Tales From the Swollen Corpse (11 page)

The authorities declared it a tragic accident. Of course they and everyone else in town blamed my parents and their old world traditions. What those people, and later the therapist I was sent to, would never be able to understand is that the
Krampus
is real.

It’s been several years since that Christmas, the first Christmas he came for real. Each year after, I either escaped him, or he didn’t show. The years he didn’t come, I simply assumed I was a “good boy”. The others were a battle. The first was the worst. After the first incident, I was assured that he didn’t exist so I didn’t prepare, and he almost had me. Because of what had happened, I wasn’t going to sleep. I was up when he came.

Lying in my bed, hugging a tear soaked pillow, I heard something outside. The tragedy had removed any fear of monsters. To my parent’s dismay, sometimes deer would eat from the little planter outside my window. The thought of seeing one cheered me up a little. My window was fogged and I opened it just a crack. I was sure I had scared it away, but then I heard it again. I opened the window wider and fell back onto the floor when two hands gripped the window sill. The fingers were long and boney and came to a point; they resembled a bird’s talons. The arms were a pale flesh, covered in fine, almost-translucent white hair. A horrible face appeared out of the darkness. It was framed by two twisted horns on each side. As the creature raised itself slowly through my window, I saw the knobby end of my bat poking out from under my bed.

Little seven-year-old me didn’t put up much of a fight with my baseball bat, but it was enough to get my parents in the room. When they arrived it disappeared. After midnight, I was safe for the next year. But each year after, I prepared for him. Most years it was by finding a way to stay with my parents for the night. Other years, especially as I grew older, it was traps and fighting back.

This is my forty second year and it has been, by far, the worst in a lifetime of bad. My only good years were the last five, when my son David came into my life. But it was this year I had decided to drive Davey back from the fair after having one too many. Davey didn’t make it home. I did, albeit after a long hospital stay.

I now live in the mountains on a large parcel of land, far away from any neighbors. As I look out at the snow covered trees, the ever-growing shade tells me dusk is upon us. It’s Christmas Eve, and while most families have come together about this time around a dinner table or fireplace, I sit alone and watch the movement in the shadows. There is something out there. It’s something for which I have no fight left, something that with each inch of the setting sun gets closer.

Bill could not feel his wife’s hand embrace his. He could not know her dire need for the caress to be returned. He could not hear the beeps and hums of the machines keeping him alive. He couldn’t hear or feel anything, not since collapsing that morning in the kitchen. He also didn’t hear the beeps turn into a buzz or feel the cold gel of the paddles being pressed against his chest. He did see a flash of light followed by another, then a flicker and then darkness.

In the darkness Bill heard a something. First it was muffled, then as if waking from a deep sleep, it became clear. The sound he heard was of children playing and they were around him. He opened his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping or if he had, he’d been doing it standing. In front of him was a wall of windows just above a short little toy filled shelf that stretched the length of the room. Outside he could see a sidewalk covered in shade; beyond that was a patch of grass enjoying the bright yellow sunshine.

Hesitantly he turned from the widow. The room before him was familiar. It had changed since he’d seen it last, but he recognized it. He was standing in his fourth grade classroom. Bill remembered his mom had decided to send him to this special school that year. It was called the Monarch Foundation, one of the area’s few private schools. The idea was to have a less rigid structure, allowing the kids to learn at their own pace. Bill’s mom had bought into this idea with a mother’s intentions of giving her son an advantage in life. Unfortunately his father, under impressed with the results compared to the price of tuition, pulled him after a year.

Things didn’t look that different from when Bill attended. The kids had changed more than the room itself and most were at the age their parents still picked out their outfits so they didn’t look all that different either. The room itself was an open environment approach, without the rows of desks one would see in a normal classroom.

Kids were scattered all around him. Some were reading, some playing and others sitting in groups working with the two teachers. None seemed to notice Bill except one little girl sitting on the floor. A little blond girl in pig tails with piercing pale blue eyes. The color of her skin and dress stuck out amongst the other children. She seemed to be a lighter hue than everyone else. She was like looking at superimposed image. She sat staring at Bill. When he moved to walk towards her, she stood shaking her head and gesturing for him to stop. Before he understood what she was trying to say, a boy ran by Bill barely striking him. The boy kept on as if Bill wasn’t there but Bill spun through the air as if he had been clipped by a car. He slammed into the shelf with bone breaking force. Nothing on the shelf moved.

Standing back up, he was surprised there was no pain. Looking around, no one seemed to notice the incident except the little girl who was silently shaking her head. He looked at three little wooden blocks stacked on each other on the shelf, they hadn’t moved. He tried to push them over but they didn’t budge, not the slightest. He tried to pick up a book and got the same result as if it was nailed down. He could see a ring in the dust were something had been moved. He ran his finger through it and nothing; he could feel a little grit as his finger moved over the dust but he couldn’t even produce a smudge.

“It’s not going to move.” The little girl’s soft voice floated in the air. She was standing beside him. For the first time it occurred to Bill that he was at eye level with her and all the other kids.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s an easy answer but you won’t like it.”

Flashes of memories came to Bill. He remembered making coffee. He remembered going to the fridge to steal one of his wives frozen weight conscious entrées. He remembered loathing the idea but knew the meetings at work would stretch well past lunch. He remembered the pain in his chest and the metallic taste in his mouth. He remembered the floor coming quickly at his face before everything went black.

“You’re dead.” Her voice pulled him back to the present.

