No Fear

by Darcia Helle

  Nonstop flights to Copenhagen, Madrid, Shanghai. All sold out. The next flights to Paris and Rome were several hours away. And so she chose London. An open-ended ticket with no return date. She thought she’d stay four or five days. Maybe two weeks at most.

  That was four months ago.

  She’d purchased socks and underwear, a coat, another pair of jeans, and two sweaters. Last week she bought shoes, because she’d worn a hole in the sole of her sneaker. She spent time in five different hotels, the cheaper ones, away from the tourist areas. She ate alone in diners or took fast food to her room. And she sat on this park bench, watching people live their lives.

  Now and then Jane allowed herself to think about the powder-blue house on the cul-de-sac in Maine, with the rose bushes climbing over the picket fence. The bank would have taken it by now. All her possessions thrown away or auctioned off. Someone else drinking coffee out on the wrap-around porch. The new owners living with the ghost of before.

  Squeals of laughter drifted through the air. Children chasing one another, chasing birds, skipping and hopping. Mothers in groups, watching their children while sharing the ordinary details of their ordinary lives. Jane saw the woman who’d scurried by her moments ago, dragging her child away before she could catch something from the stranger on the bench. The woman stood tall and prim, with her perfect hair and manicured nails, and Jane had a sudden urge to confront her. To tell the woman she wasn’t homeless or mentally ill. She wasn’t poor and in need of a handout.

  In fact, she had quite a bit of money. Charlie had made sure of that, just two weeks before their wedding.

  A million dollars in life insurance, Charlie?

  I want to know that you’ll always be taken care of, no matter what.

  The no matter what had happened one month shy of their third anniversary. A quiet Monday night turned into a nightmare when the intruder crept in through the back door. A sharp, glistening knife. Her own scream ringing in her ears. Spaghetti sauce all over the kitchen.

  Charlie ran in from the garage, where he’d been sanding the flaking paint off the antique rocking chair they’d found at an estate sale the previous Saturday. The intruder had Jane by the hair. Told Charlie to sit down and keep quiet, that he wanted some quality time with Jane and would leave when he’d finished with her. Whiskey and tobacco on his breath. Charlie had run straight for the intruder, heedless of the knife. He yelled for Jane to run.

  Jane made it out to the living room. Dialed 911. Shouting, and furniture smashed to the floor. Charlie crawled down the hall, bleeding out on the newly polished hardwood. He made it into the ambulance, expelling his last breath on the way to the hospital.

  Police interviews, final arrangements for the lifeless body that had once been Charlie. Cremation and a private goodbye. Scattering his ashes into the ocean, salty tears and salty air.

  The intruder was identified as Thomas Bradley, an angry man with a history of assaults and one pending rape charge. He’d been out on bail, had skipped his hearing, and found his way to Jane and Charlie’s home instead.

  What do you do when everyone you love has been taken away? Her mother had died from rare complications during a routine surgery the prior year. Her father had died of a major heart attack the year before that. She was an only child, and she and Charlie had no children. They’d wanted them, but had thought there was plenty of time yet. She learned that there was never enough time.

  Until suddenly there was too much time, with nothing to fill the endless hours.

  And, so, Jane had scattered her husband’s ashes into the ocean he’d loved. Then she’d returned to the little house on the quiet cul-de-sac, packed a bag, and gotten on a plane.

  She’d arrived in London with her small bag of random items that weren’t in the least bit random.

  The Levis were ordinary, except for the Tweety Bird patch Charlie had lovingly sewn over the cherry Kool-Aid stain. The Keith Urban t-shirt he’d bought for her on their first date, at the concert where they had fifth-row seats. The emerald green blouse he’d surprised her with, because it perfectly matched her eyes. And his favorite chambray shirt, which he wore so often that his scent was embedded into the fabric.

  A bag full of memories.

