31 Ghosts

31 spooky tales for October

31 Ghosts – Mirror, Mirror

When Alan saw the antique full-length mirror on the side of the road he stopped immediately, looked around for its owner, and then put it in the back of his truck.

“I know how much you love this old stuff,” he said tapping the end of the mirror protruding from the bed of his Tacoma.

He was right. Surprising me with old furniture is my love language.

And the mirror was amazing! It stood a full six feet tall, the bronze-colored wooden frame was so ornately carved that I wondered if we should get it appraised first. No, that didn’t feel right. It needed its place.

I helped Alan haul it inside. I knew exactly where it belonged – our bedroom, just to the side of the closet. Not in line with the bed – that’s bad feng shui – but still nearby so I could check out my outfit in the morning. Once in its place, it felt right, calm. I patted the intricate frame and was surprised that it felt warm to the touch – not warm like it just came in from sitting in the sun in the truck bed, but almost hot, like body temperature.

Almost immediately I noticed something so weird I thought it was a flaw in the glass or my mind playing tricks on me. When I looked at myself in the mirror, my reflection would be just a little bit off – not in a fun-house way, distorting my proportions, but like I would move my hands to pull my hair up and my image seemed be just a moment behind my physical movements. It felt like a lag of some kind.

Everyone has encountered lag when dealing with online meetings and such – this was similar, but it was a mirror, not some trick of a network. I stood and walked towards the bathroom and watched my reflection stand and retreat towards the bathroom… I shouldn’t have been able to discern a lag, right?

When I talked to Alan about it he dismissed me as just out of it. We both stood in front of the mirror and gesticulated wildly – there was no lag whatsoever.

“See, Trish? It’s fine,” he said and walked out of the room. I stared at his retreating figure in the mirror and saw my image smirk just a little out of the corner of my eye. I looked directly at my image and the smirk was gone – it was just me looking surprised and a little pale.

I didn’t see my image look any differently again, but the delay was there – sometimes a full second or two behind, sometimes barely any lag at all. But something was wrong with the mirror.

One night when Alan was away on business I was getting ready for bed and my peripheral vision picked up the delay of  my image in the mirror and it started getting to my head. I draped a sheet over the mirror, finished getting ready for bed, and then went to sleep. When I woke in the morning, the mirror sat uncovered, the sheet balled up on the opposite side of the room – the sheet would have had to have passed over the foot of our bed.

I was wary of the mirror after that. I tried not to stare directly at my image and, if I could avoid it, I wouldn’t look at my image at all. I tried to move it, turn it towards the wall, but I couldn’t budge it. I thought about asking Alan to help, but what would I tell him? The mirror has lag? It smirked at me? I just did my best to ignore it.

One Saturday morning, though, I caught my reflection in the mirror as I walked towards the closet. Again, my image seemed just behind my actual movements. But as I was about to turn past the mirror, a motion in the mirror caught my eye. I turned towards it and my image was waving at me. I actually looked at my own hand to make sure it wasn’t moving of its own accord – no, it was just the hand in the mirror that moved. As if to confirm my conclusion, my image smiled and nodded.

I waved back, hesitantly.

My image stared into my eyes, and it reached out its hand towards me. My heart raced and I don’t know why, but I extended my arm towards the mirror. Just as my fingers were about to touch the fingers in the mirror, my image’s smile turned predatory.

31 Ghosts – Passengers

A number of taxi drivers in Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Japan reported picking up phantom passengers years after the earthquake and tsunami devastated that community. That was my inspiration for this story that I transplanted here in California and swapped the tsunami for one of our devastating wildfires. The towns mentioned don’t actually exist – I didn’t want to use the names of actual towns that were destroyed by real fires. This burn area is fictional, but in too many ways, far too real. So far this fall we’ve been blessed to not have a season scorched by wildfires. I’ll take the respite, even if – like most Californians these days – I keep a bug-out bag handy.

Surprisingly, the first time I picked up a ghost in my cab I wasn’t afraid at all.

It was the first in what would become a pattern. A person would flag me down and climb in. The first was a middle-aged man. His clothes were mismatched and disheveled – like he threw them on at the last minute. I waited for the door to close before I asked where he wanted to go.

“Elk Meadow,” he said tersely.

“There’s not much left there since the fire,” I said. My own house was destroyed in the fire that decimated the town two years ago. “You sure?”

I looked at him in the rearview mirror. He stared out the window and just said, “Yeah.”

So, I turned the meter on and drove.

My heart beat faster when we reached the first burn scars along the side of the road – my therapist says that’s PTSD. She’s probably right. “Did you lose your house in the…” I looked in the rearview mirror and the backseat was empty.

