Apparition

A person doesn't have to die to haunt you.

First, a quick announcement, then a little creepy fiction for your Friday.

Flames of Indigo is now behind the paywall, as I am readying it for publication. I’ve cleaned up some things, moved some things around. It was tricky producing a chapter a week. I’m happy with how it will unfold in a cohesive e-book format. It was an interesting experiment.

Many stories will always be free. Any work I create here to put out in the world will eventually go behind the wall. To gain access to all the stories all the time, a paid subscription breaks down to $3.75/month!

And now, a spooky short story for you.

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Apparition

There was a time I didn’t understand how memory can wound. Fester. Become scabbed and scar. So real it’s as if you can feel a hand on your chest each time you take a breath.

This must be that, right?

I remember how her hair fell over her eyes, hiding what she was thinking. How she picked at her cuticles when she thought no one was looking. How she passed, nearly invisible, through the halls at school, while being bounced along through the sharp-elbowed, awkward-footed crowd in the halls. Were we friends? Marginally. Hanging out together when no one else was around. You remember those kinds of friendships, yeah?

I hadn’t seen her in decades when it began. How? She looked the same. A kid, locked in that few moments. Over and over. I checked every obituary, confused. I looked at local cemetery rolls, ashamed.

It’s all my fault. My fault. It will always be my fault. And she’ll never let me forget it.

It’s the same time every year. Late Spring. I’ll be awakened by a quiet sob. She’ll be in the corner of the bedroom, streetlight curtain-filtered glow across her form. My husband never hears. If I wake him, and point straight at her, he sees and hears nothing. I quit trying to make him part of this. I gut it out alone.

All because of a night we walked home too late. Took a short cut. How I ran ahead. She won’t let me forget. Maybe she simply can’t re-live it alone.

She calls my name. Softly. “T———! Wait! Wait for me.” My body remembers how I ran. How I thought it was a joke. Yet, whatever was behind us was dead serious. Does it want me to remember it as much as she wants me to remember her?

She lives a couple of towns over. I finally found her. Married. Two grown kids. Job. I’ve considered going to her house. Standing on her porch. Would it make a difference?

Moon-pocked eyes, dull as flour. Gouging fingers on pocketknife hands. I looked back in that malignant second and I saw it. Dragging her into the trees so quickly her feet cartoonishly left the ground. She called out, but I kept running.

She stumbled home afterward, white-lipped, mother breathless with worry, cop cars in her driveway, red lights rolling, rolling across the front of her house. She only said one word, and the adults acted as if they didn’t hear. Looked at each other over her leaf-mussed head. She never blamed me out loud. Now I pay another way.

Her stare, though, after she told me it drank from her. She knew I saw. Our eyes met just as she was yanked out of sight. We didn’t hang out after that. Would you?

I can feel her eyes now as I walk past her translucent form huddled in the corner of the room. Watching me through broken fingers.

Then she stands, the shadow of blood on her arms, her neck, placing a hand on my chest. Feeling my racing heart. I am frozen in place. Minutes pass, our eyes locked. Is it as long as her…encounter?

I say I’m sorry. Every night.

She rolls her eyes as if to say, “You get what you deserve.”

Then she’s gone.

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Thanks for stopping by—it’s good to see you again,

Lyndsey