Babe, There’s a Ghost in the House Again: Waves in the Basement
“Man, I could really go for a bagel.” Kevin’s voice was stuffy, weak. Drowning can do that to a person. Yet most people I knew wouldn’t have thought of food right after dying. Not that I knew that for sure. That was a generalized statement.
“Really?” I asked. My arms were shaking and a shudder ran through my body, making me feel cold. Well, colder than I was already. I had just watched my husband drown, after all. Must have been shock. That would also explain the erratic nature of my thoughts. “What kind of bagel?”
He didn’t scoff, but made a face that scoffed for him. “Everything, obviously.” His voice weak and tired. He winked instinctively, and I felt an intense desire to hold him and never let go, and should he drown again, I’d punch the water in its stupid, aquatic face. Even if I had to swim through the entire Atlantic to find its face. Maybe that’s not as romantic an ideal as it seemed when I started that train of thought. I was just upset. In shock, as I said.
My breath fell out in sputters as I squeezed him tighter.
The events of the afternoon had started out mundane enough. There had been nothing to do, which was a situation we found ourselves in often these days. I suppose as couples get older, they spend more time indoors, as homebodies. Not that we’re very old. In our early thirties. Wait… In our mid thirties. Still though, we get wild sometimes. Just the other week, we stayed at a local bar until nearly 11:30. We didn’t imagine we’d ever stay out that late again, but it was trivia night, and Kevin was on a role. Man, when he’s on a role, it’s a sight to behold. It’s the culmination of Grecian virtues expressed via quick rote, a bank of knowledge, and a very fast buzzer hand. I provided that last feature to our team of two, dubbed by Kevin as “The Encyclopediacs.”
Earlier this afternoon, faint sounds of our laundry swishing around in the washer and rumbling in ambience, Kevin discussed the importance of resource delegation and strategic marketing techniques as they relate to geography and intercommunication. I stressed to him that the initial distribution of wealth was purely up to chance. And besides, I told him twice not to use his chrome-guilded dice that he uses for Dungeons and Dragons. He’d rolled his eyes and then pleaded with me to exchange one wheat for five of his sheep. He’d started negotiations with just a one-for-one offer, but I’d stared at him unflinchingly. We took Catan very seriously in our household.
As I said, homebodies.
I was actually about to accept his offer when I heard the buzz of the washer’s “cycle end” sound from the basement. I was in charge of doing laundry that day. Kevin was prone to cheating, or as he called it, “promoting the game in the underdog’s favor.” I looked at him with squinted, suspicious eyes, enough of an accusation for him to stand and say “You know, good timing, Lovebug, I’ve got to use the restroom anyway.”
“Uh huh,” I said.
I stalked from our kitchen table to the basement door, keeping an eye on him over my shoulder. He made a kissy face at me, then ducked behind a doorframe. I waited a second to watch as he slowly peaked around the frame. I glared and gave him the two-fingered gesture for “I’m watching you.” He yelped and took off in a quick-paced shuffle. I nodded, smiled warmly, then opened the door to the basement.
The basement was always lit, as we kept our pet, Izzy, down there. We got her from Craigslist over a year ago, and she hadn’t been feeling well for the majority of that time. We’d tried everything — vets, doctors, priests, shamans — but none had been able to… cure her. So we had learned to deal with her ailment ourselves. Well, not the ailment, per se, but the side effects at least.
As I took each step, a quiet sound reached my ears. No, that wasn’t accurate. Not just some vague sound. It had a pattern to it. A lilt. And the tone… it was beachy. I felt I would walk down and see a surf board and some tanned dude with one of those white shell necklaces and sandy hair. And that’s nearly quite what I saw.
There, standing in front of Izzy, was a woman in a wetsuit, hands on hips and her surf board standing upright next to her. By her feet was a small radio playing the beachy tones I’d heard. This was all odd enough, but what stuck out most was the large shark bite missing from her head.
“Yo, dude,” she said. “Where on Earth am I?”
