31 Ghosts – Returning

“Now I want you to consider whether the following story, which I shall tell you just as I heard it, is not even more terrifying and no less wonderful than the other,” so starts Pliny the Younger’s letter to his friend, Licinius Sura during the early second century CE. Though we’re going back nearly two thousand years already, there are arguably older ghost stories —   Titus Maccius Plautus wrote his comic play, Mostellaria (The Haunted House / The Ghost) in around 200 BCE. The conceit of the play relied on audiences already familiar with ghost stories. Even older, we find the Egyptian Khonsemhab and the Ghost in the Ramesside period (roughly 12th–11th century BCE).

But I want to stick with Pliny the Younger because I think there’s an important          nuance to his story. “There stood at Athens a spacious and roomy house […] In the silence of the night the clank of iron and, […] the rattle of chains were heard, the sound coming first from a distance and afterwards quite close at hand. Then appeared the ghostly form of an old man.” The noises and apparition terrorized the occupants of the house who eventually fled. Some time later, Athenodorus the philosopher arrives in Athens and checks out the scene. Not only does he witness the ghost, but he follows it to a spot in the courtyard where it disappears — the same behavior night after night. Athenodorus has the spot excavated and — wouldn’t you know it? There was a body of a man in chains hastily buried there. They removed the chains, reburied the remains and the haunting ceased. This is more than a ghost story, though — Pliny is relaying it as fact. It’s a story he’s relaying, yes, but this very grounded Roman magistrate, statesman, and writer posits it as true.

If this ancient paranormal investigation sounds familiar, it’s probably because the trope of the ghost leading the living to their unhallowed burial underpins so many ghost stories — fictional stories, yes, but it’s also the basis of true paranormal investigations. Heck, I’ve used the trope here plenty of times. It’s a story we return to time and time again because it’s effective, it rings true.

Remember that Egyptian story about Khonsemhab I mentioned a moment ago? Want to guess what it’s about? Unlike Pliny, there’s no indication it’s true or not, but it moves the needle back quite a ways when it comes to a body denied proper burial. For centuries, it seems, we keep returning to these ghost stories…

Pliny returned to the ghost by writing it down.

Where in Athens this house existed is lost to history. The house itself, the courtyard – these, too, have almost certainly disappeared or been transformed into, who knows, a parking lot? A tourist shop? Pliny and Athenodorus have been dead for nearly two thousand years, but tonight we resurrected this story from the early days of western civilization. The world has changed utterly and completely, but we keep returning to these stories of ghosts. Mostellaria returns, Khonsemhab returns. The tropes return.

For the last nine Octobers I’ve done my best to do exactly that – returning to the old stories, to the cemeteries, to the legends. Returning to personal stories of loved ones reaching across the veil and things somebody swears happened to their cousin’s roommate. Returning to some of the same tropes Pliny wrote down two thousand years ago, using a ghost to comedic effect like Plautus because you know what it’s like to be scared by that which we can’t explain and sometimes it’s gentler to laugh than cry.

And so, again, we return to 31 Ghosts.

I really want to call this year “31 Ghosts X” but having lived through the late 90’s/early aughts when practically every name had to be X-treme or Xcelerate, calling it “31 Ghosts X” sounds like some sort of millennial energy drink – “spooky, but potent!”

Though, I feel like I’ve earned the right to my silly “31 Ghosts X” moniker this year. Ten years of returning every October to summon the spirits for stories that unearth the nature of the living as well as the dead. Looking back at what we have all been through over the last ten years, none of us would claim to be the same person we were when I thought writing a ghost story for every day this month would be a fun idea. I mean, 2020 itself lasted at least thirteen years, right?

But returning isn’t the same as repetition. In our digital world, we return to Pliny very differently than when Licinius Sura opened that proverbial envelope. And I return to the tenth year of 31 Ghosts a very different person than that guy who wanted to see if he could rise to his own challenge.

