by Adam Tervort
What good is a mirror against a ghost? It turns out that ghosts can't look into special Fengshui mirrors, so if you position them in your house it corrects the bad Fengshui that lets the ghost in in the first place, leaving you a mortals-only house once again. I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. The "master" smelled like a two day drinking binge and bad barbecue, the mirrors he told us to buy were crappy little things that screamed "made in a Chinese sweat shop," and I didn't want any part of it. Brenda insisted, and I became the proud owner of two Fengshui mirrors. I drew the line at the master coming over to install them himself, though. He told Brenda where to place them and told me to come back if the ghost came back. Right buddy, I'll be back when hell freezes over.
We installed the mirrors and then Brenda took me out for lunch. We couldn't find a parking spot close to the restaurant where we wanted to eat and ended up walking a long ways. My leg was throbbing by the time we got back to the car so I was sent home with instructions to rest easy and not worry about ghosts.
As I was laying down to sleep I felt the cold come back but no icy touches. It had to be a stray draft of freon flavored goodness from a neighbor's house, nothing more, I thought. It stayed for about three minutes and then slowly dissipated. I was so relieved I fell asleep almost immediately.
I began to have a dream about a beautiful girl. She never spoke and never smiled, just seemed to go through the room like a black cloud. She was petite, had long black hair, a real Chinese beauty. As she walked she trailed a set of vague forms behind her, some that looked like people and some that looked like possessions, books and things. She was walking across the dream room slowly, coming in my direction but not in any hurry. As she got nearer to me she lifted her face and brushed her hair back behind her ear, and I could see a horrible mark around her neck like she had been strangled with a thick rope. As she looked at me and our eyes made contact she shot across the room in an instant and was suddenly right next to me. I felt the cold touch return on my leg and I heard a scream.
My eyes shot open and I looked around the dark room. The scream was mine, and the cold touch on my leg was still there. So was she. She was rubbing my leg with her index finger, head down. Her long hair was covering her face completely. She moved slowly, her finger tracing along my skin. I screamed again.
I closed my eyes and started to panic. The girl was in my room, touching me. I snapped my eyes open again and she was gone. The cold in the room lingered but I was out of bed and into the front room as fast as I could move. I wanted to call Brenda but realized my cell phone was back by my bed on the nightstand. There was no way I was going back into that room, Brenda would find this all out first thing in the morning anyways. I got a beer from the fridge and sat down in a chair to decide what to do next.
I couldn't go back to bed, but I couldn't leave the house either; I was only wearing boxers and a t-shirt. All my clothes were in the closet in my room. I checked the clock, it was 3:10. I turned all the lights in the apartment on and watched Sports Center and the Discovery Channel until I finally passed out just before six. That's how Brenda found me at 8:30, snoring on the couch with the TV blasting, all lights on and the floor covered in empty beer cans.
"What happened to you?" she asked after she shook me awake. I grabbed her and hugged her. She looked at me like I was a crazy stranger. "What's wrong with you?"
"The mirrors didn't work," I said.
"What do you mean? Did you see something?"
"I had a terrible dream, and then she was right next to my bed." I told her what I remembered, and although it seemed burned into my memory I couldn't describe it very well. I was afraid she wouldn't believe me.
"Are you sure it wasn't just a dream?" she asked.
"Positive. She was there, touching me."
Brenda wanted to go straight back to the temple, but I didn't want to go back and have that oily "master" tell me more about my aura problems. I got dressed and we went out. We spent the whole day together, but in the late afternoon Brenda said she needed to get home. She had told her parents she would go home for her sister's birthday that night.
"I'm really sorry I can't stay with you. Do you want to stay at my place tonight?" she asked. I wanted to cry out "yes!" but was feeling pretty sheepish. Maybe it had been a bad dream. Maybe it wouldn't happen again. Maybe I was just going crazy, or maybe watching horror movies before bed is a bad idea. I told Brenda that I'd be fine, she should go and enjoy herself at her sister's party.
It was after six when I left, but I couldn't bring myself to go home yet. I killed time walking the aisles at a supermarket, got some greasy comfort food from the night market and had a drink for an hour or so in a bar not far from my apartment. At 9:45 I was feeling like a wimp and decided it was time to go home and face the ghost. I had another beer to steel myself and went home.
I'm not sure what I expected to see when I walked in. Perhaps I expected to open the door and see an alternate dimension filled with ghouls, Ghostbusters style. It was just my apartment. The beer cans all over the floor looked pretty bad, so I cleaned them up and then sat on the couch for a while. I suddenly felt really tired. Maybe it was all the alcohol I'd had, maybe something else. Whatever the reason, I picked myself off the couch and went into the bedroom. It was nice and hot, humid as hell. Usually I would be kicking myself for not fixing the air conditioner yet, but tonight I was happy to sweat. Anything but the cold like last night.
