Halloween Ghost Story Contest -- 2011
Adult Winners

A Visit

by
Joseph Patchen

Unlike most housewives, Anne enjoyed cleaning. She enjoyed vacuuming the best: just the idea of ripping filth from her home brought a sense of satisfaction.

Her husband too was enjoying his day—Saturday afternoon football in the den.

It was two in the afternoon. After she finished the foyer, Anne made her way into the living room where her concentration was broken.

“Honey, your Uncle Charlie is here.”

“I’m looking out the window. I don’t see his car.”

“You won’t; he’s been dead for three years.”

“So where is he?”

“In the living room.”

“The living room?”

“Yes, he’s sitting on the settee.”

“We have a settee?”

“Yes, the settee. You know, the medium sized sofa - it has a back.”

“I thought that was the couch. What’s the difference between a settee, a couch and a loveseat?”

“Look, your uncle; your dead uncle - is out here and he says he has to speak with you.”

“Does he have the fifty dollars he owes me?”

“I don’t know. He wants to talk to you.”

 “I’m not talking to him unless he has my fifty bucks.”

“Will you forget the fifty bucks and come out here.”

“Well let me ask you this: is he a floating head or a full body apparition?”

“Full body.”

“Is he wearing pants?”

“What? He’s wearing the suit he was buried in.”

“Well that means he has pockets. And if he has pockets, he has a wallet and in that wallet he better have my fifty bucks.”

“Honey, your Uncle has come here three years after his death from the great beyond, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt the existence of life beyond this mortal coil. And you won’t come out unless he has fifty dollars?”

“It’s a debt.”

“He’s traveled here from that zone beyond death. Don’t you want to ask him what lies beyond?”

“How does he look?”

“Great considering he’s dead.”

“Why can’t he come in here?”

“He says there’s a crucifix over the den’s door.”

“We have a cross in the living room.”

“No. You moved that cross to the den because you wanted to hang that photo from the flea market.”

“It’s a rare photo.”

“It’s a fake.”

“It’s a Mathew Brady. The certificate of authenticity says so.”

“I don’t believe, for one instant, that Lincoln, Sherman and Grant played bocce during the Civil War.”

“The man said it was taken in Virginia, between sieges.”

“I agree.”

“Oh, now you realize it’s real.”

“No, I’m agreeing with your Uncle that you’re an idiot. He says he can’t be in the same room with a crucifix.”

“Will he burst into flames?”

“Charlie’s telling me that, for whatever reason, he didn’t go to Heaven. That he’s a malevolent spirit, a foot soldier for Satan’s army and he has a message for you, straight from Hell.”

“If I understand this then we’re talking about a message of potentially apocalyptic proportions. A message that ultimately has to do with the future of this planet and our souls.”

“Charlie’s nodding ‘yes’.”

“Well, I guess if the world is about to end, tell him I will be out in at halftime.”

Continue to the 2^nd place story

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