She Walks the NIght

He can’t leave – he doesn’t know he is dead.

Yes, that’s it!

Dropping her pen on the desk, Shelly runs out of her studio, “Jonathan, Jonathan where are you?” she shouts as she runs to the front hallway.  Standing at the bottom of the stairs, she shouts again, “Jonathan, where are you?” no longer able to keep the impatience out of her voice.  Where was he? He wouldn’t leave without telling her, would he?

Shelly turns around and goes back towards the kitchen. “Jonathan!”  As she rounds the doorway into the kitchen she sees Jonathan sitting at the table in the dining room, drinking his coffee and reading his newspaper. 

Reading! Just reading as if she hadn’t been running all over creation yelling for him.  “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“Well yes, but I knew eventually you would find your way back here and find me.”

“It could have been an emergency.”

“Oh Shelly, everything is an emergency with you. I can’t let myself get over wrought every time you yell for me.  Now what’s the emergency this time? Sit down, you look too flustered and out of sorts. That just won’t do you know!”

Shelly sat just staring at him.  How could he with just a look and a few words always take the wind out her sails?  Now she didn’t seem to care whether she told him what she had discovered.  He wouldn’t be excited about it anyway.

“Well, what is so urgent you had to disrupt my coffee and paper?”

Shelly sat deflated, and feeling very defeated as well.  “Nothing, it doesn’t matter. I doubt you’d care anyway.”

She got up to go back to her studio thinking ‘maybe Mary Ellen would be home. She’d care. She was interested.’

“Oh no you don’t young lady.  You will not disrupt my routine and then just walk away.  Now out with it!”

Shelly turned around facing him and as she said it, she knew Jonathan already knew this.  “You know why he can’t leave.  You know he doesn’t know he is dead.  Knowing that, why have you let this go on so long? Why didn’t you end this before it got so involved?  Before things got so bad?”

Jonathan carefully folded this newspaper back up, sat it down besides his cup.

Straightened his spoon, fidgeting with stuff it seems. Shelly always thought this was all done deliberately to drag things out – to dramatize it.

“Jonat – “

“Sit down Shelly, just sit and be quiet a moment, will you please?”

Shelly hadn’t heard him use a please in a long time.  It took her off guard and she sat speechless for the moment.

“Of course I’ve known he stays here because he doesn’t know he’s dead.  Why else would he still be here?”

“But  - “

“In a moment Shelly, in a moment.”

They both just sat, Jonathan still fussing with his cup and spoon, folding and refolding his napkin.  Shelly just staring at him – Jonathan was nervous about something, scared it seemed to her. Surely he wasn’t afraid of Jack – Was he?

“Yes he is.”

Shelly jumped.  Jack always snuck up on her and always frightened her and enjoyed it as well.  Maybe this time if she ignored him and pretended she hadn’t heard, he would go away again.

“That’s not bloody likely to happen is it?” Jack hissed as laughter filled the room. Loud laughter that always seemed to come at her from all directions all at once.

“Now Jack really ole’ boy, sometimes your theatrics are a little too much to take.  You know you scare Shelly when you do that, so why do you do them?”

Laughter continued to fill the room until Shelly couldn’t stand anymore. With her hands covering her ears, she got up and ran outside.  Outside to fresh air, sunshine and the swing in the bower and no Jack.

Jack couldn’t leave the house, no matter what he said. She had found out he was house bound.

“Come back here – I’m not through with you.”

Shelly ignored it all and kept going. The further away from the house the better she would feel. Sitting in the swing, head laid back, eyes closed, for the 100th time she wondered why she stayed?  No one would fault her if she left. That would be the easiest thing to do.  But this was her home – Hers.  Something she had waited for and longed for all her life.

She could still remember like it was yesterday how she felt the first time that she had seen this place.  The Realtor hadn’t wanted to show it to her – said no one had lived there in many years.  It was too rundown, too old and ‘haunted’.  She didn’t want to see it. But she did.  There was just something about the place that seemed to say “I’ve been waiting for you.  Where have you been? Come inside and see.”

So reluctantly the Realtor showed her the place and Shelly knew in an instant this house was hers. The add-on was a perfect studio and it all was in much better shape than she thought.  A good cleaning, some sunlight in these rooms and it would be perfect.  She didn’t believe in haunts so that didn’t bother her and for the first few months it was perfect.  The house just needed a good cleaning and a good airing.

