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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Fairy Tales & Fantasy
- Subject: Ghost Stories / Paranormal
- Published: 06/20/2022
After a Ghostly Millennium, I am Heard
Born 1970, M, from Georgia, United States.jpeg)
The tattered curtains to the study swayed in the night breeze. They were more cobwebs and rags than curtains. The glass that had once been in the windows had long since fallen out. The shards that remained sometimes rattled in the wind.
The study was little more than just another abandoned room in the house. At one point, there was a desk, a pair of tables, and several chairs sitting on an ornate rug. Books and curios had once filled the bookcases that lined the walls.
Now, all the furniture had collapsed and decayed, save for the small table and chair near the fireplace. The table had once been round, but part of the top had broken off, while the chair now lacked an arm and one leg had split. Most of the books that had adorned the shelves were gone, and the few that had remained had long since crumbled. The once opulent rug now was just ragged strips on the floor.
There was a single occupant in the room sitting on the chair next to the round table. He was reading a leather-bound volume. In nearly any other setting, this would not have been so unusual had the figure not been sitting as if nothing was wrong with the chair.
To Casek, the room still looked to him as it had in his life. The books still lined the shelves, the rug was in good repair, and the furniture looked as it did 150 years ago. A bright fire in the fireplace lit the room.
In life, Casek enjoyed reading. It did not matter to him what the book was. He had read books on science, spiritualism, religious texts, and even novels. Regardless of the subject of the book, Casek would read it, saying, “It takes my mind to new places.”
Because of his desire to read and learn, Casek had studied engineering and took a job with the railroad. He had wanted to be in charge of the train, responsible for the locomotive. But his first trip was his last. He worked as a tender and struggled to keep feeding the firebox with enough coal. It was the first sign of his ailment.
After discovering he wasn’t fit to work on the trains, Casek set his sights on another item of engineering, the telegraph. He studied its workings and Morse so he could send and receive messages on it. Once he became the operator, he found he had a good deal of time to read.
Casek’s father had made some money investing in the railroads. Enough so, when his father died in 1854, Casek could live better than his salary as a telegraph operator. Rather than quit, Casek stayed on at the telegraph station, as it offered him a chance to purchase books and pick up the occasional ‘penny dreadful’ from British travelers.
In the winter before the outbreak of the war, Casek had fallen ill because of consumption, and his recovery was slow. Nearly completely bedridden, Casek passed the days reading.
The following summer, he had recovered well enough to attempt to return to his job at the train station. When he returned, however, he found his station manned by Union soldiers, sending and receiving messages. This left Casek to deliver the handful of civilian messages that came in.
When autumn came, Casek relapsed and never recovered. He passed away shortly before spring with a book in his hands. Casek had never married and had no siblings, so the courts locked his modest estate in probate.
Shortly after his death, Casek found himself waking up in his chair in the study with a book in his hand. Or at least, he thought was waking up in his chair. Then he remembered he had been in his bed when he last fell asleep.
Not knowing how he got there, Casek put the book down on the table and began to look for Connell Hunkin, his servant. While calling for Connell and searching for him, Casek noticed that all the doors in the house were open. With the windows closed, the house felt stuffy.
When he couldn’t find Connell anywhere in the house, Casek attempted to go outside. Here he found the front and back doors were closed. When he tried opening them, the doors wouldn’t budge. Nor would the windows open when he tried them. He was trapped in his own home.
It was another two days before Connell returned. He came with another individual who Casek didn’t recognize. Unusual for his routine, Connell did not announce that there was a visitor when they entered the house. Casek only realized there was anyone in the house when he heard a door close downstairs.
Casek went downstairs to see who was there and found the door to Connell’s room closed. He could hear through the door that Connell was talking to someone.
“Well, that is the last of it,” Connell said.
“Let me get that bag for you, Mr. Hunkin. Shall we leave?”
Casek heard the latch on the door turn, which caused him to step back. When the door opened, he saw Connell and the other man holding a couple of bags. The two men did not see Casek standing at the doorway, and what’s more, they walked right through Casek as if he wasn’t there.
