I know he’s not ours—what had been mine. That was just a cluster of cells.
This is a housewarming gift. The nucleus of our new family. The child that will help me and Silas lay down roots. I never wanted this life, never imagined having a family, especially with Silas. We were never going to have a house, 2.5 kids, a dog, a nine-to-five job. That life was never in the cards for us. But Ghost is giving me hope, showing me that there is another life beyond this one, a better rendition of this existence waiting for me on the other side of the veil.
Look at what we have here—look at what this house has given me.
Silas with open arms.
Our son.
We name him Lonnie. Well—I name him Lonnie. He just feels like a Lonnie. He follows me around the house wherever I go, scurrying behind the drywall. I haven’t told anyone else about him. Not Tobias, and certainly not Marcia. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, thinking I’m trying to steal her own baby from her. No, Lonnie is our little secret. Just between me and Silas.
What’s your ghost story? I hear Tobias’s voice slip out from the living room.
Our ghost story is spreading on its own now. There’s always a knock at the door—Wanna get haunted?—while Tobias performs his halluséances around the clock. People bring their own ghosts—BYOG—letting them loose in our home, haunting every last inch of it. It’s getting difficult to tell whose ghosts are whose in this house anymore.
We carry the ghosts that haunt us wherever we go, I hear Tobias say from the living room at the beginning of every session, his voice reaching through the halls. I can reconnect you.
I hear him even when I’m not there. The sound of his voice fills every room. You just need to open the door in your mind…open yourself up to getting haunted… There are times when I can’t tell if Tobias is really talking, or if I’m simply hearing things. Just let your ghosts in…with this. One dose. Ghost acts as an incantation. Possession in a pill. A séance inside your mind.
Whenever the urge to run away rises, right on cue, almost as if the house can read my mind, Lonnie comes crawling through the ceiling, spying on me from the other side of the Sheetrock. I sense him peering down, eyeless yet leering all the same. I pretend not to notice, playing along. The two of us have made a game out of it, even.
“Has anyone seen a baby boy around here?” I ask the empty room, turning this way and that, well aware that he’s crammed in the crawlspace above me. I can hear his slippery giggling.
“Hmm. I wonder where he could be…”
Lonnie watches with his gilled rictus opening and closing. I tiptoe to the closet.
“Could he be…” I lean into the emptiness. “…in here?”
Nothing but shadows. This game of ours helps pass the time. I see less of Silas now that I have Lonnie to look after. Or maybe he’s looking after me.
“Where in the world is that boy?” I announce in mock exasperation. “I just don’t know!”
Lonnie mewls with excitement.
“Maybe he’s in another room. Let’s go see!”
I tiptoe toward the door, slowly lifting my feet high into the air so that it’s obvious that I’m sneaking around. Sure enough, I hear the soft padding of Lonnie’s hands and feet scrape against the other side of the drywall.
“Is he…in here?”
I make the mistake of opening the bathroom door, assaulted by the smell. A swarm of flies scatters. I feel the buzz of their wings in my teeth. On the wall, written in shit, it says: BOO
I hear a slight gurgling rise up from the clogged toilet bowl. The softest murmur mewls from within the cistern. It’s not the plumbing. Lonnie giggles up from the hollow pipes, only for this persistent thought to resurface: I need to get out of here. Don’t I? Shouldn’t I be looking for a way to escape? It should be as easy as walking through the front door. But the house doesn’t want to let me go. It’s keeping me here. It eavesdrops on my thoughts. Someone—Silas?—is listening to what I’m thinking. How else can I explain what’s happening to me?
“I’m gonna find you…”
Lonnie scurries for the hall, shimmying his soft bulk through the wall.
“I’m gonna find you…”
There’s a crack in the ceiling above the doorway to the living room, the plaster fracturing just enough to peer inside. I wait for him to catch up to me before— “Peekaboo!” I spin around and catch him in the fissure. “I see you!”
Lonnie lets out a wet, phlegmy shriek. I reach out to grab him, but he’s too quick for me. He forces out a determined grunt before scurrying back into the walls, vanishing from sight.
I have no choice, there’s no other option here, we have to keep playing and playing, endlessly running, as if we’ll chase each other for an eternity through these rooms.
“Peekaboo!” I catch Lonnie in the kitchen—or maybe he catches me.
“Peekaboo!” I catch Lonnie in the closet. We’re running out of rooms.
The front door. I can go through the front door, can’t I? Just pretend like you’re playing, Erin. Don’t let them know what you’re thinking. Don’t let on that you’re going to— Open the door.
“Peeka—”
Sunlight stings my eyes. Lonnie isn’t there. In his place, I find a woman standing on the porch. She’s familiar. I know this woman. She looks just as startled as I am.
“…Erin?” She knows my name. Her mouth hangs open, unable to say more.
Callie.
Oh god, it’s Silas’s sister. It’s hard to say who’s more alarmed in this moment.
“Erin…What’s going on?”
A cold rush of shame surges through me. I don’t want her to see me like this. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t know about this place.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“You invited me. You said…” There’s a stone in her throat. “You said Silas was here.”
“…When?” I have no memory of reaching out. I haven’t even seen my cell phone in—I don’t know how long. Tobias took all our toys away. I have no memory of calling her.
The warmth of the sun makes my skin itch. Already I can feel the persistent tug in my chest, as if an invisible thread connecting me to the house is pulling me back inside.
“…Is he?”
“What?”
“In there.” Her voice sounds so small. I can hear the slightest splinter of hope. Even though she must know it’s not true, that it’s not possible—she was there at his funeral, for Christ’s sake—she can’t stop herself from wanting it, needing it, to be real. That Silas is here.
I could offer her that solace, that connection to her brother. I can say those simple words—Do you want to get haunted?—and then all she has to do is walk inside and become a part of our home. Our family. She’d be reunited with Silas forever and— No. I can’t. Not to Callie. Not to anyone.
“You can’t be here.”
“But you…”
“Get out. Now.”
Callie shrinks back at my words. She’s confused, but I have to push her away, push her out of here as hard as I can before she walks in and can’t escape.
“Erin, what’s going on—”
“GO.” I step out of the house, breaking the protective shell of our home for the first time in an eternity and push Callie off the porch. She stumbles down the steps and I follow.
“You told me to come—”
“Don’t come back. Don’t ever come back.”
I push her again. I can only imagine what I must look like to her. I’ve seen the same look on all the other houseguests here: wild eyes, hollow sockets, taut, waxy skin. Greasy hair clinging to my sweaty neck. I’m a shambling corpse, hissing at her. “GET OUT GETOUT-GETOUT!”
I don’t care if Tobias hears me. I don’t care if I’m sent to my room and my haunting privileges are taken away. Not Callie. She runs all the way back to her car. I stand on the lawn, chest heaving as I watch her pull away. It’s the smallest of victories—I saved her, didn’t I?