Benjamin Wagner

GHOST TOWN

October 1954.

Chevrolet had just unveiled their first V8 engine, and Fangio had just taken his second Formula One World championship. It’s a month that could never be forgotten, even twenty years later. I’d been a cop for years; ever since the war ended and the veneer of normality was plastered over our war-torn hearts. Whilst attacks from the Axis powers were no longer imminent, there was always going to be some threat to freedom. Whether that came from outside or from within depended on the times we were living in.

Now, Buckahassee, Oregon wasn’t a big town. The sort of place where you don’t know everyone’s name, but the person next to you probly does. Compared to working in DC, the most trouble you were likely to find was Ol’ Rusty pocketing some hooch from Saffie’s tavern, and the occasional rowdy trader passing through. No gangland chaos or nothing. Just a normal sleepy town like you’d find anywhere across these United States.

The morning of the 25th began like any other. After slapping my alarm clock across the room a couple of times, I laboured outta bed. Same ol’ routine. I fixed myself some simple breakfast, made the bed, and kissed the photo of my wife on the counter, before walking downtown to the station.

It was quiet most mornings, with only a few unlucky souls waking up as early as I. But this morning, the atmosphere was thick and unfamiliar. It was as if the whole town had gone got up and moved whilst I slumbered. The infrequent streetlights flickered each time I walked by one, and the howling wind whistled down the street at regular intervals. A storm had been forecast the last three days, but this was the first sign one might blow through. The town was almost free of any sort of natural life; concrete sidewalks and tarmac roads bordered by gravel and dirt. The only green in town was the little park all the kids went to play at over on U’Ren Boulevard, but I never got down there too much. No kids, no park.

The walk to the station usually only took about five minutes, but it was almost as if some unknown source was trying to repel me from my usual route. Of the few houses I passed by, no lights were lit on porches, and no sign of movement at all from inside. This day was for me alone.

Taking a right turn off the main road, the station was just a few easy steps away. Oddly, the lights were off. Chuck and Berry shoulda still been minding the station, although it wasn’t out of the ordinary realm o’things for them to just head on home on the really slow nights. I tried looking through the windows, but the tinted glass blocked my gaze. I fumbled around my pockets for the station key, dropping it twice before finally slipping the key in the lock.

I turned the key, but there was no need.

It wasn’t locked.

Chuck and Berry would skip out of work sometimes; we all would. But just leaving the station open? Something had to be wrong.

I removed the key and gave the door the slightest nudge; the horrific creaking it always made resonating even louder than normal in this silent morn.

Flicking the light on, the sordid scene unfurled around me. Even now, it’s almost impossible to put into words. Pools of viscous crimson stained into the grooves of the wooden floor. Chuck was lying on his front; thin needles protruding from various gaping wounds across his back. He was near the door, right arm stretched towards it.

Berry was slumped in his chair. Leaned back as normal with his legs up on the desk, but no life in his bones. There was only one wound on Berry, a bullet hole straight through his head- dying his face a dark crimson. The scent of iron and decay pervaded the room. I knelt down and took Chuck’s pulse- in hope far moreso than in expectation.

No sound escaped the body. It was no longer Chuck, but a soulless husk of what once was a friend. I repeated the trick with Berry, the blood coagulating in the old wound. His body was ice. I wandered over to the phone to call the police, before realising after three rings that I would be the one to answer. I fumbled around my pockets once more, this time hunting for my pack of Chesterfields and a match. I lit the small stick and took one, deep puff. It wasn’t the first time a gruesome scene had appeared before me. The war was one thing- there you expect death to greet you like a friend. But in DC, ones you were closest to could be taken from you in an instant. Peace time didn’t really bring peace to the masses, but the war to our own shores. Instead of pillaging the lands of others, we began taking all the sin and greed out on each other. Murder. Kidnap. Arson. Drugs. Every vice imaginable was more easily accessible than ever. How does the saying go?

We won the battle, but lost the war. We won the battle, but we lost ourselves.

I took a second puff of my cigarette before walking back over to the phone and dialling the hospital. With the receiver pressed to my face, I dialed each number carefully; dragging my finger around the rotary dial with precision. Upon finishing, the phone rang briefly, before a quiet, shrill noise replaced the dial tone. Fearing I’d made a mistake, I tried again. And then a third. Each result the same. My cigarette was now nothing more than a used-up stub, so I flicked it onto the floor, and went out back. We only had one prisoner in the cells at that time- Ol’ Rusty practically lived there most weekends.

But on this day, it was where he would take his eternal rest.