Casek stood motionless, watching the two men leave. They paused at the front door where the stranger turned to Connel and said, “Even though the younger Mr. Bawden didn’t have a will, parts of his father’s will are still in effect. My partners and I believe we should be able to secure you a stipend from the Bawden estate, and we will provide you with letters of recommendation.” The stranger extended his hand to Connell.
Connell shifted the bag he was carrying from his right hand to his left, then shook the man’s hand. “Thank you, Mr. Cheetum. I would prefer it though if you could hold the letters and the stipend for me, but I don’t see much point in that right now with this damn rebellion going on. I suspect it will be a matter of days before I’m swept up into it, so I’ve decided to go ahead and sign up of my own conscience.”
“Very well Mr. Hunkin. I’ll start drawing up the necessary papers so you can claim everything when you are discharged. I wish you the best.” The two men turned and left, closing the door behind them.
Casek’s jaw hung partially open with what had transpired. The men had not seen him and walked right through him. Then they talked as if he were dead. Casek ran to the door. He had not heard the men lock the door when they left, but when he checked it, the handle would not turn. He went to the parlor to look out the window, watching the two men leave in a carriage.
Retiring to the sofa, Casek contemplated the last few days. He vividly remembered lying in bed, coughing and wheezing, trying to read. He also remembered putting the book down as his eyes felt heavy and feeling cold. The next thing he could remember was waking up in the study with a warm fire going.
Casek now realized it. He didn’t remember moving from his bedroom to the study, nor did he feel cold like he had when he was in bed.
When he awoke in his study, it was his spirit and he now was a phantom. That also explained why Connell and Mr. Cheetum didn’t see him and passed right through him. That left the question: how did this happen to him?
Not wanting to ponder the question more, Casek went back upstairs to the study and sat down to read in solitude.
Over the next century and a half, Casek’s home remained unoccupied by the living. There was the occasional person or small group that would stay for a brief respite, but no one laid claim to the house. Slowly, it fell into disrepair while Casek sat and read. Strangely, the book Casek was reading would change after he finished it and put it down on the table.
Casek had learned that he could influence the content of the book on the table in the study. He had to only think about the type of the book he wanted to read. If he thought about a prison escape, the book on the table would be about a prison escape. If he thought about exploration, the book would be about an explorer or adventure. A newspaper would appear if he thought about what was going on in the world.
Now Casek’s solitude was being disturbed again. Putting his book down, a fanciful story by an English author about his experience traveling into the future, he listened intently. From downstairs, he could make out the clopping of footfalls mixed with other feet shuffling about. Casek couldn’t tell how many people were downstairs, but he thought at least four, based on the whispers.
He picked his book back up and started reading again, hoping whoever was downstairs was just looking for a place to spend the night. Those who had done so in the past were far less bothersome than those who came seeking mischief.
Casek had hardly turned the page when he discovered his visitors’ intent. In his mind, he heard it. A sound that called to him incessantly, compelling him to go to the old storyboard.
He had acquired the storyboard from a British spiritualist and her husband late in 1860. They were desperate to get to New York so they could return home. The couples’ original schedule was to go by carriage to Columbus in a few days, but the woman was frantic to get to New York. In order to secure passage on the train, she sold Casek the storyboard for $2.
From his reading newspapers, Casek thought he recognized it for what it was, a tool of spiritualists in Europe. The wood of the storyboard was old as it had grayed, and the symbols on it were faded and nearly indecipherable. The planchette, too, showed age and was in a shape that reminded Casek of an inverted fleur-de-lis with a blue gemstone set in the flower’s stalk.
Outside of it being a novelty, Casek thought little of the storyboard at the time he purchased it. Upon returning home that night, he placed it on the mantle above the fireplace in the parlor before retiring for the night.
The next morning, when he went into the parlor, the storyboard looked different. Where faded symbols appeared the day before, now appeared letters. He picked it up and examined it. Other than the symbols that were now letters, it was the same as yesterday. He noticed on the back there were some indecipherable markings before he put it back and went about his day.
