by Jasper Bark
I’m buried alive in a house full of ghosts.
* * *
You wanna see the little gal? She’s in her room like I said. That’s down the end of the landing. Can’t get enough of this old time furniture they use. You can’t see it but it’s straight out of an antique shop.
Started seeing objects after I saw the ma and pa. Began with the stuff they were holding, then I started to see the things they put that stuff down on. Can’t make out colors or nothing, just outlines in that same silvery blue light. It’s like seeing things through some kind of crazy night vision goggles.
Ghost vision I call it. Make my way round better when I’ve got the ghost vision.
Here she is. Combing her hair. I’ve watched her do that for hours. Spend a lot of time with her when she’s around.
Don’t have nothing to do when she’s not here. That’s why I love watching her. She was the first ghost I saw, so I feel a special bond with her.
My own daughter would be about her age now. Never got the chance to watch her brush her hair. Doubt her mother would let me now.
Things were different in the little gal’s time. No-one could deny her pa his right to see her. Men were respected back then. It wasn’t a household without a man at the head.
Not like nowadays, when the law don’t give any rights to a man. Don’t even let him work to support his family no more. Man can’t be a father these days. He grows up without his pa and grows old without his children.
They had no idea back then how bad things were gonna get. Be good if there was a way to reach back and tell ‘em. To affect the past from the future. To fix things so they don’t change.
That’s what I’d like to do. Reach into this past and be a proper pa. Be her pa. Take her in my arms. Put her on my lap. Brush your hair for her. Can’t tell you how much I wanna touch her hair.
Can’t though. That’d bring back the hand. The tiny cold one from the tunnel. With its little fingers chilled by death, grasping at me. Trying to pull me back to where it comes from.
Last time I stroked her hair it nearly got me. Couldn’t stop myself. I’d been watching her so long. I was missing my own daughter so bad. Stuck in here, starving for food and company.
I knew she wasn’t real so I just reached out to where I saw her hair falling off her shoulders. And I swear I felt my palms tingle. Like the ghost of a sensation. Guess that’s what you get when you touch a ghost.
But her hair moved too. Like I’d really touched it. Like I was running my fingers through it.
She screamed but I couldn’t hear it. I was too busy looking at her hair moving through my fingers. Then I glanced at her face and saw it was all screwed up. Her eyes were terrified. She jumped up and ran down to her ma and pa.
Never meant to scare her. Couldn’t believe I’d just touched a ghost. I was shocked. I backed up to the window. Wasn’t looking and I fell in the mud.
The little fingers pushed through and they grabbed my collar. Back of my neck was like ice. Tried to pull away but I was held fast. The hand was trying to pull me outside. I know it was. For a moment I felt like I ought to just give in. Stop struggling and let it.
But I fought back. I shucked off my shirt and I ran downstairs in my vest.
When I got to the dining room she was telling her ma and pa. She was jumping up and down and crying and her pa was scowling. He wasn’t listening. He cared more about her making a fuss than why she was upset.
He started shouting and marched her back upstairs to her room. But she didn’t want to go in. She was too frightened. She was clinging on to his leg and crying and shaking her head.
He was about to raise his hand to her when her ma came and quieted ‘em both down. Her pa went downstairs and her ma took her off to wash her face and tidy up.
Afterwards I watched her ma go and talk to her pa. Don’t know what she said but he looked real sorry when she was done and he went to talk to the little gal.
She was sleeping in the spare room. Guess she didn’t want to go back in her own room in case I touched her again.
I don’t think he knew what to say. He might’ve been trying to make her feel better, maybe even say sorry, but I don’t think she was listening.
Ain’t gone near her since. I daren’t.
* * *
Been here over five days by my reckoning. Those rescue crews better hurry up and find me or there won’t be nothing left to find.
