“No one cared who I was until I put on the glasses.”
Taz rolled his eyes at Greg.
Greg saw the world through a new lens. It was mostly the same. Faint, multicolored shimmers in the distance being the sole immediate difference. Collections of embers from unseen pyres of all colors, never fading, slowly swirling and bobbing around a centralized point known only to them. Greg found it all very pretty, like watching fireworks frozen in time, or a computer screensaver. He was pretty sure he’d seen a screensaver almost exactly like this. Probably.
Greg asked Taz, who had been staring at the light show similarly, if those were spirits, and Taz agreed.
Time for the meet and greet.
---
Despite walking through a graveyard in the middle of the night, Greg was surprisingly calm. The lack of fog, manicured landscaping, and practically shining stonework markers did quite a bit to ease the primal anxiety of being in a place of death and eternal rest. Plus, the novelty of seeing- meeting – actual ghosts for the first time helped.
Greg wasn’t sure what to expect. Maybe some blank stares from a half-cognizant entity. Perhaps even a grumpy customer or two. What he had not anticipated, however, was the product of boredom, isolation, and the whole, not needing to breathe, thing. If he had been told approaching a spirit would result in his ears bleeding, he would have thought it was due to some piercing wail, or ghost fuckery.
They. Just. Did. Not. Stop. Talking.
“So my bastard son got together with this harlot, and let me tell you, I had some words for her dress. Absolutely disgusting, that whore. Showed far too much leg, even for a slut,” the lingering spirit of an overly nosey and critical grandmother prattled on. “And don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually mind what people wear,” she lied like she breathed – used to breathe, “but there are limits, you know?” She paused expectantly.
Greg nodded. For the paycheck. This is for the paycheck. Calm down. Greg fidgeted with the bottle of holy water and rosary he picked up from a quant little shop on the way here. Just in case he needed to share the Good Word with some belligerent wraiths. Or irate grannies, as it might turn out.
Surrounded by a gentle swarm of blue embers, the spirit took the form of a kindly grandmother. Short, with a bird’s nest of white hair, wrinkled skin, and boney frame. She wore a floral-patterned dress and a sapphire necklace. She was also partially translucent, the spirit-flies, as Greg nicknamed them, cast a soft, pale blue light across her body.
Taz, the bastard, had taken his leave fairly early in the one-sided conversation, claiming that the job would go much quicker if they split up. Much to the ethereal matron’s displeasure, Greg flipped a retreating Taz the bird.
Greg cleared his throat.
The grandmother, who still had not introduced herself despite the endless amount of gossip she had spilled, ignored him.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Greg loudly cleared his throat.
“Ah, what is it dear?” she asked, halting her diatribe.
Greg breathed a sigh of relief. “I have to go check on the others. Is there anything you need?” he stressed the last word, praying that she didn’t saddle him with inane requests.
“Oh, no, dearie, I’m fine. The night air does these old bones some good,” she patted her half-existent legs.
Greg thanked her reflexively before beating a hasty retreat.
He hadn’t noticed the strange glint in her ghostly eyes.
---
Taz was thoroughly whelmed. Most of the interactions he had with the spirits were brief and antagonistic. He would approach them, introduce himself, and would be met with hostility. Some tried to spit in his face, the ecto-phlegm dispersing shortly after taking flight. Others would refuse to acknowledge him, unable or unwilling to meet his gaze. A particularly skittish spirit immediately bolted through the ground, only reemerging much later after waiting for the demon to leave.
It was the expected outcome. That innate fear and disgust for demon-kind that all spirits had was the reason why Taz had elected to separate from Greg. This way, at least, Greg would have some measure of success.
This was an issue that would need to be resolved soon, else Taz would have to find some other way to earn his keep. As it was, the spirits were more likely to go berserk if he kept asserting his presence. Perhaps there was an illusion or glamour he could cast on himself, or some way to take advantage of his heritage? Threaten instead of assure?
Hmm…
Well, he certainly was not going to figure this out tonight. What he could do was observe and take notes that he could later use to reach a solution.
Taz continued to approach spirits, doing his best to not irritate them any more than he naturally did.
---
Greg was frustrated. So many of these spirits could not hold a sane conversation. They would talk, he would respond, then they would continue as if he hadn’t said anything. ‘Is my son ok?’ one spirit asked. Greg didn’t know who the father-ghost’s son was and said as much. ‘Gosh, I sure hope he’s happy, did you know I have a son your age?’ They would answer questions, but as Greg slowly realized, they could not retain any new information. You could tell them your name, they could repeat it, and in the very next breath they would forget it, and forget that they were even talking to someone. It was maddening.
Oh. They’re stuck how they were when they died. That’s why they’re impressions. They aren’t really people, just remnants, Greg realized. He recontextualized his previous encounters. The grandmother who gossiped endlessly but never talked about herself, the father who worried about his son to the exclusion of all else. Greg felt bad for thinking of them as imitations; as non-sophant fakes, but it was what it was. Like a broken record, endlessly looping the last few notes of a song.
Greg’s mood dropped like a rock. No longer did he take joy in the ability to see and talk to ghosts, something he had hoped would be interesting, if not fun. Now, it was just depressing.
Nonetheless, he continued his work diligently. He had bills to pay, and this was still less depressing than working in retail. Though, that wasn’t a high bar to clear.
---
Unbeknownst to the two meatbags, greater entities stirred beneath the grounds of the cemetery. Old beings, ones that predated the earliest settlements in the area, took notice of the foul intruder, the crimson blight that walk their lands.
Of them, one in particular groaned. It stirred; its nap disturbed. It was grumpy. And maybe even hangry.
Demons were not appetizing, but like any mature being, it would consume what had been presented to it without complaint.
It drooled at the impending meal. The trees shuddered simultaneously; the grass grew wet not with dew but with something else. The spirit embers paused, the unseen breeze briefly coming to a standstill.
At that point, both Greg and Taz had sensed something was wrong, very wrong.
By that point, it was too late to escape unharmed.