Ghosts

I like this house a lot better than our old one. Why? ’Cause the ghosts here are a lot nicer. My folks call me crazy. Who cares? Not me. Hi mom, I’m Crazy. The ghosts at my old house were a little weird, they just wandered around moaning and kept me up all night. These ghosts talk to me, tell me stories. One story they tell me a lot is the story of this one girl, my age. They say she went insane and killed herself in the attic, and it resulted in these ghosts being trapped here. Some of them have memory problems, so they just keep telling it to me like it’s the first time. When I asked them one time why she went insane, they got real quiet.

“Dunno,” they said, but I didn’t buy it. So I did the right thing. I went to the attic.

Up there, it was dark and musty. A rotted rope hung from the ceiling, but there was no body. I looked around. The room was bare. That was okay, but the weirdest part was the absence of dust, as if someone had swept it away. With that thought came a scraping exactly like the sound of a broom. It came closer, and closer, and finally a girl stepped out from the shadows. No broom.

She gave me a curious look.

“Hello,” she said. She said it cautiously, but not as a question.

“Hi,” I said. I couldn’t really think of anything else to say. “Are you dead?” She gave me a weird look.

“Yeah I’m dead. Are you?”

“Don’t think so, yet.” She laughed.

“You think I’m going to kill you?”

“Nah, but weird s**t happens.” At this, she glanced around nervously.

“Do you know why I killed myself?” She asked.

“Um, not really, but the ghosts say you were insane.” I said before realizing that that was a stupid thing to say. She laughed, a dry, mirthless sound.

“Of course they do. They didn’t see what I saw. The monster.” She shuddered. It was clear she believed in what she saw, whatever it was, with absolute conviction. And I believed her. A f**king chain. She looked straight at me, and I realized her pupil was white. The ring around it, her iris, was thin and gold, the whites of the eye were… white. But the black hole of a pupil was white. She caught me looking and smiled. Her hanging rope began swinging wildly, banging around the room. She stared at it, turning her gaze away from me with a look of alarm. I felt cold.

“The bones of our fathers.” I heard a voice.

“The bones of our fathers.” Louder now.

“The bones of our fathers.” Split, like multiple voices.

“The bones of our fathers.” Perfect unison.

“The bones of our fathers.” Quiet.

“THE BONES OF OUR FATHERS!” Now, a scream. The girl was gone. I screamed, banged on the door for someone, now no longer feeling like I was stuck in time. By the time my parents made it up the stairs, blood stained my vison. The rotting Suicide rope was hooked around my own neck. My parents opened the door. Me, I was screaming thrashing, yelling.

“Putmedown!” I yelled in one fast breath, one word. The rope tightened, choking me off. I could no longer see with the spots dancing in my eyes.

“Do you know why I killed myself? I heard the girl’s voice in my head.

“I didn’t. They did.” Her answer rang through my mind.