My stomach hurts. Ain’t had nothing in it since I was trapped. Hasn’t stopped me shitting though. Can’t help myself, liquid mostly. Probably blood in it but I ain’t bothered to check. Don’t even take my pants off now. Ain’t much point. Gotta conserve my energy. Don’t have as much as I used to.
I got rashes on my chest and my legs too. Skin’s all sore and itching like a motherfucker.
Ain’t seen the little gal for about a day now. Don’t know why that is. Had no idea I’d miss her this much. Got to thinking about her pa and how he treats her. Ain’t sure if he don’t realise how lucky he is to have her. Or if he just don’t know how to tell her.
Anyways, it got me thinking about my own pa. He was a miserable son of a bitch. Deserted my ma and me when I was just a baby. Never got to know him when I was growing up.
Used to make up all kinds of stories about him. My ma would tell me things about him if I bugged her long enough. Had to be careful though, cos she was like to fly into an awful mood if I kept at it too long.
Weren’t her fault I guess. She was still hurt and mad at him. That was something she never got over. Weren’t my fault neither. I didn’t have no father figure to look up to. So I had to invent one from whatever I could learn about him.
I developed early and by the time I was fifteen I had the body of a man. Was also getting a bad name around the neighborhood. Didn’t see myself graduating from High School and I didn’t want any of the dead end jobs on offer, so I up and left home.
What sparked it was meeting an old friend of my pa’s. I was hungry for information about my old man and he was happy to feed that so long as I kept buying him drinks. He fed me a line of bullshit about what a mighty fine fella my pa was. How he’d do anything for anyone. How he had a heart of gold, but wouldn’t let nobody cross him. Would stand up to any man alive if he had to.
And I ate it all up. Especially when he let slip that he knew where my old man was living. Over in the next county but one. I didn’t let up on him till he told me. Then I packed my bags and went off in search of my long lost pa.
Wasn’t quite the reunion I’d planned when I found him. Slept rough for a couple of days and asked around till I tracked him down to a bar. Barman pointed him out to me, slumped over a table in the corner. Didn’t look nothing like the two photos I had of him. He was old and grey with a mouth full of broken teeth.
Barman hoped I’d come to carry him out. Instead I bought a bottle of bourbon, which I knew was his drink, and took it over to him.
Don’t know exactly what I was expecting. But I thought he might at least react when I sat down, poured him a drink and told him who I was. Instead he knocked back the drink without even looking at me. Then he up and left the bar and took the bottle with him.
I chased him outside and asked him if he’d heard what I said. He said he’d heard me but he weren’t interested. He didn’t care about no son. Told me to run along and stop bothering him.
I wasn’t done with him though. I followed him back to his flophouse and waited till it got dark. Next time he went out I cornered him in the alley and started wailing on him. He didn’t try and stop me neither. Just lay there and took it. Only stopped when my arms were tired and my fists were covered in blood. I was hollering questions and both of us were crying.
That’s when the whole sorry story finally came out. Seems he did send for my ma and me to come join him. Only the day before we got there he lost his job, fought with his landlord and got kicked out of his apartment.
He was feeling pretty lousy when he got to the bus station to pi
ck us up. When he saw us both waiting for him he just froze. He said it was seeing me what done it. I looked so much like him. He was so proud and so full of love for me that it hurt him. He knew he couldn’t be the pa I deserved. Thought he better to let some other man take the job.
He didn’t think he deserved the happiness that we might bring him. Thought we were better off without him. So he just turned tail and ran. He left town and never came back.
When he was done talking I just turned my back and walked away. He was sniveling and begging me to forgive him but I just kept on walking and never looked back. Never saw my pa again. Could be dead for all I know.
I went seriously off the rails after that. Didn’t care nothing for myself or nobody. Up till that point I’d always made excuses for my pa. Always believed he had good reason for walking out and staying away. Always imagined he’d do anything to have me back if only he could.
Now I knew different. Didn’t care what I did after that. Or what happened to me.
Till I became a pa myself.
