Michael Lee Weems - The Ghosts of Varner Creek (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series)

The Ghosts of Varner Creek

By Michael Weems

Copyright 2011 Michael Weems

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself

Chapter 1

Six-twenty a.m., November 3, 1984 .

That dead woman is standing out in the hall by my door again. I wake up, open my eyes, and as I give the old body a stretch I see her out there, still as a statue and fixated on me. Shes been visiting more often of late, eerie damn woman. I wish shed carry herself somewhere else and quit staring at me like that. I dont know what she finds so fascinating about me, cept maybe shes figured out I can see her. I guess that might be something of interest to the likes of her, but its only a nuisance to me these days. Go on and get, say my thoughts, as though shed hear them and leave . But she doesnt . She just stands there. I dont pay her much mind, though. Ive gotten used to this one popping up. She's the one that doesn't have a face, just a kind of blur where it should be, like someone smudged her features out. Ive never seen another one quite like her before, no face and all, but it don't matter. I ignore her just the same. I got nothing to say to you, ghost, so you might as well go somewheres else. I change my view to looking outside the window. Theres just a hint of orange on the fringe of the gray dawn. Pretty soon therell be yellows, reds, and purples, like a childs watercolor set splashed out over the world. Theres a nice smell drifting in from across the fields, too. Its the smell of home for those of us whove grown up with it, the smell of a cotton crop freshly picked. Youve got to know what youre looking for to catch it as its almost overpowered by the strong odors of cleansers and medicines in this place, but its a beautiful smell. Ive seen folks who could poke their nose down a glass of wine and come up telling you everything youd want to know about it. Me, I prefer the smell of the good earth. With it, I can tell you what the cotton crop is looking like this year. The richness and nutrients of the soil outside drift through the air like perfume. The summer heat didnt scorch the crops too bad this season, and we had ourselves an extra three inches of rain above average this year, just what the cotton wanted. My nose says they had themselves a good harvest this year, and my nose always knows.

The cotton will all be ginned and bundled now, and that means theyll be having the Harvest Festival soon, a tradition that takes me back. It used to be the biggest thing in town once upon a time. Oh, but its been such a long time since Ive been to a Harvest Festival. Im so out of touch with the world I dont rightly know how things are now, except I know the tradition still continues because I hear talk as it gets closer to festival time and we get a new beauty queen who makes a round every year. I just dont know if its as important to folks as it once was. I like to think so, though. I lie here in bed while memories dance in two-step to the sounds of old country and I recall past festivals, past days. I let myself get a little lost in the memory, it being such a nice one. I wonder if that dead woman is still there? I peek back over at my unwelcome guest to find shes gone. Good, go haunt somebody who gives a damn, why dont yah.

I dont have nothing to say to dead people anymore, seeing as how theyve never had anything to say to me. I see them now and again standing around like folks who forgot what they were doing and now cant remember why they are where they are. Used to scare the beJesus outta me in my younger years, but we can get used to all sorts of things, I suppose. I've gotten use to living in this nursing home, for one. Besides the living patients we've got a few residents still here whose bodies were wheeled out a long time ago. Nobody else seems to notice them, but I see them from time to time, including that one, walking down the halls at night or popping up here and there during the day. First time I saw Faceless was one morning when I woke up and there she was at my window as though she were watching the dawn like I so often do. I couldn't see her face but I remember thinking how pretty her hair was, still so shiny and black without a spot of gray, the proverbial black sheep in this place I guess you could say. She was wearing a white cotton nightgown like some I've seen, so I just figured she was just some lady who had wandered out from her room.

You get lost, maam? I asked her. But she didnt answer.

What room you suppose to be in, ma'am? I asked politely, trying not to startle her. She didnt even turn, though. Then I thought she have might be one of them Alzheimer's folks that lost her reasoning so I rang for the nurse.

When she came in I told her in a whisper so as to not offend the lady at the window, I think this here lady done wandered off from her room.

That nurse looked around and asked, What lady, Mr. Mayfield?