The only real work that needed to be done was the area she used as her studio.  It needed new wiring, and more windows.  Then Jonathan showed up one day, out of the blue, like he always did. Wanting to stay a few days, knowing she wouldn’t turn him down.  She never did.  Most of the time she enjoyed his company, his stories of his travels. She knew most of them were made up, embellishments of things, but she never told him she knew, because it really didn’t matter. 

Her mother had hated his stories, resented his running off and leaving her alone with the kids to struggle. She would finally begin to see daylight and he would always show back up. One day her mother wouldn’t let him come home again.  By then Shelly was grown and on her own.  Guess she’d felt sorry for him, but she always let him stay.  It upset her mother that she did and that was the one thing they had always argued about.  Now her mother was gone and didn’t matter anymore.  But this time it was different.  He was different and the time for him to go had come and went and Jonathan was still here.  Not restless at all, like he had come home to stay this time.

But then he showed up – Jack.  Now that she thought of it, Jack hadn’t come around until Jonathan was here. Was he trying to run Jonathan off or had Jonathan brought him?

No! Jack was already here, hadn’t the Realtor said the place was haunted? But all of the months she had been here before, why did Jack wait until the first night Jonathan was here to show up? Somehow there was a connection and she needed to know.  But that meant going back into the house and she wasn’t ready for that just yet.

Shelly wasn’t sure how long she had sat.  She must have fallen asleep because it was late afternoon by the looks of the sun.  It was time to go back. She had intended staying in her studio today and making up for lost time.  Another day shot to hell on account of Jack.  Now she was ready to go back and ask some questions.  Questions she intended to get answers for. As she walked back towards the house, she noticed Jonathan was still sitting in the dining room, Surely he hadn’t been there the entire afternoon. That wasn’t like him at all.

But as she got closer she noticed it wasn’t Jonathan there. It was a heavier, older man.

Cold chills ran down her arms. Jack?  He had never become so solid you could see him. Usually it was just shadows and mist.  As she opened the back door, she called out “Jonathan, I need to talk to you.”

Silence. No sound.  Shelly turned towards the dining room only to find it empty.

She walked through the house – it was quiet and dark, no sound but the ticking of the clock in the hallway. 

“Jonathan – are you here?”

Nothing.

Slowly going up the stairs she knew she was alone in the house.  There was no one here.  She stopped in front of Jonathan’s bedroom and knocked.  “Jonathan are you okay?”

Silence.

She knocked again and turned the doorknob, pushing the door open slowly.  It was empty. Bed made, immaculate and empty. There was nothing in it to show that he had ever been there.  She searched the house from top to bottom and found no one.  No Jonathan – no Jack. Now she was frightened. Where was he?

Never had he ever left without saying goodbye. He never just packed up and went.  But there was nothing in the house to even prove he had ever been there. Not even his cup and saucer, which was always turned upside down in the dish drain. There was no cup and saucer; today’s newspaper wasn’t here either.

About that time, there was a knock on the front door.  With relief, she ran to open, knowing he would be there smiling and very smug that he had pulled one over on her.

But it wasn’t him.  It was a stranger, a stranger with a special delivery letter and the morning newspaper that had gotten stuck in the bushes at the street.  Shelly thanked the young man remembering at the last minute to give him a tip. 

She leaned against the shut front door, holding in her hand a letter she knew she didn’t want to read.  Shelly decided she would go to her studio and sit down before opening.  She held the letter a long time and realized she was scared to open it.  But she had to get it over with.  It was a letter from Jonathan’s lawyer back east, to tell her about his death, his estate.

Hand shaking, she re-read the letter.  It had to be a hoax.  It stated Jonathan had died in a VA Hospital 2 ½ months ago, the same day he had showed up on her doorway 2 ½ months ago, with no baggage. He said it had been stolen.

That couldn’t be true.  He was here, she had seen him, and she had touched him, or had she? This time there was no hug like before.

She wouldn’t believe what had happened.

But in the letter was a death certificate. An official certificate and a newspaper clipping telling about his death and the accident that killed him and his roommate at the hospital – a man named Jack.

The clipping stated a woman in a truck lost control of it, crashing it through the fence and onto the patio where Jonathan and Jack were. They had both been killed instantly.  The article continued stating how much people would miss them. But glad that Jack’s evil laughter would no longer haunt them.  As she sat there staring at the newspaper clipping a piece of paper caught her eye sticking out of the envelope. 

It was a check for a million dollars, and it was hers. She was his only living relative.

They say on foggy, foggy nights, you can see her wandering the grounds calling for Jonathan – and if you listen – you can hear laughter.