Ghost Boyfriend: John (complete)

Downtown is full of all sorts of old buildings, which over the years have become the shopping hub for your small town. What used to be old general stores and shoe repair stores now sell handmade soaps, antiques, and boutique goods in pop-ups that rotate like the seasons. Your aunt has come to own one of these buildings, some sort of factory or meat rendering plant. All you remember is being petrified of the place when you were little.

Nowadays, after years of remodeling, your aunt has opened up her own shop. It’s a boutique clothing store in the front and a thrift store in the back - a sort of clothing store mullet, as you’ve come to jokingly call it. 

You used to work as a cashier there during the summers while you were in high school. It was an easy enough job, but like any retail job you had enough stories to fill a book. When you eventually left for college, you were kind of relieved not to have to work there again. It always gave you spooky vibes, especially when you were alone. It was a never a sure thing, but in the back of your mind you had always insisted the place was haunted. After all, the building is old as dirt, and over all those years it has to have gathered up spirits, or at least its own collection of memories. 

Walking into houses, you’ve always been able to sense if a place has good or bad memories. Some houses have love seeping out of the walls, but others give you uncertain or even cautious feelings. This old building, which once rendered pig fat or something, had collected a patchwork quilt of memories. Some days the building would feel light, other days heavy, you were never too sure what you’d be walking into when you worked there. You’ve never discussed these feelings you get. You just figured everyone could sense a house. That’s why realtors called houses cozy, right? 

After college ends, you go back home. Immediately your aunt offers you a job at her store again. You’re hesitant, but you are in desperate need of a job, and this is easy. You can relax there rather than having to hustle to find something.

Expecting the same old cashier gig you had always worked in, you’re a bit surprised when your aunt takes you to the very back room, where she keeps storage for both the boutique and thrift store. There are boxes upon boxes of clothing - fashions from the thrift store meant to rotate with the seasons, things from the boutique that haven’t sold, old displays and decor, and even an ancient fridge in the back. Your job is to organize and clear out the boxes. Once that’s done your aunt is going to take all the stuff you deem salvageable to another store she’s opening in another town. That’s the real job offer - she wants you to run this other store for her.

In a way, you’re relieved you don’t have work with people again. You have a deadline for sorting out this backroom full of junk, but you can easily take your time with it. You can pop in headphones and tune out the rest of the world while you go through time capsules of clothes. 

The store has been open for around ten years now, but even before that your aunt and her family used it as storage as well. You have no idea what you will find as you start taking down boxes. The further back you go, the more surprising finds you expect to see.

On your first day your aunt is ready with some specifications for you. She takes you to the back room, and as the fluorescent lights flicker and buzz, one in the back pops and goes dark. 

“We’ll get you a lamp or something,” your aunt sighs. She breezes around, all flowing hippie skirts and scarves. Her Wonder Woman gauntlet of bracelets and bangles makes her jangle like a traveling tambourine troubadour as she shows you around. “We set you up this table, got you a new chair,” she said excitedly. “You know where the break room is, and we finally replaced that old water cooler.”

She adjusts the huge coke-bottle glasses on her face, pushing them up with the heel of her hand so her acrylic nails don't touch the lenses. “There must be tons of vintage stuff back here. I know you have a keen eye. All you kids are into those vintage clothes these days.”

You know things from the nineties are a trend, but you have no idea what she’s getting at. 

“I want you to go through, find nice vintage stuff, maybe even research things on eBay.”

You want to question why eBay, but you decide beggars can’t be choosers and remain quiet. 

“All the stuff from the boutique you find, I want to keep. But if you see anything questionable, just set it aside and I’ll look it over.” She pushes up her glasses again as they start to slip down her nose. “Anything nice from the thrift store too, make a judgement call. Anything that you’re unsure of, make a box for that, and anything you think we should get rid of, make a box for it too. I’m donating all that to the women’s shelter. They have a program where the women repurpose the old clothing and make quilts or something. I have a few, and it’s really interesting what they can do with old t-shirts, you know?”

“So you want me to make boxes for the good, the bad, and the ugly?”

Your aunt breaks into a grin and pats you on the back. “You get it. But make sure everything is put away nice. After all this is going to the new shop, and the easier we can make things, the better!” She pushes her glasses up again. “You don’t mind working alone back here, do you?”

You look your aunt directly in the eye. “You’ve worked that cash register, you tell me.”

She clicks her tongue. “Well, if you ever get lonesome back here, you can always go to the break room and see who’s hiding there. Your cousin is usually skirting his duties in there.” She rolls her eyes.

Both her kids work in the store. Her eldest mainly manages the accounting, but her youngest, Mason, has been working various odd jobs there. It’s no surprise to you when he starts joining you in the backroom to avoid whatever job he has that week. He lounges in one of the half-full boxes like a cat, his legs hanging over the edge while his head hangs over the back.

“Will you take me to the new store with you?” Mason asks.

You look at him with an arched brow. “Fuck, no. I want people who will actually do work there.”

