What's It Like To Be A Ghost?

Ashley stared through broken glass at the house across the street. Seemingly before his very eyes, time passed and people moved on and left him where he was, nothing but a mystery from 1985. The neighbors he spent every hazy summer afternoon with, sharing a plate of fresh cookies and sweet tea with the old war veteran, grew older. He wondered if Walter- the war hero who still carried the scars of bravery- remembered him now. It had been thirty years since he died and Walter was almost 90 now. Ashley watched, guilt bearing heavily on him as he watched him collapse to his knees in the yard, pulling weeds from his garden with rheumatic hands. Thirty years before, Ashley would've gotten him his newspaper, helped him with the weeds while Walter told him how he crawled on his belly through thick underbrush in the jungle while gunfire whizzed by overhead, how he hid in a tree nursing jungle rot in his soggy boots. How he kept a picture of his wife in a locket around his neck right there with his dog tags. Ashley would listen intently no matter how many times the story was told. Each time Walter iterated the tale, he wold weave such a gruesomely beautiful story that it was like a new one every time. He looked at what he could see of the street and reminisced. It was where he grew up and lived. It was where he died and where he stayed. He played in the street with the neighborhood kids, he went to block parties and barbecues and all those things you do with your neighbors and friends. He had dreams bigger than a little town in Missouri. And yet... his home was a prison. His friends graduated, they moved away and more than likely forgot him altogether. A new generation came through, hearing stories of the haunted house and if an eighteen year old boy from 1985 still walked those gutted halls. They came into his house on dares and adventures. He beat them back by breathing their names in their ears as they looked into shattered mirrors and shadowy corners, standing on the edge of the rotting wood steps into the cellar, the darkness beckoning them into its depths. One of Ashley's favorite happenings happened in about 1996.
Two kids, probably trying to find somewhere to make out. "Join me." He breathed down the blonde's neck, putting his icy cold hand on her back as she stared into the darkness.
She grabbed for her girlfriend, a stereotypical goth who probably suggested they came in the first place. "S- something touched me. I don't wanna be here!" She whimpered. "Can we go home?"
"Babe- no. We can go after I prove that this place isn't haunted. Everyone who says so is just full of shit." Her girlfriend sighed. "Be brave. It's just a house."
Ashley glared a little. He waited until the goth one dragged the blonde cheerleader type down the stairs into the cellar. "Welcome to the Devil's den." He breathed in her overly pierced ear.
She startled and whirled around. "That's not funny!"
Cheerleader looked at her with wide, horrified eyes. "Let's go! I don't like it here."
Goth exhaled. "Ghosts aren't real. Ghosts aren't real. It's not real, babe. Not real. Your mind is getting away from you."
Ashley appeared in front of them, laughing at their fear. "Boo." They both screamed and ran up the stairs. The rotten wood snapped under the cheerleader's weight and she shrieked again. The step fell from under her as she ran up behind her girlfriend. Ashley watched them run out, screaming bloody murder and never to return. Since then, the amount of intrusions had begun to decrease until one day, nobody came anymore. He talked to himself and to the stray cat that had wandered in and decided to stay, pondering a life he hardly remembered now. That brought him to now. He sat in a window seat, looking at the street before him. He watched the emptied moving van pull off the curb and disappear down the street. He turned his gaze toward the house across the street. The sun was setting, beginning to cast long shadows as the fireflies emerged. That was one thing he'd never get tired of... the lightning bugs and the little kids running around to capture them in jars. He smiled sadly and looked around at the room he occupied when he was alive. There were similar jars on a shelf at one point, where he kept a few fireflies. Before his family left him, they released the bright little insects out the window. "Sleep tight, Ashley." His grandma whispered, closing her eyes as she shut the window. Ashley reached out to touch her. She gave a soft cry as she shut the door to his room. And from then on, he'd been alone. He wondered how his family was doing. He wondered if his grandparents were still alive, if his aunts, uncles, cousins, remembered him. He wondered if he had a tombstone somewhere. He wondered if someone put flowers on it or visited it.