Since that day, Casek often thought he heard something whenever someone touched the storyboard. He had few visitors, and he usually entertained them in the parlor with the storyboard. Some would make comments about it and touch it.
After his death, Casek seemed to have a connection with the board. For years, no one came to his home except for the occasional traveler looking for shelter. A number had tried to use the storyboard as firewood, but the wood wouldn’t burn. It would, however, scream in Casek’s mind.
It was during the first attempt to burn it that Casek learned something.
A man in a gray uniform was in the parlor. Casek had observed the man rummage through the house, collecting a change of clothes and some books. The man built a small fire in the fireplace using the books before trying to put the storyboard on the fire.
No sooner than the storyboard hit the fire, Casek heard the scream in his head. He fell into an end table, knocking it over. The noise startled the stranger.
“Who’s there?” he said, his eyes wide with fear as he whipped his head around, looking over the room.
Realizing he had knocked over the table, Casek kicked the table across the room. The man jumped at this and repeated his question.
Casek answered by shoving the sofa to the side and shouting, “Out!”
At this, the intruder bolted out of Casek’s home.
Once Casek was alone again, he gingerly reached into the fire to retrieve the storyboard. To his astonishment, he didn’t feel the heat from the fire.
He pulled the storyboard from the fire and examined it. The front appeared the same as he remembered it. When he flipped it over, he noticed the markings he had seen before appeared to be runes of some sort, but ones Casek had never seen. He studied the symbols for a few moments before putting the board back on the mantle and returning to the study.
Now he thought about the runes he had seen. When he picked up the book, he found a piece of paper with a copy of the runes on it in the book. The book itself was on runes and their meanings. Casek spent days studying both items until he became frustrated. He put both aside so he could clear his mind. When he turned back, the paper was gone, and the book had changed.
In the days he had studied the runes, he made little progress understanding them. They had appeared to be a mix of several languages, and all he could decipher was ‘freely taken,’ ‘freely given,’ and ‘immutable.’ Other than that, he could not make sense of it.
Casek went downstairs to the door of the parlor, which was open. Inside, he saw six people huddled around the storyboard that they had placed on the floor. They appeared to be around twenty and were drinking something from cans that they had brought with them.
“Who wants to ask the first question?” a woman wearing a black knit cap said. Her brunette hair hung out underneath.
A black woman shivered and said, “Are you sure about this? My Aunt Saundra swears this house is haunted. She won’t talk about it, but said something happened here when she came up here.”
A blond man who had been drinking heavily from a can, stopped and crushed the can in his hand. “My old man says your aunt has been messed up in the head since she came back home from the Army, Kalona.”
This struck a bad chord with Casek. The young woman lowered her head and her shoulders slumped at the barb, while it caused Casek’s jaw to clench. In life, he had not approved of the mistreatments of blacks, and his feelings on that subject had not changed. He banged his fist on the wall, which caused the six trespassers to jump.
The woman with the knit cap had grabbed Kalona when Casek had hit the wall. She looked up at the man who had insulted Kalona’s aunt. “Brent, you don’t have to say things like that about Kalona’s aunt. She knows more about this place than we do.”
“Come on. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it,” Kalona said. The group then sat down around the storyboard, holding each other’s hand. Kalona took a rectangular block and used her fingers to tap on it a few times. The glass window on it lit up for a second before going dark. When it did, she put it in her pocket and joined the brunette, putting a finger on the planchette.
Once everyone was situated, the brunet said, “We’re trying to contact any of the spirits that are here. If you can hear us, give us a sign.”
BANG. Casek hit his hand on the wall as he entered the room.
The sound caused the group to jump as they looked around, not noticing the planchette moved to the letter ‘L.’
Tat. Walking along the perimeter, Casek rapped on the walls as the planchette moved to ‘E.’
Tat, tap. ‘A.’
Continuing to rap as he paced the room, tat, tat, tat, tap. ‘V.’
Tat.
With each set of raps, the planchette moved to a different letter, ending on ‘E.’ When he stopped, the only thing that broke the silence was the breathing of the six intruders.
“What was that?” whispered a purple-haired woman.