“Fair.” He sighs and sits up, watching as you take down another box. “I was so glad this room got filled up.”

“Why?” You glance over at him. “I figured you would want a room like this to hide in.”

He looks around, his eyes becoming distant as he gazes beyond the boxes and towards something else. “Oh, I used to. But after a while I started feeling like I wasn’t alone back here.”

The hairs at the back of your neck begin to prick up. You turn, searching Mason for any sort of sign that he’s trying to pull your leg. For years this place has confused you, comfortable one day and uneasy the next. 

“C’mon,” you chuckle. “Be serious.”

He shakes his head. “I am being fully, completely, and utterly serious with you. I swear, sometimes, when I would come back here, it felt like there was someone here. Like someone was sitting where you are now. I hated it. Made me think this place was haunted.”

Mason has always been interested in things like this. He believes in aliens, and enthuses about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. So him talking about this building being haunted isn’t exactly strange, but you believing it is. It would explain all the strange feelings the place gives you, and considering how old it is, it’s easy enough to fall for. 

“Things used to fall over all the time. And when Mom would put things back here, I would often find them in other places.” Mason presses his lips together. “So when the room filled up, I couldn’t tell what had moved or what had fallen. It all looked the same.”

You start going through the box in front of you. You pull out clothes and fold them, not really paying attention to whether they’re good, bad, or ugly. “So why are you back here now if it scares you so much?”

“You’re here. I can explain not feeling alone when someone else is here.” Mason looks over at the shelves you’ve already gone through. Through the gaps you can see a little further back to the next shelf. “I forgot how big this place really was. It looks like it goes on forever.”

You haven’t yet attempted to see how far back the shelves go. After a certain point it becomes too dark, and there are mannequins everywhere. You jump every time you come across one, and you hate it. So you’ve decided to go back when you need to and slowly move all the mannequins to one area.

“Shouldn’t you be working instead of telling me ghost stories?” You smile back at him. “Doesn’t your sister dock your pay?”

“She should. I don’t do shit.” He stands up from the box he’s in. “But Mommy loves me.” He comes and sits down beside you at the sorting table. “I didn’t scare you, did I?”

You look him in the eye and pinch his nose. “No.” You toss things at him to fold. “But it does make me question a few things.”

“Only a few?” Mason laughs.

You try to put effort into what you’re going to say next. You want to word the question so you don’t come off sounding insane. “Do you ever get feelings from a house?” 

Mason places his hand over yours. “My dear, darling, cousin,” he says softly. “Do you want to fuck a house?”

You toss an old sweater into his face. 

“There’s a name for it!”

“Not those sorts of feelings,” you laugh. “I mean like, when you go to a friend’s house or something, can you feel if the place has been loved, or if something is off?”

Mason gets a confused look on his face as he starts to think. “I’ve never really paid attention. I’m mainly worried about the people in the house.”

You frown and push your box aside. “Back when I just worked at the cash register, it felt like the mood of this place changed every day. Some days it felt happy, other days it felt heavier.” You furrow your brow. “I sound crazy don’t I?”

Masons shrugs. “Not exactly. I was just talking about ghosts, so who am I to judge?”

You sigh and look around the room. “I always said a building could have memories. Maybe ghosts are just part of that.”

“How poetic.” Mason teases.

You chuckle. “If there are ghosts back here, do you think they’re like Casper ghosts, or like Exorcist ghosts?”

Mason scowls. “Wasn’t the Exorcist a demon, not a ghost?”

“I haven’t watched it,” you confess with a laugh. 

After Mason leaves the back room, you try to busy yourself and not think about the new ghost revelation. You go to gather another box, but as you pull it off the shelf, the bottom opens up and everything spills out. The box has jewelry in it, and the small pieces scatter beyond the shelf. With a huff, you start picking everything up. 

Using your cell phone's flashlight, you search for a ring you saw roll further away. You spot it glinting just beyond the third row of shelves, but when you reach the place where it should be, the ring isn't there. You furrow your brow, knowing you saw something glittering. Maybe it was a discarded screw? You decide it doesn’t matter - you’ll come across it eventually.

As you start to leave you hear something else clatter and fall. You turn, pointing your cell phone into a shadowy corner in time to see a head roll out.

You scream before realizing it’s a mannequin head. You kick the head and run out of the back room, darting into the breakroom to catch your breath.

“Good lord, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You give the coworker who said that a harsh look and exhale loudly. “Mannequin head.”

“Ew,” she grimaces. 

You eventually go back into the backroom, shaken still feeling silly all the same. You clean up the mess from the spilled box and set it all on the table. As you start breaking down the old box, you see a ring sitting on top of the table. It’s the ring that rolled away from you.

You pick it up just to make sure, but it’s definitely the ring you saw roll beyond the shelves. You place it down carefully, then turn around, looking behind you at the shelves that stretch into the darkness. For a moment, you think you see a figure dart between shelves at the back, but it’s so faint that you decide it must be your nerves getting the best of you.

