Ghosts of Past and Present - From "Short Cuts" a short story collection Read online

Ghosts of Past and Present

  by Erik Boman

  Published October 2014

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person (other than lending it to her or him), please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  This eBook uses some actual locations and family names, however all events are fictionalized and all persons appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, living, dead, or remembered, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover image montage by Erik Boman

  Copyright © 2014 Erik Boman

  www.wanderingmind.net

  Ghosts of Past and Present

  Liam stared at the blackened, burnt-down pier, then kicked a rusty beer can and threw his arms wide to let the wind fill his embrace.

  “Come on!” Liam shouted at the ruined amusement park. “What the hell am I doing here?”

  There was no answer, only the baying wind and the crashing of waves. A drizzle soaked his bloodied suit while he leaned against his car. Liam sighed and stared at the broken pier, willing it to give up its secret. He had to have come here for a reason.

  Somewhere, somehow, a motive. Now only to find it.

  The entertainment park had been built on a platform supported by wooden pillars, but at some point a blaze had turned the place into a grimy ruin. Most of the raised area was gone, its sooty support columns jutting up from the sands like the ribcage of a skeletal leviathan. A few skewed and tilted stalls remained, all far beyond repair. The great carousel was a large, upright circle of filthy, half-molten plastic lumps. Towering above it all was the charred cross of a large electric sign, dark and inert.

  Liam tried to overlay the rubble with his memories. The air had been full of laughter, music and the clack-clack-clack of carousels. Now silence cloaked the lifeless beach. Even the seagulls were gone, deprived of leftovers to fight over. The stench of burnt wood and charred plastics still lingered, thick under the scent of salt and seaweed. He felt dirty. Dirty and old.

  Liam ran his hands through his dark, matte hair and shook his head, trying to tease out a thread of sense from his tangled thoughts. The day had started as any other: A shave, a pee, choosing a tie, tying the shoes and out through the door. A quick drive-through breakfast on his way to a meeting. Radio news like static, surrounded by drivers shut in their bubbles of thought and stress.

  Then everything started to go wrong. He could feel when it began, like a cart in a horror park ride veering off onto an unknown track. First he grew edgy, grinding his teeth at every noise. Then he botched up a critical meeting, stormed off and sped through pouring rain to end up at a scorched ruin. He had driven here on impulse, treating his corporate Jaguar to a rough hour-long drive on flooded, deserted highways. Back at the office, they would say that he was stressed out, in need of a break from his job – if he still had a job – but he would not be able to tell them why he had come here. The idea that the wasted remains of a seaside amusement park held a promise of revelation would leave them gaping, and him fired.

  Liam sighed, leaning into the breeze. He squatted down and put his palm against the moist sand. The grains evoked memories of sugar cones and sunshine, of fast feet and freedom. The beach was a giant canvass, embossed, erased and redecorated over and over by thousands of footprints. Now, it was as featureless as a Monday meeting, and just as enlightening.

  Liam saw a dark drop fall from his forehead. For a second, it formed a tiny stain on the beach, and then a wave washed it away. He found a stained handkerchief in his pocket, dabbed at the wound and then paused.

  A band of pale skin crossed his ring finger like an inverted shadow. A reminder of the frailty of vows and dependence, fading much too slow. He traced the line with his thumb, wondering where she was. At home in her new, refurbished flat? Or at work, two blocks from their old favourite café? At a window, looking at the rain? Thinking of him. Sure.

  She probably did not stand on a deserted shore, looking for ghosts. She had too much brains, and Liam wished he had more.

  Eleven months and three days since they broke up. Almost a year of hated hours. They hardly ever fought in the beginning, but deadlines keeping him at work had soured their marriage, replacing laughter with shouting matches.

  No explanation was good enough for her. Yes, he loved her, but he needed his job. It paid the bills, and for once, it was a good job. After a decade of check-out slavery, grueling evening courses and too little sleep, he had money, a reputation, and a car. A real car. She accused him of valuing his career over her; he blamed her for being unfeeling.

