Benjamin Wagner

GHOST TOWN

October 1954.

Chevrolet had just unveiled their first V8 engine, and Fangio had just taken his
second Formula One World championship. It’s a month that could never be forgotten,
even twenty years later. I’d been a cop for years; ever since the war ended and the veneer
of normality was plastered over our war-torn hearts. Whilst attacks from the Axis powers
were no longer imminent, there was always going to be some threat to freedom. Whether
that came from outside or from within depended on the times we were living in.

Now, Buckahassee, Oregon wasn’t a big town. The sort of place where you don’t
know everyone’s name, but the person next to you probly does. Compared to working in
DC, the most trouble you were likely to find was Ol’ Rusty pocketing some hooch from
Saffie’s tavern, and the occasional rowdy trader passing through. No gangland chaos or
nothing. Just a normal sleepy town like you’d find anywhere across these United States.

The morning of the 25th began like any other. After slapping my alarm clock
across the room a couple of times, I laboured outta bed. Same ol’ routine. I fixed myself
some simple breakfast, made the bed, and kissed the photo of my wife on the counter,
before walking downtown to the station.

It was quiet most mornings, with only a few unlucky souls waking up as early as
I. But this morning, the atmosphere was thick and unfamiliar. It was as if the whole town
had gone got up and moved whilst I slumbered. The infrequent streetlights flickered each
time I walked by one, and the howling wind whistled down the street at regular intervals.
A storm had been forecast the last three days, but this was the first sign one might blow
through. The town was almost free of any sort of natural life; concrete sidewalks and
tarmac roads bordered by gravel and dirt. The only green in town was the little park all
the kids went to play at over on U’Ren Boulevard, but I never got down there too much.
No kids, no park.

The walk to the station usually only took about five minutes, but it was almost as
if some unknown source was trying to repel me from my usual route. Of the few houses I
passed by, no lights were lit on porches, and no sign of movement at all from inside. This
day was for me alone.

Taking a right turn off the main road, the station was just a few easy steps away.
Oddly, the lights were off. Chuck and Berry shoulda still been minding the station,
although it wasn’t out of the ordinary realm o’things for them to just head on home on the
really slow nights. I tried looking through the windows, but the tinted glass blocked my
gaze. I fumbled around my pockets for the station key, dropping it twice before finally
slipping the key in the lock.

I turned the key, but there was no need.

It wasn’t locked.

Chuck and Berry would skip out of work sometimes; we all would. But just
leaving the station open? Something had to be wrong.

I removed the key and gave the door the slightest nudge; the horrific creaking it
always made resonating even louder than normal in this silent morn.

Flicking the light on, the sordid scene unfurled around me. Even now, it’s almost
impossible to put into words. Pools of viscous crimson stained into the grooves of the
wooden floor. Chuck was lying on his front; thin needles protruding from various gaping
wounds across his back. He was near the door, right arm stretched towards it.

Berry was slumped in his chair. Leaned back as normal with his legs up on the
desk, but no life in his bones. There was only one wound on Berry, a bullet hole straight
through his head- dying his face a dark crimson. The scent of iron and decay pervaded the
room. I knelt down and took Chuck’s pulse- in hope far moreso than in expectation.

No sound escaped the body. It was no longer Chuck, but a soulless husk of what
once was a friend. I repeated the trick with Berry, the blood coagulating in the old wound.
His body was ice. I wandered over to the phone to call the police, before realising after
three rings that I would be the one to answer. I fumbled around my pockets once more,
this time hunting for my pack of Chesterfields and a match. I lit the small stick and took
one, deep puff. It wasn’t the first time a gruesome scene had appeared before me. The
war was one thing- there you expect death to greet you like a friend. But in DC, ones you
were closest to could be taken from you in an instant. Peace time didn’t really bring peace
to the masses, but the war to our own shores. Instead of pillaging the lands of others, we
began taking all the sin and greed out on each other. Murder. Kidnap. Arson. Drugs.
Every vice imaginable was more easily accessible than ever. How does the saying go?

We won the battle, but lost the war. We won the battle, but we lost ourselves.

I took a second puff of my cigarette before walking back over to the phone and
dialling the hospital. With the receiver pressed to my face, I dialled each number
carefully; dragging my finger around the rotary dial with precision. Upon finishing, the
phone rang briefly, before a quiet, shrill noise replaced the dial tone. Fearing I’d made a
mistake, I tried again. And then a third. Each result the same. My cigarette was now
nothing more than a used-up stub, so I flicked it onto the floor, and went out back. We
only had one prisoner in the cells at that time- Ol’ Rusty practically lived there most
weekends.

But on this day, it was where he would take his eternal rest.