I pulled over in what was once a driveway but now was just a pullout where someone might rebuild. I turned around and stared where the man had sat just a moment ago. Like I said, I wasn’t afraid. I looked out the window. Low grasses had started coming back, but the dense oak and madrones that lined the highway were gone or burnt skeletally black sticks.

That was my first, but far from my last.

When the wildfire came, I was working down in the valley – driving, of course. I probably would be one of those ghosts myself as the high winds drove the fire like a freight train through our neighborhood. I still have nightmares where I wonder if the ones who never knew it was coming had it better than the ones stuck in their cars in the traffic-jammed, twisty mountain road out of Elk Meadow. I lost neighbors that were caught by the fire both ways. I closed my eyes tightly and turned the meter off.

The woman with the teddy bear broke my heart. Thirty-something. Long nightgown just as the sun was setting, holding the bear by its arm. “Where to?”

She closed the door and slowly turned her gaze towards me. Desperate eyes met mine and I could see the anguish and terror plainly. “I…I…” she stammered, her eyes pleading for something. “I don’t know…” she finally said and even as the words echoed between us I could see her fading into the gathering darkness.

I’ve talked to some of the other drivers, of course. We’re a small outfit out of Tulebrook with drivers from the surrounding communities – most outside the burn area, but in these small mountain towns no one doesn’t know someone directly affected. A couple of the guys didn’t say anything, but the way they didn’t say anything told me they’d had these kind of passengers. Nobody but me, though, seemed to have multiple passengers.

After a nervous looking older man lasted all the way to the street he had lived on before he disappeared from my backseat, I started to take it personally. I pulled into the cul-de-sac lined with blackened brick fireplaces still standing devoid of their homes and I wondered whether this was my penance for escaping – the ghosts find me, my cab.

My therapist would say that’s my survivor’s guilt talking. She’s never had an old man confused when the address we pulled up to no longer had a house on it. She’s never seen this man’s face filled with pure confusion and fear. He caught sight of the lights on inside the RV parked in the driveway and his pained expression turned to something almost resembling a smile. “What’s my son doing here?” I watched him get out of the car without opening the door before fading into the night. No, my therapist wouldn’t know I remembered that that old man had run the little market in town – also burned.

I picked up Jessica and her husband, Bo, just outside of Tulebrook. My first thought was what were they doing taking a cab? My second thought was why weren’t they home with their kids? My next thought caused a lump in my throat because I remembered they lived down the street from me. And I could still see their minivan parked in the driveway where their house used to be, the vehicle more melted than burned.

But when they got in my cab they were, surprisingly, happy.

“Hey, Laura! We were hoping it was you!” Jessica said.

Bo agreed, “Yeah, Jessica thought it was, but I said ‘what are the odds?’”

I smiled sadly at them and said, “pretty good, actually.” I sighed and then asked, “Heading home?”

“We are,” Jessica said. I caught her eye in the mirror and, while she was still smiling there was a flicker of knowing there. She was holding Bo’s hand.

“You’re out late, aren’t you?” Bo asked as we the highway curved into the nearly barren burn area.

“Yeah,” I said, “Just trying to make a little extra money.”

He looked at the meter which was off. “Aww, Laura, you’re not running the meter on this drive? We can’t let you give us a free ride.”

“It’s okay,” I said, willing my voice not to crack. “It’s the least I can do.”

We turned down the street where we all used to live. Most of the debris had been long since removed. Some folks like the Sawyers that lived between Laura and Bo’s and my place were already rebuilding. I pulled into Laura and Bo’s driveway. The minivan had been hauled away months ago. The lot was cleared. “Here we are!” Jessica said. 

“Here we are,” I repeated. I kept the emotion out of my voice but couldn’t stop the tears coming down my cheeks.

Bo started to get out. “Thanks Laura!”

“You bet, Bo,” I squeezed my eyes tight.

Jessica lingered a moment, her gaze meeting my tear-filled eyes in the rear-view mirror. “Are you okay, Laura?”

I gave a chuckle at the irony of the question. “I don’t know, Jess. I don’t know.”

She gave me a wan smile and said, “Just keep living, okay?”

I swallowed the sob that threatened to erupt. I just nodded. As she opened the door I managed to say, “Kiss your kids for me.”

Jessica smiled back and said, “I will. I will.” I watched Bo come around the cab, take his wife’s hand and they started towards the empty foundation, their shapes fading into emptiness as I watched through tears.

31 Ghosts – Dead Web

Be careful of those unknown Wi-Fi names…

I first heard the rumor when I was high.

It was burning man, and it was hot and dusty, and – if I’m honest – a little boring. So, I chose high. As high as I could get, as long as I could get. Add an extra hit of acid when they torched the burning man for good measure.

