Unhaunted

By Hope Jorgensen

In this century, it was getting harder and harder to haunt. I know that you would agree. The usual techniques of flickering illumination and silhouettes in mirrors is just overdone. You would look down your nose at such cheap gimmicks. Call them tacky or cliche. I’m dead so clearly those words can’t hurt. I haven’t felt pain in over two centuries. But, I’ve known defeat. Follow me along for the story. 

For a time, the house, my home, had been silent as a morgue. The emptiness was my own much deserved staycation. I spent that time rediscovering my abode. I traced its plum blue wallpapers, glided up and down the mahogany spiral suitcase, lit the entire chandelier. My fondest memories were reacquainting with the darling black widow in the basement. The mischief we got up to would have you rolling with laughter. I should’ve known all peace is temporary. 

My leisure time came to a complete stop decades too quickly. The end arrived with a family; two wives, one with a sleek bob, the other with tousled braids, and a baby with angelic curls and a hellish wail. At the sight of them, I had a feeling deep where my guts once was that they were the last. My final family to haunt. I would muster the last of my strength to haunt them before the great unknown took me.

You know that this had to be perfect. I spent my midnights plotting and calculating in the attic. There was no room for error, no time for pathetic measures such as spoiling milk. I don’t believe any of them even drank whole milk; even the baby drank a strange formula.

The witching hour came on the thirteenth day since their arrival, and my haunt was ready. Floorboards creaked beneath my phantom tread. Moonlight fell through slanted blinds across the child’s round face. A whisper sent the baby mobile twirling. I tried to squash down the part of me that felt this was the lowest point of my haunting career.

A green light pulsed from beside the crib, a small device I’d observed the parents’ voices omitting from. When they hear the pure fear from their beloved babe, it’ll be over. From deep within, I pulled out my essence. The outline of a past life grew around me; limbs and hands and a face. All pure white.

Wind whipped through the room which sent loose diapers and small dolls flying. The crib began to rock back and forth, at an increasingly violent rate. A cry began and that monitor’s light flashed red. The babe’s eyes blinked open. I waited for the fear to cloud them. You might be on the edge of your seat waiting too.

The baby cooed. Squishy little hands reached out for me and a toothless smile grew on their face. Shock flooded what used to be my nerves. There was also a separate, warmer feeling. The crib stopped abruptly but the child didn’t even bat an eye. Voices streamed from the monitor and a door slammed open.

My haunting career was over, but I found myself coming back the next night. And the next. The baby ceased wailing through the night with me by their side. Humans have rapid lives that I never bothered to track before, but I watched as this child grew and grew. Until the day the child was no longer a child and stopped seeing me. I think you would understand why I’ve chosen to finally move onto the true afterlife after all these centuries.