Strange Ghosts Read online

  Strange Ghosts

  Scott William Carter

  STRANGE GHOSTS by Scott William Carter

  Smashwords Edition. Electronic edition published by Flying Raven Press, June 2011.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For more about Flying Raven Press, please visit our web site at http://www.flyingravenpress.com.

  Also by Scott William Carter

  Novels:

  The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys

  President Jock, Vice President Geek

  Drawing a Dark Way

  Wooden Bones (forthcoming)

  Short Story Collections:

  The Dinosaur Diaries

  A Web of Black Widows

  Tales of Twisted Time

  The Unity Worlds at War

  Strange Ghosts

  Table of Contents

  The Sword of Surrender

  All My Invisible Friends

  The Enchanted Grove

  The Easel

  Stone Creek Station

  The Sword of Surrender

  The full moon glowed a fuzzy yellow, as if I was gazing at it from underwater. Once inside the woods, I only caught sight of it through the gaps in the sycamore trees, but I was still glad for its light. Crickets chirped their steady chorus. Twigs and leaves crackled underneath my tennis shoes – shoes that were too tight because I'd outgrown them but Mama couldn't afford to buy me new ones.

  My heart soon pounded a fierce drum in my ears. The shadows deepened, the branches of the trees above me tightening like clasping fingers. And then, all at once, the crickets went silent. It grew cold, too, a sudden drop that summoned the goose bumps on my arms.

  I looked around and none of the trees looked like trees — just twisted shapes in the near-darkness. This was crazy, I told myself, and decided to go back.

  But when I turned around, there she was.

  * * * * *

  This was back in Opal, a little town just outside of Richmond where I lived from the day I was born until the day I left home. There were a lot of poor towns in Virginia back then but Opal was one of the poorest. All the factories had been moved to Mexico and China. Most of these poor folk were black, like us, and when you saw them sitting on the porches of their little bungalows, they all had the look of wayward passengers who'd gotten off at the wrong train station and hadn't quite figured it out yet.

  It was a different time, for sure. This was just after the towers in New York fell and just before the great floods in Los Angeles. This was when a lot of folks still had land line phones and vacuum tube televisions. This was when some people thought racism was dying, even though a young black boy like myself was never permitted to forget the color of his skin.

  It was hot and humid that day, the air sticking to me like another layer of clothes. I'd spent the day with Johnny LeRoy, my best friend, and between the hunting for frogs and pouring over the latest Spider-Man, I'd lost track of time. When I saw the fuzzy pinkness in the sky through Johnny's paned glass window, I knew I had to hustle home or there would be a whipping.

  No way I'd make it the long way, so I debated about doing what Mama said I should never do — take the shortcut through Lee's Woods. It was a mile-long stretch of black walnut, pin oaks, and Virginia pine, the ground choked with underbrush. It was rumored that General Robert E. Lee had spent the night there on his way home from the surrender at Appomattox, which was where it got its name. But it was famous for another reason: It was widely believed to be haunted by a ghost known as the Lady of the Woods.

  I was never much of a superstitious sort, but even Professor Hinckley, the philosophy professor from the University of Virginia who summered in Opal, wouldn't set foot in those woods. They said he'd done it once as a boy, and when people asked him what happened, his face would turn red like an apple and he'd sputter a little before changing the subject to Plato. All the stories were like that, with just bits emerging — eyes of worms, a wedding dress stained with blood, a mournful voice that made you feel cold. Some folks said she was a scorned bride who'd fled into the woods in her sorrow, then got lost and died.

  Maybe because I was young, or maybe because I was more worried about getting grounded when the county fair was the following weekend, I told myself the rumors were nonsense.

  * * * * *

  I let out a scream that would have made my friends tease me endlessly if they'd heard it.

  She was a small woman, much shorter than me, but her grotesque appearance made her seem much larger — her wedding dress more gray than white, frayed so that what was left was hardly more than a moldy fish net, loose branches and leaves tied up in the lace around her arms and her neck. Her skin wasn't so much black as a deep purple, like a shriveled raisin, her nose and mouth and eyes all disappearing in the loose folds of mottled flesh.

  "You da one?" she said.

  She spoke with a rasping rattle, as if moths were fluttering in her throat. The smell hit me next, a sickly sweet stench, like the scent of the rotting apples that littered the orchard not far from our house. I thought she had long hair, but it wasn't hair. Withered and blackened vines cascaded down her back, reaching nearly to the ground. Her fingers were skeletal, the skin binding the bones together no thicker than flaking paint. She was barefoot, too, but they weren't feet down there so much as moss-covered, bulbous stumps.

  I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn't move.

  "Eh?" she said. "Deaf, are ya?"

  "N-no," I managed. "I'm . . . I'm . . ."

  With surprising swiftness, she grabbed my wrist with her bony fingers and yanked up my palm. Her touch was like ice. She leaned down and held my palm right up to her face. Then she looked up at me, so close now that our noses were nearly touching, so close I could see through the darkness and into her eyes. I expected to see worms, but instead there was . . . only deeper darkness.

