13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days

Good Bones

The Realtor knocked hard on the living room wall, to show the quality of the craftsmanship.

“Good bones,” she said. “It’s an up-and-coming neighborhood. But this isn’t one of those boxy new builds. It looks like it belongs.”

“That’s wonderful,” Martha said.

“We’re not gentrifiers,” Greg said.

“Oh God no,” Martha said. “We just want a quiet starter home with good bones.”

The Realtor ran down the list, each bit of renovation checking one of their boxes. Bamboo floors. Stainless steel appliances. Exposed brick.

“I love exposed brick,” Martha whispered.

Greg looked out the window. A willow tree grew at the edge of the patio. The only willow tree on the block. He imagined sitting under it and thinking.

“So what’s the catch,” he said. “Why can we afford this?”

The realtor looked uneasily toward the gothic chandelier. Greg followed his stare. He hadn’t noticed it before.

“It’s haunted,” the realtor said. “There’s a blood-covered woman who moves mournfully across the lower floors. And a lonely revolutionary soldier who arrives seeking quarter. And behind the furnace is a Hellmouth, so there’s probably more stuff, too. The inspection will reveal all that.”

Greg looked past the chandelier, to the ten-foot ceilings. With the money they saved, he could put in a roof deck.

“I was actually thinking more like, does the roof leak?” he said.

The realtor checked his notes.

“New roof installed one year ago this very day,” he said.

Martha screamed from the third bedroom, the one they’d use for a study so that Greg could work from home in. The realtor looked uneasy. They ran in.

“Honey,” Martha said, pointing toward an ornate bookshelf carved into the wall. “Built ins.”

Greg ran his finger along the built-in bookshelves. At the end of each shelf rested a graven image of a horned creature. Built-ins were on both of their dream lists. He turned to the realtor.

“We’ll take it,” he said.

He first saw the bloody woman while trying to fix the garbage disposal, so he was already frustrated.

“Free my bones,” she moaned.

“Did you break this thing?” Greg asked.

The woman held her bloody hands forward. It dripped onto the bamboo floor. She said nothing.

“Did you put bones in the garbage disposal?” Greg asked. “Did you put glass in it? Is that why you’re bleeding?”

The woman looked to him sideways. She opened her mouth and blood poured out.

“Are you kidding me?” he said. “These are bamboo floors. That’s going to ruin them.”

The woman floated through the French doors toward the patio.

He spent the day painting the back fence, winterizing the windows, and removing a human femur that he found lodged in the drain beneath the guest room shower. He wanted to paint the door black before bed. He’d heard it could raise a home’s curb appeal and he’d been ashamed by the generic, builder’s grade door since they moved in.

“Come upstairs,” Martha called to him, wearing only her underwear.“We have our whole lives to fix this place up.”

“Black door can mean thousands extra when we sell it,” Greg said.

His wife sighed and went up to bed.

It was getting dark so he worked quickly. The revolutionary soldier appeared on the doorstep.

“Please good sir,” he said. “May I trouble you for some quarter? I am weary and have nowhere else to go.”

“Sorry buddy,” he said. “We got a thing called the Third Amendment now.”

The soldier, who had a handsome boyish face and pale gray eyes that betrayed an eternal weariness, looked at him pleadingly.

“Perhaps I could come in for supper?” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t pay you.”

“There’s some pizza on the counter,” Greg said, pointing toward the kitchen island. “Just leave me alone.”

Finally alone, he made a long paint stroke across the front of the door. He felt a deep stabbing in his abdomen. He pulled back. A voice called from within, urging him to paint a red crucifix on the door, so that the spirit in the backyard may rest easy.

“That would look idiotic,” he said out loud.

He kept painting. With each stroke, his abdomen burned. But he persisted.

He stood back, admiring his work in the darkness. It really looked great. He looked up at his house, satisfied in his decision to become a homeowner. From the attic window he saw a pair of glowing eyes staring back at him. He’d deal with it tomorrow. Too expensive to call an exterminator.

Martha was awake, reading a dusty leather bound book by candlelight.

Greg said nothing as he moved past her to the en suite bathroom to wash the paint off his hands in the his-and-her sinks.

“I found it in the basement,” she said. “It’s a diary. It says they murdered a woman and buried her in our backyard, because they thought she was a witch. There’s a newer entry saying they covered the grave with eco friendly paving stones.”

“Those are good,” Greg said. “Will keep the basement from flooding.”

He climbed into bed.

“The book actually says nothing can stop the flood,” she said. “It will come and usher in 10,000 years of darkness.”

“Book sounds stupid,” Greg said.

She placed the book on her chest and stared up at the ceiling.

“You used to at least fake take interest in what I was reading.”

I have other things to worry about,” he said.

He heard a knocking at the door. A dark man in a trench coat and fedora. When he approached the man, a thousand bees flew out from where the man’s head should be. He walked out to look for the hive.

Across the street, they were building a brand new luxury home. Single family. Roof deck. Bay windows. His home value would go up. He’d made the right choice.

He went inside, satisfied. He felt a drip on his head. He looked up toward the ceiling.

“Brand new roof,” he said. “Lying realtor bastard..”

