Come Out

Come out, come out wherever you are there is no use hiding I will always find you in the end,” a boy who looked like he was a couple of hundred years too far in the future said in a sing-song voice, a demented grin plastered on his face and glinting silver knives in his hands.

“Why in the name of the gods are you trying to kill me!” I screamed frustrated with the situation.

“Don’t antagonize the angry ghost,” my friend who also happened to be a ghost named Arlean scolded me not seeming to get my frustration with this situation.

“I’ll stop antagonizing him if he lets me give him what he wants so I can get rid of him” my voice had not quieted since my last bout of yelling nor had the annoyance left me. The only thing different about this time was the knife sailing past my head barely missing my face and skimming my hair cutting off a few strands.

“Found you”

“Yeah, well we weren’t actually really being quiet if you couldn’t find us you would be an oblivious idiot not worth either of our worries,” my friend’s voice sounded tired and annoyed which to be fair, I was too after all with two days of almost nonstop running from a knife-wielding maniac who does not need sleep who wouldn’t be.

See this all started a week and a half ago when a strange man showed up at my house (well ok maybe he wasn’t that strange just far more formal than anyone I have ever known) he turned out to be the executor for my father’s will coming to give me my inheritance which happened to be three items a picture of him, my mom, and me from when I was a wee baby, a very worn black notebook, and 20,000 dollars. Now, this was strange for me because I honestly thought my father died years ago when he stopped contacting my mom and me when I was sixteen no explanation or note just dead silence for all these years. Now to be honest I was kind of furious to find out he was not actually dead all those years I mean who wouldn’t be, to my knowledge my father has been dead for seven years. (It hurt so much watching my mom break as she seemed to realize her husband may not come back, that he could be lost forever.) I had already grieved his death, it felt like a freshly closed wound ripping open all over again. The first few days after I finished dealing with the executor, I locked myself in my house after of course telling my mom of his death (her cries will haunt me for the rest of my life full of so much pain) and stopped all contact with the outside world. The only reason I ended up leaving the house was that my ghostly friend may or may not have physically dragged me out of the house and into the bright outside world and for the next few days, I was partially okay living life outside of just my home. (Not fully ok yet why would I be? I just found out my father died, not something you just get over.)

Now the next part is when it gets weird ten days after meeting the executor a childlike ghost dressed in Victorian nobles’ clothes showed up and started following me around. (Now this wasn’t the weird part ghosts follow me around a lot just take my friend for example. He showed up when I was fifteen and never left.) No, the weird thing was he didn’t seem to realize I could see him. The first day he ranted about how terrible my family was and how we should all die. (There may have also been a lot of words that have probably died over the centuries that I didn’t know thrown in between confusing me greatly but who cares it just fueled my late-night Google searches for answers.) He was going on and on about how we stole something from him, judging from how important it seemed to be to him probably the thing that is keeping him tied to the living realm.

The first time he realized he could interact with me was the next day when he threw a knife at me. I don’t know what he expected to happen but by his supposed face at the time it certainly wasn’t me diving to the ground to avoid the beautiful weapon and making a fool of myself in public. By the time the events seemed to catch up to him a face-splitting grin appeared on his face and his hands were reaching into his coat to grab more knives. The next hour is lost to my memory. The closest period of time I remember is being in my home and grabbing anything I think might be needed before taking off as psychotic laughter echoes in the distance coming closer and closer to me. I don’t think I will ever be more thankful for the money my father gave me than in the events that followed without it I would probably have never gotten away it allowed me to pay for a hotel for the night though that only lasted for an hour before he caught up to me enough time to give me time to eat but not much else. We barely escaped Arlean jumping on him to give me enough time to get past where he was blocking the door. (How did he find us so fast? How did he even find us in the first place? Maybe his item of importance if it was on me, he may have been able to track it so what could it be?) I remember the rest of the day and almost all of the next was spent in a similar manner finding a new place to stay lasting two hours at best and then having to run again.

By the end of it, I was pretty much going insane from the stress of the event and the lack of sleep though a good thing about it was me and Arlean managed to narrow down what we thought his item was the black notebook my father had left to me. It was the only item that was new to me that may even hold sentimentality to an old ghost, the picture to new, and the money to fleeting. The book in it itself was a curious thing worn down from the ages and written in a curious language that I was unable to understand. Before this started, I wondered why my father gave it to me, know I wondered why he was ever in possession of it, to begin with.

The final confrontation happened almost 41 hours after it started in a run-down office building the next city over from where I lived. The building was dark shadows seeming to come to life, a terrifying place to be confronted by a murderous ghost. The walls were crumbled in some places, desks abandoned and broken lying around with no rhyme or reason. I don’t have the faintest idea of how we got there too tired and mentally drained from having my life on the line to really pay attention to anything at that point. As I started this story we were hiding or well trying to from the ghost before my terribly grumpy demeanor made me aggravate him, winding up with more knives heading towards. (Such pretty knives I wished I had one but seeing as they were a ghost’s as soon as they lost the thought of them, they disappeared.) I think after our initial arguing my friend and him spent about ten minutes arguing about whether or not he was an idiot while I ran from the knives, he distractedly threw at me.

“Ok I get that you both seem to be preoccupied with whatever it is you are doing but I would like not to die tonight so may I please ask that you STOP THROWING KNIVES AT ME!” I screamed wishing for nothing but the end of this ridiculous fight.

“Why would I ever stop hunting you, you dirty thief,” he spat venom lacing his words yet the grin still on his face.

“I am not a thief; I have never stolen anything in my life. What you want was given to me and if it is not rightly mine, I will give it back to you like I have been trying to since I found out,” the tone was quite all annoyance hidden under indifference.

“Why should I trust you to keep your word?”

“Oh, I don’t know maybe because I wish you would stop throwing knives at me so I could go back to my normal life.”

“What life all you do is stay trapped inside your house unless I drag you out,” my terrible friend decided to but in perhaps at the worst of times.

I glared at her silently opening my bag and grabbing out the notebook still getting knives thrown at me though they mostly missed only lightly scratching my arms.

“Here you see the notebook if you stop throwing the knives, I could give it to you.” “And why should I not just kill you and take it from your corpse?”

“Because of how likely it is that your precious notebook would get damaged in the fight.”

“Deal,” the unholy glee in his eyes as he said this gave me a terrible feeling that only got worse as he stepped closer to me.

When he was right in front of me, I could hardly move and when his hand grabbed the notebook, I was shaking terribly frightened though he didn’t actually do anything beyond take the notebook and leave the building humming a bright tune that faded as he did. With the danger gone I collapsed to the ground losing all awareness of my surroundings. The next thing I knew Arlean was trying to drag me back to reality arms wrapped around me whispering comfort into my ear. He coaxed me to get up and call a taxi to take me home, arm never leaving its place around me through it all. When I got home, I collapsed onto my bed asleep too tired to do anything else. The next few days I slowly got back to my normal routine still jumpier than I used to be and with more panic attacks than I used to have but bit by bit life seemed to go back to normal. At one point in the future maybe I would be able to believe those days of terror were all just a dream I made up a nightmare that never happened, but I would still have the scars the faint marks of knives on my skin.