"I Don't Believe In You."

A Halloween Ghost Story.

Photo by Bellava G on Unsplash

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Martin tapped away at the heavy keyboard of his desktop computer. He sighed and drank some more coffee. As he was an aspiring alcoholic, he had added bourbon to it. He pulled another cigarette out his pocket and lit it with the butt of his current cigarette, which he dropped in an ashtray next to his mouse.

                He needed to get the book review off by tomorrow. It would be November and the book had come out this past summer. He was already late. Like all good critics – he supposed – he smoked and drank heavily and worked best late at night and under tremendous deadline pressure following extensive procrastination.

                “The book culminates in…”

                He used the backspace key to replace these words with, “the book reaches its climax with,” which he proudly felt was just subtle enough for readers to pick up.

                “With a chauvinistic display of patriotic swagger. President Ryan gives a jingoistic speech about ‘Merica and then has the Ayatollah of Iran bombed off the face of the Earth on live television, in a grandiose gesture he no doubt thinks is tough and manly. The author has developed quite a reputation for this kind of nationalistic fervor with his various anti-communist books. He does not disappoint his legions of ‘Merican fans with this latest installment in the saga of his greatest hero, who assumes the presidency at the end of the previous novel in the greatest example of deux ex machina in genre fiction in the last decade…”

                Martin thought this was pretty good.

                His grandfather clock struck eleven. Was it that late already? Darkness had obscured his window for some time now.

                With a start, Martin realized that tonight was All Hallows Eve. Halloween. He had neglected to leave out any candy on the porch for the local children. Perhaps that was what the knocking had been about earlier that evening. No matter. He needed to press on.

                He heard a cough.

                It was probably the dishwasher. He kept typing. The cough came again.

                Or the washing machine. He refused to look behind him. Then it came again, loud and insistent. Martin looked over his shoulder.

                An ephemeral, wraithlike figure filled the doorway to his office. Its face twisted into a ghastly grimace and its body – which appeared covered in a kind of ectoplasmic nightgown – trailed off into vapor somewhere near the level of the floor. Its edges, or boundaries, or skin, seemed to shimmer and shift constantly, as though it could never settle on a demarcation that contained what was within and distinguished between what was within and what was without. His eyes watered as he tried to find the figure’s white feet. His eyes kept sliding away when he glanced at the floor.

                Martin looked at the figure’s face. He wanted to call it something else, but could not come up with a reasonable word.

                “What do you want?” he asked.

                “Your soul,” intoned the figure.

                “Cut the bull,” said Martin, “who are you anyway? And how the hell did you get inside my house?”

                “I have haunted this house ever since I was murdered in it, nearly one century ago today. Every year on this night I come around…”

                “Quit playing games. What are you?”

                “I am a spirit of the dead. I was once in living-form…” the figure howled.

                “I don’t believe in you.”

                The figure’s mouth twisted into a grimace that could have adorned an Iron Maiden album cover and it let out a fierce and otherworldly scream that lasted for ninety seconds. Martin sat there and waited for the echoes to die away.

                “I still don’t believe you. Ghosts don’t exist.”

                “I am a ghost,” replied the figure with some chagrin.

                “Then you don’t exist. Now, would you please go away so I can finish writing this review? I need to submit it tomorrow morning.”

                The specter gave a howl. Martin turned his back pointedly.

                “in the last decade. To sum it all up…”

                The specter kept howling. Martin sighed.

                “Will you stop bothering me? I can’t concentrate. I have a deadline to meet,” he said without turning around.

                The specter ignored this and kept howling and moaning until Martin turned around and looked at him. Martin stared at the shadowy figure until it stopped howling.

                “What?” it asked.

                “Do you have to do that?”

                “My burden is to haunt the living with spectral…”

                “Yeah. No. I got that part. Do you have to make that infernal noise? I can’t focus on my work.”

                “It is not an appropriate hour for mortal work.”

                “Okay. You’re a figment of my imagination anyway. If I stop thinking about you, you’ll go away.”

                “Try that and see if it works,” said the ghost with what would be a grin if ectoplasm could smile.

