by John Simpson
“I’ll have the usual,” Ryan said.
Once both men had their cocktail, Scott went back into the kitchen. “Father, you’re more than welcome to stay for dinner if you have no plans. Tonight is pasta night, and there’s plenty,” Ryan said.
“Thank you, I’d love to.”
Ryan went into the kitchen to tell Scott that Father Ken would be staying for dinner.
“Did you tell him about the ghost yet?” Scott asked.
“No, not yet. That’s next on the agenda.”
Ryan took his seat once more and smiled at the priest. “Well, now that I’ve plied you with liquor and the promise of food, I’ll get to the reason I asked you to stop by. It seems that Stanton Hall is haunted. From what I’ve read in my late uncle’s journal, the ghost has been here since at least the year 2000, wailing at times during the night. The ghost seems to have a penchant for pinching men on the butt, and it’s getting friendly with Scott.”
“Are you saying you have a gay ghost?” the priest asked with a look of incredulity.
“Yes, I guess so, now that you put it that way. In fact, Scott reports that the ghost has gotten really personal with him… in bed,” Ryan clarified.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a story where the ghost was gay, how fascinating! How do you know that it’s been here since 2000?”
“In my uncle’s journal, he begins to mention strange stuff occurring in the house starting around Christmas time at the beginning of the century. We’re now experiencing some of the same things. Tell me, Father, is there any way to get rid of it?”
“I’m not quite sure. This isn’t the same as a case of possession. Ghosts are nothing more than the souls of the departed trapped here for some reason and unable to go on their way. Do you have any idea who the ghost might be?”
“No, Father, I have no idea. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for that kind of information. So you believe we have a ghost?”
“I have no doubt that you’ve experienced something. To say for sure that you have a ghost would be impossible at this time,” the young priest replied.
“What do you suggest we do?”
“I know this might sound funny, but try and communicate with the ghost. See if you can get it to tell you who it is and why they can’t go on.”
“Do I need a séance or something like that?”
“Just try talking to it when you’re experiencing some activity. See if it has a way to communicate.”
“And if that doesn’t work what then?”
“Then maybe we’ll try a séance.”
AFTER dinner, Father Ken said his goodbyes to Ryan and Scott and left. “Well, he was of no help, damn it!” Ryan said with a laugh.
“At least he believes us; that’s something. I’d hate to think that others might think we’re crazy if they hear what’s going on.”
“I don’t know. I guess we just have to try to talk to it next time something happens. Can you do that?”
“Talk to a ghost? What exactly do you want me to say? Scott raised an eyebrow.
“Tell it to stop grabbing your dick for one thing!” Ryan replied while laughing.
“Nice. As I said before, I’ll try and get it to grab your junk and see how you like it!”
“Okay, seriously, like Father Ken said, let’s try and get it to tell us who it is… or was. That would give us a starting point at least.”
“Okay, but I warned you; you could find me jumping into your bed again.” Scott’s expression conveyed both amusement and concern.
Ryan decided to locate any records that might go back to when the family was in the funeral business. He went to the third floor to access the attic where various family archives were stored. As he pushed open the door that led to the staircase, he ran headlong into cobwebs: a sure sign that no one had been up there in a long time. He fumbled around for a light switch and finally found one.
As he looked up at the attic door set into the ceiling, he had the odd sensation that he was looking at the lid of a coffin… from the inside. Ryan shivered as he climbed the stairs and pushed up on the door. It swung up as he continued up the stairs, and he leaned it against a support beam. Very little light projected from the stairs into the attic, and Ryan began another hunt for a light switch. After failing to find one, he looked up and found several naked light bulbs with pull chains.
Ryan walked around turning on every light on he could find. The air was stale, and much of the heat from the main house was trapped up here, making it difficult to breath. After opening several small windows in the front wall of the attic, Ryan began the look for funeral records.
The floors creaked as he crossed the vast expanse of the attic floor to a ceiling-high stack of boxes. Leaning against the support beams were a number of boxes labeled “Stanton Funeral Homes, Inc.”. On each lid, someone had marked the years for the records contained.
Ryan pulled a few boxes down to see what kinds of records had been saved. The first box held files with the name of clients who had brought their loved ones to Stanton Funeral Homes for internment or other disposition in 1954. It was then that Ryan realized the immensity of the task before him. Where did he begin his research? He quickly scanned the tops of boxes and found records going back as far as 1901. There were literally thousands of files in the attic storage area. Finally, he decided that since the journal began to mention ghostly occurrences in the year 2000, that there would be the best place to begin.
He found a chair and a lamp, which he plugged into an old-fashioned light bulb fixture with a socket in the side. After he had enough light to read by, he located a box with the year 2000 on the lid and another that was labeled 2001.
Simply finding a list of names would not help in his search for the identity of the wandering soul of Stanton Hall. He needed details about the person’s death and was surprised and pleased to find logs, each covering half of a year. Even better, some of the record-keepers had scribbled personal notes in the margins. Ryan was delighted with this information, but it would take a lot of time to read about each person cared for by the Stanton funeral home.