A man with a shaved head said, “I don’t know. Sounded like something banging on something.”
“Look, the pointer moved,” Kalona said, her eyes wide.
“You and Jen moved it. And it’s the wind that is causing that knocking noise.” There was a slight hesitation in Brent’s voice. “Come on, try again.”
The group slowly turned back to the storyboard, but before they could ask another question, Casek started rapping again, while the planchette moved through the letters.
Tap, tap, tat. ‘G.’
Tat. ‘E.’
Tap. ‘T.’
Tat…tat. ‘O.’
Tat, tat, tap. ‘U.’
Tap. ‘T.’
To punctuate his last message, Casek grabbed the remains of the sofa and jerked it back towards the wall.
At the sofa’s sudden, violent movement, the women screamed, and the group bolted from the parlor. They ran to a pair of horseless carriages that were waiting out front. Frantically, the six clambered in and soon the two carriages made a roaring noise before they started rolling down the path.
Casek watched the red lights on the back of the carriages disappear in the distance before he made his way back upstairs to the study. Once he had settled back into his chair, he picked up his book again.
He didn’t know how long he had been reading, when he heard the roar of a horseless carriage pulling up. Not waiting to see what the intruders in this carriage were about, Casek went downstairs to investigate.
When he reached the door, he saw it was one of the two carriages that had left earlier. The black girl, Kalona, was standing alongside it, talking to someone inside. She then approached the front door and when she arrived, she stopped. After pulling a block from a pocket and tapping it a few times, it illuminated Kalona’s face as she then reached up to the door frame and began knocking.
Tat, tat, tat.
Tat…tat.
Tat…tat, tat.
Tat…tat, tat.
Tat, tat…tat, tat.
Kalona ran back to the carriage and climbed in before it turned around and rolled down the path again. Casek stood motionless during Kalona’s knocking. Once any sign of the carriage was out of sight, a slight smile came to his lips as he nodded. For the first time in 150 years, someone had actually heard him and spoken to him.
After a Ghostly Millennium, I am Heard(Patrick S. Smith)
The tattered curtains to the study swayed in the night breeze. They were more cobwebs and rags than curtains. The glass that had once been in the windows had long since fallen out. The shards that remained sometimes rattled in the wind.
The study was little more than just another abandoned room in the house. At one point, there was a desk, a pair of tables, and several chairs sitting on an ornate rug. Books and curios had once filled the bookcases that lined the walls.
Now, all the furniture had collapsed and decayed, save for the small table and chair near the fireplace. The table had once been round, but part of the top had broken off, while the chair now lacked an arm and one leg had split. Most of the books that had adorned the shelves were gone, and the few that had remained had long since crumbled. The once opulent rug now was just ragged strips on the floor.
There was a single occupant in the room sitting on the chair next to the round table. He was reading a leather-bound volume. In nearly any other setting, this would not have been so unusual had the figure not been sitting as if nothing was wrong with the chair.
To Casek, the room still looked to him as it had in his life. The books still lined the shelves, the rug was in good repair, and the furniture looked as it did 150 years ago. A bright fire in the fireplace lit the room.
In life, Casek enjoyed reading. It did not matter to him what the book was. He had read books on science, spiritualism, religious texts, and even novels. Regardless of the subject of the book, Casek would read it, saying, “It takes my mind to new places.”
Because of his desire to read and learn, Casek had studied engineering and took a job with the railroad. He had wanted to be in charge of the train, responsible for the locomotive. But his first trip was his last. He worked as a tender and struggled to keep feeding the firebox with enough coal. It was the first sign of his ailment.
After discovering he wasn’t fit to work on the trains, Casek set his sights on another item of engineering, the telegraph. He studied its workings and Morse so he could send and receive messages on it. Once he became the operator, he found he had a good deal of time to read.
Casek’s father had made some money investing in the railroads. Enough so, when his father died in 1854, Casek could live better than his salary as a telegraph operator. Rather than quit, Casek stayed on at the telegraph station, as it offered him a chance to purchase books and pick up the occasional ‘penny dreadful’ from British travelers.
