The Ghost of a Little Girl.
A Micro Short Story.
For: Writer’s Block.
Fuck. You.
When my parents passed, I fell
into a depression. I don’t remember much
of the build up to the funeral, or the funeral itself for that matter. I remember sitting in my room a week later,
when February had the town in its icy grip, wondering what to do. I was there, in their old house, surrounded
by the fragments of my former life that now had two gaping holes in it. I got caught by those fragments, hanging here
and there on the moments, but the ones that kept getting me were those of my
mother saying this part of town or that bit of the house was haunted. Perhaps that’s natural – they were gone and I
wanted them back. I wanted them to visit
and stay a while.
I thought
about calling my friends. Denise was the
best choice for these thoughts, but I knew that she was behind a deadline. Davy would have gotten nervous
at the mention of anything that smacked of the otherworldly, and my brother…well,
his wife had told me that he was ready to explode like a well shaken soda. I texted the three of them – got responses
from the two D’s, and decided to drop it.
Denise was locked in her bedroom writing, and Davy was out with his fiancé. I knew they wouldn’t mind – no matter how
weird I got, I knew they’d go with it and see to it that I was ok. But…I’ve never been someone to ask for
help. Ever. The last time I did I ended up falling asleep
on my driveway waiting for the cops who never showed. Part of it was that I didn’t want to be a
burden, while another part of it was the fear of metaphorically waking up
covered in dew and dried blood.
I took up my
coat, boot, and pack of cigarettes, and I went for a walk.
I love
winter. I’ve always had a penchant for
the bleakly beautiful, and fall and winter’s melancholy has always been
peaceful times for me. Well, that and
the fact that I liked walking and felt awkward around people. That I could own the streets and walk
unmolested save for the other hermits who had rolled away their stones and
would nod in a kind of knowing acknowledgement to me. We were together in our own bubbles.
That walk,
though, I was hoping not to meet anyone.
I snagged my headphones on the way out the door and clicked the player
over to Hildur Gudnadottir – and saw that I hadn’t listened to music since my
parents died. I had been listening to
Manowar when I got the news. That was
kind of jarring – I had kind of hoped for something more prophetic than
that. I let the notes of the cello flood
over me, and I light my cigarette before heading out. I walked down the backstreet, past the rows
of houses I had seen almost every day for twenty-nine years. Under the sound of strings, in my mind, I heard
the low murmur of my parents’ voices. I
wanted to turn off the music and listen.
When I did, silence filled in around me.
And that was
when I saw her. The girl was in the type
of dress that would have been better suited to late spring or early summer –
more blue skies and sunlight through leaves than the greyness of an overcast
afternoon February. All of the colors
seemed drawn to her in that dress, and the world around her seemed to be covered
in a fine coat of dust and ash. I looked
down, and even my long green coat seemed drab now, reflecting the weak winter
light receding without its accustomed pomp to the west. All of these thoughts, though, I had
later. The only thing I could think when
my eyes returned to her was: How in the green hills of Hell was she not
freezing to death? If it had snowed, the
clouds would have been like homicidal ice cube makers than fluffy school
stoppers. And she was out in a sundress.
I shrugged
off my normal avoidance of people and directed myself to her. The too-blue dress looked homemade, equal
parts skill and love had gone into the stitches, the little white color that
reminded me of old movies and tea cozies, and poofy sleeves that might have
been added for the sole purpose of making the girl feel like a princess. When she turned to look at me, I froze. Just for a second. An instant.
“Are you ok,
miss?” I asked. I always felt stuffy and
formal around kids.
She looked up
at me with the open honesty of a kid who’s parents had never watched the
news. “Sure, mister,” she said. She could have been from central casting on
the way to a leave it to Beaver remake.
If it hadn’t been for the tire track across her chest and face. “Are you?”
“Sure,” I
said.
“You look
sad,” the girl said.
I
nodded. What else could I do? The longer I looked at her, more of her
wounds I could make out, like the pattern of wallpaper someone had painted
over. It was like that…seeing the image
of a shattered skull, fragments of the whole sticking out at odd angles while
never distorting the skin they were in. I
saw her ribs crushed and pulverized organs without seeing them. She was the perfect little girl, a cookie
cutter of Rockwell’s America…and a nightmare of gore. “I guess I am,” I said.
