Ghost Eaters

by Clay McLeod Chapman

but I’m not their fucking mother I never was, it was all a lie to get me to stay to use me.

Everyone in the living room is dead. Their bodies just don’t know it yet. Those that are still moving are simply being puppeteered by the spirits possessing their fleshy vessels, gnawing on what skin they can still pull free.

The Ghost must taste so good to these revenants. Good to the last drop. They dig into their own pulp for just another mouthful of that yummy substance.

A network of fungus consumes our home from the inside out.

I don’t want to think anymore. My body functions on its own, as though it knows what needs to be done, even if I’m not entirely sure. My mind ebbs into a catatonic state as the rest of me waltzes through the burning house and finds my way to the front door.

I need to finish this, before it goes—grows—any further. I need to cut it all down. Cut it out. Cut it off. Cut, cut, cut—

Once I’m certain there’s no saving the bones of our home, no possible chance of salvaging its structure from the fire, I make my way down the street to the next haunted house. And the next. Trick or treat…

Ever hear the tale of Erin Hill? She ground her lover into a pill. She lived in a house just down the lane, Until the day it went up in flames…

What is a ghost? Is it a shadow of our past clinging to our present? I believe it’s our addictions. The habits we form that end up consuming us if we allow them to take over.

I’ve seen what’s on the other side. It’s gray and cold and endless. An ocean of ash. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. No angels singing. No pearly gates. There is only this life. Once it’s gone, our only hope for the afterlife is that our memories remain in the hearts of those still living. Those are the vessels we inhabit. I don’t know if you can find comfort in that, but that’s all I hold on to. That’s the only truth there is, like Peggy Lee sang, so let’s keep dancing.

We need to find a better way to live with our ghosts. Ignoring them gets you nowhere. After I cleaned myself up, I realized the best way—the only way, really—to keep living is to acknowledge the past. I have to try, at least. It’s the only way to coexist now. So I look. I acknowledge their pain the only way I can: I let them know they are seen. That they are not forgotten. I don’t turn away anymore. I look at them head-on. In their eyes. Ghost won’t let us look away anymore. We have to learn to live with them. Our dead.