  She’d known all along that she couldn’t stay here forever. The anonymity felt good at first. No one looked at her with pity-filled eyes. No one crossed the street when they saw her coming, because they’d run out of words of sympathy and didn’t know what else to say. Here, people ignored her in a different way, treated her like the stranger she was. Polite indifference. And that was okay for a while.

  Now, though, she was lonely. But she didn’t know where to begin putting her life back together. She didn’t want to return to Maine, to the few friends who’d abandoned her because they didn’t want to absorb her misery. She wondered if she even had the energy to begin her life over again, or if it even mattered. Maybe she would return to Maine after all, if only to leap from the bridge and join Charlie in the ocean.

  An old man shuffled along the path. He was tall, pink-cheeked, and dressed neatly in a charcoal gray coat and matching Irish cap. Jane had seen him strolling through the park several times over the past weeks. Today, though, instead of walking by her with a nod, he sat beside her on the bench. “’ello, love,” he said.

  His voice was surprisingly soft and soothing. Jane nodded and said hello, her voice crackling as if her vocal chords had rusted.

  “My name’s Arthur,” he said, “and you look as if you have a story to tell.”

  Jane didn’t know what to say to this. Arthur’s bushy white eyebrows danced above happy blue eyes. She shook her head no, even as her mind rejoiced at the idea of telling someone about the hero she’d married.

  Arthur smiled at her, one of those spontaneous, bursting smiles you just knew went straight to his toes. Jane smiled back, the feeling awkward, making her self-conscious, because she so rarely smiled in this new life she lived.

  “I’m an old man and have nothin’ to do with my time,” Arthur said. “Got myself a hobby, yeah? I collect stories. I can tell you have a bloody interesting story.”

  Arthur leaned into Jane, not so much that she felt uncomfortable, but just enough so that she felt the connection. She understood that he had lost something of himself, as well, and that maybe neither of them would have to feel so alone.

  He looked straight into her eyes, and suddenly she felt a glow of hope. An inkling. The beginning of something other than the desperate loss.

  “Make you a deal,” he said. “You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.”

  And so she did. She told him about Charlie and the little blue house on the cul-de-sac. About the rocking chair, and the intruder with the knife. About how Charlie died saving her. He listened while the sun sank low in the sky. She told him that today would have been Charlie’s birthday, and Arthur said they should honor Charlie by doing something he’d have enjoyed. They went to a diner and ordered hot chocolate with marshmallows, and big slices of chocolate cake. Arthur sang happy birthday in a soft, beautiful voice, and they toasted Charlie’s spirit with their hot chocolate mugs.

  As night settled over the city, Arthur told Jane that the best gift she could give Charlie would be to live the life he’d died to save. Anything less would be a dishonor to the man she loved.

  And, in that moment, sudden clarity. Jane hugged Arthur hard, this old man with the kind eyes and the sage advice. He’d taken the time to listen, to really listen to her story. Within that story, he’d seen the sparkle she’d been missing through the tears. Charlie had given her a gift far more precious than the Tweety Bird patch or the emerald green blouse. He’d given her life, hers and his own. She could not, would not, waste that gift. She would honor Charlie by doing all she could to make this world a better place, by doing what Charlie had taught her, the thing that had come so naturally to him.

  She would love.

  Starting now.

  She wiped the tears that b
lurred her vision, and smiled at Arthur. The first real smile in more than ten months. “Now, Arthur, it’s your turn,” she said. “Tell me your story.”

  Raising the Dead

  Most people take photos to commemorate events and people; a vacation in Paris or a three-year-old’s birthday party. The images are handy reminders of a life lived. Jody took the photo to remember the fear.

  She received her first camera on her eighth birthday. It was a Nikon Coolpix and she carried it everywhere. She used it so often that her parents made her do household chores to pay for her battery supply. By the time she turned fifteen, she’d won three national photography contests. Her obsession served her well, because now, at age twenty-five, she was the lead photojournalist for the travel magazine Journey. The downside of her obsession was the tremendous volume of photos she’d accumulated. Two of her drawers were full of USB flash drives, and the beautiful, hand-carved mahogany box on her desk was filled with camera memory cards – all holding a lifetime of images. Then there were the six external computer hard drives, also full of photos.