I’d just started a year in County when she was born. Her ma sure was pissed at me, leaving her high and dry. She came round though. Even agreed to take me back when I got out.
Didn’t want her coming up to no prison gates with my daughter. So I arranged to meet ‘em both at a diner in town. Saw ‘em through the window when I got off the bus.
Can’t describe how I felt when I saw my daughter. Her ma mailed me two pictures when I was inside. But they didn’t compare to seeing her in the flesh.
Was like my guts just tumbled outta my body and hit the sidewalk. She was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t breathe.
That’s when I realized I couldn’t ruin anything that perfect. I couldn’t let her down, make her cry and break her heart like I had with every other female in my life, from my own ma right through to hers.
I wasn’t up to the task of raising her. So I just turned round, walked two blocks and caught the first bus outta town.
Course I knew just what I was doing. And I hated myself every step I took away from her. Sometimes wonder if my own pa left me cos of what I done to my daughter.
Maybe it’s cos I ain’t eaten in so long. Might be affecting my brain or something. But I get to wondering if every action does have a consequence. Perhaps every consequence creates its own action in order to justify it existing.
Don’t know if I’m making sense here. What I mean to say is, I wonder if it’s possible to affect the past by what you do in the future. Did I reach back in time somehow and make my pa walk out on us to punish myself.
Cos I oughtta be punished for walking out on my daughter and that seems about the best way I could’ve done it. Prison chaplain once told me every man builds his own private corner of Hell. This one’s mine. Trapped my daughter in here with me. Just like my pa trapped me.
Ain’t got no way to make it up to her neither. Guess that’s why I feel so close to the little ghost gal. If I can’t make it up to my daughter maybe I can make it up to her somehow.
Gets me to thinking. If I do die in here, I’m not saying I will, but if I do then that little ghost gal might be my only salvation.
* * *
Ain’t feeling too good at the moment. Just spat another tooth out. Blood tastes good in my mouth. About the only thing I’ve tasted in over a week, ‘cept for bile.
Throat’s so dry it hurts to swallow. Ain’t had nothing but my own piss to drink for days. Even that’s dried up now.
Keep thinking I should get back to digging my way out. Don’t have the energy or the urge though. Don’t want to do much of anything. Even breathing’s getting painful.
Saving my energy for watching the little gal. Have to make sure I don’t touch nothing when I do. I’ve started knocking things over in the ghost world. Picking ‘em up too.
Knocked the little gal’s bedside table over last time I saw her. I was just watching her sleep and I kind of stumbled and hit it. Usually go straight through things in the ghost world, but they’ve started to get more solid. I can almost feel ‘em now.
So anyway, the table and everything on it hit the floor. The little gal woke up and cried out so I tried to comfort her. Put my hands on her but I don’t know my strength in the ghost world. She couldn’t hear me comforting her and she couldn’t move neither. She started screaming and panicking so I let go of her and she ran to her ma and pa’s room.
Her pa was mad at her for waking him up and her ma was trying to calm ‘em both down. The little gal was crying and pointing to her room but I could see they didn’t believe her.
I got real mad at ‘em. I wanted ‘em to believe the little gal. So I reached out and I took hold of the water jug on their dresser. Didn’t think I was going to be able to at first. Had to concentrate some to get my hand round it. But then I picked it right up.
Her pa didn’t see to begin with. So I threw it at his head. Only just missed him and the jug shattered against the wall. That shut ‘em all up.
The little gal ran into her ma’s arms and her ma took her back to bed. When she was done tidying the little gal’s pa came in and sat with her till she fell asleep. He comforted her like I wasn’t able to.
I knew he was saying bad things about me. Turning her against me. I was boiling up as I watched him.
That’s when I decided I wasn’t gonna lose the little gal to him. That’s when I knew he had to die.
* * *
Ain’t certain why I pulled this floor board up. Curious I guess.