I was taken off guard. It was my turn to deal with the ghost, and usually this wasn’t a big deal, more so just an inconvenience. But seeing a person with a grisly, gory chunk absent from their head was certainly enough to make me stutter. “You’re, uh…” A few drops of red fell and landed on her cheek, and as I looked closer I could make out bits of flesh still dangling and shaking as her heart continued to pump blood. I’m not sure of the logistics of the cardiovascular system in ghosts, but apparently it worked well enough to supply a continuous, almost tedious, drip-dropping of blood.
“Cat got your tongue?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. Hi, my name is Sara.”
“Nice to meet you, Sara. You mind telling me where I am? And do you have an aspirin, by chance?”
“I — um. You’re in my basement.”
“Your basement? What the freak? Did you like… kidnap me?”
“Goodness no — ”
“Oh my Lord! My head!” She put her hands to her head, and then stopped moving altogether. Her hand had landed on what remained of her left frontal lobe. Her fingers twitched delicately, feeling not a scalp covered in hair like she would expect, but instead feeling something warm, wet, and squishy. She pulled her hand away, palm and fingers now covered in crimson, and whimpered.
“Hey, just, try to take it — ”
“Sara? What is going on?”
I wanted to call out to Kevin, let him know there was a ghost in the house again, but I didn’t want to scare her into freaking out (or “ghosting out,” as Kevin had once put it). I looked to the stairs, then back to her. Izzy, now having trotted to my side, let out a small whine. “There’s not an easy way to tell you this, but you’ve died.” The surfer looked unconvinced, held her hand in front of her face and chuckled, as if releasing nervousness. “You’re a ghost,” I said loudly, hoping Kevin would overhear.
“Yeah, I don’t believe in ghosts,” she replied.
For a moment, I imagined her suddenly popping out of existence due to her failure to believe in herself — maybe by some sort of mystical-based ghost-physics — but she remained, standing in place. Her expression waned from wincing confusion to a stark look of surprise, then flattened into a solemn remorse. “I remember now. A shark.” She twitched, blood falling onto her shoulder; she glanced down at it. “You just don’t think something like that can happen to you, you know.”
I turned back over my shoulder to the basement door, spoke again, a little louder. “Yeah, tragedies happen out of nowhere. It’s really a shame that you’re a ghost now.”
“Why do you keep peeking at the door, Sara?”
”What, I’m not — ”
“What is really going on? I’m not dead, am I? Oh crap…”
“Honey,” Her nose scrunched at the petname, and I realized I didn’t know her real name. “Listen, things are going to be alright, you just need to — ”
“I’m probably in the hospital, hallucinating. Or maybe you and whoever else is up there kidnapped me.” An irritation grew in her syllables, and she looked at me now with something close to rage. “Is that what’s going on? Are you some kind of trafficker?”
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“What? No, we’re not traffickers!” I was losing control of the situation, and I needed to find a way to calm her down. I felt Izzy paw at my leg, a nervous tick of hers. The surfer was intimidating, about a foot taller than myself, body of an athlete, and her face looked all the more menacing with part of her skull missing. “Honey, everything is alright. I’m not against you, you just have to trust me. I’m on your side. We will figure out exactly what happened to you.” I stole a glance at the spec-terminator, sitting on the dryer.
She followed my gaze. “What is that? Some kind of weapon? What are you planning?”
“Honey, listen — ”
“My name is not. Honey!” She shrieked, a whisper of gurgling and the sticky sound of gore lined her words, and she lifted her hands with vigor. As she did, pipes that ran along the ceiling burst and water spurted down angrily. “You will tell me what is going on right now, Sara, or so help me I will drown you and whoever else is in here with you. I will leave your body to rot in your own basement!”
It struck me as odd that she instinctually knew how to control water, but before I could consider that any further, I turned and darted up the stairs, Izzy hot on my heels. “Babe, there’s a ghost in the house again, and she’s super pissed!” I was not halfway up when I felt the weight of a wave fall upon my shoulders and drag me down the stairs. I tumbled, each corner of the steps digging and slamming into me, body immediately throbbing and soaked to the bone. I stared up at the sight of the deformed surfer. Her enraged visage tore daggers in me, and then more water blurred my vision. I scrambled, panicking, painstakingly, to my feet, just to be knocked down hard again.