I dropped off to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow. I don't know how long after I was asleep before the dream started. Judging time while you're asleep isn't very easy, now is it? I was soon back with her. The details were clearer this time, we were in a room, but the ceiling was so high I couldn't see it. She came towards me just as before, working her way across the room as if time didn't matter. I wanted to run, to hide my face, anything to make sure our eyes didn't meet again. She raised her face and looked at me, and I was paralyzed. Our eyes met and she shot forward, stopping inches from me. The marks on her neck were more pronounced than before, and her color seemed more solid as well. I opened my mouth to scream but she raised her finger to my lips as if to hush me. My lips burned as if I had kissed a block of dry ice, and my eyes shot open.
Back in the apartment, her finger still on my lips. I was lying flat on the bed, unable to move, and she was directly on top of me. Her long hair fell over her face, hiding it completely. Her weight was far too light, as if she were only the shadow of a real person, but it was there. Wherever her skin touched mine the burning was intense, the burning of ice on bare skin. She lifted her finger from my lips slowly and traced it down my cheek, the caress of a lover. If I could see her face I was sure the look I would see would be desire, her whole body seemed to cry out. I tried to speak again and her finger went immediately to my lips, searing them. I tried to move my head away but couldn't, my legs wouldn't move either. When I tried to bring my hands up they moved slowly, as if moving through a strong current of water. I brought them up, but didn't know what to do. I didn't want to alarm her but I wanted to be out from under her. The pressure on my chest was making breathe harder to take. I raised my hands and decided to brush her hair back so I could look at her face. Maybe if she could see my fear she would leave me. Her hair felt damp and dark, like touching a puddle of not quite viscous ink. I pushed the hair away from her face, but the she had no features at all, her face was just a blank piece of skin with the vague outlines of features but no breaks for eyes, mouth or nose. My scream ripped through my body and as she pushed back from me her featureless face expanded in a scream to match mine, but sounded only in my mind. As she disappeared I passed out into sweet dark oblivion.
5
I didn't check the time when I woke up, I ripped out of my confused covers and tore through the house. I grabbed my keys and wallet and hit the door at a run. I tried to call Brenda to find out how to go back to the temple, but she didn't pick up. As I made it out the door I looked around. It was still dark, but a hint of
light was peeking over the horizon. I had no idea how to get back to the temple, but I knew where a local temple was. You can't live here for as many years as I have without having some idea of the way people pray at the local temples, so I decided I would hit the 7-11 and buy some food and see if the local god could help me out until I could go back to the ghost master with Brenda.
What does a local god like for offerings? I had no clue. I picked up a two-liter bottle of coke, a couple of packs of Oreos, and a steamed bun and rode as fast as I could to the temple. There was only one old woman there, lighting her incense and saying her prayers to the idol, no master around to show me what to do. I asked the woman if she could help me, but she didn't speak English. Feeling frantic, I lined the food up on the table before the god and started to genuflect. I guess the lady realized what I wanted to do because she lit a stick of incense for me and then stood next to me and showed me how to go through the motions. I wasn't sure what to say, so asked the little idol if he could ask the ghost to find another house to haunt. I wasn't interested in the romance she had to offer me. I felt pretty stupid talking to a wooden idol, but I said I appreciated any help he could give me and then stuck my piece of incense in the big bowl of ash with the other smoldering sticks.
I turned and thanked the old woman, and she gathered my food up in her arms and gave it back to me then shooed me away. Exhausted, I went home and sat on the couch, sure that if I fell asleep the dream and the ghost would come back. After most of the coke and half a pack of Oreos I fell into an exhausted sleep.
She never came back. I have to suppose that the local god decided to help me, maybe he had a netherworld conference call with her and asked her to come onto someone else, I don't know. Brenda asked the people in my building for any information on anyone who had lived there before me, whether there had been suicides or murders in that apartment, but no one knew anything. The dreams have never returned, and the fan over the stove never shorted out again while I lived there. I hope that I never see her again.
But I know they're out there. Some nights I can feel the places she touched, just like old joints stiffening up before a storm comes. I know when ghost month comes because my lips burn and I dream of her blank face, screaming back at me as she fell back out of my world and into hers.
About the Author
Adam Tervort was born in northern Utah and grew up in the Kansas City, Missouri area. Since 2005 he has lived and worked in Taiwan as a writer and English teacher. His wife, Mei-yun, and three children, Emerson, Langston, and Adriana consider him to be a bit wacky but mostly harmless and lovable. He welcomes readers to contact him as long as they have less than eight legs, if you happen to be a spider then keep to yourself.
He can be reached through Adam Tervort.com, or by Twitter.
