The Past is Never Far

It was a dark and stormy night. I was alone. It hadn't occurred to me then, but it would haunt me later, just how alone I was. Like a nightmare, but so real I never could escape it. They say the past is never far.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, as always...


It was a dark and stormy night. Thunder ricocheted through the city. I remember it smelled like rain. Rain, and decay. The precipitation count for Tanache, Maryland, had never been higher. For a full week had the clouds hovered above the city. Flooding had begun a few days ago, lakes heaving up over the shores, washing away the rest of autumn's crackling fallen leaves. I remember the way it flowed down the streets, the way the black Buick with its dazzling headlights splashed mud all over me as I walked home in the rain. I remember the way the streetlights glowed orange in the distance, as I left the city park and turned left, toward the old apartment building.

I didn't want to go home that night. Stupid, but there it is. I didn't think I could take one more night of watching the fan spin around on the ceiling, once, twice, three times. I didn't think I could stand the gibberish playing on the news one more time. I didn’t think I could stand…but best not to think about that.

So I didn't go home. It was cold and windy, and the air was tense, warning. The trees shook. I remember the shivering of the leaves sent a chill running up my spine. The blasting wind stung my bloodshot eyes. Everything felt strangely unreal, the dreamlike way you feel when a sudden noise has startled you from sleep.

I don’t know what led me to the little store on the outskirts of Tanache. I don’t know how long I stood staring at the apparently closed junk shop, or how the pitch blackness fell around me as I dwindled the last few moments of twilight on the ghost town that was High Street. I only know that after a while, after what seemed like hours in the chill of late-October evening, the flaring of a lamp broke my trance. The door creaked open. I knew, deep down, that I shouldn't enter. I should be home, I should be somewhere, anywhere but here. But it didn’t matter. I knew, even as my foot brushed against the doorstep, that I couldn't face the drafty corridors of the apartment building again. I knew even as a shut the door behind me that I was sealing my fate. But I didn't care.


“I didn’t think you’d show,” the voice whispered from behind me. It took all my discipline not to jump. I held my breath until I was certain I wouldn’t scream. Then I heard my own hoarse voice answer.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

He laughed. I couldn’t see his face in the murky storeroom, with only the diffuse spark of the lamp to light the shop, throwing shadows against the walls. I couldn’t see anything. A clock was ticking somewhere behind me in the store. So many times I’d walked past this place since last October -- but I never once entered. How could I? Too many old memories. The past is never far. The day before it happened, I stood in this place. I bought a few odds and ends, nothing really special. I remember hearing that grandfather clock tick-tick-tick. At the time, I had thought idly, maybe one day I’ll have a clock like that. Antique wood, with a gold pendulum flashing in the light. There was just something so old-world romantic about the idea.

A soft hiss of air brought me back to this night. The gentle crashing sound of liquid cascading into a tumbler guided me to him. My eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness. I could see his faint outline silhouetted against the shadows now, the gleam of pain in his gaze. I swear the temperature dropped as I approached. A shiver racked my body as I wondered if history really does repeat itself. I felt my breath catch in my throat.

“Something to drink?” he asked me. I shook my head. He should know me better.

He pushed the glass into my hand anyway. I looked at it, but didn’t touch it. I was afraid.

“I did nothing you wouldn’t do,” he said, turning with a shrug. “You don’t trust me?”

I tried to speak, but my throat was dry. Tick…tick…tick… “What are you doing here?”

He laughed bitterly. “Sulking,” he said. His pale lips curved into a sad, cynical smile. “Wondering if you would come.” It seemed like a long time before he spoke again, and there was no trace of a smile on his face when he did. “Hoping you wouldn’t.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” I asked. I could think of a thousand reasons, but somehow none of them were important enough to have kept me. “You came.”

“I was a fool.”

My throat constricted. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just nodded. “Sure,” I managed to whisper. I turned away. I wanted to leave. Suddenly I knew why I was here. And I didn’t want to be. God knows I didn’t want to be there. I should have learned, but somehow I never seemed to learn.

I turned to find the way out, but suddenly I couldn’t remember which way I came from.

“Truly, Janis. I was a fool. If I could take it back, you know I would.”

“Let me go,” I whispered.

“It called to me.” I could see it in his eyes, a longing. Looking back at all that had happened last autumn, he smiled sadly. He wanted to go back to that time, before last Halloween. So did I.

“The graveyard -- it called to me. You remember me saying so?” I nodded. How could I forget? I’d thought about it often enough. “It called to me. There was nothing I could do about it.”

“You lie,” I said. I don’t know where it came from -- those words, that strength. “You could have done something. You could have thought about what you left behind. You could have…”

“Thought about you?” he supplied softly.

“Yes.”

“What do you think I’m doing here now?”

“I don’t understand.”

He met my gaze. His eyes were burning in his pale, pale face. “Neither did I.”

I thought about the long, lonely walk here, about the surge of mud splashing over me, about cold water sloshing in my shoes as the Buick passed. And a face, a callous face watching me out the window of that Buick.

“You know what I fear, then,” he said. His voice was strange, tense. “You always said I was fearless, but it wasn’t true.”

I nodded. I didn't want to understand, because I didn't know how to accept it. But I understood. “You didn’t want to be the dead man walking.”

I felt hot tears skating down my cheeks. For months after Grant had killed himself, I’d asked myself why. I’d tortured myself with what I should have done to stop him. I should have known. I should have realized he was going to kill himself.

The truth is, no one ever realizes that sort of thing until too late. But somehow, everything makes sense after. The day following the funeral, you remember joking comments and bitter rants. A couple months after Halloween, I found a random email from him unopened in my mailbox. Long after the rise of invented strange noises in the dead of night, and ghosts haunting the old shop, did I remember the conversation I had with Grant that evening, a couple hours before he slashed his own throat and bled to death in this little storeroom, right by the register. The place his dad used to own, the place he would own someday, too. He would buy it and turn it into an animal shelter or something equally wonderful. He was the kind of person who would make a difference.


Before she died, my mother told me that Halloween night was more than a chance to dress up or an excuse to eat candy. It was the moment when the dead return, just for one night, just to be closer to the living. She said that there always was something different about me, a haunting connection, as though I knew stuff I couldn’t possibly know.

I didn’t know squat. Standing there on Halloween with Grant’s spirit, I realized that I didn’t know squat. The only thing that was real was a glass of poison in my hand, and the cold swish of rainwater swilling around my shoes. I remembered the promise I’d made myself after Grant’s suicide. I said that would never be me. I would never give in like that.

I swear I felt Grant’s frozen hand on the glass as I raised the tumbler to my lips. It tasted cold, like I’d just poured a bucket of ice down my throat. I coughed and sputtered. Grant’s spirit disappeared as my vision hazed over. I couldn’t see. I felt another cough, and then the warm gush of my own blood spilling over me. The last thing I did, after I broke my promise, was the throw the glass against the wall. I heard it shatter as the darkness surrounded me.