  "I been waitin' for ya," she said. "I knew you'd come, Bobby Coleman."

  Hearing her speak my name sent a shiver up my spine. "I think—I think you've got the wrong—"

  "They killed me," she said. "Them white men. They dressed me up in this dress of one of their wives and got drunk and had their way with me, laughing all of them, laughing and having a grand ol' time." Her voice turned bitter and sorrowful. "They had their way, and then they buried me out here." She turned away suddenly, peering into the trees as if she expected those men to reappear.

  I didn't know what to say. She regarded me again, and when she spoke, her voice had a new urgency.

  "I been waiting only for you!" she said. "All this time, only for you! Now, come. It ain't far."

  She released my hand, moving away from me like a shadow, floating more than walking. She hadn't gone far when she must have noticed I wasn't joining her, because she looked back.

  "This ain't no foolin'," she said.

  "Um . . ."

  "You got a sister named Janey, don't ya?"

  It felt as if she stabbed one of her bony fingers right into my heart. I didn't know what to say.

  "If you love her," she said, "you best come."

  With that, the Lady of the Woods moved away. I watched her, hesitating. Janey was only three, barely talking in complete sentences. What would she have to do with any of this?

  But the threat alone had me trailing after her like an obedient dog. She kept floating along, legs barely moving, only the hem of her dress fluttering. We winded our way through the trees in silence, just enough light to guide m
y way.

  Then she veered hard to the right and the ground dipped, dropping us into a dry ravine littered with acorns from the oaks that stood sentry. Ahead, illuminated by a beacon of moonlight, was a rotten stump that looked like the head of the lion, thick ferns growing all around like a lion's mane. The stump was taller than me and probably ten feet around.

  She stopped next to this stump, just outside the cone of moonlight, and pointed at the hollow opening at the base.

  "There," she said.

  "What?"

  She regarded me with her shadowed eyes. "If you done love your sister, reach inside."

  Sweat dribbled down from my forehead, stinging my eyes and blurring my vision. I didn't want to put my hand into that hole. But just as I had been compelled to follow her, I found myself compelled to drop down on my knees. That's when I heard it. The whisper.

  . . . slay the hatred . . . slay the hatred . . . slay the hatred . . .

  It was coming from within the hole, a faraway voice that was neither male or female but something else, something that fell on my ears like a long ago dream. I couldn't be sure it wasn't in my mind.

  "Go on now," the Lady urged.

  I reached into the hole, closing my eyes because I expected something to happen — a trap to snap shut on my fingers, or a critter to bite into my skin. But instead, my hand touched something metal, something cold and damp. My fingers closed around it. It felt like . . . a handle.

  Afraid that something awful was about to happen, I eased it out from the stump. A long, slightly curved blade with a jeweled handle came out into the moonlight, heavy enough in my young hand that the tip of the blade dragged in the dirt.

  "You know dat is?" the Lady asked.

  I had an idea. One of Johnny LeRoy's fascinations was with the Civil War, especially the weapons.

  "A Union Sword?"

  She laughed. It was an unsettling sound, even more unsettling than her voice.

  "The other side," she said. "It belonged to the General hisself."

  "Robert E. Lee?"

  "Dat the one."

  "I thought it was in the museum — the one over in, um. . . " I couldn't think of the town. It was a famous Civil War Museum, and I'd gone there once on a school field trip.

  "Oh, yes, there is a sword there," she said, chuckling. "At Appomattox. But it ain't the sword he carried with him to meet General Grant. It's just another sword of a man who owned many. No, this is the sword of surrender. He lay it down here. He lay it down here in this stump with me and lots of other black folk watching, none seen by him, none saying a word. But I stayed. I stayed and waited knowin' you was coming."

  I wasn't sure what to say.

  "Now listen," she said. "The sprits, they be callin' me back. This here sword, he never surrendered it to Grant. There be lots of stories he did, that Grant took it and handed it back, but that ain't how it was done. Lee lay it here and it still have power. He never took it up in battle. It's as pure as the day it was made, which is why the hatred can still hunker down inside it."

  "I don't—"

  "Listen," she hissed. "There will be a dark moment for ya, Bobby Coleman. It's comin' and I see it clear as day. Evil will rear its ugly head in all its vileness. Slay down the hatred and the tide will turn. Your life will enfold in greatness. If not . . . the hatred will remain in the blade, and this country will slide into a darkness even worse than what came before. The hate must be set free!"

  When her last words were spoken, she faded, almost disappearing altogether, only to return again.

  "Listen," she said, and even her voice was softer, "you must leave it here until the time is right. When the time comes, if you hold this sword no man or woman alive can see you, and even the merest touch of the blade shall bring death and damnation to those with dark hearts . . . Listen . . . the sword, it will lead you to the place where your choice will be made . . . " She faded again, and this time she was but a hint of what she was before. "Slay the hatred . . ." she whispered, her voice trailing into silence. "Slay the hatred . . . Slay . . ."

