Flickers

by Tia Fielding

  Flickers

  by Tia Fielding

  ©Tia Fielding. All rights reserved.

  Cover by AngstyG. (http://www.angstyg.com)

  Editing by No Stone Unturned Editing.

  This short story has been previously published as a part of the Wilde City Press Anthology Bedtime Stories in 2014.

  This edition, however, has been greatly expanded and re-edited.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Benjamin rolled over, closed his eyes again and ignored the gay ghost standing by his bed. It wasn’t that he was homophobic or anything. He accepted that he might’ve been in a little bit of denial about himself, too. He just preferred straight people to the gay ones and that included ghosts.

  The June night was warm and muggy, which didn’t help, either. He could feel the ghost’s stare on the back of his neck, and he could swear he felt that stare on his ass too. He‘d stopped sleeping in the nude two nights after the ghost had appeared for the first time. That was over a month ago.

  Sighing, Ben threw the blanket off and turned around. It took him a while to locate the subject doing the nightly ass-staring, but he finally did see a mist of sorts suspended in the air nearby.

  “What?” he asked, for the thousandth time. “Why me? Why here? What do you want?”

  The mist hovered for a moment before it moved a few inches toward the bedroom door and vanished.

  What now? Did it want him to follow? It hadn’t done that before, and he’d asked all of these questions quite a few times.

  Ben huffed with annoyance and got up, walking to the door and out into the little hallway leading to the living room and kitchen.

  He’d seen plenty of episodes of Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters, because his former roommate Jocelyn had been super into that stuff. Technically, he knew what he was supposed to do, if he believed in such things in the first place.

  But what if there are other spirits here and not just the, so far, slightly too friendly one? He shivered a little and glanced over his shoulder. Or one of those demonic powers that scratches people? He couldn’t open himself up for that sort of thing!

  The night light in the kitchen flickered.

  “Fine. Fine.” Ben suppressed a shiver and walked toward the light as it calmed again.

  The laptop he’d left on his tiny table caught his eye. Did it want him to communicate? Do research?

  He’d owned his house for four years now, but the spirit had only come in five weeks ago. There had to be a reason for that. Besides, the little he could tell from the mist when it was at its strongest, was that the guy wore contemporary clothing.

  Sighing—he’d done a lot of that lately—Ben pulled out a chair and opened the laptop. He’d left it snoozing with almost-full battery an hour ago, and it was just about empty now. What the hell?

  “At least I know now where all that energy comes from,” Ben said, and the thought of talking to thin air didn’t even faze him. Time to do something about it.

  He struggled to get the cord from the floor without having to get off his seat, and finally hooked the laptop in with what seemed like seconds to spare before the battery gave out.

  “Now, I’m not smart enough for this shit, so you need to help me with it,” Ben explained. The lights flickered in answer. “You’re newly dead, I think, and something connects you to my house. Am I right so far?”

  Flicker, then another.

  “Okay. So, let’s see if I can find out who you are.” Ben opened his browser, and a search engine popped up. After hesitating for a moment, he began a search for deaths in his hometown in the last two months. Nothing showed up. “Not local, then? But something drew you here so there has to be a connection.”

  Another search, slightly wider, brought a couple of possible guys between ages eighteen and thirty-five, but they both were family men, it seemed, and his haunter was gay, no doubt about it. He wasn’t sure how he knew—the ass-staring aside—but he just did.

  “Gimme a hint here. Age first. Under twenty? Twenty to twenty-five?” A blink to the latter. Ah-ha! “You died around here? No? Well, the fine state of Kentucky anyway?” The light flickered once for Kentucky, and Ben revised the search again.

  A few possible options, none of which seemed right, but then finally a hit he thought was right.

  “Holy shit.” He wished he could see the mist, but it looked as if all the ghost’s energy went toward using the lights to communicate. “‘Unidentified male body found at roadside, near Saxton, Kentucky. Possible hit and run, with no witnesses.’”

