A Box of Weeds

🏆Haunted Guitar

294 words


“She really thinks it’s haunted?” Donny whispered as we studied the guitar propped against the brick wall of the second-hand store.

“Sure does,” I smirked, finishing the last of the beer in my hand, and tossing the can into the alley. My wife received the instrument after her father’s recent death, and she’d convinced herself the thing was possessed.

“So, we take it back to your house? Donny lit up a cigarette and exhaled a puff of smoke. “How is that funny?”

“Dude, we don’t have time for this. Sharon is always talking about ghosts and spirits. She rushed this thing to the junk shop in terror because she heard it making some sort of noise. Now that I’ve bought it back, she’ll crap herself when she sees it. Won’t that be a hoot? Won’t that be knock-your-socks-off hilarious?” I slapped my best friend on the back and laughed.

We shared another beer in the growing darkness of the alley between the bar and thrift store, trying to predict how Sharon would react. Would she faint? File for divorce?

Then, the guitar howled. A guttural, unnatural, shriek ripped from the instrument’s sound hole, causing it to tip, a twang of discordant notes sliced the air as it hit the ground.

“What the f–” Donny dropped his beer and jumped back, away from the chaos. I, however, couldn’t run away. I had to know.

Sharon couldn’t be right. There were no ghosts, I grabbed the guitar by the neck and lifted it. Had it always been this heavy? That was my last thought. My last normal, coherent thought. Then, the glistening teeth of the demonic creature sunk into my flesh and I wished my father-in-law had liked me, even a little bit.