"Ghosts," by Julianna Britt

Nathaniel didn’t believe in ghosts. How could he? While his parents had passed years before, his religion made it clear that once someone died, they died. End of story.

But who can I hear crying outside my room every night? 

Every time he got out of the warm bed to check in the middle of the night, much to his wife’s annoyance, he would find the hallway cold and empty, not a soul in sight. Nathaniel had told himself it was just the neighbor’s cat across the street, begging for food. How the dratted thing got its yowls to be so loud, he did not know. He was an engineer, not a scientist.

And still, someone cried. Quietly, at first, with little sniffles here and there. But they grew steadily louder with the passing days. Tonight, someone was sobbing right outside his door. Tearing their throat raw with anguished shouts.

Throwing off the covers and ignoring his pounding headache, Nathaniel leapt to his feet and threw the door open. The bathroom light was the only thing that broke the darkness of the hall, but his wife had switched it off before going to bed. He was sure of it. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he saw that she was still fast asleep, chest rising and falling steadily. If there was a break-in happening, he should obviously wake her up.

So why did he hesitate?

He would just investigate, Nathaniel decided. Perhaps his wife simply forgot to switch the light off after brushing her teeth. A harmless mistake.

Still, his sense of dread grew as he crept down the hall, his heart rate quickening alongside it. His bare feet made no noise as they pressed into the soft carpet he had carefully unrolled there when they had first moved into the house itself, and he shivered as the chill of the air conditioner on the floor nipped at his toes.

When he peered into the threshold of the bathroom, he was glad that he fell asleep with his pants on. There was a woman sitting in the dry bathtub, although with the amount of tears that were falling from her eyes, it was soon to fill.

Nathaniel took a step back, alarm surging through him. “Who—”

“Nate,” the woman crowed, raising her tangled blonde head from her knees and meeting his gaze. “You’re in trouble.”

“Mother?”

Nathaniel gawked, leaning heavily on the door frame. He hadn’t seen that face, makeup smudged with sadness, since his mother had come home crying from work all those years ago. After locking herself in the bathroom and refusing to come out all night, Nathaniel was awakened with the numb shock that comes with a still and quiet house. Too quiet.

Because he had found her in the bathtub the next morning. Drowned.

Looking at her now, he felt sick. He had to have been dreaming; there was no other explanation.

I don’t believe in ghosts, he told himself as the woman who resembled his mother stood, still staring him down with those same green eyes that greeted him in the mirror every morning. I don’t believe in ghosts.

She was dressed in the same waitress uniform she had worn that fateful night. Her skin was gray and translucent, her lips the tinge of blue that had kissed death. Her eyes seemed to be the only living part of her.

Nathaniel felt himself freeze, unable to step back to run away or forwards to see whether or not she was truly real. His mouth had gone dry, throat closing up and preventing any attempt at speech.

“I was drawn here,” his mother said, tracing a painted nail across the ceramic tiles of the shower. “You know why, don’t you?”

Nathaniel closed his jaw, which had fallen open in shock. “No,” he said, voice cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again. “No. You’re supposed to be dead. You died, years ago. Before I even graduated high school.”

His mother gave him a sad smile, tilting her head to the side and regarding him like a curious dog would. “Exactly, Nathaniel. I’m dead. And you’re not supposed to be.”

Nathaniel felt a chill that had nothing to do with the AC this time. If she was dead, if she was truly a ghost, then there was only one reasonable explanation for why he could see her.

“Oh.”

His mother nodded, regarding him with pity. “You’re dead, Nathaniel.”