In the winter before the outbreak of the war, Casek had fallen ill because of consumption, and his recovery was slow. Nearly completely bedridden, Casek passed the days reading.
The following summer, he had recovered well enough to attempt to return to his job at the train station. When he returned, however, he found his station manned by Union soldiers, sending and receiving messages. This left Casek to deliver the handful of civilian messages that came in.
When autumn came, Casek relapsed and never recovered. He passed away shortly before spring with a book in his hands. Casek had never married and had no siblings, so the courts locked his modest estate in probate.
Shortly after his death, Casek found himself waking up in his chair in the study with a book in his hand. Or at least, he thought was waking up in his chair. Then he remembered he had been in his bed when he last fell asleep.
Not knowing how he got there, Casek put the book down on the table and began to look for Connell Hunkin, his servant. While calling for Connell and searching for him, Casek noticed that all the doors in the house were open. With the windows closed, the house felt stuffy.
When he couldn’t find Connell anywhere in the house, Casek attempted to go outside. Here he found the front and back doors were closed. When he tried opening them, the doors wouldn’t budge. Nor would the windows open when he tried them. He was trapped in his own home.
It was another two days before Connell returned. He came with another individual who Casek didn’t recognize. Unusual for his routine, Connell did not announce that there was a visitor when they entered the house. Casek only realized there was anyone in the house when he heard a door close downstairs.
Casek went downstairs to see who was there and found the door to Connell’s room closed. He could hear through the door that Connell was talking to someone.
“Well, that is the last of it,” Connell said.
“Let me get that bag for you, Mr. Hunkin. Shall we leave?”
Casek heard the latch on the door turn, which caused him to step back. When the door opened, he saw Connell and the other man holding a couple of bags. The two men did not see Casek standing at the doorway, and what’s more, they walked right through Casek as if he wasn’t there.
Casek stood motionless, watching the two men leave. They paused at the front door where the stranger turned to Connel and said, “Even though the younger Mr. Bawden didn’t have a will, parts of his father’s will are still in effect. My partners and I believe we should be able to secure you a stipend from the Bawden estate, and we will provide you with letters of recommendation.” The stranger extended his hand to Connell.
Connell shifted the bag he was carrying from his right hand to his left, then shook the man’s hand. “Thank you, Mr. Cheetum. I would prefer it though if you could hold the letters and the stipend for me, but I don’t see much point in that right now with this damn rebellion going on. I suspect it will be a matter of days before I’m swept up into it, so I’ve decided to go ahead and sign up of my own conscience.”
“Very well Mr. Hunkin. I’ll start drawing up the necessary papers so you can claim everything when you are discharged. I wish you the best.” The two men turned and left, closing the door behind them.
Casek’s jaw hung partially open with what had transpired. The men had not seen him and walked right through him. Then they talked as if he were dead. Casek ran to the door. He had not heard the men lock the door when they left, but when he checked it, the handle would not turn. He went to the parlor to look out the window, watching the two men leave in a carriage.
Retiring to the sofa, Casek contemplated the last few days. He vividly remembered lying in bed, coughing and wheezing, trying to read. He also remembered putting the book down as his eyes felt heavy and feeling cold. The next thing he could remember was waking up in the study with a warm fire going.
Casek now realized it. He didn’t remember moving from his bedroom to the study, nor did he feel cold like he had when he was in bed.
When he awoke in his study, it was his spirit and he now was a phantom. That also explained why Connell and Mr. Cheetum didn’t see him and passed right through him. That left the question: how did this happen to him?
Not wanting to ponder the question more, Casek went back upstairs to the study and sat down to read in solitude.
Over the next century and a half, Casek’s home remained unoccupied by the living. There was the occasional person or small group that would stay for a brief respite, but no one laid claim to the house. Slowly, it fell into disrepair while Casek sat and read. Strangely, the book Casek was reading would change after he finished it and put it down on the table.
Casek had learned that he could influence the content of the book on the table in the study. He had to only think about the type of the book he wanted to read. If he thought about a prison escape, the book on the table would be about a prison escape. If he thought about exploration, the book would be about an explorer or adventure. A newspaper would appear if he thought about what was going on in the world.