"Curiosity killed the cat..." he mused, watching the cat explore. "Careful there." The cat looked at him and kept yanking at worn threads in the mildewed rug with his little claws.
Night fell as the crickets emerged and the fireflies danced, the few kids outside wandering inside to their homes. The teenage boy who had seen him, the one he had seen talking to Walter that morning, had left the house hours before, only to return after nightfall. "Don't keep me waiting..." he murmured, watching him go inside. His gaze shifted to Walter's house. His old friend was scared of him... He didn't mean to scare him. He just- he wanted help. He didn't want to be stuck there anymore. He wanted to be free from the ghastly chill of the home that rotted around him, permeated by the scent of stagnant water and dust. That was all he wanted.
When the moon reached its peak, he watched the new neighbor kid slip out his front door, across the street, through the broken fence. Ashley crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "It's open, genius." He shook his head as the kid stumbled into the barbed wires. Was it necessary to be that clumsy? "Jesus Christ. He's gonna kill himself in here and then he's gonna be my problem." Ashley sighed. He ran a hand through his long hair and watched him crawl through an empty window. Just like that, he was inside. Ashley leaned against a wall as he sat on a covered sofa, sending out puffs of dust as he took out a first aid kit to clean his scratch. He seemed prepared for his own clumsiness... Ashley crossed his arms tighter, a little bit angry when he threw the bloody alcohol wipe onto the floor carelessly. He moved his flashlight around, shining it through Ashley at one point. He had no body and thus, no shadow, so Andy- whose name he had learned when he so brilliantly injured himself crawling through an open fence- didn't see him. He mused to himself if Andy really believed he was there at all. Andy threw a sheet off a shattered mirror, coughing from the dust it kicked up. Ashley waited for him to recover from his coughing fit, picking at his nails. Andy looked at the mirror, aiming his flashlight so he could see right, jaw dropping. Ashley stared at him in the reflection, eyes dark, cold, sunken- dead. Andy whirled, hand shaking. "There's nobody here. Nobody. I'm just imagining things. I have to be." He whispered, shining the flashlight around. He slowly turned back to the mirror. Ashley was no longer visible, which seemed to soothe him. "See? Just.. just imagining things. There's nobody here. It's just an old house." He whispered to himself. Ashley observed him. Long hair, band tee, ripped jeans- a lot like him, actually. That was kind of cool... Thirty years and style was pretty similar. He gave him another once over- Slayer?! They were still a band? Wow... He wondered what they were up to for a moment before Andy hesitantly replaced the sheet over the mirror.
He watched him explore a little. "See? Not haunted." He said, sounding smug. Ashley rolled his eyes. The door to the cellar banged open and Andy startled, looking around. He walked over to it, shining his flashlight into the consuming darkness. "Shit.. Do [i] not [/i] want to go down there..." Andy muttered. The flashlight beam darted around, only illuminating a few crooked, rotten steps before the dark absorbed the light.
"Why not? It's a lot of fun down there with the spiders and the worms." Ashley whispered in his ear. "The spiders make webs in your mouth while the worms crawl in your eyes and out your nose."
Andy shivered, looking around again. He rubbed his arms, trying to warm up. "It's so cold..."
"Join me in the cellar, Andy. It's not so bad." He breathed, letting a cold breath sweep over his skin. Andy whirled around again, coming face to face with someone he couldn't see. He shined his flashlight around, scared, choppy breaths pulling through parted lips. As he backed up against a wall, clearly beginning to panic, Ashley slowly became visible. Became solid. Andy's eyes widened, blue- wow, his eyes were so, so blue, like the ocean and the sky were contained in his eyes- overtaken by a fearful grey. Ashley smirked, lips pulling up off perfectly white teeth. "Boo." He sneered.

Notes

*written by my wonderful co-writer*