  The light went crazy, flickering like moth’s wings, and suddenly it wasn’t just a ghost Ben was dealing with, it was a mystery.

  ***

  He tried to communicate more, figure out more, but something seemed to prevent the ghost from naming itself no matter what Ben did to help it, and the information he found online was scarce. The body was his ghost’s, but nobody seemed to know who he was.

  The other problem seemed to be with the ghost’s limited energy. Some nights, they’d barely get started before it would abruptly disappear, and on the productive nights, the results weren’t that good either, if Ben was honest.

  So when he finally decided to try a new approach, he could only hope the spirit was still strong enough to help him out.

  He stood in the middle of his bedroom and cleared his throat before speaking to the same fucking thin air he had been talking to for several nights in a row

  “Okay, you must be here somewhere, and if you can, help me out. I’m going to walk through all the rooms, I have all the lights on, and if you see something that might help us with this, give me a sign.”

  There was no answer, but Ben had nowhere to go and nothing to do, so he walked into his attached bathroom and looked around. There was nothing new there, not that he’d really thought the ghost had anything to do with his shower or his toilet.

  “I don’t have a name for you, so why don’t I just call you John Doe? I bet that’s what the cops are calling you.” If a lamp could blink in a sarcastic way, Ben thought he’d just seen it happen. “Not fond of that, Johnny?” The bathroom light went off and didn’t come back on again. “Fine, fine….”

  Ben went into the little corridor and stepped into the tiny guestroom that was more like an extra storage unit, now that his roommate had moved out. The kitchen gave no results, so finally Ben went into the living room.

  The light flickered once. “Bingo.” Ben peered around the cozy space. It was small but enough for his needs, and he’d used plenty of time trying to make the house feel like a home. It didn’t, not exactly, but he thought of it as a work in progress anyway.

  “Say, Casper,” he started absently, only to have the lights go out. It was like a power cut, and for a moment, Ben was startled before he realized what he’d said. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean it like that!” The lights went back on. “We really need to come up with a name, though….” He glanced at the bookshelf, wondering if he’d bought any new books in the right timeframe, but didn’t think so.

  “I can’t remember what I was going to ask, but how about you do your thing with the lights if I get closer. Like, you know, flicker faster if I get warmer—that sort of thing.” With that, Ben began to walk ever so slowly around the room.

  He had just stepped toward the windows when the light flashed for the first time. Ben looked at what was in front of him, except for the said windows that overlooked the front yard. There was just an old armchair in the corner, next to a lamp with a wobbly shade.

  Curious, Ben took the two steps c
loser, and the lights flickered again. “But there’s nothing he—” and then he spotted it, behind the chair, leaning against the wall where he’d left it oh, just about six weeks ago.

  “Of course!” Ben reached to pull the painting out of where he’d thought it would be safe. He hadn’t counted on forgetting all about it. “Shit, okay… let’s see….”

  He’d bought the painting on a whim from a yard sale he’d spotted while driving through Georgetown after visiting his mother at the nursing home in Lexington. It was a lovely realistic landscape with vivid colors and a few surrealistic details dotting it like a puzzle. He hadn’t counted on this kind of a puzzle, though.

  “Why this painting?” he asked, but there was no answer. Ben sat in the armchair and unwrapped the painting with care from the couple of ratty, towels the lady selling it had put around it for protection.

  It wasn’t a large piece. He could easily pick it up, and he placed the bottom of it on his knees and leaned back, holding it by the frame on both sides. Something about it screamed Kentucky, but that was to be expected. There were green meadows and trees, with white fences and horses, and pretty flowers here and there. The artist had signed it.

  “Adrian DuBois?” The light stayed on and still, so Ben looked more closely.

  “Okay… flowers, trees, horses, fence posts…. One horse with six legs, a cloud that resembles”—he tilted his head— “a dragon?” The light flashed once. “Okay, dragon it is.” He didn’t see anything else of interest other than a flower that seemed to have teeth and was about to devour a butterfly, until…. “Hey, there’s a guy standing where one of the fence posts is supposed to be!” The lights went nuts.