The guy who told me about the “dead web” purported to not be of this world himself. I mean, he literally glowed – drugs or ghost? You be the judge. But he told me that a number of Burning Mans back, some rich tech bro had a heart attack on the way back from the desert and died in Fernley, Nevada. For whatever reason (he was scarce on details… or I was just that high) they buried him in the cemetery there. But instead of dying quietly and fitting in like any good dead person would, apparently this guy started an internet portal for the dead.

This wasn’t the Dark Web – this was the Dead Web.

I talked to Eliot about detouring into Fernley on the way back and he agreed. I was so stoked to check this out that I decided to detox early – no drugs the entire last day. Except, you know, for weed. And MDMA. But that’s it – I didn’t even do that acid I mentioned above during the burning. Well, I didn’t do both hits at least…

We got a late start the next day, so I was mostly sober by the time we got out of the desert and started into the outskirts of Fernley. I bribed Eliot with an early dinner at the Black Bear Diner and then we dozed in the car until midnight.

Did I mention the midnight part? The guy who might have been a ghost or a drugged-out hallucination specified this only worked at midnight.

At midnight we turned down Vine Street and then went right on Mission Way and stopped in front of Fernley Desert Memorial Cemetery. I don’t know what I expected – maybe some spooky prospector cemetery or weathered rows of headstones from pioneers – but whatever it was, this did not match my imagination. The place looked like a gated trailer park minus the trailers. I mean, there were graves there, but… it was sadder than “Joe’s Hobo Omelet” Eliot ordered at the Black Bear Diner.

I turned off the car and Eliot started to get out.

“Whoa, bro, where are you going?”

“You were the one who wanted to go into the cemetery at midnight, right?”

“I just wanted to get here – I don’t think we need to go in.”

“How close do we have to get in?”

I had my phone out and was scrolling through the network settings. “Just close enough to pick up the Wi-Fi…”

And there it was: the only entry in the available Wi-Fi networks was an unsecured listing for “Dead Web”. I touched the “Dead Web” entry and there was a spinning dot indicating it was trying to connect. And then the check mark indicating it was connected – only instead of the normal blue, the check mark was black. A log in screen automatically popped up displaying a EULA (End User License Agreement) with an “Agree” button at the bottom. I scanned the text but couldn’t actually read it. I don’t know if it was the resolution on my phone or I was just tired, but the more I squinted and tried to read the terms and conditions the more the text looked like garbage. The only thing I could make out clearly was “By agreeing you forsake your eternal soul.”

Eliot was reading over my shoulder, nodded and said, “That seems legit.”

I agreed and hit “Accept.”

My screen changed. It was like going from the “Light” setting to the “Dark” setting, but… darker. Like, indescribably darker. Staring at my phone in this mode made me feel the phone looking back at me. Going back to my home screen, the apps had changed. Instead of Facebook it was the same logo but the name below the icon listed it as “Facelessbook”. Pinterest was now “Pinterest In Peace”. “Tinder” became “Tremble”.

I clicked on Tremble and got the familiar Tinder interface of a picture and the option to swipe right to accept the match or swipe left to reject. But the first picture it brought up was a sepia toned picture of an old prospector-looking grizzled guy named “Jasper”.

“Not really your type, dude,” Eliot offered helpfully.

“No,” I agreed, “but I’m curious…” I swiped right. The app announced I was now communing with Jasper and a chat interface popped up.

“What is this?” Eliot echoed my thoughts.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but let’s chat with whoever this Jasper is.” I typed “Hi Jasper! R u a ghost?

Dots appeared indicating Jasper was apparently typing. The dots stopped and Jasper’s reply came across, “Sure am. Though I do appreciate this new-fangled device so I can contact the living.”

“Ha, look at that!” Eliot said. “Contact the living!”

“How do you like being a ghost?” I typed.

“Oh, it’s fine, I guess. It’s not heaven like I thought. But it’s not the burning place neither.”

We both laughed and I started typing something else, but the dots appeared again and disappeared. The text popped up, “How do you like being a ghost?”

“What is he—” I started to say but everything got dark suddenly.

When I came to, I was out on the Playa in the Black Rock Desert, but all the cars and trailers and art installations and people were gone. I turned in a circle and when I came back around a grizzled old prospector stood in front of me.

“Boo!” he said with a toothless smile.

I jumped. “Where am I?”

“Blackrock Desert. Welcome to haunting!”

“But I’m not… I’m not dead!”

His toothless smile broadened. “That’s what you agreed to in the EULA. You did read it, didn’t you?

Panic rose. I noticed that even though it was the middle of the night and seemed really cold, I wasn’t feeling the chill.

“Where’s Eliot?” I asked frantically.

The prospector thought a minute and then said, “Oh, that fella you were with? He put up quite a fuss when he found out he was a ghost. He really wanted to haunt that Black Bear Diner. Weird.”