A Beautiful Curse

A Beautiful Curse

Bound by the book, bound by luck

By Christopher Westmoreland

The quiet dark room was more of a comfort than the troubled mind that had woken up in it honestly expected. Her mind had been filled with the visions of battles past. She had never really understood what it was to live with regret, fear, and guilt until after she came home. It wasn’t that she regretted going into the military. Far from it, she loved every minute she served, and she was proud to have served, but the things she had done while in service were the exact things that woke her in the middle of the while she screamed.

She could still see the rubble of small villages, the blood soaked arms and legs that stuck out from under the rubble at awkward angles, and the smell of blood, urine, and feces that mixed with the charred smell of burnt meat, wood, and dirt. She would wake with the smell stuck inside of her nose. Her eyes would water, and it would take hours before the phantom smell would finally leave her alone. Of course more often than not the smell would return right after one of her horrific dreams.

It wasn’t just the village she would see. It would be the confused look of insurgents that she’d shot as they slowly passed. To her seeing the fear, the uncertainty, and the doubt in their eyes had been burned into her mind. She’d see them when she slept even though she understood that at the time it was kill or be killed. One of the few things that helped her deal with the thoughts, the depression, and the anxiety was going with a local ghost hunting group and exploring haunted locations.

More often than not the places were nothing more than old homes that had funky sounds, but didn’t have much else. Part of her wondered if there was anything beyond this world, and if there wasn’t then what was the point of it all? As it was she wanted to believe, needed to believe, in something more beyond this life. And so she stood before the old abandoned cabin. It had been located back in the hills, away from prying eyes. The cabin itself was rumored to have been built around the turn of the twentieth century, and it was also rumored that the soul of a World War II veteran occupied the house.

She walked in, uncertain of what would happen, uncertain of what she would find, but hopeful that she would discover more than she expected. The cabin made the similar creaks and groans most old homes made, and that meant exactly jack and shit to her. Still, she was hopeful, and like the rest of the group she gathered in the main room of the cabin. The spacious entertaining room was fairly small compared to most homes, but it was large enough for them to stand near each other without much trouble.

“Okay,” Nelson said hesitantly, “I know it’s been a long trip. It was a six hour drive to get here, and we’re lucky enough that the owners came out, filled the generators, started it, and said that we had enough diesel for about two days.”

She looked at him, and noticed the differences between them. Besides her being a woman and Nelson being a man, there were the differences in how they carried themselves. Nelson had never been in the armed forces. He didn’t dislike people who had been, but he was very vocal on the idea that having a standing army was idiotic at this point. He believed that all that was honestly needed was mediators between cultures that could help everyone understand one another. He was fit, but it was more showy than something done by a hard day’s work.

He was slightly dark complected, revealing that his ancestry was a mixed bag of various cultures, but then again it wasn’t that different from anyone else’s ancestry. His hair was short, but revealed the natural curl that refused to hide. His soft brown eyes were common and warm, but his attitude was that of someone who had fallen in deep with the myth that all people where good people. He hadn’t seen the lengths that people would go to in order to follow their faith, survive, or make some money. She couldn’t fault him, but she didn’t agree with him.

She sighed, “How long are we here?”

She knew his eyes were on her, and despite his tone she knew the look. She was fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to be a stereotypical redhead. Her skin was white, she had freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her eyes were a soft mint green. She also knew that he was trying to get into her graces. The problem was that she wasn’t interested in him, and so he had made the assumption that she was a lesbian. She wasn’t, but if he helped keep him at bay she wouldn’t correct him.

“We’ve got two days,” he replied with voice full of confidence, “Should be more than enough time to set everything up, take turns staying in the cabin, and exploring the surrounding area.”

She gave a nod, and over the next few hours their motion sensor activated cameras, heat vision cameras, and audio recording equipment was set up throughout the cabin itself. As it was she took the first shift, and she found her way down into what appeared to be a fruit cellar. The cellar was easily as large as the entire cabin, but there were sections where the floor was uneven, the ceiling dipped, and the sounds of dripping water could be heard from the old pipes.

