Life of a Dead Man

Life of a Dead Man

By

William DeGeest

Suggested by Greg Beaner

Ghosts do not spend much time contemplating the living. They don’t spend much time contemplating much at all. They exist in their in-between state, attached to someplace or something, not even knowing what they are clinging to.

In a house that had been abandoned for more than fifty years such a spirit dwelled. He didn’t die of any trauma, no great tragedy had befallen the family. He had just died. And for whatever reason, he had not moved on.

The house stood just off an old gravel road, not quite halfway between two small towns on the prairie. Hidden from the road by a stand of trees, it had become a favorite spot for the local teenage boys to take the girls to scare them and, with any luck, make-out. They wove tales of headless specters that prowled the house and surrounding trees. Phantom creatures of all shapes and sizes haunted the property, if the stories were to be believed. But, no, there was only one ghost there and he never said boo.

Unlike most spirits, however, he did take notice of the activity that surrounded his home. He watched the night a young man was dropped off by his friends to set up a scare. The lanky, sandy-haired boy climbed a tree above the dirt tracks that came in from the road toward the house.

He saw the same large four-wheel drive vehicle come back with a new group of kids, listening wide-eyed and open mouthed at a story of a man who went crazy during the Dirty Thirties. The constant dust and wind drove him to the obscene level of madness that makes a man kill his own family. And, after having done so, he tied a rope around a branch of the very tree they were parked under and tied the other end around his neck… and jumped! Which was the very moment the boy in the tree dropped onto the roof of the 1982 Suburban. The shrieks and cries filled the trees and one young man may have wet himself a bit.

He listened to another group of even younger boys, who had snuck out of their houses to hike the five miles to this haunted place to spend the night, each telling the story they had heard about the tragic events that lead to this property’s haunted reputation. Each story grew progressively gorier as the night went on as they tried to one-up each other. As dawn broke the next morning, they rolled up their sleeping bags and made the trek home, just beginning to feel the effects of the hundreds of chigger bites that covered their bodies.

And on yet another occasion when a friend was left earlier to wait for a 1959 Oldsmobile station wagon to bring yet another car load of teenagers. This time there was a man who was beheaded by his wife after she found out he was having an affair. His headless corpse could be sometimes seen…what was that? Ha, ha, very funny. No really, I think I saw something in the house. Then the headlights were turned on just in time to see the waiting friend come running out the front door, arms flailing and his head zipped up in his jacket. More screams and followed by laughter.

He stood beside a 1971 Ford Pinto as four senior tough guy football players dared each other to go into the house. You go. No way. Ok, I’ll do it if you guys do it. Forget it man! They ended up driving off, hoping none of the others would tell about their fear.

He watched as a young man in the back seat of a 1967 Galaxy 500 pulled out a ring and asked his girl to marry him. She said yes. The specter turned and moved away, somehow remembering he shouldn’t be watching as they made love for the first time.

Over and over he watched them come and go. Mostly the high school crowd, but sometimes adults reliving their fun teenage moments. Silently and unseen he observed slivers of lives, some to be forgotten, some burned forever in the memories of those that had been there. And somewhere deep inside that lone spirit, he too remembered his own ghosts of the past.

Finally a day came when the house was deemed too unsafe for such goings on and a backhoe came to knock the old house down. No emotion could be felt or shown in the constantly non-expressive face of the spirit as his home for all of the long decades faced its destruction.

But there, at the edge of the property, he saw them. A group of familiar faces from over the years. Some etched with the passing time, some still in the bloom of their youth. And there in front stood the couple who became engaged on this spot known for frights and chills, holding hands with slight grins on their faces. With them was their son, who only a few weeks ago was witnessed by the spirit having his first kiss with the freckle-faced girl who was there with her own parents. All had come to say goodbye to the place that gave them a special warmth in their hearts for all sorts of different reasons. Some cried as the house fell to the ground.

And when he finally began to fade into the unknown, the ghost wore a smile on his face.