They said an old man left his eyes open in the house years ago and lay there for days before being discovered. Nobody ever lived in it again. We kids found the place irresistible. The windows looked like dragon teeth and you could make snow fall from the ceiling if you slammed a basketball against it.
My parents, already trying to deal with my older brother, warned me to stay away from the house, said the rotten floors would swallow me whole or broken glass unzip an arm. They got together with the neighbors and boarded up the place, but we always found a way to mouse in.
Betsy Gildenfrantz and I pried a plank loose from a back window once, made our way through and showed ourselves to each other. I think. Betsy wouldn’t let me turn on the flashlight so I’m not sure what I saw. Another time a bat thrashed at Billy Roberts, and he peed his pants. He tried to hide it, but we all saw when we got outside.
One day Dicky Kelly revealed that the old man’s ghost, its face dead white and eyes wide open, returned every full moon and wandered the house. Dicky was taller than the rest of us so wasn’t to be taken lightly. The next full moon, he said he’d give me a Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Ernie Banks if I went in the house.
Dicky had put a nickel on the old dining room table, which was deep in the dark heart of the place. The deal was I had to go get the nickel and bring it out.
As soon as I got inside, I swept the room with my flashlight then started to make my way to the table. After I’d taken a few steps, the caterwauling began. I could tell the moans and groans were coming from Dicky, Betsy and Billy, but still had to fight the urge to desert my mission. I stayed the course, though, got the coin, hurried back across the creaky child-eating floors and gave the nickel to Dicky. He studied it and said it was the wrong year. I think we all knew he was lying, but I never got my baseball cards. Not that I cared much. I was after something else. I went into the house on my own the next few full moons, but was always disappointed.
It was 1968. The year they shipped my big brother half a world away. The year I stopped believing in ghosts. The year I learned to accept that once somebody’s gone, they’re gone. I haven’t closed my eyes since.
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author bio:
David Henson and his wife have lived in Belgium and Hong Kong over the years and now reside in Peoria, Illinois. His work has been nominated for a Best of the Net and has appeared in numerous print and online journals including Bull & Cross, Moonpark Review, Lost Balloon, Fiction on the Web and Literally Stories. His website is http://writings217.wordpress.