Indescribably Malicious

by Pamela Tyree Griffin

Here they come looking for ghosts again. With their electronic stuff, their television cameras, their sensors and fancy lights — all that crap. The fat one hides a cross in her purse but she tells the others that she’s not religious or superstitious. What a load. Why the people who watch the TV show don’t keep a BS detector on at all times for the likes of her I’ll never know.

They come when it’s dark because it makes it more dramatic for TV and they think they can hunt better that way. I’m here all the time, day or night — doesn’t matter to me. They want to see a ghost, they really do. They see flares and orbs and all this other crap. They don’t see anything except what their feeble minds tell them to see. I can stand right in front of them and they see nothing at all. Won’t give them the satisfaction. Trudging through the weeds that used to be my front yard, past the little plot where Ann had her flower garden and where I eventually planted her, they trespass. They think nothing of it since nobody lives here now. I won’t let anyone live here.

They call themselves professional ghost hunters or spirit detectives. Professional, my butt. If one of them farted on tape, they’d replay it over and over, convinced someone is saying, “Help Me!” or “Get Out” or some other such nonsense. If they really were professional, they wouldn’t come in here today, though. There’s something here besides me now — something that came with the darkening sky last night. It’s a big evil. Bigger that what got hold of me when I killed Ann and then slit my own wrists in 1991.

I can see it and it can see me. It follows my every step, peering on the windows, marching around on the roof above me and making the walls shake. And for the first time since I died, I want to leave. It’s been glaring at me through the windows, murmuring nonsense, scratching on the back porch and hammering on the front door since last night. I don’t think it can get in unless someone lets it in.

They’re getting close now, hiking up to the house with paraphernalia in tow. I’m waiting, just waiting, because I’m sliding out the door as soon as it opens.