She moved toward what looked like a resting wall, took a seat, and noticed a black book sitting on an old card table that had been brought down here. She opened it and saw the dark stained thumb print. She looked at it, the yellowing pages, the frail way they felt as if they would crumble if tugged to hard, and she slowly turned the page.

“August first, nineteen fifty-one. My sister’s husband, Doc Anderson, said that I should keep a journal. He said that getting what I saw out in the open might be a good thing,” she read attempting to imagine the voice of the man writing, “The thing is the Doc never saw battle. Sure, he served, but he was always stateside. Apparently being some kind of fancy mind doctor they felt he’d do better trying to figure out the motives of the enemy.”

She studied the page and she could practically feel the frustration. It was something she felt toward some of her own family. They didn’t get it because they hadn’t been there. Her grandfather had understood. After all he served during Vietnam, and she knew that he could understand what it was that she was going through, but the others didn’t. The fancy mind doctor, her councilor, Ms. Trueman, didn’t really understand either. She turned back toward the page.

“Still,” she could practically hear his gruff voice, “Maybe writing this out will help.”

She could almost see him, of course it was just her imagination, but she could practically see him right now. He was likely around her own height, the way his words were written she guessed that he came from somewhere like Arkansas or Oklahoma, and he had the body of a man that worked for a living. She could see long abandoned bottles in the distance and realized that like herself he had attempted to self medicate more than once.

She turned the pages, carefully, and moved further into the book, “Shit,” she could practically hear the sharpness in the curse word, “I don’t know what the fuck happened, but I’m bleeding bad.”

She could see the dark droplets on the page, “Not really sure why I’m even writing. Because I know that I won’t make it anywhere with a doctor. Look, if this is someone else reading this. Be fucking decent and put it back, alright?”

She started to, but then she saw something else, more writing, “Although, if you’re like me, then maybe you won’t have to. If you look around down here you’re going to find some things, and one of them came from that group of assholes. I’m not sure what they did, but I do know what it feels like. It feels like something is trying to suck me out of my body, and everything feels fuzzy. I took what they had, which was some weird crystal thing, and a suitcase. The suitcase has some gold in it. Don’t know why, don’t know how, but it does. The crystal thing, it makes you feel different. Don’t mess with the skull, but take the suitcase. It’s not going to do me a damned bit of good.”

She listened to the silence around her, but unlike the other houses it wasn’t an empty silence. There was something there. She’d come down with a plain tape recorder, and it had been running the entire time. She picked it up, and she took a look around the dark cellar. The first she had taken had shown a mostly dark cellar, with a few scattered lights, but this time around she saw a faint glow. Walking toward it she moved what looked to be an old wool coat to see a gleaming piece of crystal looking back at her. Below it was a suitcase. She reached down, touched the skull, and she felt something surge through her. A moment later she blinked and saw a figure.

He was fit, nearly her height, and his build was that of a working man. There was a dark spot on his left side, it looked like he had gotten in a bad scrape, but somehow he had pulled through. Oddly the cellar wasn’t as dark, and she could see his face. He had an untrimmed beard, and it was a coppery red, which matched the hair on his head. He moved toward her.

“Miss,” he asked calmly, “are you okay?”

She nodded, “Sure,” she said, “What’s going on?”

He shook his head, “You touched it,” he said sounding gentle, “And you were holding my journal.”

She looked at it, “You,” she said sounding confused, “But the last bit I saw was written in the fifties, that’s been over sixty years ago.”

He looked at her, “That long?”

She nodded, “Are you, dead?”

He shrugged, “I don’t rightly know, but I do know that you most likely gave up twenty thousand dollars worth of gold,” he said with a half smile, “The good news is that since we can see each other, we can keep each other company.”

He held out his hand, “Sergeant Andrew Tillison,” he said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance Miss.”

She smiled, “I’m First Lieutenant Melissa Davis. It’s a pleasure to make yours.”

For the first time since she had come home there was hope. There was an afterlife, and more to the point, there seemed to be peace. That was worth more than gold lying in the suitcase, more than anything she could have ever been offered. It was priceless.