It's Probably Haunted

Chapter 28

Mina and Calvin stayed gone a long time. In their absence, I had plenty of time to come to terms with their relationship. I decided that it was probably best for me to stay away from the whole topic of necrophilia and that they probably had more in common with each other than her and I ever could have. I waited for their return for weeks, never once seeing Mrs. Belleflower, until I woke to find Calvin hovering above me.

He told me that Mina hadn't wanted him to come back. He told me that she had yet to forgive me for acting like an idiot. I think I made some smart ass comment that Calvin didn't seem to appreciate. He told me that maybe it had been a mistake for him to come back and I told him maybe it had. He told me that he had been worried about me and wanted to make sure I was doing alright. I told him he should worry more about himself and he told me I might be right. We stood in an eerie silence for a time after that. Neither of us knew what to say and the awkwardness of the situation only intensified as I clarified the details of his death.

Calvin's slack jaw was enough to tell me that he understood the implications of what I told him. Had he not already possessed the feature, I would say his face turned as white as a ghost. I couldn't help but think he owed me a bit of gratitude for indirectly helping him find the girl of his dreams as I assumed he saw her. His face blended emotions into a frenzy of anger, sorrow, and betrayal. His friend had killed him. He had lived through a life of drug filled fallacy that had forced him to steer his life in a new direction. A direction he hoped would spare him the duty of a young corpse. Yielding at every sign of caution along this new road, he never expected to be stopped in such a small town; or by someone he had learned to trust.

I suppose we all take a wrong turn a time or two in our lives. Speaking of, we should be coming to an end of our journey soon. The house should be coming into view before we know it. In the meantime, I'll continue to tell you about how I ended up out here in the first place.

Calvin floated wearily around the room; puffing on his finger frantically. It seems that even ghosts can have their nerves rattled when presented with something sufficiently terrifying. Learning that I had taken his life away from him seemed to finally force him to address the fact of his death. The lack of grief on his part had caught up with him and was wreaking havoc on his ghostly good will.

As I watched him displace across the room, I began to fear that I may have awakened something in Calvin that neither of us was prepared to see. Blue and red light began to encompass the apparition of my fallen friend. A vortex of violet emerged and he appeared to glow with rage. His emotion overtook him as he stared into my eyes; a wild look never before expressed by this simple son of rock n' roll.

I feared this new form and backed away until I had pressed myself against the wall. Calvin continued to come closer to me until he was near enough to touch my heart. His finger drifted over my shirt, crossing over my heart, and then he was backing away. He told me that I would never see him again. Inside, I knew that I wanted him to stay but my mouth refused to say the words. Instead, it formed into a sick smile and told him that it was about time. It told him that I didn't need him or anyone else around; that I could overcome anything that was thrown at me and that I didn't need a damned person to save me.

I had been expecting another force of violence similar to the one presented by Mina. Especially after telling Calvin that I had killed him, I expected some sort of retribution but it never came. He simply looked at me, most likely with pity, and disappeared like he had never been there in the first place. I suppose he never really was. His body had drifted around our old apartment, settling in one seat or another, wasting time on the eternal clock. He had let the minutes pass by and had cultivated nothing in the interim.

The thought made me take a look at myself and my own situation. I had lived through enough years to have something to show for it but when I looked around I saw nothing but an empty house. Free of the clutter of a family or friends. No personal belongings scattered across the floor or beloved pet peeing on the rug. No indication that anyone lived in the house or had ever really been there. I looked into my mind, searching my memories for lost artifacts of familiar faces; something to hold onto and call my own. Something to prove that I was more than just another ghost passing through on my way into eternity.

The room taunted me with its inhospitable appearance. The veil was momentarily lifted from my eyes and I began to see the house for what it truly was; a place that kept me trapped within its walls for nothing but its own amusement. Even with two less ghosts, the house posed a greater threat than any of the spirits haunting me. It was a constant disaster waiting to happen; a mystery behind every door. One wrong step and everything could fall apart, maybe even come crumbling down around me. These thoughts had never entered my mind, or if they had, had never made their way through the misinformation I was being fed by unseen forces. Between nature and nurture, who is to blame for the actions of a man possessed?

A new opportunity presented itself as I opened the front door and peered out into the wilderness. Gone was the mountain and forested terrain. In its place was what I recalled as the original driveway with an unobstructed view of the road off in the distance. The sun was shining and the world seemed more inviting than I had ever remembered.

Calvin's keys were still jingling in my pocket and I pulled them out; looking them over like an archeological discovery. My last trip out onto the road had been less than the enjoyable run to the store I had been hoping for and I hesitated to make another attempt. With a clear head, I weighed the outcomes of either scenario.

If I stayed in the house, any number of wild things may happen as I let my boredom and curiosity lead me into trouble. If I left, an entire world of problems could be waiting for me at every turn. I felt like the choice was too hard and considered just smoking a cigarette and sitting on the porch; trying to balance the virtues of the outside world with the convenience of staying where I was. I hadn't even thought about the car having any gas but I assumed the road would take care of that and provide me. Another dozen minutes rolled by with another cigarette and I descended the stairs and opened the driver door to Calvin's car. Calvin's time behind the wheel was over and as I looked over the interior, the crushed cigarette butts, fast food wrappers, empty soda cans, and "misplaced" job applications, I knew that I had to go.

The wheels spun and my gears were turning. I left the driveway and turned left onto the road. Fields of corn and rows of wheat passed by at a hundred miles an hour. Blurs of cows and horses grazing, an occasional patch of trees; bleak splotches of scenery. As I drove, my foot pressing harder on the pedal every minute, I began to wonder why the road never curved. No matter how far I went, things always seemed to be coming to the same place. The same things I had seen reoccurring a thousand times. I found it easy to fall into a rhythm. As things continued on in the same fashion forever, I accepted that I could not change my destination. All I could do was plan out a point of arrival and try to get there as safely as possible. Along the way, I may run into trouble, I may get lost, I may never find my way home again. I was trying to imagine where I wanted to be when the car started to sputter. I checked the gas gauge and it told me it could go no further. The car slowed to a halt and I stepped out and looked around.

Still surrounding me were the fields lacking dreams; the stalled silence of a leftover region. I was yet to see a car carrying another conscious being through the never ending story of crops. I leaned against Calvin's car and lit up another cigarette to pass some time. It tasted foul and stale and I crushed it out after only a few puffs. I hadn't considered my level of thirst before leaving the house and my carelessness was catching up with me. I wanted to wash the taste of tobacco from my mouth and knew I would need refreshments if I was to begin a long walk into the unknown. Unfortunately, like I said, I had forgotten to bring anything and was destined to walk the earth with a foul taste in my mouth; a feeling that only time would wash away. It's going to be alright. I told myself that as I started to walk away from the car, away from the house, away from anything I had ever known. I never even turned around to watch my past disappear.