A Ghost Of Christmas Past
by B. D. Knox

    Walking, floating through a cold, dark night. Snow falling softly down, makes a whispering sound through the pine trees. Wind, faint and cold, rustles the trees above me. But I don't feel the cold, I feel nothing anymore. And I can't hear the wind. Because I am dead.

   I died two years ago, coming to this very spot. I was meeting a man here, deep in the forest. There's a clearing up ahead, that's where we would meet. We had been meeting there for a year. Secret meetings, no one knew about him and I. But I'm getting ahead of myself or is it behind?

   We worked together, he and I. We didn't fall in love at first sight, it happened gradually, over time. We were together so much, it had to happen. He was so beautiful, I couldn't help myself anyway. No one would have understood about us so we never told. When we first kissed he had just turned twenty, I was thirty-two. People hate that older woman-younger man thing for some reason.

   We wanted to meet someplace special on Christmas Eve, in the clearing that's up ahead, in the cold dark of night. It was a special place for us; we met there often so it seemed the best thing to do. Celebrate our love and the holiday in the still forest that night. We both loved nature, being in the wild. We'd start a fire, make love under blankets in the snow.

   But I guess it wasn't to be. On the way there, on the highway, a semi truck had skidded on black ice and flipped over. Five cars piled into the side of it, one of them being mine. The last thing I remember as I saw the truck looming in front of me, faster and faster through the falling snow, was his face in my mind. I know I screamed his name as my car burst into flames and my skin fried. The same skin he used to touch so lightly with his long fingers. The same skin he used to take hours running his tongue over, finding all the hidden places that made me moan with pleasure. I was moaning now but out of searing pain and the thought that my life had been cut far too short. Fate, it is a bitch.

   Since I was already cremated, so to speak, the job was finished at a mortuary. I had no family left, he begged to have my ashes and they were given to him. He spread them here, in the clearing. It's been two years, but standing here, I can still sense part of me in the dirt, hiding under the frozen snow. Seemed fitting somehow. To burn and then to be mixed with the loamy soil, the rain, the snow.

   I could see him mourning; I was with him all the time now. He never knew I was there. Ah, the frustration of being a ghost! You see, you hear, you almost feel, but no one knows you are there, well, most people don't notice you. Every once in a while, someone will feel your present; catch a fleeting glimpse from the corner of their eye. You can have some fun with them if you want to.

   I went to work with him, slept with him, loved him so deeply and he didn't know I was there. After two years, he his tall body was under weight and tired looking,  I had no idea how strong his love for me had been. He saw no one, hardly talked to anyone, male or female. He just pined away, alone in his memories, in his world. He had become the saddest creature I had ever seen.

   Which all brings me back to this forest, here in the dark of night. This cold that I could never feel again. This snow I could never touch. These pines I would never smell. Nor could I hear the wind as it blew gently through, bring little clusters of snow falling silently to the ground. I missed all of that and so much more.

   All I have are memories, dusky and fading in what passes for a brain now. I can almost remember the smell of a Christmas tree, of a fire buring on an autumn night, of him. I can almost feel his touch, his lips, feel his long hair curtain my face when he was on top of me. But, damn it! Almost just isn't good enough now. All I can feel is rage, at being taken too soon, at the truck driver for not paying attention to the road, at the highway department for not clearing the ice fast enough. At those still living when I'm not.

   I had to leave his apartment a few nights ago, he had become so depressed and in such deep despair. He always does now, at Christmas time, last year wasn’t good but this Christmas seemed much worse for him. I couldn't stand seeing him like this when I could do nothing to comfort him. I had tried, really, I did. I had tried to put my arms around him, I had tried to whisper to him and tell him I was there, with him all the time. But all that seemed to do was make things worse, for him and for me. If there was only a way for me to return to him, regain my life.

   So I left and came here, to back the forest, to haunt it for a while. The little creatures could sense me here. I think animals feel us around, they always seem look up when ghosts glide by. I'll go back to him soon, I just had to get away for a while and be alone. You understand. I never meant for things to end this way, really, I didn't. No one wants to die before their time. Or even when the time comes.