  Finally, one bleak October morning, she took off, not even bothering to close the door. He stared after her from the kitchen, speechless. When he saw his slack-jawed face reflected in a pricey frying pan, he went on a twenty minute home-wrecking rampage that left him even more miserable.

  Blinking in the rain on the beach, Liam wondered how their marriage had dissolved in just two years, but the answers were lost in a fog of shame and accusations. He closed his hand to a fist, sighed and looked around.

  There, over at the twisted bridge, was where his first swimming strokes had made him feel invulnerable. Right where he stood he had run with his kite, hooting as it soared on the whipping winds. Over at the base of the cliff, his first kiss had smashed all film-fed fantasies into pale fragments. And there, by the odd rock formations, he and his mates had searched for Blackbeard’s lost riches, guided by a carefully penned treasure map that magically appeared in his father’s briefcase. Now he dealt with budget spreadsheets and annual reports. Mystery swapped for complexity.

  Liam pulled out one of his business cards. The designer bureau called it “calculated to promote a subtle atmosphere of professionalism”. For a time, he had actually believed it. The devil was indeed in the details, especially the polished ones.

  He folded the card, creating a paper plane, and threw it towards the sea. The tiny aircraft sailed briefly in the rain and then crashed to the ground, far short of its goal. He stared at the tiny wreck, then turned his eyes up to the bland blanket of sluggish clouds, dragging their burden of rain over the sky.

  Behind him were his car and the road back. A quick escape to a comfortable life on repeat. In front of him the sea churned, all beauty, danger and unexplored depths.

  So. What do I do?

  The answer was laid out in his mind: He would head back, make amends, and go from there. Standing here was useless; the magic of the beach was lost, washed away by the tides of time.

  He shook his head and wiped sand off his hands. “What did I think I’d do here?” Liam whispered to the wind. “Fly kites again?”

  “No,” said a soft voice behind him. “You’re here to look for a treasure.”

  *

  Liam jumped and spun, banging his elbow on his car. A young girl stood a few yards away and eyed him in silence. She was slight and willowy, maybe ten or eleven years old, her face stern and serene. Strands of dark hair blew across her eyes. Her left hand held a rolled paper, pressed tight against a dress the colour of a winter sky. There was something familiar about her, too, Liam thought. But if he knew the child, he could not place her.

  “Shi – you gave me a fright,” he said, rubbing his arm. He looked around
but could not see her parents or anyone else on the beach.

  “I’m sorry,” she replied in flute-like voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you. What happened to your face?”

  “Oh.” He pressed the handkerchief to his brow again, partly to hide the cut. “Nothing. Just an accident. Look, where–”

  “It bleeds a lot for being nothing,” she said. “You shouldn’t bleed and call it nothing.”

  “Yeah, well,” he began, and then faltered. What kind of ten-year old said such things? And what was she doing here, alone in the rain? What was he doing here in the rain?

  Suddenly frustrated, he decided to tell her the truth. After all, she would not tell anyone he knew.

  “I got into a fight, and this idiot clipped me over my eye,” he blurted. Then he grinned. Saying it aloud felt unreal but relieving.

  “That’s what I thought,” she replied. “What man?”

  “A client. A customer, sort of. Only not in a shop. And, well, I got hit, but in a way, I won.” This is getting surreal, he mused.

  “You did?”

  Liam shrugged, still smiling. “He made me look stupid in front of some people. I got mad, and decided to make a point. So I threw his laptop out the window.” He chuckled at the memory of the smirking idiot, gawking at his suddenly airborne computer.

  The girl nodded and looked over her shoulder. Liam wondered if she searched for her parents.

  “Then you came here,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Have you found what you came for?”

  He frowned, shivering in the breeze. Things began to slide from surreal to eerie with alarming speed.

  “What do you mean?” he snapped. “I came here because I was pissed off.”