  Today she’d decided to catalog the mess, perhaps delete some of them, and organize her life of pictures. She’d been enjoying her jaunt down memory lane, laughing at the things that had so captivated her in those early days; her mother’s toes painted bright red, her Barbie dolls’ fashion show, her cat Sneakers staring intently at the TV.

  She found photos of a sleepover party, her girlfriends all proudly showing off their first attempt at applying makeup. Her first boyfriend, Kevin, braces glistening from the camera’s flash. All the carefree joy of her youth.

  Then she clicked on this photo, the one she’d worked so hard to forget. Memory lane suddenly presented a dark detour. All the details came flooding back. She and Melanie standing amidst the headstones in the old graveyard behind the church. The sun setting and the sky showing its anger. The shrill sound of Melanie’s screams. The icy fingers on the back of her neck. Holding the camera in her trembling hands.

  Jody closed the photo, tried to blink away the frightening memories.

  The night had started out as the perfect opening for a joke:

  Two teenagers with a Ouija board walk into a graveyard…

  Jody and Melanie were average fifteen-year-old girls. They loved fashion and music. Paid a little too much attention to boys and not quite enough attention to schoolwork. The long summers seemed to stretch out endlessly. They’d yet to get their first jobs and thought time would always move at a languid pace just for them.

  One lazy afternoon in mid-July, they were hanging out at Melanie’s house listening to music and practicing walking in her mother’s high heels. Boredom drove them to the attic, where they hoped to find hidden secrets—or at least some trashy novels. That’s when they found the Ouija board, buried beneath a pile of jigsaw puzzles and a thick layer of dust. They carried it down to Melanie’s room, propped it on her bed, and pulled out the instructions.

  “Let’s try it,” Jody said.

  Melanie gave her a mischievous grin. “Not here. We need the right atmosphere. There aren’t any ghosts in my house.”

  “Where then?”

  “The old graveyard behind the church on Pine Street,” Melanie said. “At sunset.”

  “That place gives me the creeps.”

  “Exactly the point! If we want to summon spirits, we have to go where they are. Right?”

  Jody reluctantly agreed. She’d only been in that graveyard once, during the middle of the day, with a group of students from her fifth-grade class. They were learning about the history of their town, about famine and disease, the Civil War, and all their ancestors who died too young. She wasn’t easily spooked, wasn’t even sure she believed in ghosts, but the hair on her arms had stood up the entire time they walked through that graveyard. She hadn’t gone anywhere near the place since. No way was she about to tell Melanie she was afraid, though. She’d never live it down.

  The girls made up a story for their parents, each claiming to be watching movies at the other’s house. Then, after dinner that evening, Ouija board in hand, they hopped on the city bus and got off one block from the graveyard.

  Jody immediately regretted her decision. The graveyard was eerily silent. The church steeple stood tall in the distance, offering her hope of salvation. She didn’t consider herself particularly religious. Sure, she believed in God, but she didn’t so much believe in hell and the devil. She’d never worried about salvation before. And she only prayed in church, when the priest told them all to bow their heads. Still, something told her in that moment, as she stared in the distance at that church, to say a prayer for protection. So she did, silently, feeling silly but doing it anyway. Then she snapped the photo to remind herself of the fear.

  Melanie chose an old, chipped headstone and the two girls sat cross-legged in front of it, Ouija board between them. For the first few minutes, nothing happened. They held their fingers on the planchette, asking questions of the spirit world and waiting for someone to talk to them. When only silence greeted them, Jody giggled with relief.

  Not one to give up easily, Melanie read the gravestone in the dying light. “Mr. Bradley Whitman,” she said. “April 1842 to December 1873. You were pretty young. We know you’re here. Talk to us. How did you die?”

