Ghosts

Ghosts



“He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.”

Stephen King
“It”


“ “Be that word our sign of part, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting-
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven Nevermore.”

Edgar Allen Poe
“The Raven”



Ghosts


It is haunted by a sad, unhappy history. It is the meth capital of the U.S.A. Keokuk, IA, the smallest city you’ll ever see. There are very few businesses in it; there is a mall, if you can even call it that. Besides that there are some chain restaurants like Taco Bell, Mac Donald’s and Burger King. There are some small local restaurants like 4th Street Café and the Hawkeye to eat at. Two grocery stores rival for business, Hy- Vee and Country Market. The main street is Main Street.

The smallest town also is the spot of 26 serial murders, in just less than one year.


Death Strikes Keokuk
Hamilton Harold, 21 Nov, 1999

2 Slain in Home
Hamilton Harold, 6 Dec, 1999

2 Young Teens Murdered in Ally Beside 4th Street Café
Hamilton Harold, 13 Dec, 1999

Curfew in Effect
Hamilton Harold, 20 Dec, 1999

Mall is Murder Scene. No witness
Hamilton Harold, 27 Dec, 1999

No Clues to Deaths
Hamilton Harold, 3 Jan, 2000

No Deaths for 6 Weeks
Hamilton Harold, 6 Feb, 2000

Man Brutally Killed in Ally
Hamilton Harold, 12 Mar, 2000

Killer’s Hibernation Broken
Hamilton Harold, 6 Sept, 2000

5 Gutted and Hung in Pentagram Above Building
Hamilton Harold, 17 Oct, 2000

Curfew Put into Effect Again
Hamilton Harold, 23 Oct, 2000

10 People Killed in Past 4 Days
Hamilton Harold, 30 Oct, 2000


The town has been in mourning ever since the first brutal death and is filled with the fear of the Ghost. The Ghost had no identity and became more and more vicious and less understandable to the police, no known pattern was apparent. But one thing was known, all in the town knew it, the murders were becoming more occurring.


Nov, 1 2000
Doyle Street was blackened by the night. No lights were on except one house. It was the house of Patrick Kelly; a blue collar worker of the hydro electric plant on the river. He never slept, he was paranoid of intruders, and the Ghost hadn’t helped his problem. He knew that even though there was a curfew on the town, it wouldn’t stop anyone.

The police were short officers and it would always be that way. The town had been in the red and hadn’t gone up for five years so no one expected anything to change. The police in Keokuk were the lowest paid and over worked in the state.

Kelly had been diagnosed with chronic insomnia a while back. It was a family trait from his late father’s side.

His father was a miserable man that had abused him as a child and was a heavy drinker all his life since he started at 14. His father had also been constantly out of work and never tried hard to find a job. Patrick never had the strength to confront him and so he lived with torture until his father died in a car crash. This did nothing to his stability and so it spread and grew into many mental problems, including, depression, paranoia and insanity and provoked his insomnia to emerge even more.

He never went to therapeutic or psychiatric counseling about his problems and he had no friends or family so he was never confronted about his conditions. He lived by himself and planed to die there. His neighbors were too self involved to bother with checking to see who lived by them so everyone in the neighborhood just left him be.


3:00 AM

Patrick Kelly sat on the ground eyes wide open with a cup of coffee in his left hand while news papers and clippings and paper waste were all around him. The light from the lamp was dim. The room was dark and seemed smoky. He had his scrapbook opened and had just glued in a page full.

The book was all ready halfway full off the clippings from the recent deaths. It was a prized possession of his. Scrap booking seemed the only thing he had been able to do since his earlier years, at least been able to do right according to his father. It was truthfully the only thing he could do because it was the cheapest thing.

Kelly had been following the deaths with great interest. He couldn’t understand why, he just did. Maybe he thought that he had a part in it, he had somehow caused it to happen. Maybe he could solve it and improve his life. Maybe because it was the only interesting thing the city had going on, in some sick way. He had gotten everything on the deaths that was possible, he also had some stuff that he had swiped from the police and crime scenes. He was beginning to actually put together clues about the deaths but they seemed to be too small and inconclusive overall.

Just then Patrick heard a window shatter. Immediately, his head bolted up. In the same moment he grabbed the scissors by his side and stood up. Patrick didn’t wait for anything else to happen.

He heard the sound of footsteps. He headed as fast and quietly as he could toward the door to go down to the end of the hall away.

He looked out the door, down the hall to the living room. No one was there, but he could see shattered glass sprinkled on the floor. He knew where the intruder was, in the kitchen, which was through the arch way that connected it to the living room. It was just five steps from the couch beneath the window. The intruder would surly have gone directly through there. If his luck was good, then the intruder would first go check the den, down some stairs from the kitchen.

Patrick tip-toed into the hall. He knew the house, with all its creaks and loud groaning boards. ‘One foot at a time, just place one in front of the other. Don’t mess up or you’ll be dead.’ He thought. Slowly, slowly he went. His grasp on the scissors increased and his knuckles turned pale and red. His hands were icy cold.

