Horror Short Story Of The Month
December, 2011
Concrete Voodoo, by Benedict J. Jones
Ghosts aren’t born, Laurie, they’re made. Perhaps we make them ourselves every day, maybe I’m making one myself just by writing this to you – but we were married for forty eight years and I know that if you came back for me I would have nothing to fear. You wouldn’t be a modern ghost, Laurie, not by any means.
What would a modern ghost want? What would it need? It would be hungry, Laurie, oh so very hungry. Hungry for life, for recognition, hungry for the material and it could be that that hunger is the very thing that would create these ghosts. The modern age, so different from ours, would bring forth a different spectre than our own age, long past. I know you wouldn’t approve of the beers or the whisky that I’ve drank today but if you could see what I see beyond the windows of our flat then I don’t believe that you would think too badly of me.
It started one afternoon, two weeks ago, I was coming back from the shops when I saw it; it looked like an altar to some long forgotten deity. Grey flowers lay in a withered bouquet at the base of a lamp post on the edge of the estate next to the A road. A dusty can of lager was taped below a picture of a young man in a battered plastic sheath. I had sighed and looked away. Another young life wasted, another life snuffed out like an unneeded candle. Just like God snuffed out yours, Laurie. I know you never liked me talking like that but you know how I felt about all that. I might have come to church with you and sung the hymns and shook the priests hand but you knew that what I saw in Malaya changed my way of seeing things. If there is a god up there he’s just a bastard plain and simple.
I tried to push thoughts of the dead young man out of my mind but a thousand questions hit me. I didn’t know whether he had been struck by a car, stabbed, shot, beaten or died from a drug overdose but I had seen enough of these shrines dotted around in the last decade or so to know that it was an end. It stayed in my mind as I played with my dinner; cottage pie and peas – the microwave is my chef as often as not since you had to leave, Laurie. The state of the shrine gnawed at my mind, how it seemed to have been forgotten. I come to see you twice a week, Laurie, and even though the caretakers do a good job I often sweep the dead leaves away from your grave and make sure the flowers are fresh. It went against me that this boy seemed to have been left. I’m sure there was a grave somewhere, probably covered in wreathes and gifts, being well tended and cared for but there was a small shrine within spitting distance of our flat that looked like it was about to be swept away by the November rains. It irked me. I had put down my fork and decided that this lad wouldn’t be forgotten, I’d head down there with some flowers or some such the next day.
All the way to the florists I tried to think of what kind of flowers I should buy in the memory of a boy that age. I was halfway in the door of the flower shop when I thought of myself as a nineteen year old in Malaya – what kind of flowers would I have wanted? None, I’d have been happier with a stiff drink – I saw enough flowers in the jungle, blood red blossoms in a sea of green. Then I could see why someone had taped that can of lager to the lamp post. I walked back towards the estate and popped into Ahmed’s on the parade. I bought a couple of papers and a pint bottle of brandy. The sky was beginning to be bruised by rain clouds so I turned and hurried towards the lamp post where the shrine lay.
I stopped when I reached the lamp post and took a quick glance at the still darkening sky before I took out the brandy and cracked the seal. After I had a taste I toasted the young man’s picture and splashed his portion of brandy onto the pavement. I gave him another toast and myself another snifter. When I lowered the bottle I saw two kids on bicycles with their hoods up eyeing me. Thirty years ago I would’ve given them the eye straight back but today the kids scare me and I’m not the man I was. I tucked the brandy into the pocket of my overcoat and walked as quickly as my legs would carry me back to the flat as the first drops of rain began to fall from the concrete sky.
The brandy went down a treat. I know, Laurie, I shouldn’t but without you I just don’t see the point. I looked out of the living room window and could just make out the lamp post where the altar lay. It looked as though someone had dumped a rubbish bag below the lad’s picture. Bastards! I thought, they could at least have waited till the wind and rain took his picture away. The rubbish sack looked lumpy and misshapen in the orange glare of the street lights. I watched it for a moment and then went and poured myself another three fingers of brandy. There was a Hackman thriller on late so I fell asleep in front of the flickering goggle box and dreamt of you looking like you did the day we first met.
