Scary Kids (NaNoWriMo 2019)

Chapter 4.

"Doesn't talk?" Elijah questions with his face crossed in the puzzle.

It was the plainest way that I could put it, "He's the only other ghost in town and he just doesn't talk."

"So you've been alone for a whole year?" the realization sets in for him. "Oh god, I'm so sorry- I had no idea-"

"Don't be sorry," I'm quick to tell him, "nobody had any idea that I was even here."

"But, it must be so lonely to have no one to talk to," he says.

I brush his comment off a little, "It's not really, every once in awhile people can hear me and see me. Just like you did."

"You did scare the shit out of me, by the way."

"Sorry about that..." I say on the verge of losing my ability to keep in a smile.

"I actually," he starts, "heard some freshmen saying that you were haunting the school. I guess the rumours have been going around."

"Well, they're not wrong."

He raises one of his eyebrows as he peers up towards me.

"I spend a lot of time in the second-floor washroom," I say.

"Of course you do," he replies with a glimpse of a reassuring twinkle in his eye.

I take a moment and place my left hand on his arm as I tell him, "it is really going to be okay. I wasn't lying when I told you that."

Elijah doesn't answer but gives me a reassuring shrug.

I decide to wait for a while as to not plunge him into the deep end of death. It's going to take time and a lot of it, and as much as I want to go running off into the realm of stupidity from which my humour resides, I have to stop myself.

"Do you want to meet Frank?" I finally ask him.

"Uh... sure," he replies.

It's definitely a good place to start. Frank doesn't judge or complain, and well he doesn't really do anything.

We get up off the ground and he pats his pants off, which I giggle at.

"You're a ghost," I mention, "dirt doesn't stick to you anymore."

"So dirt won't get all over my clothes anymore, which means I won't have to do laundry." He thinks about it for a flash of a moment, "wait! I'm going to be stuck in this outfit forever?!"

"Just don't question ghost logic," I pester, "I'm certain the ghost gods don't even care."

"There's ghost gods?" he shakes his contemplation.

"Maybe," I tell him, "I don't know. I've been making stuff up for the last twelve months to keep myself entertained."

"Give me a second," he says, "did you write that stuff on Mr. Dumble's window?"

I smile, "Guilty."

"So, you can pick stuff up?"

"In theory, yes, but don't worry about it," I tell him.

"But-"

"Shhhhhhhhh," I try to silence him with my finger.

"If-"

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

"Fine," he gives in. "Are you going to introduce me to Frank then?"

"Yes," I say without hesitation, grabbing his hand and dragging him along. "He's just in the cemetery."

"Cemetery?" he questions, "That's like a thirty-minute walk from here."

"Well, we don't have a car, but we do have two legs."

Elijah huffs and slouches as we start to walk.

Part of me started to get a little worried, however. It's not like I'm not glad to see him taking all of this so well, at least in the last twenty minutes or so, yet I don't think I want to admit that his behaviour reminds me of myself. I was in his shoes, I know exactly what's going through that brain of his. Part of him is becoming who he was always meant to be and death can't even stop him now. It's just amazing to not have to worry about anything. Getting killed? You're already there. What about annoying parents? They won't ever ask you to clean up your room again. You can get away with pretty much anything, it's kind of nice.

As we approach the hauntingly rusted gates that somehow feel like home I notice Elijah take in the frowned look of fright. I couldn't tell what had scared him first, the pegged bodies of the crows on the metal arrows of the fence or the fact that nobody had actually picked them up in about twenty years. I guess it's just one of those things that sits on the bottom of the pile for the city."They're dead, why would they even care?" There might only be two of us, well three now, but it would be nice to get some new flowerbeds at the very least. I'll even settle for dandelions.

"Holy shit," he says, "this place is... I don't even know how to describe it."

"What, you've never been in the town cemetery before?"

"No," he replies scratching his head, "I've driven by it, but I think it creeped me out just as much as it did everyone else."

"Well," I start, "the scariest thing about this place is the lack of sunlight for that perfect Fall selfie. I bet if they cut down all the trees within a hundred feet of this place, the town could charge a pretty penny for influencers to take pictures while they're pretending to be Michael Jackson in his Thriller music video."

"I never knew you talked this much before," he tells me.

"I didn't, never did," I say. "The me who had rosy pink cheeks just wanted to sit, be quiet and get through high school. I was going to book it out of here as soon as freedom called my name. I did get half of what I asked for in the end."

He didn't entirely seem convinced, "Really?"

"Yeah, I can say whatever the hell I want. I don't care about what people thought of me. If they didn't have to worry about what the world expected of them their zippers and keys would be right out the window too." I tell him.

I watch him take a second to think, "I guess you're kind of right..."

"Take Frank as an example," I explain as I lead him towards the last row of tombstones, "he stands there every minute of every day in his army uniform and stares at that grave. I probably annoy him so much just blabbing along my merry way, yet he listens to me, and if he would actually talk back to me I would totally respect his decision to give me shit about it all."

I hadn't noticed that Elijah was focusing more on the ghostly soldier than my words, but he watched him with a sense of ease like they had been brothers in a past life.

"Is that really his name?" he asks me. "Frank?"

"I don't know," I reply, "he hasn't said a single word to me in the last year and by the looks of it he's been here at least since the 40s."

"I wonder why he just stands there," he says. "Why would someone stand by their own grave for eternity? He looks like he's been shaking with hopelessness for forever."