The house was dead quiet, both people not making a sound. Then it broke the silence, the sound of the blade moving out of its shear. The sound froze Patrick in his place.

He moved swiftly down the hall to the last room on the right. Then he noticed a problem, the door was closed. His hand touched the loose knob and gripped it tightly. The creaky knob twisted in his hand. Slowly, slowly, the hinges moved, Patrick’s heart sped up. He was already paranoid and frightened but now he felt his chest pound, painfully. The door opened inch by inch. He had lost the position of the intruder. He could be dead in the next second. The door was almost open half way so he could slip in. Fifteen more seconds. The steps creaked. Step two. He needed six more seconds. The intruder was coming up the den stairs. Step five, the intruder was almost half way up and back to the kitchen then he would turn and see Patrick up through the hall. Patrick had gotten the door open enough and slipped in.


This room was his favorite place, it was his. Patrick spent days in it playing and pretending. It was his escape from the reality, the awful reality. The room was filled with toys; who cared if they were second hand? They were better than nothing, and they were his. Multi-colored wooden blocks and Lincoln logs built his kingdom and the paratrooper men with ripped chutes ruled it. The matchbox racing cars speed around the room and over the toy chest, seeing who could survive the dangerous jumps and feats.

At the end of the day his father came home. First it was his mother, then he came for him. But Patrick didn’t have to fear, his G.I. Joe with one arm would defend him! Then the reality returned.

His father opened up the door and it began.


He had to rush. Step eight. Patrick got the door closed. Now to turn the knob and close it completely. No sound down stairs. The intruder had reached the kitchen. Patrick turned the knob. It was shut. He turned around and went to work. By now the intruder had reached the top of the stairs. Had the intruder heard him? Patrick opened the closet and grabbed the guns from the top shelf.

The first door opened. The intruder knew Patrick was up here. Silence again. Patrick heard his heart beat. Then there was a sound of shredding. Patrick guessed it without a thought. His scrap book was being destroyed. The intruder was the serial killer, the Ghost. Patrick was chilled. Each door opened, one after another. Time seemed to last forever. Finally the door opened up to his horrified, tired face.

Looming in the doorway was a male figure of nothing special. He was covered in black everything, a black ski mask, black shoes, and black sweat clothes. In his hand was the knife, it shined dully in the dark, reflecting the light from outside the window. The killer stepped forward, Patrick pulled the trigger to the gun. A clicking sound came out. In the rush he had not grabbed the bullets. Now he would pay the price.

The killer continued to walk forward. Patrick lunged at the Ghost. In his right hand he held the scissors, upward he went aiming insanely at the figure. The Ghost quickly bent to his left and dodged the attack. The Ghost held out the knife in front of himself and ripped through Patrick’s upper arm causing blood to cover the knife. Patrick fell to the ground feeling pain and blood rush through his body and shock him. Quickly though he turned over and missed the Ghost’s falling stab at him.

With all his might Patrick stood up and fell forward directly on the Ghost. The Ghost wasn’t ready for it, the scissors came down to meet the left arm of the Ghost. Blood flowed out of the wound and soaked into the sweat shirt. Patrick drew the weapon out of the arm and stood up, preparing to fall on the Ghost again. Then he paused. On the desk was a dagger, glinting in the moonlight. The long curved blade seemed to almost whine for him to come and grasp the handle and weld it for his desires. He limped over to the knife and took it off of the desk and glanced at the doorway. The Ghost had recovered from the blow. How? How could he?

The room was small. There was no way to escape. There were only three yards from side to side. The only exits were the windows, which would be insane to try to escape through since desks and cabinets were blocking them.

Blood dripped to the ground from the wounded arm. Seconds passed as the two stared down each other. Then, Patrick dashed toward the killer with his ripped arm swaying and paining him. Then he dived forward as he reached the Ghost and tackled his legs knocking him to the ground and sending himself out of the room. But again, the knife sliced Patrick’s calf. He screamed in pain as he felt the metal tear through muscles. Warm blood slowly flowed out and rolled down his leg and gathered on the floor.

Slowly he hobbled up and headed down the hall towards the stairs. The blood created Patrick’s path on the wood floor, as it dripped off of his dragging, limping foot.

Patrick glanced back. The doorway was empty. It seemed too predictable. ‘Where is the Ghost?’. Slowly he walked down the hall; no sound was heard except for his heavy breathing. Patrick looked around. Nothing was out of place. He looked into the room beside him. There lay the torn scrape book, shredded into pieces.

The Ghost walked out of the shadows of the hallway. He had followed the worn Patrick the whole time. The shadow rapped his arm around Patrick’s neck and opened his head with the knife in his other hand, scratching the bone. Automatically he drove the dagger backward into the attacker’s side. He let Patrick’s body go and drop down the stairs. Slowly the Ghost removed the dagger. He heard the sound of ribs rub against the side of the knife. The Ghost grunted at the pain. Patrick was shocked and dazed by his own pain, it was numbing. Blood poured over his body. He was going to die. He knew it. He wasn’t going to give up though. He raised himself on one arm and sat up leaning forward, he pushed himself up.