He was so angry about the realtor’s betrayal, that he didn’t see the hanged man dangling from the chandelier.

“Every time I go into the guest room I hear rattling locks in the air conditioning,” Martha said. “And there’s someone rapping against the window, begging to be let in from the cold.”

“That’s impossible,” Greg said. “The ventilation is brand new, the contractor said.”

“I hear chains scraping across the floor,” Martha insisted.

“That’s going to ruin the hardwood!” Greg said.

He told her he’d spend the night in the guest room, to make sure their floors would not be ruined.

“No,” Martha said. “Stay with me. Please. I’m frightened. And I miss you.”

“We have responsibilities, Martha,” he said.

“I miss us,” she said.

That night he heard scratching at the windows. He threw open the curtains. Nothing. Then he heard the moaning from the air ducts. The rattling of chains. He turned on the flashlight on his cell phone. He checked every corner. Nothing. He checked it again. This time he saw a small child with no eyes standing near the doorway. He shined the light again. The child vanished.

Eventually he went to bed, thinking how it would only be a few more years that the neighborhood would finish turning over and he could sell the starter house. Then they’d move to the beach.

He paused outside their bedroom door. He heard Martha laughing. A sound he had not heard in a long time. He slowly pushed open the door. The revolutionary soldier lay beside her in only his trousers. His tricorn hat hung from their bed post.

“What’s he doing here?” Greg said.

The solider stood up.

“You gave me quarter, sir.”

“Not to sleep with my wife I didn’t.”

“He’s a solider,” Marsha said. “He served his country.You couldn’t even make it through the boy scouts.”

“Our country didn’t even exist when this guy died,” Greg said.

The solider picked up his hat and turned to Martha.

“I believe it is time I take my leave and go,” he said. “I should continue my patrol.”

“No,” she said. “I want to run off with you.”

Greg looked up at the ceiling toward the LED lightning. It could change colors with a dial on the wall, but he never figured out how.

“Fine,” he said. “Both of you get the hell out of here.”

The solider stared off into the distance.

“I am afraid that I am trapped within the perimeter of this property until the curse is lifted, sir,” he said.

“Well I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “The housing market is terrible right now.”

The solider got up and looked out the window, toward their yard.

“If you free the woman buried beneath my patio,” he said. “Our souls may all rest. We will all be free.”

“If it means I’m free of Martha I’ll do it,” he said.

“Grow up, Greg,” she said, urging the solider back to bed.

Greg grabbed a pick axe and stormed through the French doors into their back patio. It was raining. The wind howled. A being of pure light hovered from the corner of the yard. Greg picked up the axe and prepared to slam into the paving stones. He’d free the woman’s bones and get rid of all his unwanted house guests once and for all.

Lightning crashed. He paused and looked over at the being of pure light. It illuminated the paving stones. They were slate gray, in a design the manufacturer stopped making years ago.

“It’s a great looking patio,” Greg said.

The being of pure light said nothing.

“It would be a shame for me to dig it up,” he said. “Not gonna cover it with anything higher quality than this. And those patio guys are all scumbags.”

The being of pure light exploded. Greg was left in darkness. He sat in the rain and went to sleep under the willow tree. He woke up to a gray sky morning, with someone else’s blood on his forehead.

Months later, Greg sat in his basement, in a leather recliner, under a sign that said “Greg’s Man Cave.” He was drinking a beer, and watching a football game that he didn’t care about. From upstairs he could hear his wife laughing with the solider. He turned the TV louder. The bloody woman floated down the stairs.

“My wife is having an affair with the other ghost,” he said.

The bloody woman stared at him knowingly.

“You want to hang out?” he said.

The woman opened her mouth. Blood poured on the tile floor.

“I can deal with the blood,” he said.

The ghost opened her mouth, in a long melancholy way.

“I’m actually seeing someone else,” she said. “The being of pure light?”

Then she floated away. Greg leaned backed and fell asleep, happy to be a homeowner.

The only rule of 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days is that the story must be posted the same night I started writing it.

2020:
Day 13 A Very Kaboom Halloween
Day 12 Save the Cat
Day 11 Vampire Weekend
Day 10 What We Drink at Brunch Besides Mimosas
Day 9 Lightbulb Moments
Day 8 Gift of the Magi 2
Day 7 The Hook
Day 6 Die School Musical
Day 5 The Viscount’s Supporter
Day 4 Eternal Necromancer
Day 3 Right Now
Day 2 Good Bones
Day 1 The Girl with the Green Mask

2016:
Day 1 The Ghost’s Girlfriend
Day 2 The Girl with the Puka Shell Necklace
Day 3 The Time I Went to the Old Church Later Than I Should Have
Day 4 Ride Scare
Day 5 Miranda, Who Appears as a Portent of Death
Day 6 A Halloween Carol
Day 7 El Mariachi de los Muertos
Day 8 Death on Demand
Day 9 The Ballad of the Cursed Mudville Maroons
Day 10 Officer Mac’s Last Day
Day 11 Chad vs. The Genie
Day 12 Luigi’s Coins
Day 13 Somewhere Beyond the C