  With that, she was gone. I sat on my knees clutching the hilt of the sword. Then a far-off hoot of an owl broke my reverie, and then other sounds returned — the chirping crickets, the rustle of leaves. The air around me warmed and the moon was resurgent.

  I left the sword and returned home. I didn't tell anyone about what I'd seen — not even after Daddy gave me three thrashes for coming home so late. I watched Janey all night — as she played with her dolls, as she had her thick black hair braided by Mama — but she seemed fine.

  After a night's restless tossing and turning, I wondered if the whole thing had been in my mind. How could I know if that was really the sword of Robert E. Lee? How could I know the truth, when the truth was known only to a bunch of ghosts and a man who had been dead for a hundred and fifty years?

  And so it went, the years passing, the meeting with the Lady receding slowly into memory. By the time I was sixteen, the only time I thought about it was in History when we discussed the Civil War, and even then it seemed like some cruel joke. By the time I was eighteen, and about to graduate, I'd convinced myself that it was all a hallucination.

  That all changed when Janey was taken.

  * * * * *

  It happened on the last day of school. Since it was the last day, I took even longer than normal getting home, hanging out with some guys I didn't think I'd ever see again. When I finally reached the house, Janey's bike was leaned against the porch. I thought she had a death wish, because she knew she was supposed to park it in the garage. It didn't occur to me that something else was going on until I came into the house and found Mama on the phone, tears running down her face.

  I barely had time to register this before Daddy grabbed me roughly by the shoulders. He was still in his garage clothes, his blue uniform stained with grease. His eyes looked wild. Bits of twigs and leaves stuck to his short, curly black hair.

  "You seen your sister?" he said.

  "N-no," I replied.

  "You sure now? If you know something, spit it out!"

  But I didn't know anything, and Daddy let me go, yelling at Mama that he was going out to look for her in the woods. I didn't get the full story until Mama was off the phone: A neighbor had found Janey's bike in the ditch near Lee's woods, along with a pink hair barrette. Mama had called all over town and nobody knew where she was.

  Half of Opal was searching for her that night, and Mama spent the entire time sitting by the phone, ringing her hands. Finally, shortly before midnight, the phone rang: They'd found her bloodied body in a drainage ditch on the outskirts of town, a note attached to her underwear with a clothes pin: "And God set us forth to cleanse the earth of this stain. KKK."

  Whatever part of me that was still a boy, a part that some men get to carry with them the rest of their lives, vanished that day. I was never told what they did to her, and I was never permitted to see the body, but it didn't matter. When all the relatives gathered at our house, I saw the desperate truth in their eyes. While my mother howled curled up in a ball on the couch, the women doing their best to comfort her, and my father stared stone-faced out the window, the men trying to draw him out of his grief in hushed tones, I retreated to my room. I didn't feel like crying.

  I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted to make someone pay for what they had done to her.

  The police had no clues. As a new racial edge settled over Opal, my parents paced the living room, alternately cursing and falling into somber silence, taking turns answering phone calls from detectives and reporters. What little hope we had of finding the killers drained away. It was on the night of the third day, when I lay sleepless in my bed, that I heard that strange voice calling to me.

  . . . slay the hatred . . . slay the hatred . . . slay the hatred . . .

  It was like a voice calling to me from the bottom of a well. My heart started to pound. The window was cracked open, a cool breeze billowing the drapes. The sword . . . I'd forgotten about the
sword. Now I knew what I had to do.

  The house was still. I knew full well that my parents were probably still awake — Mama in her bed, eyes wide open like mine, Daddy in the living room sitting in front of the television with a bottle of Jack Daniels. Quiet as I could, I slipped on my pants and my tennis shoes, then grabbed a flashlight. Careful not to make the aluminum window squeak, I slid open the window and climbed onto the dew-laden grass.

  The moon was full, so bright I didn't need the flashlight. It was hot and humid, just as it was that night years ago when the Lady showed me the sword.

  I jogged along the dirt road, ducking into the drainage ditch when a van rumbled by, then continued faster, lungs burning, until I reached Lee's Woods. I didn't stop, running full out now, clicking on my flashlight when I entered the cover of the trees. The beam of my flashlight danced back and forth over the brush like a firefly.

  More than once, I tripped over an exposed root or log hidden partially by leaves, going down on the dirt, but I was up just as quickly. It didn't even occur to me that I had no idea where the stump was. I just ran.

  Then I heard it. The whisper. Slay the hatred . . . Slay the hatred . . . I followed the sound.

  Just as before, the crickets went silent and a coldness settled over the forest. And there it was — the ravine, my flashlight lighting up the fallen acorns that paved the way to the end, where the moon illuminated the lion head stump.

  Down into the ravine I stumbled, skidding to a halt in front of the stump, reaching inside, finding the hilt of the sword. I pulled it free and held it up triumphantly. The metal gleamed in the moonlight, not a hint of dirt or grime marring it.

  It began to tremble.