Welcome back for another round of spooky stories. We’ll inevitably tread on some familiar (if unhallowed) ground, but it’s a new year – I’m a new me, and you’re a new you. Let’s see what these ghosts can tell us this year!

31 Ghosts – The House at the End of Sycamore Street

We did it again! We made it to Halloween, the 31st night of October for the ninth straight year. Thank you all so much for coming along for another year of 31 Ghosts. I hope you’ve enjoyed these stories as much as I’ve enjoyed putting them together for you. Now is the time in this editorial that I promise to write more stories or finally publish the second (and third?) edition of the print version of 31 Ghosts. But, you know what? I’m going to see what happens. As the calendar turns to November, we’ll see what happens. Maybe there’s ghosts that don’t confine themselves to October alone… Thanks again, everyone. Hope your Halloween has been spooky!

We lived on the edge of the suburbs, right up against old farmlands that climbed into the foothills. Our subdivision, like so many in the area, had been farmland not so long ago. So, when we were growing up, the old farmhouse at the end of the street didn’t seem particularly out of place.

Creepy? Very much. While our white, gray, and blue houses were cookie cutter models with still small, spindly trees struggling to grow in our newly planted yards, the Midgley place (though none of us kids had any idea who the Midgleys were – we all just knew that was the name) was dark wood, peeling paint, and rusted shutters. We’d occasionally see a car go onto the property, but we never saw anyone in the house – though Joey swore he see lights upstairs at night.

Suffice it to say, we’d all give the place a wide berth.

At least we would every day of the year except for one.

On Halloween, when we were old enough to go trick or treating by ourselves we’d always work our way down Sycamore Street, criss-crossing back and forth until we made our way to the last two houses.

We stood in front of the Midgley place, right where the sidewalk ended and the dirt road ran up the lane to the dark, imposing house lurking in the darkness.

“You said you were going to do it,” Joey said to me.

“Yeah,” Tamara said. “You’re not going to chicken out now, are you?” She was a year younger than us, but she was mean.

“Alan said he was going to do it, he’s going to do it,” Sam patted my shoulder confidently. Then, more quietly just to me, “You are going to do it, right? You’re not chickening out?”

I stared ahead and nodded. “I’m going to do it,” I said. I took a deep breath and started up the dirt driveway. I swear the night got colder and darker not ten feet after I’d left my friends watching me from the safety of the street.

I could feel their gazes on me, and I kept repeating to myself, “Don’t look back, don’t look back,” because I knew if I did I’d lose my nerve and run back. No, I kept my eyes forward on the dark porch of the farmhouse that kept getting closer as my feet carried me down the driveway.

Finally, I reached the steps. I put my hand on the railing, feeling the pronounced grain of the wood sharp and scratchy under my hand. I took one step onto the first creaking stair, and the second step bowed under my weight but didn’t break. I stepped onto the porch and felt a board crack under my feet, stepping quickly to the side before it gave way. Enveloped by the shadows of the porch, my hands were sweaty as I stepped up to the door.

I took a deep calming breath, raised my fist, and knocked three times on the peeling door. It sounded like three peals of thunder – or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. After the third knock I added, “Trick or Treat,” in a voice I tried to keep steady, but it came out as a question, nonetheless.

The door never moved. No lights winked on. I didn’t discern any movement at all. But I felt a shift in my pillowcase of candy gripped tightly in my hand. I opened the bag and looked in and there was a king size Baby Ruth sitting on top of the other candy. I gasped and stepped quickly but carefully down the porch steps and ran back to my friends at the end of the driveway.

“We heard you knock, Alan,” Sam said. “I knew you would,” he added confidently.

“What happened?” Tamara asked.

“I knocked, and then I felt something in my bag and…” I opened my bag and showed them the massive king size Baby Ruth. They all gasped. I could see them looking from the bag to the house, then back to the bag, weighing whether it was worth it.

In the end they decided it wasn’t.