   I feel him here now, in our forest, in our clearing. Why? I feel his sadness, his loneliness. It cuts him so deep, nothing can help him, he has fallen so far into the darkest pit. And suddenly, I can feel why he’s here, what he is going to do. Oh, I have to stop him! He doesn't want to live anymore and it is because of me, I have to stop him!

   But what can I do? Nothing, not a fucking thing! I have no substance, no solidity. As I reach the clearing, I hear the gun go off. I am too late. I see what looks like a pile of clothes laying on the ground, his blood red velvet duster, he loved it so much. Now it was soaking up blood that only darkened it's color slightly. It's not a pile of clothes. It's his dead body.

   I stand above him, looking at what is left of his head. There isn't much, a mass of bone, blood and gray tissue mixed with his long auburn hair. A pattern lies in the snow behind him; he must have used his .45, from the amount of gore splattered across the snow. Funny, in the moonlight his blood looks black, not red at all.

   I kneel down beside him and let lose a banshee wail. I feel like I'm being ripped apart again, seeing him like this. Then I reach into his skull. I want to touch his brain, what's left of it. Maybe I can absorb some of his memories, keep my own fresh by using his. I know, sound desperate myself, don't I? I am. Well, what can I do? Life fades away so fast when you're a ghost.

   I can't get any of him now, I can't soak up any remaining thoughts, they ran out in a burgandy spread on the snow. Now his blood will join my ashes in the soil, to mix forever in this quiet forest, our forest. Maybe we can always be together this way, maybe he can still be mine. I don't know what I'll do now, he's gone and I'm totally alone.

   Believe me, I am very surprised when I hear a scream behind me, the pain of rebirth into this void. As I turn to look, I remember what had happened to me when my spirit broke free to become what it is now. It hurt, it felt like every fiber of my being was being torn into a thousand pieces. It burned, it froze me, and it made me insane. And then a new kind of calmness took over and this began.

   I turn to see him standing there, watching me. I can't move, I am as frozen to this spot as a wet tongue is to frozen metal. The idea of him just coming back like I did had never entered my ethereal brain. Ghosts can be a little slow sometimes, thought processes don't seem to function quite right.

   He comes to me with him arms out stretched. He has a look of fear on his face, he sees his body on the ground, sees what is left of his head. That alone brings a gasp from him, like the wind through the trees, very quiet and peaceful but nerve wracking. He looks at me then back to his body. I think he is as insane as I was, being dead will do that, you know. But it passes.

   Then I can see it on his pale face, the realization of what he just did, of what he has just become. A peace falls over his face and he reaches out a hand, touvhes my cheek and whispers my name. So softly, it reminds me of falling snow whispering to the ground and dying there. I'm filled with a light as hot as the sun. I can feel him, I can hear him.

   He holds me close, that embrace that enveloped me and made me feel safe, it's like we are real again, solid again. I can't believe it! I'm over-joyed, we can be together now, forever. I smile up at him and ask why, why did he do this? Why has he scattered his beautiful face, his green eyes, his wonderful brain, all over the clearing floor. I don't say that I'm now glad he did.

   He just smiles his gentle smile and whispers that he could no longer be without me, he has always felt I was there with him, but it was never enough. His despair, his blessed despair has brought us back together. Now we will always be one, we are infinitely together. I find myself wondering what "ghost sex" will be like as he kisses me. I plan on an eternity of euphoria. Life can be strange sometimes. But death ….. you can't get much stranger then this.

©2003 Brigit D. Knox

   Brigit D.  Knox, aka Wraith, created The House Of Pain in 1995 as a place to put her own fiction after being turned down by a few places that thought some of her work a little too demented. In the past her fiction has appeared in Cabal Asylum and Wicked Mystic. Her short story, "Her Mother's Hands" was recently published in the trade paperback anthology, 'Femmes de la Brume' through Double Dragon Publishing.

   She recently moved from California to a small town an hour outside of Las Vegas, Nevada where she lives with her husband, two cats and a lizard she recently caught. With her husband, she's created the Halloween Online family of websites as well as an Internet consulting service, bachelor & bachelorette party sites, an erotic treat site and a sex toy site which can be found at www.bpfun.com.  Her personal website can be found at www.twistedbrain.net