Warm air blew through the broken window towards him. The wrecked body of Patrick felt chilled; he felt tired. There was a rush in his body to stay alive, but it was small.

The Ghost’s shape was in front of Patrick’s bent over. Patrick stood up and looked at him, staring him face to face, inches apart. Their blood traveled to the ground where it formed one single pool. Patrick backed up a step preparing to run. He watched, the Ghost didn’t move. He took two more steps. He ran as fast as he could; he ignored the siring pain in his leg. He got into the kitchen and got two knives and leaned on the counter. Silence fell on the house.

The blood had soaked itself over Patrick. He felt its hot stickiness cover him. His heart slowed down. He began to breathe much, much easier. He thought he heard something, but were? His aching head darted all over. He closed his eyes. ‘No!’ he thought. Outside the grass ruffled. The house was calm again. Patrick began to walk back to the bathroom upstairs; it was all over he had won. Glass shattered as a brick came through the back patio doorway. It hit him in the leg and sent him sprawling on the floor. The house was silent. Then Patrick picked up the knives, he was ready this time. He stumbled up to his feet. There in the front doorway was the Ghost. Courage filled his body with new energy. Patrick got to his feet and swung the knives at the Ghost. The left knife met his face while the right collided with his arm. They did nothing.

Patrick doubled over in wiriness and shut his eyes. The past flew at him, the losses, the death of his father two years ago, the screaming and anger; his loss for living when he was eight, the abuse when he was three. He only remembered the pain; he never had a happy memory. He remembered the loneliness from the past few years and the firing from the last job and the one before that and the one before that and all the others. His life would be nothing to miss, but he couldn’t give up. The fame he would get, he could change his life around! He stood up to his past. He stood up to the Ghosts, to the Ghost.

Patrick looked him in the eye. He reached out and held his hand against the Ghosts mask. It was cold and felt lifeless. He grabbed the mask and ripped it off of the killers face. The face was the face of the Ghost. A face Patrick wished never to have seen again. It was cold and lifeless just like it was with the mask on. The face Patrick saw was the face of his father. It was decayed and rotting. Patrick looked horrified; he closed his eyes and dropped the mask. The Ghost looked at him confused. He reached down, took the mask and put it back on.


Patrick was through with it, he had put up with all this long enough. He was old enough to make his own decisions. He was through listening to his father, all he had ever done all of Patrick’s life was yell and hit him.

“I’m leaving; you can’t stop me this time. I won’t take anymore of you! I hope you die slowly and get full return of the pain you’ve caused in the life of everyone you know!” He yelled at his father.

Patrick’s father simply continued sitting on the couch, one beer in the right hand and a cigarette in the other, while his eyes were focused on the television. Had he even heard a word of what Patrick had said?

“Fine, do what you want. I could care less if you decide to go jump off the bridge, that’s probably what will happen anyways. You couldn’t even do that right though, you’ve never been able to follow through with anything; I always had to do things for you.

“Besides, you have nowhere to go, no friends, no family; you’re all alone. Face it, you’re not even worth vomit,” His father berated him, “If you leave and come back, I will kill you.”

Patrick was silent. Then he began up the stairs to his room.


Patrick stood up for another shot and screamed in anger to the Ghost. He crossed his arms and slashed the Ghost across the chest making two red openings.

The Ghost screamed in pain and anger. The damage seemed only to have momentarily stopped him. The Ghost thrust the dagger and knife straight forward into Patrick’s stomach. Patrick froze; and then fell. Blood ran down his stomach and over the knives. He was exhausted beyond possibility. He then fell forward down more into the knives. Then the Ghost pushed him backward with his knee. The knives slid out, covered in blood. It was everywhere.

Patrick knew he was over. He knew that no one would bother the house. His work would just write him off. No one really even knew he existed, let alone was dieing right now at this moment. His body would lie helplessly in the same spot for weeks. Then someone with a bit of curiosity would wonder into the house and find his mutilated, bloody gory, gutted (most likely), corpse. They would then run out, call the police whom would send someone out, then they would find the blood, broken windows, and all his insides lying around. Then the mess would be cleaned up and he would be buried by the city and become the famous unknown victim in the papers. These were his last thoughts.


It finally was over. His parents were dead. It was an awful wreck; no one survived. He was the only family and was so the one with the responsibility of their possessions and funerals. Even in death his father abused him; Patrick was left with the debts that his father had ignored. He could never have his own life, never come out from under his father’s foot.

He kept the house, pawned all his parent’s possessions and used the money for there funerals. He was all alone.


The Ghost stood over the body, thrust the knives in again, and Patrick’s eyes opened widely. Then the knives went in again and again and again and again. Blood flew all over the room. The knives continued to be sent in and out, just for insult. Pieces of intestine and other parts of Patrick were ripped out as the knives flew. There in that house lay the remains of a dead man, known to none but as a nameless victim. Only to you is he Patrick Kelly. Then silence fell on the house.