The world tumbled and morphed into a bundle of confusion that was penetrated by the sound of Kevin running down the stairs to my aid. His form jumped over me and slammed into the surfer, tackling her to the ground. The words “not noncorporeal” danced around in my hazy head. Kevin approached me and knelt, “Darling I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” My head pounded, and there were suddenly two Kevins with equally concerned faces which then blended back to one; I had been staring to the side of him, and struggled to focus back on him.
“Good. I sort of maybe illegally placed a road and blocked you from settling on a mountain hex.” I half-heartedly chortled. “I’m going to take you back to the kitchen now.” He picked me up and started up the stairs, “I know it’s your turn to deal with the ghost, but seems like you’ve had a turn of it already. Just promise me you won’t sneak any sheep from — ”
His words were cut off with a shriek and the sound of unnaturally fast footsteps approaching. We both turned and saw her bolting up to us, flesh turning white and rotten, bloated and porous. The wound oozed more blood than it should be, staining her entire left side red. She leapt and grabbed Kevin by his hair, slammed him multiple times into the railing of the stairway. I fell on the stairs again, this time water grabbed me and I flowed back down into the basement, the sound of a splash and I saw Kevin go under.
I gained footing in the thigh-high water, looked back at the surfer racing toward me. With a scream that burned my throat I reared back and struck her wound with my fist. She crumpled into the water, and I saw her turn into a figure like a shadow and dash below the waves, then rise past the surface and morph with the air like mist and disappear into the rafters above. The water churned harder now, and it took all my strength to stay upright. The moment passed, and I realized Kevin was still underwater. “Kevin!” I sloshed around, feeling for him. I hadn’t noticed until now, but it had grown darker in here, the light now off. A sudden feeling of panic overtook me, and I called for Kevin again, trying to see in the dark, trying to fight against the ever-deepening water, feeling hopeless.
I found him, motionless and facedown in the waves. Struggling against muscles that wanted to fail, I hoisted him onto my shoulders and made for the dryer. His weight threatened to bring us both down into the water, but I roared and strained and hefted him onto the dryer, his body slamming down. A little yap called my attention to Izzy, who was paddling against the currents. I hooked her in my arm and climbed onto the dryer, slipping and knocking my chin against it. I shook the pain away, just happy we were out of the water. I placed my hand on Kevin, to tell him we should make a break for the stairs. His eyes were closed, completely motionless. Not breathing.
I began pumping his chest, trying to get him to cough up the water from his lungs, to breathe. I blew into his mouth, his head a bloody mess from when the crazy surfer had bashed his head against the railing. “Please,” my voice a sputtering, barely audible plea, eyes burning with premature sorrow.
He gasped. Coughed up water. Saw me and smiled dreamily. “Man, I could really go for a bagel.”
We laid on the dryer, feet hanging over the edge and breaths coming in choppy. Somehow in the ruckus, the spec-terminator had been knocked off the dryer. Who knew now where it was in the roiling water? I didn’t dare go back down, to face the surfer or to leave Kevin on his own.
He coughed then sat up, seemed to be getting over his trauma. I looked at Izzy. Her small frame shaking and still dripping water. I reached out a hand and pet her. Kevin looked at me, blinked. “Sara, Darling, I think — ” he coughed. “Light-headed.”
“Shh, shh. You’re alright, baby. You’re alright. It can wait. Just take it easy.” Somewhere in the dark, a noise like a crack echoed loudly. A harsh chuckle.
“Dudes, could you be lamer?” The surfer’s voice. Then the sound of water rushing. I felt it on my legs, rising higher. Somehow, she was able to control water. She’d flooded our basement. Had drowned Kevin. I was going to make her pay. Clicks and clacks sounded, and I saw Izzy was scampering to the edge of the dryer. “Izzy!” But I was too late. She jumped into the waves.
A moment later, the surfer reconstituted herself right in front of us, built from the mist. Her mouth fell into an evil smile and she waved her hand in a swirling gesture. A whirlpool formed and pulled Izzy into the middle of it. I could only watch as the small dog’s snout disappeared into the water, which was now starting to rise above the dryer.
The deceased surfer with no known name spoke to the rhythm of the watery chaos, “You both will drown.”