“I, that’s idiotic, I…” Bill looked at his hands, they were small. The skin on the back of them was tight, veins no longer bulged. The little bit of hair was a translucent fuzz. He pointed out at the class room of children.

“Are they dead? Are we all ghosts?”

“We are
,
they aren’t.”

Bill cupped his mouth. He thought of his wife and grown son Alex, he turned back to the window. In it he paid attention to the reflection for the first time. It was his ten year old self looking back at him with tears in his eyes.

“This is stupid. Ghosts don’t cry.”

“What’s your name?” Her voice was soft and motherly and again it didn’t seem to come from her as much as resonate from the air around her.

“Bill.”

“Bill, trust me, you don’t know anything about ghosts.” She wiped a tear from his cheek.

Bill turned around. He looked at one little boy drawing a picture with concentration beyond his years. He looked a little like Alex did at the same age, just a tad leaner. Thinking of Alex, Bill felt his eyes tearing up again; he turned to the girl and moved his thoughts back to his predicament.

“I suppose they can’t see us?”

“None in this year’s class can, but every few years there’s one that can tell we’re here.”

“This year’s?
How long have you been here?” Suddenly Bill’s sorrow was replaced with fear.

“A long time.”

Bill wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anymore.

“Why don’t you leave?”

The girl started to answer,
then
another boy on his way to grab a book from the shelf almost ran into Bill.

“Come with me. It’s not good to stand here. They can’t hurt you but … well it can be unpleasant. Come with me, there’s a better place for us to talk.”

She took his hand and carefully guided him to the opposite side of the room. The other corner had a similar stretch of windows but with only a view of the concrete wall that ran a few feet just beyond the class rooms. In the corner there was a dry erase board easel and a projector on a cart, put there to be out of the way. Between them and the wall was shady space where the little girl took a seat on the carpet and motioned for Bill to sit.

“I am sorry I didn’t even ask, what’s your name?”

“It’s ok. I’m Helen; it’s nice to meet you Bill. It’s been awhile since I’ve had company.”

“There have been others? Did they leave? Why haven’t you left?”

“They…” Helen paused; she seemed to be having trouble choosing her words. “We can’t leave. There’s a lot you need to know about this existence.”

Helen looked around. It was much shadier on this side of the room but she found some strands of sun light coming in through the window and waved her hand in it.

“For whatever reason sun coming through the glass doesn’t hurt us but if you walked outside right now you would begin to dissolve and wouldn’t make it past the gate to the parking lot.”

Bill didn’t fully understand, but being a pragmatist he asked, “Well what about at night?”

For the first time since they’d begun to talk, Helen moved her penetrating stare past Bill.

“We can’t go out at night.”

“Why?” Bill could tell she was deeply bothered by the question.

“Because that’s when they come.” Helen looked like the one that could cry now.

“Who?”

“Forget what you ever thought would happened after you die. It’s not magic and spiritual, as far as I can tell, it’s just another existence. Forget what you learned about the world when you were alive; this place has its own rules, its own physics, and even its own creatures.”

“What do you mean creatures, like demons or something?”

“No, well I don’t think so. No, there are things alive here naturally. Most are harmless and a lot don’t even come inside. But the ones that come out at night, maybe they are demons or maybe the inspiration for what we call demons. “

“What? You’re losing me. Is there something we have to worry about?”

Helen put her hand on Bill’s, “You don’t have to worry. We’re safe in here, you just have to do what I tell you and you will be fine. You must have other questions, please, let’s talk about something else”

“Any idea why we’re here?
I went to school here one year but wasn’t partial to it. And why do I look the same age as when I went here?”

“I don’t know. A TV show I used to watch said ghosts were drawn to places of strong emotional ties or to where they died a traumatic death. But this place is neither for me or you I’ll guess. And we’re not drawn to this place, but stuck. And why we look like we do, I haven’t the slightest. I think it’s the unconscious workings of time and space, not God. I used to think the two were connected but I haven’t found anything divine about being stuck here.”

“Maybe we died and went to hell?”

Bill wasn’t joking but Helen laughed, “I don’t know about you but I never hated this place that much either.”

Her giggle and smile made Bill feel a little better. While Helen and Bill talked, he stared out the back windows wondering if he would catch a glimpse of a strange creature. They talked for hours, the classroom noise faded into the background. They sat and discussed their lives and the people in them they left behind.

Bill found out Helen was from a class a few years after his. She had grown to be a middle school science teacher. She was in her thirties and engaged to be married, living a relatively happy life, until one morning she was hit by a car while jogging. Her last memory was of a teenage girl she had never seen before. The girl was bending over Helen crying and repeating that she was sorry.

She told Bill all she knew about being a ghost. Holding back only what she didn’t think she understood enough to put into words and the uncomfortable subject of nighttime. They talked like two people snowed in at an airport trying to pass the time. But suddenly Helen stopped mid-sentence. Bill wondered what had distracted her, but then it was obvious, the room was
quite
and the shady spot they had been sitting in stretched the whole room.

“It must be four, usually one of the teachers hang out an hour after the kids go. So it should be around four.”

They stood up and walked to the front windows. No children were in view and the late afternoon sun outside was casting long shadows.

“So are you going to tell me now what’s got you so spooked here at night?”

Helen put her hands on the shelf and closed her eyes, “Remember I told you there had been others? One was here when I got here. His name was John and he told me all he knew about this place like I’ve been telling you. He told me sometimes things come at night; things that could move through darkness like they were part of it. He said there was no hiding from them and they had no trouble getting in the classroom. “