  “That’s you?” Ben asked and huffed out a relieved laugh. “So this guy DuBois knows who you are?” He stared at the painting, and the more time he spent, the more details he could see in the fencepost-man. “Okay, it’s safe to stop now, Sal, I’m beginning to feel like I’m in a disco.”

  The lights went still but stayed on. Then one flicker that seemed somehow questioning. “Oh, why Sal?” Ben asked, and got another blink-response. “Someone Adrian Loved,” he explained. The lights went off, then came back on again.

  “He loved you,” Ben stated, suddenly knowing why Sal was bothering him. “Adrian doesn’t know you’re dead.”

  The lights went off and threw him into a darkness that felt a lot like sadness.

  ***

  The next morning, after restful night—because Sal had most likely used all his energy and there was no butt-staring going on—Ben went to work as usual. His job was a regular landscaping gig in his brother-in-law’s company, and it was mindless enough to let Ben think while he planted things or shoveled some shit, sometimes literally.

  He had dug up a couple of rosebushes to make way for concrete, when he realized he needed to figure out how to explain the situation to the Adrian guy.

  Hi, I’m Ben and I think I your ex is dead. Yeah, maybe not that particular line. Hi, I’m Ben. Do you happen to know the whereabouts of every guy you’ve ever loved? Not better.

  Ben sighed and immediately heard a familiar chuckle from behind his back. Rolling He rolled his eyes, then glanced at his brother-in-law Ross. Somehow, he knew he shouldn’t ask, but did anyway.

  “What?”

  His boss grinned at him. “You can take those poor roses home. I already asked. They’re going to the dump if you don’t.”

  “It was one time, Ross. One time. I have taken doomed plants home once, because they were a rare species of lily and you know your mother-in-law, my mother, loves lilies.” Ben always took her some lilies when he visited her at the nursing home.

  “Right, right.” Ross’s grin widened. “If you weren’t such a huge guy, I’d totally call you a momma’s boy.”

  “If you did, and I didn’t think being married to Belle wasn’t enough of a punishment, I’d kick your ass.”

  Laughing, Ross walked back to their truck to continue his job, and Ben considered the rose bushes. “Then again, who knows how pretty you would be. Might as well take you home. Maybe Sal would like you.”

  ***

  That evening after work, he planted the mystery roses next to the steps of his miniscule back porch before cooking himself a steak for dinner.

  By now, he was used to the fact that there was a spirit in his home, but it still bugged him whenever he was taking meat out of the refrigerator and the whole large fridge shook and went off before sluggishly starting itself again with another shudder.

  “Do you mind?” He’d gathered—quite fast, and he was proud of that fact—that Sal was a vegetarian. Or a vegan, maybe? “Hey, were you vegan? You don’t fuck with my appliances when I fry eggs, but taking the bacon out of the fridge makes you mad.” Ben smirked slightly at the thought of pissing Sal off. “Serves you right, ass-starer.”

  Again, the kitchen lights flickered in a way that felt sarcastic. Then again, Ben was pretty sure he was imagining things, projecting. Not Sal, though. Sal was real, and he’d long accepted it, but how much could a ghost communicate through flashing lights alone?

  Once he’d stuffed himself with the rib eye and some mashed potatoes, he placed the dishes to soak in the sink while going to his trusty, albeit old, laptop.

  “Let’s see… Adrian DuBois…,” Ben murmured as he typed the search into Google. Then he pressed enter.

  And there he was, Adrian DuBois, with a professional website, a Facebook fan page, even a Twitter—not that Ben knew much about the last one. He rarely logged into Facebook these days.

