S.T. Rogers's Blog, page 10

The Great and Powerful ZeeBob

The ghost still had ticks, ZeeBob noticed, from its days as a repeater. The ghost’s hands were constantly moving, kneading some invisible dough. He remained focused on the conversation while his tall, blue frame crouched on the ground, legs crossed over one another, thin hair in wispy blue strands waving in the air like some strange, impossibly colorful plant on the bottom of the ocean. Every few seconds he glanced towards the south end of the attic and during these brief inspections, several glowing blue boxes—large shoe boxes, perhaps—appeared and then disappeared like a jump cut in a faulty film strip.            During lulls in the conversation, times when ZeeBob paused to scratch a few sentence fragments into his notebook, the ghost stood and meandered about, usually ending his journey by the small, triangular window that faced the city street below. His name was Wilson McGuiness and he had died nearly fifteen years ago. He had been fifty-three at the time and found himself on the losing end in a battle with lung cancer. He died in a hospital approximately six blocks from the attic he now haunted, his childhood home.            “When is the last time you looked out that window?” ZeeBob asked as he finished writing the thought in his notebook. His long, gray hair fell around his shoulder and onto the page. Producing a stretch of hemp from his coat pocket, he tied the stringy mass behind his head.             “I don’t know,” McGuiness answered. “I haven’t been in this house—alive, that is—since I was a child. Eleven? Twelve? I don’t know. We moved away before I attended high school, I’m sure.”            McGuiness looked to the corner and his blue boxes appeared again before he wrenched his eyes away and focused squarely back on ZeeBob. The ghost appeared nervous for a moment and then laughed it off, abashed, like an adult who realizes the frightening sound was just the wind blowing through the leaves.             “You can look at the boxes if you like,” ZeeBob said, nodding his head toward the dusty corner. “I don’t mind.”            “It’s not that I think you’d mind,” McGuiness said. “I’m afraid that if I start looking I won’t be able to stop.”            This was a reasonable fear, ZeeBob figured. He twisted the ends of his mustache so that they pointed out further and contemplated the ghost once more. Until just a few weeks ago Wilson McGuiness was a repeater, a ghost that performed one action again and again for infinity. Mr. McGuiness’ loop started at the bottom of the attic stairs and lasted approximately forty-five minutes. He had run its course for fifteen years.The loop went like this: McGuiness appeared on the first step as a child, no more than eight or nine years old, and skipped up, passing straight through the attic door. He then ran directly to the corner where a half dozen shoe boxes appeared for him to rifle through. There were pictures, mostly, in the shoe boxes and scraps of old memorabilia—baseball cards, notes passed in school, a lock of a girl’s hair held together with a velvet ribbon. He looked through these items in the exact same manner, each small move identical to the process before, for over half an hour and then faded away to appear again at the bottom of the stairs where he would skip up through the attic door.McGuiness’ ghost once freed from the loop, curiously enough, had become an older man, probably the age at which he died. ZeeBob pondered this phenomena and also wondered about the ticket stub he thought he saw on the floor near the ghostly shoe boxes each time they flickered. If he saw it correctly, then that ticket had been used at the greatest vaudeville act on dry land and the high seas. ZeeBob had been through this city a number of times and Mr. McGuiness was just the right age to have caught his show as a child. McGuiness looked to the corner and the boxes flashed again, the stub glowing nearby.            Zachary Roberts, The Great and Powerful ZeeBob as he was known when McGuiness was a young boy, had been the main attraction in a traveling show. Zachary, and his beautiful assistant, Kate the Great, had a medium act in which they spoke to deceased loved ones for people in the audience. It was a put-on for the most part. People didn’t know in those days, but a ghost can never appear somewhere it hadn’t been in life. So, unless their dear departed family members had spent time on the outskirts of town where the show raised its tents, they weren’t reallythere. Zachary and Kate were speaking to no one, hamming it up for the quarters they charged.            After the vaudeville scene dried up in the fifties, Zachary and Kate were fortunate enough to make a smooth transition to the radio shows which were gaining popularity in those days. They still had guests, ZeeBob still spoke in his dramatic, booming stage voice, and Kate still held the hand of the poor frightened person who just wanted to see their mother one last time. Kate’s stunning beauty was lost to the radio audience, but the duo made their money while the making was good.            The show had been retired for some years when the ghosts started appearing all over Ridge Hollow, Michigan. Within a few short years, the entire United States was haunted with repeating ghosts, working their little projects over and over again like ants building a hill, grain by grain. This was when Zachary Roberts showed his true colors: The show was a fraud, but he really could talk to ghosts.            