Better

Better
By


storyteller

Tap. Tap. Tap. John clearly heard the sounds above the television again tonight. The tapping came against his tiny bedroom window. He could see out through it and no one was there. But tonight John sensed someone, or something peering in at him, though all he saw was the night as illuminated by the single light on the telephone pole on the gravel lane that ended at his trailer.

He'd checked around his trailer every morning for the last week and knew that no tracks would be in the mud after tonight's thunderstorm, either. Yet, the tapping seemed too well timed, too obvious to be rain dripping from the trees.

John drove a forklift loading and unloading railcars at the warehouse. His job required him to work shifts that rotated every month. This month he was on afternoons, getting off at 10:30pm, Monday through Saturday. The tapping started precisely at midnight, every night, the same window, three taps. Then silence.

The world became very quiet again, the crickets starting to sing after the storm. John was thinking of cracking open the door and letting in more of the cool air, so that the oscillating fan on the dresser moved more than the hot stale air inside the small trailer. He would sleep better in less humid conditions and he needed sleep. Sleep was the only state in which he did not hate himself. Once, he had won a writing contest and thought that he would produce bestsellers, but a bad marriage consumed too much of his time and creativity. After the divorce, he managed to purchase a used word processor, but the fire that once impassioned his writing had shrunk to a mere spark. He didn't even read much any more and the word processor had a layer of dust on the keys. He did like to drink though and quickly finished the bottle of beer, thirsty for another. He sat up on the bed, knocking the remote on the floor as he swung his legs over the edge.

As he reached down, feeling for the remote, the three taps came again on the window above his bed. John sat up slowly, trying to pretend that he had not heard what he had heard. He stood up, reaching for the large folding knife that he always carried clipped to his left front pocket. He kept his back to the window and took a step.

Three taps came to the window at his left. John strode quickly out of the small bedroom, the knife in his hand, now. He thumbed it opened it as he entered the narrow dark kitchen, concealing it with his hand. As he reached into the refrigerator for another beer, three taps came from the window above the sink. John spun around and flashed his knife.

"You son of a bitch, I'll cut your guts out you try to come in here!"

At first his outburst met only silence. Then he saw a translucent light outside the kitchen window. As he peered out cautiously, the gossamer form of a woman was looking up at him. She tapped lightly on the window three times and vanished.

John drank two more beers and had nearly fallen asleep when he heard the three taps at the window again, louder this time and was instantly awake. His back was to the window and he did not turn around, did not move a muscle. He remembered a Steven King novel about vampires and a kid floating in the night air outside a second-story window, tapping and asking to be invited in. After what had been looking in at him through the kitchen window earlier, John didn't want to see anything floating and wasn't about to invite it into his trailer. He would be outside, waiting tomorrow night. Minutes later, he drifted back into a fitful sleep.

Saturday night John looked out over the dark pasture that bordered his trailer and noticed some lights far out into the field getting brighter, then dimmer, like a bonfire. Perhaps some teenagers were having a party, but didn't care about them. In an hour, John would find the cause of the tapping. He went inside and grabbed a few cold beers.

John woke in the aluminum chair, in pain from being asleep in one position. He moved slowly, sitting up stiffly and rubbing his neck. Then he noticed an ephemeral form standing at the fence in the pasture, a boy mouthing words that he could not hear. Then the figure vanished. John shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs of alcohol that clung to his thoughts. Was he hallucinating because of the drinking or had he seen anything at all?

Unnerved, John looked at his watch: Midnight. In the distance he again saw the brightening and dimming of light coming from beyond a grove of trees in the pasture. The night was hot and humid and the mosquitos had attacked him mercilessly, so he went to the fridge to get more beer, then returned to his chair outside. He had just sat down when he saw a figure moving across the pasture directly toward him. Seconds later a woman stood before him on the other side of the fence. She, too, tried to speak to him, but he could hear no sounds. He stood and moved toward her, not recognizing if she were the one at the kitchen window, but able to see entirely through her. Fighting the fear rising in his chest, he told her to go away. The apparition retreated across the pasture.

John, he told himself, it's time to stop drinking. You're having nightmares when you're awake.

But John liked to drink because after a while the world no longer bothered him and he slipped into a dreamless stupor. He finished the beer in a few swallows and went inside for another, quickly returning to the chair. He planned on staking out his territory by sitting until either the spooks left him alone or dawn came to drive them away. He wasn't expecting three more to appear so quickly.

The trio stood at the barbed wire fence, pointing and mouthing words at him. Two of them were males, all were dressed in clothing John assumed came from the 1800's. The other was a woman wearing the voluminous clothing of the era. John could make out their features. The males seemed angry, confrontational, waving their arms and pointing fingers at him. The woman appeared sad, mouthing words, and reaching out toward him. What he could make out of her features showed her to be quite pretty. John in turn pointed to each of the males and told them to leave. They slid back across the pasture in the direction of the light.