Ryan flipped through the first volume detailing November of 2000 and began to skim through to see if anyone jumped out at him. He found that thirty-one people had been buried during that month, aged from as young as thirteen, all the way up to ninety-four. One death made Ryan pause—a twenty-three-year-old male was killed in an alley in Philadelphia and sent home to Audubon for burial. According to some personal notes in the file, Phillip Bartholomew was a homosexual. He was beaten by two men the day before Thanksgiving as he walked to a bar to meet his boyfriend. Phillip died three days after the attack. It was also noted that the attackers were never identified or arrested.
Ryan continued to read and found a physical description of Phillip: White, male, five-ten, one hundred forty pounds, light brown hair, green eyes. The injuries to the body were so severe that the embalmers had to do a lot of work so the family could have an open-casket funeral.
Ryan set this book aside, picked up the one for December of 2000, and opened it. The total body count for that month was thirty-nine, a slight increase that wasn’t surprising as death tolls tended to rise around holidays. Ryan was engrossed in the entries when a cabinet on the other side of the room fell over with a loud bang. Ryan jumped out of his chair as a cloud of dust flew up. His heart beating at twice the normal rate; he stood frozen, not knowing if Scott could even hear him if he yelled for help.
When nothing else happened for several minutes, Ryan picked up the books for November and December and closed the windows. When he turned around, all of the light bulbs were swaying from side to side. Ryan stared in fascination until the movements stopped and then quickly pulled the chains on each as he ran down the stairs and out of the attic.
At the bottom, he slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock. He leaned against the wall taking long slow breaths before he could go on. It took several minutes before his heart rate returned
to normal.
What in the hell actually happened up there? Was the ghost trying to tell him something? Ryan glanced down at the books he was holding and shoved off the wall with a purpose. His heart didn’t settle down completely until he sat down in his office. He buzzed Scott and asked the butler to bring him a cocktail.
Scott came into the office, staring at Ryan as he set down the drink. “What the hell happened to you? You look white as a ghost!” He paused. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Yeah, that’s not such a good saying around here right now. I just encountered something in the attic that didn’t seem happy that I was there. First, a cabinet fell over, scaring the hell out of me, and then the lights began to swing wildly. I grabbed the two books I was looking at and flew the hell out of there. Gimme that drink! I need it!”
“Great, piss off the ghost; that sounds like a wonderful idea! If this keeps up, I’ll need a drink in the afternoon as well,” Scott said as Ryan gulped his cocktail.
“It’s not like I did it intentionally!” Ryan replied.
“Well, intentional or not, it was mad enough to run you off from the attic, and that can’t be good.” Scott turned and left Ryan to do some heavy thinking.
Chapter Six
RYAN decided to try to match up the funeral records with his uncle’s journal to try to make sense of what was happening. He retrieved the journal from his bedroom, looking around jumpily, and returned to his office. He opened the journal to Christmas Day 2000 once more. He turned the page to the entry after Christmas morning and found a second note for that day.
Dinner was fine, but I was alone. The house seems so empty tonight.
After dinner, I decided to have a glass of sherry in the living room where the Christmas tree was warmly illuminated by the fireplace. As I sat there, I suddenly felt that I was no longer alone. I looked around but saw nothing and chalked it up to my imagination.
However it wasn’t my imagination. As I took a sip of my sherry, it felt as if someone sat down next to me on the sofa. I looked to my side and of course, no one was there, but I was shocked to see an indentation in the cushion. I said, Hello, is anyone there? My question was met with silence. I glanced around the room once more and when I came to the fireplace, the flames flared up into the chimney as if some great wind had blown on it. When I looked down again, the indentation was no longer there.
As I finished my sherry, I heard a young man crying somewhere in the room. The noise sounded close, but when I walked around trying to pin down its location, the sound moved away from me. I asked, “Why do you cry? Why do you haunt this place?” but received no answer. All of a sudden, I heard a thunderous crash upstairs—so loud that it startled me completely. Immediately afterward, the crying began again in the living room. Do ghosts move that quickly?
I turned off the tree lights and the outside lights, planning to watch television in my bedroom. As I turned toward the staircase, I finally saw it! At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but when I blinked and shook my head, it was still there! I was looking at a ghost! For it could have been nothing but a ghost. The translucent figure of a young man stared at me. I could see the staircase right through him!
“What is it that you want?” I asked. The response was a shaking of the specter’s head and a recommencement of the crying. As I looked at my ghostly visitor, I heard another crash from upstairs and realized there was more than one ghost at Stanton Hall.
“How can I help you?” I asked in hope that he would communicate with me. To my amazement, the phantom opened his mouth and I heard a whisper. “I am broken-hearted—help me!”
“Why are you broken-hearted? Please tell me!”
“I’ve lost him and I miss him!”
When I tried to find out more, the ghost vanished leaving dead silence behind. I waited another twenty minutes to see he would make another appearance, but it remained quiet. I went up to bed. When I got to the top of the stairs, I looked down the long hallway and noticed that two of the family portraits had fallen and were now on the floor. I went to my room and left them for the morning. Praying for a quiet night, I went to bed.
