A Dead Ghost

A Dead Ghost

by Damon Nomad

He woke up his heart racing, another nightmare about that night. For a moment he thought something or someone was in the corner of the room. His eyes blinked focusing on the dark area, but nothing was there. The only light was from the orange numerals of the alarm clock, 3:43. It was getting worse now that Halloween was getting close. The one-year anniversary of that horrible night was only a few days away, he had tried all year to push it from his mind. It wasn’t so bad this summer, but once summer gave way to autumn his mood became darker and his anxiety was growing each day. He shuffled into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face, there was no way he was going to be able to get back to sleep.

The dead quiet of the two-story house and the darkness outside on this moonless night increased the sense of dread. He turned on the lights in the kitchen but rotated the dimmer switch to give just enough light to make his way around and start a pot of coffee. Staring out the window into the dark woodlands as the coffee pot gurgled. The house sat on nearly a hundred acres of forest in an exclusive small community in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. The smell of coffee signaled it was ready. Pouring a cup and sitting at the counter, he reached for the tablet computer. Just to take a quick look at his portfolio balances. Knowing that was not the real reason for turning on the small computer. He looked at it nearly every day, subconsciously hoping it would not be there. Looking for proof that it was only part of a horrible dream.

There it was, the headline from the local village online newspaper from last year. LOCAL GIRL KILLED. HIT AND RUN ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT. His breathing quickened as he scanned the details he already knew by memory. Mumbling quietly, “Why didn’t you call the police?” He knew the answer.

In the side insert of the article, was a picture of the ten-year-old girl, probably from her school yearbook. An image from that night flashed into his mind. A small body covered in a white sheet of a ghost costume laying in a heap on the side of the road. Bright red blood seeping into the white fabric. She had darted out onto the county road about a mile from the entrance to the wealthy enclave. He hit the accelerator instead of the brake and had been drinking that night. That is why he didn’t call the police or an ambulance. Left her to die and sped home, put that car on the far side of the garage, and had not touched the vehicle since. He pounded a fist on the countertop, “Why did you run into the road!” Pushing the tablet computer away and staring out the window, looking at nothing in particular.

This was the first time he had been back to the vacation home since that night. It was usually where he spent the summer, since retirement from investment banking. Not this year, the fear of seeing that car again was too powerful. But he could not tolerate the Manhattan townhouse for Halloween, the noise of children and families out in the street. Dozens of people would ring the doorbell even with all of the lights out. Children were a nuisance as were the messy affairs of a family for that matter. Actually, any close personal attachment came with too much baggage. This home had been a refuge against Halloween for fifteen years. The driveway had a gate, and no child was going to walk down that dark half-mile drive to get to a single house.

But the dreams had become more intense and lucid since returning to the home. A gnawing sense of anxiety, difficulty falling asleep, and horrid nightmares were taking a toll. He finished his coffee and saw the first rays of sunlight streaming through the trees. Doing some work outside would be a nice diversion. Raking leaves, trimming some of the trees, and clearing dead limbs.

****

It was about time to call it a day, focusing on the manual labor was helpful. Just a short break for lunch, but there was a football game on TV for a distraction. The sun was setting, and the temperature was dropping. A girl’s voice shattered the quiet as he pushed the wheelbarrow. “You killed my sister.”

He spun around, the voice coming from the edge of the nearby woods. He took a step back, looking for the source. There was no one there, so a few steps forward asking in a loud voice “Who is it? Show yourself.” The wind howled and whistled through the trees, taking down some more leaves. There was no reply. He moved closer, then stopped, staring into the forest. There was no sound of footsteps or signs of any movement. No one was there. It must be his imagination and the hiss of the wind. The tools needed to go back into the toolroom in the garage and then a nice hot shower. Then cook up one of the steaks. But the voice kept rattling around in his thoughts, it sounded so real.

After dinner, he relaxed in the den listening to music as he bathed in the warmth of the gas fireplace. The clock on the mantle showed that it was nearly eight, he had lost track of time. Maybe some warm apple cider would help with sleep, there was a jug in the kitchen. He opened the cabinet and pulled out the cider. There was an unopened and forgotten bottle of scotch just behind where the jug had been. He had not had a drink since that night, no harm in having a few drops in a cup of warm cider. That soon turned into two glasses of scotch, enough for quite a buzz. Why not a few more? Medicine to fight insomnia.

He woke up sitting on the sofa in the den, the empty glass on the side table. The clock on the mantle showed it was a few minutes after midnight. The den went dark as he flipped the switch to shut down the fireplace. Still a bit woozy from the scotch, but not exactly drunk he noticed something was lighting up the backyard. A closer look from the window revealed the light was streaming into the yard from the large garage window. Staring for a few moments, thinking he had not turned on the light in the garage. Then wavering, maybe when he put the tools back into the tool room. It would just take five minutes to turn it off.