Rusty, his dungarees half removed, and scraggly grey beard matted with liquor and blood, lay lifeless. His face was wet, and he reeked of booze. More than normal. I didn’t need to check his pulse; his water-soaked skin resembling frogspawn more than any human.

The strangest part of all this was my calmness.

Well maybe calm wasn’t the right word. I felt... completely free. Death is as sad as it always is; ask my Lucille.

But this scene just felt so familiar. Homely. Safe. It made all the sense in the world.

If the phone still weren’t workin’, I would have to walk to the surgery myself. The local doctor had his surgery just three blocks down from the station, so I walked over in that direction. I didn’t bother locking up- there was still nobody around. But at the doctor’s office, the same sad sight greeted me. The good doctor, his nurse, and what I assumed to be the remains of a child were scattered in a morbid pattern across the floor. Blood once again filled my vision and nose, and once again, the method of death was different for each poor victim. The doctor had a faint smell of almonds about him, and a frothing mouth. Likely cyanide or some horrific poison.

The young nurse, well, that was particularly callous. Her clothes half stripped and torn, massive chunks of flesh rended from her front and rear dotted around the room. Poor soul probably died of blood loss. In unspeakable agony.

The child, or I assume it was a child based on the little that remained, was nothing more than dust, only a charred pacifier lying in the aftermath giving me any sort of clue. I jotted a couple things in my notebook; there was so much being thrown at me that I had to take some notes in case this incident went national. The press did love violent crime. Almost as much as pinning it on us law enforcement officers who work to prevent it. With no aid, I left the office and walked back to the station. As I went, I
checked in on the house next to the doctor’s office- Mr. and Mrs. Hanagan lived there. There was nobody in the front room, and I breathed a little sigh of relief, until my face was dotted by a cruel crimson ichor.

The wooden planks above had been soaked through with blood, and a glance down at the floor revealed a growing pool of blood once more. I knew what awaited me behind their marital door, so there was no rush to enter. Just a need to confirm what I already knew.

The Hanagans were no more.

Mr. Hanagan was in multiple pieces. His head on the bedside counter, and most of his body scattered in different corners of the room.

Like some perverted scavenger hunt. Mrs. Hanagan was in one area, but far from being in one piece. Her head and neck had been knocked into one- protruding bone bursting through each side of the pierced skull. Some sort of blunt force trauma, probably.

Heavy blunt force trauma.

An axe still lay on the floor near Mr. Hanagan’s head, but with no gloves on me I left it at the scene. There was nothing I could do; this time I headed back to the station with no other detour.

I’d seen enough death for one morning.

Chuck and Berry were there to greet me as always; although quieter than they usually were. I stepped over Chuck and moved towards the radio. If the phone wouldn’t connect, I could contact the state police, and they could come fix this mess. I fiddled with the dial, but couldn’t seem to find any purchase.

97.45.

That was always the frequency but today, no luck. I twisted and turned the dial any which way until, finally, click.

A connection.

“Hello? Is anybody there, over?”

No response.

“This is...Badge Number... Do you copy, over?”

Just static.

“I’m the chief over here in Buckahassee and we have a situation. Backup is requested, over.”

Still no response. I went to continue speaking, when the doors of the station flew open suddenly. The wind howled through so intensely, that Chuck was sent flying backwards, and his flailing arms knocked Berry straight out of his chair. I ducked behind the table, and silence fell across the room again. With caution, I peeked above the table.

I could see through the body of this spectral being. I don’t rightly know how to describe it myself . It was there, but also not there. A vibrating, fizzing mass of spectral energy. Other than the face. I recognized the face.

It was mine.

I tried clawing at my features, but I couldn’t feel a thing. This spectre was stealing who I was, and I was powerless to fight back. It approached.

Languid. Drifting to and fro on the breeze. I tried to avert my eyes from the phantom, but my body had frozen; caught in the grasp of the spectre of death.

I averted my eyes, but the spectre had come for as well. What was my punishment to be? How was I to die? Why did this spectre have my face?

All questions I had no answer for, as my world faded to nothing.

I still don’t rightly know what happened that day in Buckahassee. There’s a crowd o’people who think they know. That’s why they have me in this padded hellhole with nothing but a smoke a day to sustain me. Nobody believes a word of my story. Murderous ghosts are nothing more than stories to tell your kids. The officer who brought me here, also called Chuck funnily enough, kept droning on about getting me help. I don’t need help. I need answers.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked the silent man in the corner.

There was no movement. No shadow. No life. Just solitude. And lingering regret.