In fact, in the underground world of mediums, necromancers and soothsayers, he was a respected socialite. And now that the ghosts were plentiful, things weren’t so underground anymore. He had a few intense years traveling the country with some other mediums delving deeper and deeper into the spirit world. When he was a young man, he would drop everything to hunt down a ghost, often missing shows and paydays to drive three states over, venture down into the wilds of Mexico, even fly to Europe, Russia, The Orient, anything to make contact with a true ghost. And now they were everywhere. ZeeBob was giddy.            Things changed, of course, nothing that good can last. The information about the Tamarind Labs and the energy scheme finally circulated around enough that the revolutionary groups began forming. ZeeBob felt he had to join with them. Kate practically insisted. The ghosts were being abused, spirits trapped in purgatories, and, no matter how much money the energy companies were making, right was right.             ZeeBob went into hiding after the Night of Assassinations, nearly twelve years ago this summer, and had been hiding out ever since in a trailer yard where he and Kate occasionally crashed with a few others mixed up in the now hopeless revolution. He was happy enough, he supposed. He didn’t go hungry and he had meaningful contacts with ghosts on a regular basis. It was just like any other part of his life in that respect, though admittedly less glorious. But he was old now, and old men, ZeeBob thought, value glory so much less than the young ones.            “I’m sorry, Mr. McGuiness,” ZeeBob said. “Just one more time: please describe, as best you can, the moment when the cycle was broken.”            Wilson McGuiness nodded solemnly, glanced towards the shoe boxes one last time, and then focused on ZeeBob. “While in the loop, my memory was always fuzzy. I just…acted. I didn’t think like I do now. So, I have a large swath of time that consists only of running up those stairs,” he pointed slowly to the stairs and then, almost hungrily towards the corner of the attic, “and looking through those boxes.”            He stared in the corner for a time and ZeeBob worried that he may have lost him.             He broke away, “And then I heard a dog barking. I’m sure there were many noises over the years I was in the loop, but the dog barking is the first new thing—something unconnected to the stairs or the boxes—that I remember.”            McGuiness looked at the floor pondering for a moment and then back at ZeeBob.             “And then everything turned back on. It was like a plug in my brain had been hanging out of its socket, just a centimeter too far away from the energy. Now I’m here again.”            “And then the Agitators came,” ZeeBob said, looking down at his notebook and nodding.            “Yes, a man from the government came and talked with me for a good while. The family who lives here came and met with me. I was classified as not dangerous, so they let me stay here.”            “Not dangerous,” ZeeBob said, looking up from his notes. “More like, you weren’t producing the psychic power they need to construct an energy site around you. That’s why you were left to your devices, Mr. McGuiness.”            “I’m sorry?” the ghost said, confusion wracking his eyes.            ZeeBob studied the ghost’s face for a moment and then looked back down at his notes. “Nothing,” he said. “Stupid politics. Don’t worry about it.”            “So, why are you here?” McGuiness asked. “You’re not with the government?”            “No, I am not,” ZeeBob said. “I’m an independent study, I suppose.”            “And what are you looking to learn from me?”            ZeeBob stopped writing and set his pen down on top of the notebook.            “You are something of a rarity, Mr. McGuiness. You see, you were a loop ghost, a repeater, and you changed. That, in itself, does not happen often. But, making you even rarer, is the fact that you are still here.”            ‘Where…should I be?” McGuiness asked.            “Somewhere else,” ZeeBob said, waving his hand. “Passed on.”            “Heaven, you mean?” McGuiness asked.            “If you like,” ZeeBob said. “But you are still here. And this is my great interest. I want to know how a repeater can regain its consciousness but not move on to the next world. This is very, very important to me.”            “Oh,” McGuiness said, glancing to the corner of the attic causing the shoe boxes to flicker into existence once more. “Am I helping you at all?”            “Quite a bit actually,” ZeeBob said. “But I’m about finished.” He stood up and hefted his bag onto the chair in which he’d been sitting. When he looked back at McGuiness the ghost held a heavy worry in his eyes.            “What is it,” ZeeBob asked.            “I…,” McGuiness paused here. “I thought you might help me.”            “Help you?” ZeeBob asked.            “I would like to leave,” McGuiness said. “I would like to pass on.”            “Oh,” ZeeBob said, zipping his bag slowly, “Of course.”            ZeeBob reached out now with his consciousness and felt for McGuiness’ psychic aura. It was a meek thing, quiet and unassuming. A medium could almost miss it if he wasn’t as good as ZeeBob. ZeeBob let the aura encompass him and pass through his body, feeling the mild power course through him like a second drink at a bar.            “I think I can help you,” ZeeBob said.            “Oh, good,” McGuiness answered.            “Just give me a moment to prepare.” ZeeBob kept his eyes closed as McGuiness’ aura flowed through his body. He concentrated not only on McGuiness, but on the shoe boxes that seemed to be so intricately tied to his being.             “Did you used to be famous?” McGuiness asked.            “Not really,” ZeeBob said, keeping his eyes closed.
