An Appalachian Horror story.
He keeps coming to my window.
In the moonlight, with the faded wisteria hanging down over the warped windows, he taps on the glass. Lightly, at first. And then harder. Harder. Hard enough to rattle my teeth. I’m paralyzed in bed, I can’t even reach over and turn on the lamp. I want to move, but my body is leaden, heavy with something perched on my chest, breathing on my cheek. I try to scream, to reach him, to do anything. I can feel blood slipping down my arms from whatever is crouched over me, gargoyle-like. I don’t know if it’s teeth or claws.
I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe-
And then I wake up.
I rush to the window.
He’s not there.
He’s never there.
But the wisteria is bent, slightly, as if someone – something – has disturbed it.
I thought I was dreaming, at first. Grief makes you do and feel some fucked up things. Until this morning, when I found his battered harmonica placed neatly on the windowsill. I was afraid to touch it, at first. His parents accused me of stealing it, trying to keep the special pieces of him apart from them, even in death. But I didn’t know where it had gone, either. I tore apart our home looking for it. He always had the damn thing in his hand, brought it out at any given moment, ready to jump in with the band at the bar if they allowed. I was devastated when I couldn’t find it. Then I thought well, maybe he wanted it there – wherever the hell there was. I found myself missing its music. Sometimes I swore I could hear a mournful tune when I was in the shower, like he was just outside of the bathroom, playing. But then I’d rush out, shampoo in my hair, to the bitter quiet. And there was nothing.
When I saw the harmonica there, I started shaking. I saw the tears fall into the mud before I felt them. I cleared my throat and called his name. But there was only the obnoxious sound of the cardinals and blue jays… nothing else. Was this some kind of fucked up prank? But why? And who? I hadn’t spoken to his parents in months. My friends had slowly dropped away when I stopped replying. Even my own family had become distant: quiet and cool. These days my phone stayed silent.
They said I was obsessed. They said I needed to let go. They said I needed to live again.
But fuck them. They weren’t the ones with a spouse in the fucking graveyard.