Now Casek’s solitude was being disturbed again. Putting his book down, a fanciful story by an English author about his experience traveling into the future, he listened intently. From downstairs, he could make out the clopping of footfalls mixed with other feet shuffling about. Casek couldn’t tell how many people were downstairs, but he thought at least four, based on the whispers.
He picked his book back up and started reading again, hoping whoever was downstairs was just looking for a place to spend the night. Those who had done so in the past were far less bothersome than those who came seeking mischief.
Casek had hardly turned the page when he discovered his visitors’ intent. In his mind, he heard it. A sound that called to him incessantly, compelling him to go to the old storyboard.
He had acquired the storyboard from a British spiritualist and her husband late in 1860. They were desperate to get to New York so they could return home. The couples’ original schedule was to go by carriage to Columbus in a few days, but the woman was frantic to get to New York. In order to secure passage on the train, she sold Casek the storyboard for $2.
From his reading newspapers, Casek thought he recognized it for what it was, a tool of spiritualists in Europe. The wood of the storyboard was old as it had grayed, and the symbols on it were faded and nearly indecipherable. The planchette, too, showed age and was in a shape that reminded Casek of an inverted fleur-de-lis with a blue gemstone set in the flower’s stalk.
Outside of it being a novelty, Casek thought little of the storyboard at the time he purchased it. Upon returning home that night, he placed it on the mantle above the fireplace in the parlor before retiring for the night.
The next morning, when he went into the parlor, the storyboard looked different. Where faded symbols appeared the day before, now appeared letters. He picked it up and examined it. Other than the symbols that were now letters, it was the same as yesterday. He noticed on the back there were some indecipherable markings before he put it back and went about his day.
Since that day, Casek often thought he heard something whenever someone touched the storyboard. He had few visitors, and he usually entertained them in the parlor with the storyboard. Some would make comments about it and touch it.
After his death, Casek seemed to have a connection with the board. For years, no one came to his home except for the occasional traveler looking for shelter. A number had tried to use the storyboard as firewood, but the wood wouldn’t burn. It would, however, scream in Casek’s mind.
It was during the first attempt to burn it that Casek learned something.
A man in a gray uniform was in the parlor. Casek had observed the man rummage through the house, collecting a change of clothes and some books. The man built a small fire in the fireplace using the books before trying to put the storyboard on the fire.
No sooner than the storyboard hit the fire, Casek heard the scream in his head. He fell into an end table, knocking it over. The noise startled the stranger.
“Who’s there?” he said, his eyes wide with fear as he whipped his head around, looking over the room.
Realizing he had knocked over the table, Casek kicked the table across the room. The man jumped at this and repeated his question.
Casek answered by shoving the sofa to the side and shouting, “Out!”
At this, the intruder bolted out of Casek’s home.
Once Casek was alone again, he gingerly reached into the fire to retrieve the storyboard. To his astonishment, he didn’t feel the heat from the fire.
He pulled the storyboard from the fire and examined it. The front appeared the same as he remembered it. When he flipped it over, he noticed the markings he had seen before appeared to be runes of some sort, but ones Casek had never seen. He studied the symbols for a few moments before putting the board back on the mantle and returning to the study.
Now he thought about the runes he had seen. When he picked up the book, he found a piece of paper with a copy of the runes on it in the book. The book itself was on runes and their meanings. Casek spent days studying both items until he became frustrated. He put both aside so he could clear his mind. When he turned back, the paper was gone, and the book had changed.
In the days he had studied the runes, he made little progress understanding them. They had appeared to be a mix of several languages, and all he could decipher was ‘freely taken,’ ‘freely given,’ and ‘immutable.’ Other than that, he could not make sense of it.
Casek went downstairs to the door of the parlor, which was open. Inside, he saw six people huddled around the storyboard that they had placed on the floor. They appeared to be around twenty and were drinking something from cans that they had brought with them.
“Who wants to ask the first question?” a woman wearing a black knit cap said. Her brunette hair hung out underneath.