John walked to the woman who kept up a steady stream of words or the same words over and over. He motioned for her to come through the fence, but she shook her head and pointed toward the faint glow among the trees in the fading evening light. John reached across to touch her and felt a sudden chill, as though he had thrust his finger into the coldest part of an air conditioner. His fingers almost seemed frozen and he quickly pulled back. The girl immediately turned and floated slowly back toward the glow.

"Wait!"

She kept moving, sliding across the long grass of the pasture, but left no trail, not a blade seemed to move with her passing. Then she went down a hill and was gone from his sight.

John hesitated; he had met ghosts, spoke to a ghost, even flirted with a ghost. Maybe even he had discovered the home of ghosts. He decided to earn their trust, before letting the world know what he had found and become rich and famous as the man who proved that ghosts existed. He slipped between the loose strands of barbed wire and hurried across the dark pasture in the direction of the glow.

At the bottom of the hill, John stumbled into an old neglected cemetery. The glow had ceased, and the darkness seemed thicker here because of the surrounding tall oak trees. Walking slowly around the chipped and angular headstones, the ground littered with broken limbs and dead leaves, and wishing he had gone into his car for a flashlight before he started, John approached a mausoleum, a large plain house of the dead in the center of the graves.

"Hey! Anyone here?" He waited a few seconds. "Hey, pretty lady, I followed you!"

Silence. John looked at the great metal doors of the mausoleum and noticed that they seemed unadorned. He moved closer and saw that names were listed on both, but before he could make out any in the darkness, a small glowing circle seemed to be making it s way through the doors. He jumped back and thought about running back to his trailer, but the glow quickly formed into the shape of the woman. She seemed to be smiling at him, so John smiled back. Then she said those words again; those same unfathomable words, and placed her hands on his chest. He immediately felt as though winter had descended on him. Her hands passed through him, the freezing settling in his heart. Suddenly more glowing orbs flowed out the closed metal doors, swooping and rising all around them. She quickly pulled her hands out, but stayed beside him. One orb dropped beside them and formed into a male. He seemed to also be wearing clothing popular in the late 1800's and he also seemed to be dominant. The rest of the orbs, about twenty-five in all, quickly settled around them.

John knew that he had to remain calm. His goal was to win their trust until he could return with his camera and begin getting proof of their existence. He smiled at them, but they were pointing at him, all saying the same thing. John still could not determine what was being said. He then noticed that the forms, equally male and female, seemed more solid now, less transparent and ethereal. The eyes were the most pronounced and the stares made him afraid.

"I am your friend. I have come to establish contact with you."

One of the male shapes pointed at itself and mouthed the words again. John wished that he could read lips and make out what was so important that all these creatures were saying the same thing. The leader nodded, but the others seemed upset and began flying about, returning to orb shapes and plunging themselves through his body. John was in pain and felt as though he was freezing from the inside out. He was about to fall to the ground when he noticed the leader changing color, getting orange, and then a pale red. The others noticed too and stopped. Many of them passed hurriedly back through the door, but the woman and the male who had pointed stayed. John looked at the woman, attempting to smile, but she snarled silently at him and disappeared into the mausoleum.

Then cold appendages were thrust into John's chest, nearly stopping his heart. The apparition pushed its way into John's body, forcing John's spirit out, like toothpaste from a tube. Suddenly John was outside his own body, like a bubble floating effortlessly. He watched himself walk through the cemetery and disappear into the darkness.

The leader pointed at John and at the doors and passed into the mausoleum. Free from all physical restrictions, John wondered if he could travel around, visit places he always wanted to see, perhaps have some fun by haunting a house or two. But he knew that he couldn't; he was shackled here to this group. A sudden onset of knowledge told him that he was now a part of a cult from the middle of the 19th century that believed in transmigration. The leader had led them here from somewhere in Pennsylvania just prior to the Civil War. As they died off, this cemetery was started. Then a cholera epidemic struck around 1890 and the group was lost to history. Except that a few have been reincarnated, like tonight. John now knew that his replacement, the one who had taken his body, was an ambitious man, one whose talents had been stopped with the epidemic. This was his second chance at achieving his full potential; something that John had failed miserably at doing.

John turned and slipped easily through the metal doors. Inside the others were still, having been denied the opportunity to live again they returned to their resting-places. John sensed their malignant resentment toward him. He would not be a part of them, the original cult. He went into the vacant coffin, his home for perhaps eternity and settled on the bones and dust of the corpse. All around him he discerned the thoughts and feelings of the others. He now understood what words they were trying to say to him, those words that he could not make out on their lips. They were anticipating another chance at life, and had been saying to him: "Better. I can do better than you."

They began doing it again, chanting almost in unison. Like them John began waiting for another chance, and chanting: "I can do better than you."

END

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