  Browsing through DuBois’s website proved problematic. For one, his artwork scattered around the informative pages was whimsical and gorgeous and something so different from what Ben was used to that it made his head hurt, and two, Ben had hoped the guy lived far enough away for him to not have to go through with this, whatever this was. But no, no such luck; DuBois lived “on a little farm twenty miles from Lexington, Kentucky, in the middle of the most inspiring scenery there is for his particular style.”

  “Well, fuck.”

  The overhead light in the kitchen went off and then decidedly came on a couple of heartbeats later.

  Ben logged into Facebook and went to DuBois’s page. From what he could tell, an assistant of some sort ran the page, but it seemed like the artist himself commented on a few posts as well because there were the occasional initials added after one post or another.

  Wondering what he should do, Ben closed the browser tab and did the dishes instead. Then he went to water the roses—and hoped they wouldn’t drown—and when there was nothing else to procrastinate with, he walked back to the kitchen and did some more research on where exactly he could find this DuBois guy.

  ***

  Two days later when it was finally his day off, Ben got into his practical old truck and looked at the painting on the floor, leaning against the passenger seat.

  “Here we go, then. Whether he believes me or not, I’ll leave you with him. You can stare at him instead of me. Like the sound of that?” He began the forty-five-minute drive to the opposite side of Lexington.

  Singing tunelessly along with the country channel on the radio, Ben tried to come up with something to say to the artist. Nothing came to mind.

  Ben was thirty-seven, and from what he’d figured out online, the artist was a bit younger. Early thirties, he’d guessed from a recent photo taken at some event. DuBois was a bear of a man, one of those guys who would look excellent in plaid with an ax on his shoulder. Ben hadn’t expected the guy to be so buff, being an artist and all.

  Ben thought he might be shorter than DuBois, but more evenly muscular. One of his coworkers, Louis, was gay and called him a bear, making Ben feel uncomfortable at best, but if the shoe fit…. Adrian DuBois seemed taller. His close-cropped beard had a red tint to it, where Ben’s cheeks were stubbled and his hair was already going gray at the temples.

  He hadn’t seen a recent photo of DuBois’s hairstyle—there’d been a dark fedora on his
head in the most recent photo—but Ben wore his as short as possible. It was best for the work he did and kept him cooler too.

  Looking down at himself, Ben wondered if he was wearing the right thing. The dark green T-shirt stretched across his chest, and the tight sleeves made his biceps appear a little bigger. His cargo shorts were good for the sunny Kentucky summer and for the fact that his truck’s AC worked when it wanted to, which was code for “occasionally.”

  The GPS told him to take the next exit off the interstate, and then fifteen minutes later, he was driving along the winding road to a small ranch-style house with a couple of outbuildings and a few horses in a pasture behind them.

  “You have arrived at your destination,” the posh British bastard of a navigator said, and Ben shivered with the impending sense of being eyed as if he was psychotic or dangerous or at least completely bonkers.

  You still have time to just dump the painting here and drive back home. His mind provided him with an out. Or at least he assumed that was what it was trying to do.

  Instead of taking it, he turned off the engine and glanced at the painting. “Here goes nothing, Sal. Hope he doesn’t kick me off the property or call the cops.”

  Ben got out of the pickup and looked around again. There was soft music, it sounded like country, drifting to him in the breeze. Tilting his head, Ben tried to figure out where it came from. There were two barns he could see, and the music came from the closest one to the house. Sighing, Ben started to walk toward his doom.

  He got maybe twenty yards from the barn doors, when a growl sounded from behind him. The sound was somewhere between ravenous and dirty, and not in a fun way. Slowly, Ben turned his head to glance at the source from the corner of his eye.

  The dog seemed old as dirt, and it was a mutt of some sort, it certainly didn’t look like any kind of dog he’d seen before. Careful not to stare the dog in the eyes, Ben forced himself to relax.

  The loud-as-hell barking made him jump and tense up again.

  "Spike!" A loud voice boomed from the barn right before the sound of someone stomping closer hid the music and even part of the persistent, low growling.