Flash Fiction: Ghosts Don't Cry

Ghosts Don't Cry

            Ghosts don't cry.

            That's about the only rule there is in my profession, where treating the disturbing is a 9 to 5.

As I dig for a buried corpse in this junk yard, the rule flashes into my head because of the girl next to me, Allie.  She's shivering in my suit jacket.  Her eyes are as dry as the morning she first came to my office dragging this shovel behind her.

The shovel grates against my fleshy hands.

Somewhere between the moon and this wasteland, barking dogs splinter the dead silence of the night.  "Hurry," Allie whispers.  "Hurry."

And then the rain begins.

 

Twelve hours earlier, Allie Mason wandered into my office.  I looked over her file: 14-years-old, parents happily married, never touched a cigarette, A's in everything but Math. 

And yet I shivered as she dropped the shovel on my desk.  Her eyes were dry.  In this line of business, no one has dry eyes.  Everybody cries.

"So, Allie, why are you here?" I said.

"I'm being haunted," she said.

I sighed.  "Allie, the dead move on when they choose to." 

She ran her finger along the half of a silver heart chained around her neck.  "Can you dig?" she said.

 

            The rain steadies as I dig.  It drums on the towers of old cars looming in the dark.

            "Dig faster," Allie says. 

The shovel strikes something metallic.     

"She's under there," Allie says, eyes darting back and forth.  "Hurry."

When the dogs start barking again, they're closer.  Much closer.

 

 

I passed a Coke to Allie.  She didn't touch it.

"How did Laura die?" I asked.  Allie had identified the ghost haunting her as Laura.  I had not gotten out of her who exactly Laura was.

"Why is how she died important?" Allie said.

"Because," I said, "sometimes the way we die explains why can't move on."

Allie fiddled impatiently with the silver locket.  "Laura's crying for me to rescue her, Dr. Lang," she said.  "And you keep wasting time with questions."

"Allie," I said, "whoever Laura is, it's too late for rescuing."

 

But apparently, it isn't.

The rain spills down the mounds, soaking me to the skin.

I throw back shovelful after shovelful of muddy gravel.  It's harder now.  The gravel sticks to the blade.  The gullets of water wash more mud into the hole.

Eventually, I use the shovel to pry the hood from the mud.  A cloying scent of excretion and sweat waft out.

As I reach beneath the hood, I grab something cool and fleshy.  I heave, and out comes a young girl.  Her pulse is there.  Barely. 

            "Allie I've found her," I yell over the storm.  "I've found Laura."

            And then I see there's something else beneath the hood.  Another girl.  This one slashed and clawed beyond recognition.  Something glimmers around her neck.

            My heart stops.

            It couldn't be.

            "Allie, is this –"

But Allie is gone.

            Vanished.

            As I scan the junkyard for her, four growling shadows emerge from behind the pillars of cars.

 

"Dogs," Allie said.

"Dogs killed Laura?" I replied.

"They didn't kill her.  They tore her apart," Allie said.  "It was fast.  She was the lucky one."

"What was your relationship with Laura?" I said.

Allie examined her locket – that half of a silver heart.

"She was my twin sister," Allie said.

Here I expected her to break down.  To unleash the torrent of tears she must have been storing up.  But she merely dropped the locket, looked up, and said: "You never answered my question: can you dig?"

 

Can I dig.  The words from that morning ring in my ears as the dogs circle me, teeth bared, eyes glowing in the lightning.

"Allie?" I say again.  The girl in my arms coughs.  The dogs creep closer, thunder rumbling from their throats.  I scan the ground for the shovel.  It's too slippery, I know, but there's nothing else.

Then a bright light blasts from the distance.  I have no time to shield my eyes as a car tears across the junkyard.  It skids to a stop, ejecting ribbons of mud into the air.  The dogs scream and flee.

The door swings open and I toss the girl inside.  "There's one other!" I yell to the driver.  But there is no driver.  A locket hangs from the rearview mirror, the half of a silver heart now full.

            I grab the wheel and floor the pedal.  As I glance in the rearview mirror, for a moment, I glimpse Allie in the back, holding her sister's head in her lap. 

The tears are pouring down her smiling face.     

But then again, ghosts don't cry.