  Her tone was more command than request. Jody shivered, despite the lingering heat of the summer day.

  A moment later, the planchette jerked beneath their fingers. Jody shot a look at Melanie. “Are you doing that?” she asked.

  Melanie shook her head, her expression a mixture of fear and excitement. “No. Shh! Follow along.”

  The planchette moved first to the letter G, then on it went until it had spelled GO AWAY.

  Jody suggested they do just that, but Melanie said no ghost was going to chase her off. Then she asked again, “How did you die?”

  MURDER

  Jody pulled her hand away, breaking the connection. Melanie frowned at her. “Put your fingers back. Don’t be a sissy! Let’s find out who killed this guy.”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Oh, c’mon! Ghosts can’t hurt us.”

  Against her better judgment, Jody placed her fingers back on the planchette. Melanie asked, “Who killed you?”

  DEMON

  This time, both girls pulled their hands away. But the spirit would not be silenced and the planchette continued on its own.

  BLOOD

  CRAVE

  FREE ME

  YOU ARE NEXT

  MELANIE

  Jody shrieked, scrambling away from the Ouija board. She called to Melanie, begging her to run. But Melanie sat, transfixed and shocked.

  Jody kicked furiously at the board, knocking the planchette off into the tall grass. That’s when the icy fingers ran up the back of her neck. Cold breath on her cheek.

  Melanie screamed long and loud. Jody grabbed her hand, pulled her to her feet, dragged her stumbling down the dirt path and out of the graveyard.

  Jody and Melanie never spoke about that night. Their friendship bent beneath the ordeal and didn’t survive long. Melanie drifted to a different crowd, started experimenting with drugs. She dyed her fiery red hair black, matching her Goth attire, and rarely smiled. Jody took more photos, studied more, bought a St. Michael medal that she wore around her neck and never took off.

  Three years later, Jody went off to college and Melanie was sent to a live-in rehab center for her heroin addiction. Two weeks into her stay, she made a noose from a torn sheet and hung herself.

  Jody had never told anyone what happened in the graveyard that day. She’d never gone back there, couldn’t bear to drive too close to Pine Street.

  Her hand on the mouse, the cursor hovered over the photo. Part of her wanted to delete it, erase it from her life, pretend it never happened. She’d wanted to document the fear of a teenage girl but wound up documenting so much more.

  She blinked. A shiver ran down her spine. She touched her St. Mich
ael medal and thought of the voice in her head that had told her to pray. If only she’d told Melanie to do the same.

  The Sound of Silence

  Harry was talking again, blathering on about inconsequential nonsense that fell somewhere in the realm of I don’t give a shit. I put my book down. He took that as a sign of active listening and continued speaking. I stared at the hair sprouting from his ears and suppressed a sigh.

  We’d been married forty-four years. I should have been used to his incessant prattling. He never stopped. Weather reports, updates on the neighbors, the status of his ingrown toenail. When no one was around to listen, he talked to himself. His voice droned on, background static to my every waking moment.

  How had I managed to keep from killing him over all these years?

  I’d once found his chatter endearing. Most men didn’t have much to say. Before meeting Harry, I’d been out with a few men who collapsed beneath the strain of stringing together enough words to form a sentence. Our first night out, Harry had carried the weight of our conversation. I’d been enamored of his charm. My mother did her best to talk me out of marrying him so soon. Hazel, she'd said, you've only dated three months. Give yourself time. I’d been a stubborn twenty-three-year-old, insisting that love would conquer all.

  Back then, we’d had jobs and friends, then children and dogs to take the edge off. Now, my few remaining girlfriends constantly complained that their husbands hardly ever talked to them anymore. They’d sit with the TV remote in one hand and a beer in the other, virtually silent all day. Harry couldn’t even watch TV without giving running commentary.

  “I pulled a couple weeds from the garden this morning,” Harry said. “Saw Tonya hustling the kids out the door. They’re getting big, her boys.”