I looked back towards the window and she was gone. Well, I knew right away Id been fooled. Just another dead person, someone who had passed in my room some time back, I figured.

Never mind, I told the nurse. Must have been a dream that woke up with me.

Faceless has been popping up now and again ever since, though. Why on earth shed be inclined to visit here is beyond me. Seems like one would be glad to be rid of a place like this. Ghosts like her, as I guess theres not much else to call them, arent all the same, either. Some are skittish and are gone in a flash if they realize you can see them, while others seem to seek out company, like Faceless sometimes does. Some look faint, like only shadows of their former selves, while others look so real it seems like they could sit right down and have a conversation with you, though they never do. At least, I've never had one do it. Those ones just look like they still have thoughts, though. And some, though not many as its been my experience, can affect things around them. How they affect things can vary. Sometimes its just a chill or an odd feeling you cant quite place, but there are those rare ones than can do a whole lot more.

Years ago I was in a hotel room on a business trip and I woke up because I felt the mattress get pushed down close by my feet like someone having a sit. At first, I was so sleepy I thought it was my wife getting up to use the restroom, but then I remembered I was in a hotel room and my wife was miles away sleeping in our bed at home. As my mind woke up more, I felt the oddest of sensations.

The air seemed to be sucked out of the room and stillness fell over it like no sound would ever be heard in that room again. It was like an invisible sponge was sucking everything up... the sounds of the air conditioner and the cars mumbling along the highway outside, the dim light through the windows, even the very air itself. They all seemed to draining away into an unseen hole. Id never felt anything like it. It was like having a hand put over your mouth and suffocating you, except it was placed over the entire room, suffocating everything within. I sat up and despite the retreating light, I could just make out the silhouette of someone sitting at the foot of the bed. They werent moving or doing anything, but I knew what it was. I felt more empty and alone than Id ever felt, and the feeling seemed to be coming not from within me, but from the one sitting on my bed. Everything was still draining away, and then it was darkness. I panicked a bit. It was like being buried alive in that room. I needed light, something warm and friendly that would break the grip that was beginning to choke me. There were some matches by an ashtray on the night stand, so I grabbed one and slid it along the pack watching the little flame jump to life. Its feeble glow pushed back the darkness a little, and right there in front of me was a pale young man, naked as a jaybird but white as alabaster. He looked like a man, but he didnt feel like one. He was sitting with his back to me, and he couldve been an ivory statue someone just carved except theyd made a mess of his head. It sunk in on itself and the back had a big chunk missing, revealing a mangled mess of spongy white tissue that I guess was brain. There wasnt any blood, though. Not a drop. I figured right away that he must have shot himself in that room or something, because whatever happened in there, he never left. He liked to give me a heart attack because he was so much there like a real person, yet he also seemed to be the source of the hole that had consumed all the life out of the room. When the light from the match hit his face he turned towards me and I could see his hollow eyes, like two pools of swirling black ink. A deep depression flowed over me. As he stared at me I felt like I didnt want to live anymore. I felt worse than Id ever felt. Then he opened his mouth like he was going to say something to me, but the only thing that came out was a plume of smoke like the bullet which had killed him had just sped its course to his end. His gaze trailed from me to the smoke, and it seemed as though he realized for a moment what it all meant. The plume disappeared into nothingness and his hand crept to the back of his head and in his eyes I knew he realized the awful truth... he knew what he was, and he knew what I was. He was the ghost, the suicide who had sought and found his death in this room, and I was the living, who saw it now as it had happened then. He looked at me and I saw in his expression true emotions. He was scared, angry, and almost seeming to ask something of me. It was like he wanted help, but wanted to hurt me both at once. The black pools of his eyes seemed to churn a little more furiously and the room swayed a bit. Where he had a moment ago sucked the life out of the room, he now seemed to be filling it back up again with his misery and suffering. Emotions pulsed from him to me like the crashing waves of a storm pounding to shore. I felt his rage, anger, and despair... I felt all of it and it hurt something terrible.