He pushed open the side door leading into the garage, pausing and listening for any sound. It was quiet, but then a muffled slow dripping sound. Maybe the car had an oil or coolant leak, it required a look. The car he drove here from the city, was closest to the door, in this oversized two-car garage. It was quickly apparent the car had no leak and the dripping was not coming from this car. It was the car on the far side that was the source of the noise, the one from the accident. Slowly moving closer, the dripping sound became more discernible, seemingly from the front of the car. He gasped, there was a pool of blood under the front of the car and it must still be oozing off. DRIP. DRIP. DRIP. How was it possible?

He stared for a moment in disbelief. DRIP. DRIP. DRIP. Then ran to the tool room in the back of the garage to get some rags. Quickly returning and falling hands and knees on the spot, but there was no blood. He could feel his pulse beating in his temples, squinting looking intensely at the floor. It was dry, just an old stain from a spilled can of reddish wood varnish. It had been there for years. He stood up, his attention drawn to the near corner of the garage. Now realizing that the water faucet in the small basin in the corner was the source of the dripping sound. With a twist of the knob, the dripping stopped. Was it the booze or was someone tormenting him? There was no sound of a dripping faucet when he had arrived or came in and out for the tools. That was crazy, he was not listening closely before. It was the booze playing tricks on his mind. No more drinking for the rest of the stay here.

****

Halloween morning he woke up, surprised and a bit confused that no dream had disturbed his sleep last night. Hoping to put it all out of his mind as he headed down to the kitchen. But the sense of dread and dull anxiety were persistent. Sipping a cup of coffee, the fresh memory of the voice came back to haunt him, you killed my sister. According to the newspaper article, the older sister was supposed to be babysitting her only sibling on Halloween. The little girl slipped out of the house, she wanted to go trick-or-treating with friends. The teenage girl was wracked with guilt and had to be hospitalized and sedated according to the story.

He opened the tablet computer doing a quick search, remembering that the sister’s name was Madeline. There was an article posted last night by the village newspaper, about the hit-and-run death from last Halloween. According to the paper, there were still no suspects and Madeline was in a psychiatric ward in a nearby town, the parents divorced and alone. He was relieved there were no suspects but felt a twinge of guilt. A family was destroyed that night, one sister dead and the other insane. But there was also a twisted sense of satisfaction that the sister could not have been out in the woods days earlier. He would finish off the yard work, and a few things around the house and head back to Manhattan in the morning. A feeling of dread kept tugging at him, but he pushed it away. Telling himself it would be better after Halloween passed, a raging battle at the edge of his conscious mind.

****

After a shower and dinner, he got out the apple cider but left the half-empty scotch bottle in place. A few warm cups of cider might yield a good night’s sleep. The sun was falling below the horizon as he glanced out the window. Something at the edge of the forest caught his attention, something white. His face moved close to the pane of glass his nose nearly touching the window. It looked like a child covered in a white sheet decorated with the eyes and mouth of a ghost. He stared waiting for the mirage to disappear. It was motionless on the spot.

He pulled his coat down off the rack and grabbed the flashlight near the back door and slipped outside. The figure bolted into the woods before the light of the flashlight landed on it. He gave chase nearly running, intent to get to the bottom of who was doing this. Chasing the sound of footsteps quickly moving through the woods and catching the occasional glimpse of white. His breathing became labored, the pursuit was taking longer than expected, but he was not about to stop now. There was an opening up ahead, the county road.

The white specter was visible on the other side of the road as he got near the edge of the woods. A quick dash across an empty field and it would disappear back into a thick forest. He picked up his pace, obsessed with catching his tormentor before it could make it back into the woods. His concentration was focused on the white ghoul as his foot hit the pavement. He never saw the headlights.

****

The state trooper sat in his cruiser, finishing up the paperwork from the accident report. Nothing the driver could do, the guy with the flashlight ran out of the woods right in front of him. Why was this guy running through the woods in the dark? The trooper got out and took one last look around, he had been at this same spot last year. He had seen the lifeless body of the little girl run down by a hit-and-run driver. A depraved soul left the little girl to bleed to death on the side of the road. One year to the day on Halloween. He shook his head as he watched the coroner’s wagon drive away with the body. Silently wishing the monster who ran down that little girl would come to a similar fate and spend an eternity in hell.

****

Madeline’s eyes fluttered open, her mind groggy from a cocktail of drugs. Her little sister was at the foot of the bed, nearly translucent shimmering in a white light. “Madeline, it is time to let go of your guilt. It was not your fault and tonight the man who killed me paid the price with his life.”

Madeline’s mind struggled to understand what was happening but was sure that she was not dreaming. She had heard her sister’s voice before telling her to let go of the guilt and saying it was not her fault. She had stopped telling the doctors about the voice, for them it was evidence of her madness. But never had her sister made herself visible. Madeline grimaced, her sister had been such an innocent soul, had she become evil in death?

She knew what Madeline was thinking, she gestured with a wave of a wispy hand. “It was not me. I did not torment or cause him harm. It was his guilty mind and fate that did the deed. Go back to sleep, dear sister.” She faded from view, there were other powers at work on this side of the veil that she did not mention. Dark spiritual forces nudging the man along the path to retribution. Her sister did not need to hear of these things or about the place where the killer had gone.

Word Count 2375
Prompt: Halloween