Through your Soul, Darkly (ghost stories)

Uncle Sam

I remember just a feeling of being numb when the police showed up on my front door. I'm single without kids so I knew they couldn't be here to deliver that sort of bad news. But when the officer started off with "Is Samuel Doupe your uncle?" you can't help but let that feeling of dread seep in to your bones. "We'll need you to identify the body as you're the only relative in the Province."

The rest of the night passed in a blur of unfamiliar faces and red and blue lights until I found myself at the hospital staring at the face of my dead Uncle Sam.

"Is this your uncle, miss?"

I could only nod until they pulled the sheet over his grey, emotionless face and pushed him back into his little personal freezer box in the morgue.

***

"I barely knew they guy, mom." I think this was the third time I told her this. I tapped a finger on the steering wheel of my car as I waited for the light to change. "Why do I have to get his house in order and sell it?"

Mom sighed over the car speakers, her reception cutting out in a line of static. "Uncle Sam was . . . different." The car speakers crackled again. "No one else from the family wants anything to do with him. Your father's signing the Power of Attorney papers – you just have to sell the house. You can keep the profits, it's such a small house anyway. You'll be lucky to get 100 grand for it."

I sighed as long and dramatic as I could muster. Finally the light turned green and I took off from the stop line. Tires squealed in echo of my personal drama at that moment. "I guess that's 100 grand I didn't have before."

Mom laughed. "That's the spirit honey! Call me if you need anything."

"Fine. Bye mom."

"I love you honey."

After another over exaggerated sigh, I conceded. "Love you too mom."

I grumbled under my breath as I turned down the tree-lined street to Uncle Sam's house. Small split-level and single-level ranch style houses no bigger than a three car garage sat behind immaculately maintained flower beds and eye-wrenchingly green lawns. This was definitely a retirement community. Who had this much time to spend on yard work, anyway? Uncle Sam's house was no different, tucked behind a hedge of flowering lilacs with a couple garden gnomes standing guard by the front steps.

The driveway needed work; dandelions and other weeds poked their heads through cracks in the concrete. I tried to pay it no mind. The exterior of the house itself was nicely maintained and the lilacs hid the deteriorating driveway from the street.

The garden gnomes eyed me with beady blue eyes as I climbed the steps to the front porch and giggled the keys in the lock. The front door swung open to the last few moments of Uncle Sam's life laid out in a white tape outline complete with a large dark stain on the hardwood floor at his waist. My feet became lead until I forced them across the threshold.

I beat a path to the kitchen, which was barely five steps from the front door, and coughed over the sink. My hand slapped the counter as I fumbled for my purse. The first handyman service I could Google said they could have someone out in a couple days. Maybe.

"There's something else though." I said to the voice on the other end of my cellphone. The chirpy teenage receptionist paused to let me continue. "My uncle was killed here. I have the police report. I just need someone to replace the hardwood and maybe look at the driveway."

A long and awkward pause highlighted static on the line. "Okay... um. We'll be in touch." The line went dead in a hurry.

The next morning, I ducked into Uncle Sam's house using the back door. Before I was going to put the place up for sale, I wanted to go through some of the house and remove any personal items. And honestly, I was also looking for things I could use myself. Young, single, with a crappy job, I didn't have the money for some of the bare essentials, like a nice set of dishes, or matching sheets for my bed.