesn’t get in the way.
“All clear,” I call out as I head to the stairwell and adjust the time on my watch. Man, I’ll be glad when I get out of—
I freeze on the upper steps. The second hand isn’t moving.
Five
Shit shit shit goddammit.
I creep down the steps and stifle a gasp as I reach the bottom. Chaos erupted while I was gone. Dad’s on the floor, splayed out and not moving. Derek is slumped over the couch. The salt circle’s completely gone, and Jacob’s nowhere to be found.
I run across the hallway to the living room and slide on the floor next to Dad. I want to shake him, to make sure he’s still alive, but I know I’m a sitting duck out here in the open and I don’t need to give the ghost any reason to think about me right now. So instead I place two fingers on Dad’s neck and check for a pulse. I relax a little when I find one. He’s alive, he’s just out cold.