At that moment, all I could think about was Kevin, and how I would do anything to keep that from happening. It was enough to threaten me, to attack me. But she had already killed Kevin once, and was now threatening to end him for good. I looked at him, then at her. My fists clenched in defiance.
“I will make sure you die knowing you couldn’t save him,” a grin of nothing but evil wrapped itself on her half-face. I sneered at her with a look as antagonistic as hers was evil; she even recoiled. The sound of the water suddenly crescendoed and I looked down just in time to see a spout of angry water shooting towards me. Before I could recover, she throttled Kevin, dazing him, then dug her hands into him and pulled him into the water. My heart lurched, body shook with adrenaline. Everything seemed to slow down, and I found in myself an odd, misplaced feeling. Sometimes, the effect of dying renders a soul inhuman. A ghost, as best Kevin and I could figure, was not just a physical disfigurement, but also represented a corruption of the soul. The only solution we had discovered was to turn those souls into a physical purgatory in the form of a coin. The sight of this undead woman — who had brutally, tragically died by the forces of nature — for just a moment, stirred inside of me not hatred, but pity. Still, that moment passed quickly, and I reflected on the apparitions who so often haunted us. Kevin and I had had our fair share of conquering maltentious forces, but she might just be the one to do us in.
No. Those were the thoughts of a quitter. And the Encyclopediacs were not quitters.
I rose to my feet, aware in the back of my mind of the precariousness of standing on my dryer, then jumped onto the surfer. A couple of things happened at once: Kevin’s eyes lit up in wonder at the sight of me sailing through the air to rescue him. He then made a fist and whacked the ghost on her jaw. Meanwhile, a small-dog-sized kerfuffle rustled in the water, and Izzy shot out and up, right into my path. I took in both sights and my attention closed in on Izzy’s mouth, which held the spec-terminator. I grabbed it in midair as Kevin fell from the grip of the surfer, who hadn’t been expecting a punch from the should-be-dazed-and-about-to-be-drowned-Kevin.
“Heck yeah, lady! That’s what happens when you mess with the Encyclopediacs!” I thought as I slammed-dunked the spec-terminator right onto her head, letting it guide my arms as it slid down her body and past her feet. I held my breath underwater, her struggling against the magical net only caused me to tighten my grip. I felt her fighting grow weaker, then stopped altogether. I felt around blindly, hand touched a small, disc-shaped object: the surfer-now-turned-coin. My lungs began to burn, and I burst through the surface, feet just able to touch the basement floor.
The light flickered back on, the water stilled, and Kevin and I just looked at each other, breathing heavily and loudly. My heart ached when I saw how beaten up he was; dark blood on his head, one eye swelling, a busted lip. For a moment, I imagined him saying, “You should see the other guy.”
What he said instead was, “I could really,” he paused as Izzy dog-paddled between us, making her way to the stairs, “go for a bagel.”
It took a few hours for a crew from a water damage restoration company to get to our house, and a few hours more to pump all the water out.
“Why in the hell didn’t you shut off the valve?” One of the men asked Kevin.
“I… didn’t know how, and it was too late by the time I got home,” he lied. It’s not that we sought to keep our house’s proclivity for phantasmic visitations a secret, but we didn’t really want to explain to people that ghosts had caused it. They’d think we were crazy.
While they worked, we continued our game of Catan. We also spoke about Izzy, and what we were going to do with her. She was getting worse. Prior to today, all the instances had been manageable, mere nuisances. But today, it was too close. Kevin had literally died. He would have go to the hospital to check for broken ribs from CPR. Yet we sat at the table, determined to play still. I looked at my settlements, counted my knight cards, and smiled. “I win!” I declared.
Kevin gasped in surprise, then frowned in a parody of exasperation. “Well, I let you win.”
“Mmhmm, whatever you have to tell yourself.”
He laughed, grimaced in pain. “Dear,” he stared at me, serious. “I know we have only talked about this before, but I think it’s time for us to deal with Izzy.”
I nodded solemnly, agreeing. “There’s nothing more we can do,” my words not a question, but not quite resigned to the idea yet.
“No. We’re doing the contingency,” he said.
