Ghost Boyfriend: John (special preview)

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 felt heavier.” You furrow your brow. “I sound crazy don’t I?”

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

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

Mason scowls in thought. “Wasn’t the Exorcist a demon, was it 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 had jewelry in it, so the things scattered and spilled beyond the shelf. With a huff, you started picking everything up. 

Using your cell phone's flashlight, you search down a ring that had rolled back. You saw it glinting just beyond the third row of shelves, but when you got to it, the ring wasn’t there. You furrow your brow, knowing you had seen something glittering. Maybe it was a screw in the shelf? You decide it doesn’t matter, you’ll come across it eventually. As you start to leave you hear something clatter and fall. You turn, pointing your cell phone into a shadowy corner to see a head roll out.

You scream before realizing it’s a mannequin head. Even still, you want to scream again. You kick the head and run out of the backroom. You dart into the breakroom and 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 but feeling silly all the same. You clean up the mess from the spilled box and set it all on the table. As you’re breaking down the old box, you see a ring sitting on top of the table. It’s the ring that had rolled away from you.

You pick it up just to make sure, but it’s for sure the ring you saw roll beyond the shelves. You place it down carefully then turn around, looking behind you at the shelves and beyond that as it grew dark further back. For a moment, you think you see a figure dart between shelves at the back, but it was so faint you said it was your nerves getting the best of you.

You were mainly angry you had let Mason’s ghost story get to you. You’d been working in that store for ages and had never seen anything. Not to mention, before that, you had been working in that back room for a couple of weeks now and had noticed absolutely nothing that would constitute a haunting. You could explain the mannequin head away, and the figure you saw was easily justified as a trick of the eye. It was the ring though you couldn’t reason. It had obviously rolled away, 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 though, but if you keep yourself busy it’s not even a second thought. Occasionally you feel a breeze garze across your skin. You look up, seeing nothing, and certainly there is no open window. But you distinctly felt the cold graze of air against you. It sent chills down your spine, but aside from that you felt no fear, no reason to be alarmed other than the ghostly breeze.

There was a day, when you were trying to untangle a wad of price tags and necklace chains and were totally engrossed on the task. Not much else got through to you as you tried to work your way through the frustrating knot. So when there was a voice right by your ear, you didn’t pay it much attention. When you felt a cool breath against your ear, you stopped what you were doing. You looked around, seeing if Mason had snuck in while you were cursing a chain of silver. When you saw nothing, you turned your attention back to the rat’s nest, but when you looked down, you saw two chains laid out perfectly on the table top.

A voice came to your ear again and you swatted as if there was a bg buzzing around your head. You left 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 pushes forward on it’s own.

You seize up, going still with your arms still in the air. The box pushes forward again. When you don’t grab for it the box goes flying off the shelf and crashes into the wall behind you. Unsure if 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, then again you don’t know exactly where you’re standing at the moment. From the corner of your eye you see a whisp, something moving that has no shape, so solid form. Shakily, you turn to look, but when you stare right at it, it vanishes again. 

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

“Hello there,” it says again. “Can you actually hear me?”

You see it again from the corner of your eye. It’s like steam or mist, it flickers 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, start to step down from the ladder. You feel relief as you step on solid ground, but that shape is still there in the corner of yours eyes. 

“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, on one, there at all.

“Who's there?” You scream out.