                “I already told you I don’t believe in you.”

                “How can you disbelieve something you’ve seen and conversed with?”

                “I’ve been drinking. And besides, I’m doing Sober October – at least for weed and psychedelics, not booze – and I’ve heard that when you go off weed you get the craziest and most vivid dreams a human can possibly have. Maybe I’ve fallen asleep. Or maybe I forgot and took something. You seem like the kind of trip I would get these days.”

                “Believe me, I am as real as you are. I am neither a bad trip nor a dream.”

                Martin tried pinching himself. It hurt, so he guessed he was still awake. He decided to try to stop thinking about the creature entirely. Which, admittedly, was like deciding to stop thinking about elephants. But it was worth a shot.

                The ghoul howled and moaned while Martin tried to return to his review.

                “To sum it all up To sum the author’s fears up To sum it up, this novel is the sum of every literary-minded reader’s fears about its author.”

                That might not be very good, but it was the best he could do at the moment. Martin knew there was some clever way he could work “the sum of all fears” in to the sentence, but he was having trouble concentrating. He stared at the screen for a full ninety seconds without typing a letter. Finally, he turned around again.

                “Would you quit that racket? I have to finish by tomorrow morning.”

                The apparition had acquired some ethereal chains from somewhere and was rattling them menacingly.

                “For that matter, it is tomorrow morning. It’s past one now,” said Martin. “In fact, that means it’s not even your day anymore. It’s November 1st, not October 31st. Halloween is over.”

                “All Hallow’s Eve lasts from the last rays of the setting sun until the first rays of the rising sun mark the dawning of a new day,” intoned the spirit.

                “Whatever. The calendar says it’s November. My computer says it’s November. The clock starts over. It’s not your day anymore. It’s Guy Fawkes Day. Yesterday was the day for ghouls and hobgoblins. Today is the day for burning in effigy the man who blew up Parliament. And for discounts on candy.”

                The spirit seemed unsure of itself.

                “At the very least, I can keep you preoccupied.” It brightened.

                “You’ll settle for annoying me if you can’t haunt me?”

                “Boo.”

                “Oh, come on.”

                The spirit let out a wail.

                “What is your name? Who are you – or were you?” asked an exasperated Martin, at a loss for anything better to say.

                “In life,” said the spirit with a dramatic pause, “I was a mortal man. But now, I am the spirit of Jack Ryan.”

                Martin was halfway out of his chair before he realized the spirit was putting him on. “You know things,” he said.

                “Yes,” said the spirit with satisfaction.

                “Listen,” said Martin, trying to reason with the spirit, “it’s almost daylight. You’ll have to go.”

                “I don’t know about that.”

                “Can’t you just leave me in peace? I really do need to get this piece done. I didn’t murder whoever you were in life. I’m sorry for your trouble but I really must get back to work.”

                “I can give no peace. I am doomed to haunt whoever inhabits this house,” intoned the apparition, “for I am the Ghost of Hallow’s Eve Past.”

                “You’ve read Charles Dickens.”

                “Maybe.”

                “How many more ghosts will visit me tonight?”

                “Just me.”

                “Good.”

                The specter groaned and moaned and rattled its eerie chains.

                “Are you supposed to teach me something? Or is this some sort of punishment?”

                “No.”

                “So, there’s nothing I can do to get you to go away?”

                “Not that I know of.”

                Martin figured that if he couldn’t get the specter to leave, he might as well talk to it. That was better than the infernal screaming.

                “Say, what were you in life? What did you do?”

                “My profession?”

                “Yes. Your job. Your occupation. What you did for money.”

                “I was a writer, like you. Not a critic, of course.”

                Martin felt chilled by this. Perhaps it was his doom as a critic to be haunted by a writer for all eternity. He decided to change the subject.

                “Hey can I offer you drink? Alcohol? I mean, maybe you won’t be able to consume it but I figured I should ask. I need another strong one myself.”

                The ghost pulled itself up to its full height and said, “Of course not. You of all people should know that ghostwriters don’t drink spirits.”