Over the course of the year, the story had grown through retelling to include phantom lights, somehow a glowing dog chased me… I don’t know who or how it got embellished. I certainly never added to it, but I wasn’t going to complain when, in the retelling I managed to come off as some incredibly brave adventurer. But that next Halloween, they dared me to do it again. And I did. And I got a king sized Butterfinger. And still, no one dared try their luck.

The Midgley place got knocked down before the next Halloween, so I didn’t a chance for another king sized candy bar. They turned the whole property into a county park, complete with planted trees that grew up with me. By the time my parents sold me their house, the trees were respectable and the park seemed overgrown and darker than it should be at night after the park rangers locked the front gate.

So when our own twins were old enough to trick or treat on their own, I might have eavesdropped on them being dared by their friends to go see the phantom lights in the park on Halloween.

But that’s a story for another Halloween…

31 Ghosts – The Birthday Shade

We’re one day away from the completion of another year of 31 Ghosts. And, as is tradition, today is a birthday ghost story. I’ll be honest, I went through the last EIGHT YEARS of birthday ghost stories looking for… not inspiration, but some sort of blueprint. Coming into this year’s 31 Ghosts I started by looking for the same thing – what did this year mean? What am I trying to say? And then, tonight, what does this, my fifty-first birthday mean?

Dear reader, I don’t have an answer. But I have a story. I have a birthday ghost story for you – the ninth birthday ghost story, in fact. It’s been a great year so far, and I know we still have one more night to go, but thank you for coming along for the ride this year again. Let’s close out my birthday with a Birthday Shade.

I don’t know if it had been there for every birthday in my life, but I distinctly remember my sixth birthday. We were coming back from Bullwinkle’s Restaurant. The house we were living in had a big porch out front, and I remember walking up the steps ahead of my family and seeing the dark shadow seated on the porch swing. I blinked rapidly, but it didn’t go away. My family caught up with me and my dad moved past me saying, “What’s got you stalled there, squirt?”

They clearly didn’t see it. So, my young mind figured, neither did I and I hurried after my parents and sister into the house.

That’s how it went for a number of years – every birthday. When we were still in that house, it would be right there on the porch. When we moved into an apartment three towns over when I was ten, I remember it leaning against the hallway just past our door. Then I remembered it distinctly because where I could convince myself after the fact that the shadow wasn’t actually an entity, but a trick of the dim light under the cover of the porch. That year in the apartment building, though, the fluorescent lights overhead illuminated everything evenly – even the dark void that made up the shadow entity. Still, though, I hurried inside without so much as a second glance, another birthday, another sighting of the entity.

Maybe it was newfound bravado when I hit my “teens,” but on my thirteenth birthday we were living in the back half of a duplex on the east side. I came around the side of the first unit and spotted the shadow entity squatting on the far side of the front door. I saw it, it clearly saw me, and I nodded at it. That’s all, but that was unprecedented. That was bravery personified for newly-minted thirteen year old me.

And it nodded back.

When it did that my blood froze in my veins. But I was a cool, mature thirteen-year-old. I did my best to play it off like it was no big deal that this entity that had been haunting my birthdays for as long as I could remember just nodded at me. I slowly, carefully closed the front door behind me before I started hyperventilating.

Two years later my dad died. He’d had cancer for a while, but I… I don’t know. I guess I knew – hard not to when words like “terminal” and “incurable” get tossed around. But he was my dad and dads don’t die. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t stop when dads do, in fact, die. And a month later, I approached the front door of the tiny two-bedroom prefab house we were living in. In the bleached-green plastic lawn chair next to the door, the shadow entity sat.

“Hey,” I said starting up the three steps to the door.

“Hey,” it responded, its voice deep and sonorous, coming not from the entity exactly but from the whole area of the entity.

The voice stopped me. It should have scared me. Any other year it would have terrified me. But not this year. “This year sucked,” I said, anger seeping into my tone.

The entity nodded.

“This isn’t how life is supposed to be. Dads don’t die. And I shouldn’t have a birthday without my dad.” Hot, angry tears came unbidden and unchecked down my cheeks.