You’re mainly angry you let Mason’s ghost story get to you. You’d been working in that store for ages and had never seen anything. You’ve been working in that back room for a couple of weeks now and have noticed absolutely nothing that would constitute a haunting. You can explain the mannequin head away, and the figure you saw is easily justified as a trick of the eye. It’s the ring that gives you pause. It obviously rolled away, so how did it end up back on the table?

You chose to believe you were mistaken and move on. 

A couple of days go by, and you sort of forget about Mason’s tale. It tickles at the back of your mind, but if you keep yourself busy it’s not much of a bother. Occasionally you feel a breeze graze across your skin. You look up to see nothing, and certainly no open window. But you distinctly felt cold air graze against you. It sends chills down your spine, but aside from that you feel no fear.

One day you’re absorbed in trying to untangle a wad of price tags and necklace chains. Not much else gets through to you as you work your way through the frustrating knot, so when there is a voice right by your ear, you don’t pay it much attention. But when you feel a cool breath against your ear, you stop what you were doing. You look around to see if Mason snuck in while you were busy. When you see nothing, you turn your attention back to the rat’s nest, but when you look down, you see two chains laid out perfectly on the tabletop.

A voice comes to your ear again, and you swat at it as if there were a bug buzzing around your head. You leave the back room quickly, escaping for a moment as you once again convinced yourself it was nothing.

Then, one day, you’re reaching for a box on the top shelf. You try to grab it, but it’s just out of reach. All of a sudden, the box moves forward on it’s own.

You seize up, going still with your arms still in the air. The box inches forward again. When you don’t grab for it, the box goes flying off the shelf and crashes into the wall behind you. Unsure whether you should scream or run, you stand there like an idiot. All signs point to panic, but you’re a deer in the headlights. 

“I’m sorry! Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

The voice comes from nowhere. From the corner of your eye you see a wisp, something moving that has no shape, no solid form. Shakily, you turn to look, but when you stare right at it, it vanishes again. 

“He-hello?” Your voice breaks as you try to talk. “Hello?” It’s the only word you can squeeze out of your tightening vocal cords.

“Hello, there,” the voice replies. “Can you actually hear me?”

You see it again from the corner of your eye. It’s like steam or mist, flickering for a moment before settling like a shadow to the side. 

“Is someone there?” Your fear is choking you and you have to escape it before you can think about escaping this shape speaking to you.

“I think I’m here,” it says. 

You slowly, shakily step down from the ladder. You feel relief as you land on solid ground, but that shape is still there in the corner of your eye. 

“Are you OK? You’re shaking.”

You feel a hand upon your shoulder, but as you whip around to slap it away, there’s nothing, no one there at all. “Who's there?” you scream.

“Sorry!” the voice says in alarm. “I don’t mean to frighten you.” It sounds masculine, but you’re unsure.

You clasp your hands over your ears when the door opens. Mason comes walking back with a concerned look on his face. “You OK back here? We heard you yelling in the front.”

You look around, then back at Mason with wide eyes. “I saw it!”

Mason furrows his brow. “What?”

You shake your head and point to the box lying smashed on the ground. “It flew!”

Mason stares at you for a long, quiet minute. “You OK?”

You exhale and gather your thoughts, pulling at your hair before you approach Mason and grab his hand. “I think I saw your ghost.”

Mason’s jaw drops, then he looks at you and shakes his head. “Why is it mine all of a sudden?”

You shake his arm. “It was a ghost! It talked to me!”

Mason takes you into the break room. He gets you a drink of water and calms you down enough to tell him the whole story. After a while, you go back to the back room with Mason, taking him to where you had seen the shape from the corner of your eye.

“Are you still here?” you ask. In the silence, you turn to look at Mason. As you face forward again, you see that wispy, misty shape behind a shelf.

“I really am sorry,” it says quietly.

“You hear that?” you hiss at Mason.

Mason follows your gaze, trying to hear. He shakes his head at you. “No. What’d it say?”

“My name is John. Can you really hear me?” The ghost laughs. 

“He said his name is John.” You turn and look back at Mason. “You really can’t hear that?”

Mason’s eyes widen. “You can?”

You turn back and look directly at where the shape had been standing. For a moment, you see a flash of a figure, but it comes so quickly and imperceptibly your eyes feel confused. You rub at them, only able to see the shape from the corner of your eye now. 

“I can’t believe you can hear me!” John laughs happily. “I don’t mean to frighten you, it’s just nice to have company again. This room has been so empty.”

“Empty?”

You step closer to a shelf - and the mannequin in front of it that wasn’t there earlier. It moves, twisting its head to look at you. You suck in a breath, holding it there while the rest of your body freezes up. “How long have you been here?”

“I’m not sure.” The mannequin raises its hands towards its face. “It feels like an eternity and yet no time at all.” The mannequin turns its head towards you again. “I want to understand. Can you help me?”