Just watched the little ghost gal come in here. She has this little ritual when she thinks no-one’s around. She pulls up a floorboard over by the window and pulls out a chest with lotsa little keepsakes in it. I’ve watched her do it a few times now.
There’s tiny dolls and other stuff in there but mostly it’s jewelry. She ain’t allowed to wear jewelry normally so she has to keep it hidden. When her parents ain’t about she puts it on and parades up and down like a little princess.
There’s one ring in particular she really loves. It’s shaped like a butterfly. She slips it on her middle finger and gets this look on her face like she’s lost in some cotton candy dream world.
She left a few minutes ago and I got me a strange notion. Cleared away all the mud, found the same floorboard and pried it up. Don’t know what I thought I’d find under there but I reached in anyways. Couldn’t believe it when my fingers hit something.
Pulled it up and there it was. Same chest I’d seen the little ghost gal with. Only it wasn’t a ghost object. It was real. I opened it and inside were the same china dolls and some ancient toy jewelry.
This was their house. They really lived here over a hundred years ago. Up until now I thought I might be imagining this. That they were just some phantoms my mind had conjured up outta the dark. But they ain’t. They were real. I’m seeing real people.
That’s why I can reach back into the past and move stuff. They ain’t the ghosts. I am. I’m haunting them.
I’m their... what was that movie called? Poltergeist, that’s it. I’m their poltergeist.
* * *
Ain’t moved a muscle all day. Wouldn’t want to even if I had the energy. Rash on my chest has been itching like a mother fucker. Haven’t even scratched it. Just been sitting here, wishing this whole stupid mess away.
Throat’s so dry and cracked I don’t dare swallow no more. Even breathing’s gonna get too painful soon. Ain’t no rescue crews gonna come dig me out. I know that now. I’m gonna die in here, trapped under all this mud.
I should die too. After what I done. I should keep dying, over and over for all eternity.
It’s her pa’s fault. Wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t tried to turn the little gal agin me. Wouldn’t have tried to kill him if he wasn’t such a bastard.
Been following him around for a couple of days. Looking for my chance.
Knew I’d found it when I saw the urn. Was a big old fancy thing, made outta marble I guess, sat atop the man
telpiece at about chest height. Probably had his ma or pa’s ashes in it.
Mantelpiece isn’t there now. Must’ve been torn down years ago, fireplace too. Was one of those big old fancy affairs.
Every evening Pa lights the fire. Don’t have no bellows so he bends really low and blows on the base of it. Reckoned if that heavy old urn were to fall on him it was like to crush his skull.
Only thing was, it was big and I was weak from not eating. Couldn’t move it more than an inch ‘fore I ran out of strength, even though it was a ghost object. Had to keep resting and moving it bits at a time. Finally had it on the edge of the mantelpiece. Ready to crush the bastard next time he blew on the fire.
Must’ve fallen asleep or something then. Cos the next thing I remember is coming to and seeing him putting wood in the grate. I got to my feet but I was kinda dizzy. Kept seeing blotches and things in front of my eyes.
I put my hands on the urn but I couldn’t get no traction. Fingers just kept going through it. The little gal’s pa was lighting the kindling. Then he sets to blowing and I knew it was my last chance. Wouldn’t be strong enough to do this tomorrow.
Focused myself and got the urn to wobbling. Strained so hard I felt something in my shoulder pop. I stumbled backwards and hit the floor. That’s when the little gal ran in.
She ran up to her pa raising all kinds of hell. Pointing to the mantelpiece and trying to push him outta the way. He reared up and took to shouting at her, even raised his hand. The little gal slipped and fell on the stoop.
Then the urn finally fell forward.
I tried to pull her up or push her out of the way, but I was too weak and too slow. The urn hit her dead on and she crumpled like a paper doll.
Ashes spilled out of the urn and mixed with the pool of liquid forming under her. Can’t see color in the ghost world but I knew it was dark red.