It rained hard the next day and the day after that. I stayed inside and tired to read but my mind wasn’t in it. All I could think about was death. For while all I could think about was you, Laurie, and then for the first time in years I began to think about the jungle; Jock began taken apart by a home-made grenade, severed heads in a sack for identification and weeklong treks through an alien world. Every night when I checked out of the window more rubbish had been piled beneath the lamp post. For a while I waited and tried to see who was leaving the rubbish but I didn’t see anyone and every time I came back from the toilet there seemed to be more crap on the pile.
The rain turned to drizzle and I risked a dash to the shops. I didn’t want to walk past the shrine so I took the long way around and grabbed a few bits in Ahmed’s; I was never much of a shopper – that was always your department, love.
The night that followed was the usual; soup and a roll for dinner, a bottle of beer, an attempt to read and then the late film. Before I headed off to bed I took a look out of the window and saw that the lumpy pile of refuse had moved. It now lay sprawled across the kerb and into the gutter. The rubbish that had spilled from the torn bags had fallen away from the dim glare of the lamp’s bulb and stretched in the shadows towards me. I had shaken my head and stepped away from the window. The very shadows on the street below seemed to bulge and flex as I watched, as though the refuse were dragging itself back towards the estate – towards me. I lay awake in our bed for a long time that night.
After that night I knew, knew that something was wrong, that something was happening. Every time I looked out of the window the pile of rubbish had drawn closer to the flat like a drunk dragging himself home. I started drinking more and the bottles of beer gave way to stronger stuff. My mind began to roam in dark places. I could remember the faces on the heads we brought back to make identification and I recalled the sound they made as I dropped my kitbag in front of the Major. I thought you, Laurie, and how sweet it would be to be next to you again. But I’m a coward. I always was. Even in Malaya I was scared all of the time. I did my duty but I shook, almost as much as I’m shaking now.
I had to get out. There aren’t many of us left but I picked up the phone and began to call any friend or acquaintance I could think of. As I phoned around I found so much death that tears fell down my cheeks. Barry was still alive though. I know you remember Barry, Laurie, so fat that the diabetes should have got him long before the cancer got you. But he was still kicking so I went over to see him. We drank and talked about the old days. In Malaya Barry had been whip thin, my recollection of those days is now as clear as though I am watching a film in my head. We drank like it was forty years earlier and I splashed out on a cab home.
When I got back to the estate I fell into the lift whistling a half-forgotten tune from day’s best left in the past. I stumbled out of the lift onto the landing. The light was on the blink and it fluttered like a trapped bird as I walked back towards the flat. In the half-light I saw trash strewn across the landing and dismissed it as some of our less conscientious neighbours. As I took out my keys I heard something behind me and I froze. I managed to turn my head and saw that the rubbish was closer now. I jabbed the key at the lock but my hand shook so much that I gouged the paint around the lock. I heard the whispering and began to whistle louder in an attempt to drown it out. By the time the key found the lock I was shouting and roaring in gibberish, anything to not hear the quiet harsh tones that came from the shadows. I threw myself into the flat and bolted the door.
And that, Laurie, is why I am writing this to you now. If I were a braver man then I might try to face whatever is on the other side of our door, but I am not. I am a coward and I cannot face this modern ghost. I am such a failure that I cannot even take the coward’s way out, I’m simply too scared. I can hear it whispering outside the door and it wants to come in. It is telling me the things that it wants; money, fame, worth, remembrance and I know that I am a man out of time. I know that it can come in any time it wants. Soon I shall open the door to it and do whatever it asks – worship, sacrifice, blasphemy because I cannot face the alternatives. So, Laurie, if I finally do reach you I pray that you can forgive me for not being brave enough to stand against what lies on the other side of the door.