Rusty, his dungarees half removed, and scraggly grey beard matted with liquor
and blood, lay lifeless. His face was wet, and he reeked of booze. More than normal. I
didn’t need to check his pulse; his water-soaked skin resembling frogspawn more than
any human.

The strangest part of all this was my calmness.

Well maybe calm wasn’t the right word. I felt... completely free. Death is as sad
as it always is; ask my Lucille.

But this scene just felt so familiar. Homely. Safe. It made all the sense in the
world.

If the phone still weren’t workin’, I would have to walk to the surgery myself.
The local doctor had his surgery just three blocks down from the station, so I walked over
in that direction. I didn’t bother locking up- there was still nobody around. But at the
doctor’s office, the same sad sight greeted me. The good doctor, his nurse, and what I
assumed to be the remains of a child were scattered in a morbid pattern across the floor.
Blood once again filled my vision and nose, and once again, the method of death was
different for each poor victim. The doctor had a faint smell of almonds about him, and a
frothing mouth. Likely cyanide or some horrific poison.

The young nurse, well, that was particularly callous. Her clothes half stripped and
torn, massive chunks of flesh rended from her front and rear dotted around the room.
Poor soul probably died of blood loss. In unspeakable agony.

The child, or I assume it was a child based on the little that remained, was
nothing more than dust, only a charred pacifier lying in the aftermath giving me any sort
of clue. I jotted a couple things in my notebook; there was so much being thrown at me
that I had to take some notes in case this incident went national. The press did love
violent crime. Almost as much as pinning it on us law enforcement officers who work to
prevent it. With no aid, I left the office and walked back to the station. As I went, I
checked in on the house next to the doctor’s office- Mr. and Mrs. Hanagan lived there.
There was nobody in the front room, and I breathed a little sigh of relief, until my face
was dotted by a cruel crimson ichor.

The wooden planks above had been soaked through with blood, and a glance
down at the floor revealed a growing pool of blood once more. I knew what awaited me
behind their marital door, so there was no rush to enter. Just a need to confirm what I
already knew.

The Hanagans were no more.

Mr. Hanagan was in multiple pieces. His head on the bedside counter, and most of
his body scattered in different corners of the room.

Like some perverted scavenger hunt. Mrs. Hanagan was in one area, but far from being in
one piece. Her head and neck had been knocked into one- protruding bone bursting
through each side of the pierced skull. Some sort of blunt force trauma, probably.

Heavy blunt force trauma.

An axe still lay on the floor near Mr. Hanagan’s head, but with no gloves on me I
left it at the scene. There was nothing I could do; this time I headed back to the station
with no other detour.

I’d seen enough death for one morning.

Chuck and Berry were there to greet me as always; although quieter than they
usually were. I stepped over Chuck and moved towards the radio. If the phone wouldn’t
connect, I could contact the state police, and they could come fix this mess. I fiddled with
the dial, but couldn’t seem to find any purchase.

97.45.

That was always the frequency but today, no luck. I twisted and turned the dial
any which way until, finally, click.

A connection.

“Hello? Is anybody there, over?”

No response.

“This is...Badge Number... Do you copy, over?”

Just static.

“I’m the chief over here in Buckahassee and we have a situation. Backup is requested,
over.”

Still no response. I went to continue speaking, when the doors of the station flew
open suddenly. The wind howled through so intensely, that Chuck was sent flying
backwards, and his flailing arms knocked Berry straight out of his chair. I ducked behind
the table, and silence fell across the room again. With caution, I peeked above the table.

I could see through the body of this spectral being. I don’t rightly know how to
describe it myself . It was there, but also not there. A vibrating, fizzing mass of spectral
energy. Other than the face. I recognized the face.

It was mine.

I tried clawing at my features, but I couldn’t feel a thing. This spectre was
stealing who I was, and I was powerless to fight back. It approached.

Languid. Drifting to and fro on the breeze. I tried to avert my eyes from the
phantom, but my body had frozen; caught in the grasp of the spectre of death.

I averted my eyes, but the spectre had come for as well. What was my punishment
to be? How was I to die? Why did this spectre have my face?

All questions I had no answer for, as my world faded to nothing.

I still don’t rightly know what happened that day in Buckahassee. There’s a crowd
o’people who think they know. That’s why they have me in this padded hellhole with
nothing but a smoke a day to sustain me. Nobody believes a word of my story. Murderous
ghosts are nothing more than stories to tell your kids. The officer who brought me here,
also called Chuck funnily enough, kept droning on about getting me help. I don’t need
help. I need answers.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked the silent man in the corner.

There was no movement. No shadow. No life. Just solitude. And lingering regret.