It was a two-day drive back to the trailer park, but ZeeBob did it in one sixteen hour haul. He hated staying in hotels. He pulled in to his parking lot slowly, holding his breath, inspecting his trailer from the outside with the constant fear that a government agent might be waiting within, revolver in a pocket, ready to end ZeeBob’s life for his actions as a young man. He saw the blue light pacing back and forth gracefully from the window in the living area to the window in the kitchen, and this made ZeeBob bittersweet, a sensation somewhere between good and bad, but certainly better than fear.             He got out of the car, walked up the three wooden steps and jingled the key into the door. He flicked on a light to illuminate his small living space, crammed with thick books and soft places to sit. He set down his bag on the nearest couch and walked directly to the kitchen where he produced a short, square glass from a cabinet above the sink and filled it halfway with whiskey from a tall, brown bottle. He drank it as he watched the ghost walk towards him, chuckling to herself. She stopped just inside the doorjamb between the kitchen and the living room and called back over her shoulder, laughing harder as she said whatever it was she said.            Kate was mute in death, so the sentence that she called over her shoulder made no sound. ZeeBob had watched her lips hundreds if not thousands of times to try and remember what it was she had said that made her laugh so. She had probably said it to him. He would give anything, anything at all to know those words.             Kate moved on to the kitchen where she dunked her hands into the sink, causing it to fill with ghostly blue water and dishes. ZeeBob walked into the next room, carrying his glass, and crashed into his couch. He picked up the notebook he had filled the previous day with observations about Mr. Wilson McGuiness. He poured over them with his road-weary eyes, seeking out some clue on how to break a repeating loop without losing the ghost to the next life.

House Hunting

1. House for Sale Three bedroom, two bath. Beautiful view overlooking McDonald Square. Two car parking garage, minor haunting in the kitchen. Spacious back yard. $175,500 or best offer.


This one was red brick with a gray porch and two big windows in the front overlooking a busy street.  The street ran through the heart of Ridge Hollow, a few blocks from the downtown’s storefronts and bustle and just a few blocks away from the outskirts of town where we used to live. The paint on the porch was chipped and dust clung to the windows like sand on your feet after a day at the beach. I passed this house every day on my way to school and never looked at it before. I wondered if there was anything inside the house that had looked out at me.            As we climbed the steps, my father prattled inquires to our new real estate agent.  How old is the house, he asked? Where are the property lines? Is there central air conditioning? The real estate agent was pretty and smelled like the beauty section of a department store. She had short, blonde hair and a clipboard filled with printouts of black and white houses flanked by lines of statistics. Her enormous smile barely faltered as my father grilled her. I could tell my mother didn’t like her. My mother wasn’t smiling.            “Ms Krump,” my father said to the real estate agent, “how long has this house been on the market?”            The four of us, my father, my mother, Ms Krump and I, stood just outside the door while Ms Krump flipped through the papers on her clipboard with increasingly frantic motions.            “I don’t think I have that written down anywhere,” Ms Krump said. “But I can tell you, my agency has been showing it for over a year. So that long, at least, assuming we were the first ones to list it.”            “A long time to be on the market,” my father said. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got here.”            We walked through the front door to find a barren living room, large with white walls and a thin carpet the color of stale bread. The air was musky, thick in a way that air gets when a door or window hasn’t been opened for many days. My father crouched on his knees and inspected the carpet while my mother leaned towards the other side of the room. Her purse clutched in her hands, she peered up the long wooden steps.Ms Krump turned the pages on her clipboard and read us notes about the house as if we were contestants on a game show vying for a new car. My parents weren’t paying attention, but I listened and nodded my head.             “The backyard was recently sodden and a garden added. A fence was built less than three…”  She looked up from her clipboard and searched anxiously about the room. She saw that my parents had wandered off and that she was talking only to a little girl. Her professional demeanor melted away and she looked at me like we were old friends.            “You’re Sage, right?” she asked.            “Yes,” I said.            “How old are you, Sage?”            “I’m thirteen,” I said.            “How long has your family been looking for a house?”            “Two years,” I said.            “And how many real estate agents have they been through?” Ms Krump asked.            “You are number ten,” I said.            Ms Krump’s smile twitched like a faulty light bulb and then went dark. She sat down on the landing at the bottom of the steps and put her head in her hands. My parents had a way of upsetting other adults.            “Where are you living?” Ms Krump asked through her hands. “Why aren’t they selling their old house?”            “We’re staying at the Ridge Hotel,” I told Ms Krump.             “The three of you have been in a hotel room for two years?” she asked.            “Four of us,” I said. “My grandpa lives with us.”            “Why don’t they just buy a house already?” Ms Krump asked.            I shrugged my shoulders, “Something is always wrong.”            My father walked back into the living room as my mother drifted down the stairs. “It looks nice enough,” my father said, “spacious, in a good school district and the price is right. But let’s get it over with. Where is it? What did the ad say? In the kitchen?”            “Yes,” my mother put in, “the ad said it was in the kitchen.”            “The haunting?” Ms Krump said, standing up. “The haunting is nothing. I’m sure you’ve seen worse in your house hunting. If that’s all you’re worried about then we shouldn’t have a problem. Come on, I’ll show you.”            Ms Krump was recovered now, her confidence restored. My parents liked the house, she thought, and were just worried about the kitchen because of the ad in the paper.  She led us through the dining room and down another hall past a thick stained glass window inhabited by block-shaped saints. We walked into a kitchen, red with white trim. The oven had double burners and a griddle on top, which my mother liked, and the refrigerator had a water dispenser, which my father insisted upon.             “The haunting in the kitchen is infrequent and minor,” Ms Krump said, reading once more from her clipboard. “You might have weeks of pleasant cooking and breakfasts in the nook without seeing anything out of the ordinary.”            But again, my parents were not listening to the sales pitch. They were studying me instead, and with good reason.  It was happening again. I felt the cold at my ankles first and then it swept up my whole body. Everyone else seemed fine as I began to shake. I heard little, grouchy murmurings that were very close, as if someone was whispering in my ear.            “Sage, honey,” Ms Krump said to me, “are you all right, dear?”            As she spoke, the floor became covered in thick, blue dust where no dust had been before. My parents jumped back out of the kitchen and Ms Krump screamed. The dust began pulsating like a heartbeat. We watched in horror as the dust gathered itself together, moving to the beat of the pulsations, and formed a humanoid shape. The humanoid shape wriggled like it was having a seizure and with each shake and gyration it grew more details until it was a complete person, blue-gray and crumbly. The dust creature shook itself into an old woman with wrinkles pruning her face. Her hair was matted and she wore a flowing robe with big pockets at the hips. She lurched towards me haltingly, as if with each step she fought a great wind. She chanted, “Breathy devil, breathy devil, breathy devil, breathy!”            Ms Krump threw her clipboard in the air and ran. I remained still while the ghost inched closer.            “Breathy devil, breathy devil, breathy devil, breathy!”            “Let’s go, Sage,” my father said, gripping my elbow and leading me out of the kitchen. I watched the ghost as my father pulled me away. She loitered on the cusp of the kitchen mumbling her nonsensical chant. Breathy devil, breathy devil, breathy devil, breathy. The ghost lifted her head just before I was dragged around the corner and looked into my eyes.
“I don’t know what to say,” Ms Krump lamented on the sidewalk in front of the house. “I had no idea something like that could happen.” She wiped tears from her eyes and straightened her skirt. “I left my clipboard in there,” she said, looking at the house.            We huddled on the sidewalk as cars rolled behind us. It was a sunny day with no breeze, the first day of my summer vacation, in fact. But despite the sun, the adults shivered when they looked through the windows.            “Well, that house will clearly not do,” said my mother.            “Of course not,” said Ms Krump. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I can assure you, the house was inspected and the haunting was categorized as safe.”            “I would not call that safe,” my father said. “The ghost felt…physical.”            “Yes,” Ms Krump agreed. “It should be Blacklisted.”            And so another house was deemed no good for the Coopers. We shuffled down the sidewalk towards Ms Krump’s car. Ms Krump didn’t have her clipboard and so didn’t know which house she would take us to next. My father said that perhaps we should call it a day and everyone agreed.            My father sat in the front seat while Ms Krump drove. My mother and I looked out the back windows as the quaint houses of Ridge Hollow drifted by like a repeating background in an old cartoon. Plans were made for us to meet with Ms Krump again the following Tuesday to look at more houses. The car pulled into The Ridge Hotel parking lot and I sighed as I slid out of the backseat. My father asked questions about the other houses we would see and Ms. Krump couldn’t answer because she relied so heavily upon that lost clipboard. I looked up at the sky and could see the days of summer rolling out in front of me, long and lonely, forced into small cars and empty rooms. I pushed the hopelessness away and thought instead about the ghost. The adults had been scared, but I wasn’t. She communicated with me. This was going to be an interesting summer.