  “No, you didn’t.” she said, her eyes solemn. “You are wounded because you were in a fight, but that’s not why you came here.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” she stated with the majestic conviction available to only children.

  Liam stared at the girl. Then he snorted and rubbed his face with his palms. “No, I guess you’re right,” he said. “I suppose it’s because of my marriage. But I wo – ”

  “I can help,” she interrupted. “But you must hurry. She knows you’re here. She’ll join us any minute.”

  “Who?” Liam asked, looking at the girl between his fingers. “My wife? Your mom?”

  The wind seemed to pick up speed, rattling broken windows and tearing at ragged curtains over at the pier. The crashing waves sounded distorted, growing together to a white monotone noise.

  “No,” the girl said. “My sister.”

  *

  “Oh,” Liam said, relieved. Instead of pitying himself and talking about his issues, he should look for her parents. The beach was not safe for kids.

  The girl thrust out the paper and held it under Liam’s face.

  Liam frowned at it. There was something familiar about it the paper, too. It teased his memory like an ethereal itch.

  “So what’s her name, then?” Liam asked, still looking at the paper. “And what’s yours, by the way?” Again, he felt as if he already knew it but could not grasp it. The memory hovered on the horizon of his mind. Was it Annie? Or Anna?

  “I’m Anamnesia,” she answered. “My sister’s Amnesia. Look at the paper.”

  “Amne…,” Liam repeated, stumbling over the syllables. His attention must have lapsed. “Sorry, what’s your sister’s name again?”

  “Never mind. But I want to be gone before she arrives,” she said. “She’s slower but stronger than I am. And meaner.” The girl leaned closer to Liam. “And she doesn’t like me,” she whispered. “Not at all. So look. Please.”

  Afraid to get entangled in some family drama, Liam decided to take the paper and then leave. Quickly.

  “Sure,” he smiled. He snatched the paper from her hand, unfolded it and –

  – and sunlight washed over him, thick and golden like honey. White birds screeched above him, he had wet sand between his toes, and a warm wind embraced him. He smiled at a paper in his hands. On the crumpled sheet, black lines connected dots around a smudgy arrow that homed in on a large cross. He felt the seaweed under his nails and the weight of a glass bottle, cold and shining in his moist palm –

  Liam’s legs trembled. He held the delicate paper with shaking hands, his eyes fixed at it.

  It was a treasure map, but not one drawn by his dad. This map Liam had made himself, almost thirty years earlier. He remembered drawing it, sitting on a stone warm from sunshine, using blunt chalks and his father’s heavy pen.

  Something special had happened that day, he recalled. He had found something valuable he wanted to keep safe, so he had buried it, here on the strand.

  Liam grimaced and looked up. What was it he had found? And where had he hid it? Whatever it was, Liam wanted to find it.

  The map was a blurred jumble of lines drawn with the enthusiasm of an ecstatic ten-year old. The arrow pointed at a blotch that looked like a tree, and there were not many trees on the beach. The largest tree on the shoreline was only a short walk away, so he ran towards it, small cascades of sand erupting behind his black shoes.

  His memory grew shaper.

  Somewhere here, he thought. Deep and safe, sheltered by the trunk.

  Close up, the tree looked just as he remembered it: Dead and naked, with pale, leafless branches angling at the sky. He fell to his knees at the base and dug down among thick cords of gnarled roots. The place was right; the familiarity tore at his patience.

  The rain grew to cascading sheets as Liam threw handfuls of sand over his shoulder. He was vaguely aware of the girl behind him, looking around and shifting from foot to foot. Just as he were to ask her where she had found the map, his hands closed on a smooth, round object.

  A bottle. Liam frowned and bit his lip. An auburn beer bottle, jammed shut with a dark, mouldy cork. He brushed sand away and shook it. There was something inside, a folded –

  Oh God.

  The bottle!