A black woman shivered and said, “Are you sure about this? My Aunt Saundra swears this house is haunted. She won’t talk about it, but said something happened here when she came up here.”
A blond man who had been drinking heavily from a can, stopped and crushed the can in his hand. “My old man says your aunt has been messed up in the head since she came back home from the Army, Kalona.”
This struck a bad chord with Casek. The young woman lowered her head and her shoulders slumped at the barb, while it caused Casek’s jaw to clench. In life, he had not approved of the mistreatments of blacks, and his feelings on that subject had not changed. He banged his fist on the wall, which caused the six trespassers to jump.
The woman with the knit cap had grabbed Kalona when Casek had hit the wall. She looked up at the man who had insulted Kalona’s aunt. “Brent, you don’t have to say things like that about Kalona’s aunt. She knows more about this place than we do.”
“Come on. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it,” Kalona said. The group then sat down around the storyboard, holding each other’s hand. Kalona took a rectangular block and used her fingers to tap on it a few times. The glass window on it lit up for a second before going dark. When it did, she put it in her pocket and joined the brunette, putting a finger on the planchette.
Once everyone was situated, the brunet said, “We’re trying to contact any of the spirits that are here. If you can hear us, give us a sign.”
BANG. Casek hit his hand on the wall as he entered the room.
The sound caused the group to jump as they looked around, not noticing the planchette moved to the letter ‘L.’
Tat. Walking along the perimeter, Casek rapped on the walls as the planchette moved to ‘E.’
Tat, tap. ‘A.’
Continuing to rap as he paced the room, tat, tat, tat, tap. ‘V.’
Tat.
With each set of raps, the planchette moved to a different letter, ending on ‘E.’ When he stopped, the only thing that broke the silence was the breathing of the six intruders.
“What was that?” whispered a purple-haired woman.
A man with a shaved head said, “I don’t know. Sounded like something banging on something.”
“Look, the pointer moved,” Kalona said, her eyes wide.
“You and Jen moved it. And it’s the wind that is causing that knocking noise.” There was a slight hesitation in Brent’s voice. “Come on, try again.”
The group slowly turned back to the storyboard, but before they could ask another question, Casek started rapping again, while the planchette moved through the letters.
Tap, tap, tat. ‘G.’
Tat. ‘E.’
Tap. ‘T.’
Tat…tat. ‘O.’
Tat, tat, tap. ‘U.’
Tap. ‘T.’
To punctuate his last message, Casek grabbed the remains of the sofa and jerked it back towards the wall.
At the sofa’s sudden, violent movement, the women screamed, and the group bolted from the parlor. They ran to a pair of horseless carriages that were waiting out front. Frantically, the six clambered in and soon the two carriages made a roaring noise before they started rolling down the path.
Casek watched the red lights on the back of the carriages disappear in the distance before he made his way back upstairs to the study. Once he had settled back into his chair, he picked up his book again.
He didn’t know how long he had been reading, when he heard the roar of a horseless carriage pulling up. Not waiting to see what the intruders in this carriage were about, Casek went downstairs to investigate.
When he reached the door, he saw it was one of the two carriages that had left earlier. The black girl, Kalona, was standing alongside it, talking to someone inside. She then approached the front door and when she arrived, she stopped. After pulling a block from a pocket and tapping it a few times, it illuminated Kalona’s face as she then reached up to the door frame and began knocking.
Tat, tat, tat.
Tat…tat.
Tat…tat, tat.
Tat…tat, tat.
Tat, tat…tat, tat.
Kalona ran back to the carriage and climbed in before it turned around and rolled down the path again. Casek stood motionless during Kalona’s knocking. Once any sign of the carriage was out of sight, a slight smile came to his lips as he nodded. For the first time in 150 years, someone had actually heard him and spoken to him.
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Shirley Smothers
09/29/2022Great story. I loved this tale with a twist. Good Halloween story. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
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Help Us Understand What's Happening
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Lillian Kazmierczak
09/28/2022Patrick, I loved this story! Poor Casek realizing he is dead. I want the everchanging book and I loved the Morse code twist! Congratulations on short story star of the day!
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
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