The entity nodded again.

“That’s it. That’s all you’ve got? You’ve been here every…” I sought a word that sounded profound, sounded adult. “You’ve been here every fucking year and that’s all you’ve got?”

The entity stared at me. And then it sighed deeply. It was the sound of a strong gust of wind gathering and passing through a tall forest, rustling all the branches on its way. The sound of a deluge of rain trailing off into a sprinkle.

I stared back, but the fight had left me. Without anger, without vitriol, without enmity, I opened the front door, stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

The next year I got my license on my birthday – Mom took me straight to the DMV after school. We got home, but before I got out, Mom asked me to go get milk from the store, and she got out of the car. I stared at her but her smile told me she wanted me to use my newly minted license. I smiled and nodded back before pulling away from the curb. She was already inside when I returned fifteen minutes later. Walking up to the door, I saw the entity sitting in the same faded green lawn chair by the door.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” it responded.

“This year was better,” I said shifting the gallon of milk from one hand to the other.

“I’m glad,” it said and regarded me as I nodded again and went inside.

My first year away at college, I found the entity standing by the door to my dorm room when I finished my classes for the day on my birthday. The hallway was empty – it was still early in the afternoon – so no one was around to overhear me talking to – what must have looked like to anyone else – myself.

“I didn’t think you would be here this year.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” It asked in that resonant directionless voice.

“Yeah…” I said. “You’re here for me, then?”

It nodded.

“Huh…” I said, thinking about the implications as I unlocked my dorm room door and stepped inside. I closed the door and then immediately reopened it, sticking my head out and saying to the shade, “Thanks.”

It nodded back.

In that first year after we got married, Nancy and I were living in that tiny little studio on the other side of the campus where I was going to grad school. As had been the case recently, birthdays haven’t stood much on ceremony, and I had just finished the office hours for the Intro Lit class I taught when I saw the entity standing by the front door. “Hey,” I said, smiling.

“Hey,” it responded.

I sat on the stairs next to it. “I’m married,” I said.

“You are,” it agreed.

“Did you know Nancy is pregnant?”

It nodded.

I sighed. “I haven’t told anyone yet. I don’t think she has either. It scares the hell out of me…”

The entity stared at me.

For some reason, I found that funny and laughed. “Am I ready for this?” I asked.

The entity was quiet for a moment then responded, “Are you ever really ready for anything?”

“Yeah… no. No, that’s a… that’s a solid point,” I said, nodding. “Thanks,” I said, getting to my feet and going inside to kiss Nancy who surprised me with a homemade confetti cake.

The entity sat on the porch swing I had built the previous year. I stepped up on the porch as the taillights of the old Subaru headed back down the street. I sat on the opposite side of the porch swing next to the shade. We sat there on the porch, looking out at my front yard in silence. Finally, I broke the stillness. “How is she already driving?”

“You’re fifty today,” the entity said in that same deep voice.

I sighed deeply and laughed. “I sent her to get milk.”

“You’re lactose intolerant.”

“It’s the principal of the thing,” I waved a hand. “You know…”

The entity nodded.

We were both quiet for a long time. So long, in fact, that the lights of the old Subaru flashed across the porch as Sasha pulled into the driveway. She turned the car off and practically bounced across the driveway and up onto the porch. She bounded onto the porch swing right where the entity had been sitting. She looked at me with a grin a mile wide. Then she held up a small carton.

“Almond milk,” she said. “You’re lactose intolerant.”

I chuckled to myself and nodded to her.

She dropped the keys to the car in my hand and bounded inside with a quick, “Thanks dad!” as she closed the front door.

I turned back to the entity who sat on the end of the bench still. “Same time next year?”

The entity nodded.

I stood up and walked to the front door. Opening the door, I could hear Sasha giving Nancy a breathless play-by-play of her driving test. I smiled and turned back to the entity. “Next year?”

It nodded.

“Thanks,” I said, closing the door behind me.