  Recollection lit up his mind like a cinema screen. He had put a message in a bottle to protect it from weather and time. He could not remember what it read, but the sensation that had made him bury it rang in his mind.

  Liam sat down and turned the bottle over in his hands, stroking its cold, even surface and watched the raindrops chase along its sides. The girl walked up to him.

  “You found it, then?” she asked.

  “Jesus, I had completely forgotten about it!” he said, shaking his head. He stared at her, then back at the bottle. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Go on, open it,” she urged. “I’m surprised she hasn’t already – oh, shit.”

  “What?” Liam turned around –

  – and felt his stomach plummet away.

  The sister had arrived.

  *

  When Liam had been in his teens, he had dated a girl called Lina. She was witty and cute, with a trickling laugh and eyes the colour of fresh espresso. Then, at a crowded party somewhere in the suburbs of London, they had run into Lina’s sister, Malin.

  Lina had stiffened as she spotted Malin leaning in a corner, smoking and eyeing them like a vulture, and Liam had loathed Malin straight away. To the casual eye, the sisters were near-twins, but under the surface Malin was a twisted image of Lina, a cold caricature with a lump of frozen charcoal for a heart. He had been troubled for days after the party, thinking that meeting Malin had been a bad omen, and his suspicions had held true – a few days later Lina stormed in, accusing him of making out with Malin at the party while she had been out smoking. Liam was disgusted, but saying he would rather stick his tongue down a rotten fish had not changed Lina’s mind; in her opinion, that was exactly what he had done.

  Now, more than a decade later, the same qualms surfaced in Liam again, only much stronger. Blistering tendrils coiled in his stomach as he stared at the child’s sister.

  She was a head taller and had wider shoulders than the girl who had given him t
he map. Her dress too was white – or had been, at some point; it was torn and frayed, with large, ragged holes, and the colour was a faint memory of its original hue. Her ashen hair parted to reveal narrow, arctic-blue eyes that bore down on the younger sister.

  “You,” she older sister rasped. “You couldn’t stay away, could you? Greedy, meddling Anamnesia. The constant Samaritan.”

  Anamnesia raised her chin. “You know,” she replied, “you talking of greed is rich, all-eater. Besides, you’re too late to – ”

  The older girl lashed out, almost too fast for Liam to see. The flat of her hand connected with her sister’s cheek and blood sprayed from the impact, splattering on their dresses and leaving dark streaks on the beach.

  The smaller girl coughed, bent over and spat. Strings of raw flesh and saliva hung from her lips. She looked up again, her eyes flaring. “What a surprise,” she said through bloodied teeth. “How very original.”

  “Shut up. You’ll heal,” she said and turned to Liam. Her stare dug into his retinas like a pair of dentist’s drills. “Leave us, sister.”

  Liam too wanted to run, but his feet had turned to cold iron. As rooted to the beach as the tree next to him, he felt his grip on the situation slipping away. He hoped the younger girl would run to safety, far from this horror hiding in the shape of a child.

  “You,” the older sister said in a conversational tone, “shouldn’t have come here.” She tilted her head and smiled, flashing yellowed tiny teeth. “Haven’t you got more important things to do? Wax your car? Fuck your secretary? Clients to grease or chiefs to please?”

  “I’ve never…” Liam blinked. Her stare was like acid on his lines of thought. The bottle began to slide from his numb hands.

  “That’s right,” she continued. “Drop that thing, go back to your car, and go about your little life.” She made a sweeping gesture along the empty beach. “There’s nothing left here for you. The past’s gone, departed, dust, dead. You’re chasing the ash of shadows. Don’t dig up what’s meant to mould, or you’ll be hands-deep in maggots or wasps. Or worse.”

  She advanced on him as she talked, forcing him towards the sea. “To explain the obvious, your future, regardless of what my idiot sister might have told you, lies that way.” She pointed to the road where he had come onto the beach. “I can promise you that compared to oblivion, remembrance is tiresome and flimsy.”