“Well…don’t
be,” she said. Just as simple as that.
“Aren’t…aren’t
you cold,” I asked.
“A little,”
she said. “But you get used to it. My brother gives me Indian burns sometimes,
but after awhile I don’t feel them, even if they’re still red and angry
looking.” She kept her eyes to
mine. “Do you have a car, mister?” I nodded again. “You should be careful in it.”
“I am,” I
said. “Sometimes my friends laugh at how
I drive, because I go the speed limit.
Well, closer to it than them.”
“Ok,” she
said. She looked back, a phantom hearing
a phantom voice. “I have to go. Cheer up, mister!” She waved, and turned, vanishing in the
act. I stood in the middle of the
street, listening to my heartbeat and the sounds of the sleeping world before
turning on my heel and walking back to the house. I was more confused than before, but my
mother had always said that unexpected advice tended to be the best. So I stood in the too quiet house, looking at
the two quiet dogs. I whistled for them,
and went to go get them treats before heading out to the movies.
In the week
that followed I smiled more. Not
much. I still felt the loss keenly, and
knew I would for some time to come. But
I had convinced myself of two things – one, that I had had a hallucination brought
on by who knew what, and two – that it had been right. I cheered up, and smiled more, and life began
easing into its new state of normality.
And when my buddy Jared rang and asked if I’d like to get a beer or two,
I looked over at the dogs. They now had
free range of the couch, and while they had been clinging more and more to me,
I thought we both needed a night away from each other. So I said yes.
And then
there we were, closing down the Inn. I had
wandered down, sat at the bar, and had only moved to go to the restroom when
they were kicking us out. I slurred my
through a half-hearted protest about him driving me home – Jared was in worse
shape than I was – but in the end I got into the passenger seat and he got
behind the wheel and we drove off. I
think one of the bartenders watched us go.
Can’t be sure. I didn’t go back
afterwards.
It was a mile
from the Inn to my house, and Jared had been there a hundred times, but he took
the turn too fast and we continued to rocket down the street.
I don’t know
if Jared saw her. I remember saying, “Look
out!” and getting drowned out by the squeal of breaks as the little girl in the
too-blue dress turned and looked at us.
Her face was a mask of shock, horror, and a weird “oh no, not again”
glint in the eyes as Jared’s car bowed her.
I watched…this sounds mad. I
watched her extend across the hood of the car.
Have you ever
gone driving slowly down a dark road, and noticed how the darkness seems to
slither away from your headlights, creeping across the contours of the
ground? That was what her body did, only
moving towards us. Her face slithered,
too. I can’t think of any other word to
describe it – her skin twisted and followed the line of her growing jar as her
teeth began to bend forward towards us.
They were like horse teeth – somehow worse than fangs would have
been. Ground flat from dull, soft/tough
meals and leading the vacant nasal cavity and empty eye sockets that glared
out, fury boiling from the pools of black.
She bit into
Jared’s face, blood running from the perfect white cubes as the car lurched to
a halt. Her child hands held Jared back
against the seat as I cannoned forward, snapped back by my safety belt and then
the passenger airbag. I fought it,
trying to knock it away as Jared screamed.
I heard a chorus of bones breaking as the little hands twitched across
his ribs, and then squeezed.
I spent the
next day and night in the hospital. The
hangover was the least of my worries – most of my body was bruised and my
relocated shoulder throbbed. I listened
to the police, and answered their questions.
Apparently the level of alcohol in my blood was good for something – I couldn’t
have known that Jared was worse than me.
Of course I couldn’t have. I was
so sloshed that I had seen things. I
took a cab back home once they released me, and stood outside for a long time,
looking down the road.
There had
been a girl. Both times, there had been a
girl. I knew Jared hadn’t been pulped
because of a faulty airbag, a standard steering wheel column, and enough beer
to drown a Shetland pony. It had been
her. “Mister, you look sad,” I
whispered. And I stood outside, and
waited to see if the world would go grey again.