So, my uncle had actually seen the ghost! That was quite a bit different from just hearing it. Would Scott or I see this ghost? Was there more than one ghost still at Stanton Hall? And what of the ghosts’ response? “I’ve lost him and I miss him.” What did that mean?
Ryan quickly turned to the next entry hoping that his uncle might have given a description of the ghost. But there was no further mention of the visitor until the night January 1, 2001.
As he began to read the new entry, Ryan suddenly felt tired and closed the book on a paper clip to mark his place. He finished his cocktail and took the glass to the kitchen.
It was dinnertime, and he went to the dining room where he found Scott waiting for him. “Ready to eat?” he asked.
“Yeah, just a little tired after today’s events. You’re probably not going to like this, but my uncle actually saw a ghost in the living room one Christmas. He even managed to talk to it. When he asked why it was brokenhearted, the ghost told him something like he had lost him and was missing him.”
“Your uncle talked to a ghost? Are you sure he was all there?”
“Lemme ask you this—am I to believe that you’ve had your junk grabbed by a ghost?”
“That’s a little different than talking to one!”
“Really and why is that?
“Because… well….”
“Well what? My uncle talked to one, and you’ve been felt up by one. I’d say the two events are on par. I think I have a way of figuring out who the ghost is; in fact, I already have a clue. Let’s eat. I’m going to need a lot of energy.”
Ryan and Scott talked about the ghost and the fact that there might be more than one. Scott made Ryan promise once more that if it started to get weird in his bed, he could join Ryan in his. Ryan really didn’t mind, as Scott was very easy on the eyes and Ryan had grown rather fond of his butler. And he had to admit that the thought of being alone with a ghostly apparition was very unappealing.
THE next day the estimate for tearing down the old crematorium arrived. Ryan tore open the envelope in his office. The job quote was $95,600 to tear down and haul away the debris, in addition to restoring the earth as much as possible. The task of disconnecting and sealing all gas lines was included in the price. Ryan whistled as he read the details of the bid, but he now had more money than he would probably ever need. Since it was important to him to get rid of the macabre building, he picked up the phone right away.
“Hi, this is Mark.”
“Mark, Ryan here; how are you?”
“I’m fine. Still having problems with things that go bump in the night?” he asked with a laugh.
“Ah, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But that’s not why I’m calling today. I got a bid from Henson Construction to remove the old crematorium and it came in at ninety five thousand, six hundred dollars. Do you think that’s a good bid, or is it a tad excessive?”
“That sounds a bit high to me. Look, old man Henson is a client of the firm. Let me call him and let me see what I can do. You gonna be around today?”
“Yep, sure am. I appreciate your checking into this. I want the building removed as soon as possible, but I don’t wanna just blow money. Give me a call, huh?”
“Okay, Ryan, will do.”
Ryan felt a little better knowing that his attorney would be looking into the bid. Even though he had a lot of money now, he still had the perspective of a young guy who had to work for a living.
Ryan walked into the kitchen where Scott was just putting away the meatloaf he had made for dinner that evening. “Wanna take a walk around the property?”
“Yeah, sure. Lemme get my coat from upstairs, and I’ll be right down.”
“Great, meet me in the solarium, and we’ll go out that way.”
A couple minutes later, they were walking into the woods. It was
a brilliant, sunny day with a light wind rustling through their hair. They passed the “Do Not Enter” sign hanging from the chain and soon arrived at the abandoned crematorium.
“Is that it?” Scott asked.
“Yeah, that’s it. I want it gone as quickly as possible. Mark is just checking on the bid price to make sure it’s fair before I sign the contract.”
“Well, we’re here; we might as well walk around it,” Scott said.
They walked slowly around looking at the building trying to imagine how long it would take to tear it all down. At the far end, Scott turned and walked into the woods.
“Ryan, come here—is this what I think it is?”
“What did you find?” Ryan asked as he walked to where Scott was staring at the ground.
“This area here—it looks like dust of some kind, but it hasn’t blown away. Do you think this could be ashes from over there?” He nodded toward the building.
“Oh, it couldn’t be,” Ryan said as he picked up a stick and poked the ground. After initial resistance, the stick sank into the earth. “That’s funny; it’s not very solid here.”
“This is about a fifteen foot square area, and no telling how deep it goes. Could these be human ashes? Could they have just dumped the ashes here onto the ground without a proper burial?” Scott asked.
“No, they wouldn’t have just dumped them here out in the open like some mass grave pit.”
Just then, a strong wind picked up and began to blow through the area sending a chill down their backs. Ryan dropped the stick and said, “Okay, that’s enough exploring for the day; let’s head back to the house.”
“You’ll get no argument from me. Gee, thanks, boss; you bring me to the nicest places!”
“Oh, stop acting like a big baby. It’s probably nothing,” Ryan replied, but he had a look of concern on his face.
When they got back to the house, Scott went about his other duties as Ryan returned to his office. It was time to do some serious reading and try to figure out why Stanton Hall was haunted.
