#civilghost

[lighterandpaper]

Perfect Student, Ms. Beckman

The school, with its colossal white columns, looms over Briar as she settles next to her usual pillar. The teacher in charge of watching the students wears a whistle around her neck, hair dyed unnaturally red, and her phone low and far to compensate for her nearsightedness. Briar catches her eye as she settles against the pillar. Too far to speak, Briar mouths, “Hey, Ms. Cabble.” Ms. Cabble waves with just her heavily jeweled fingers and smiles a false smile. “Bless her heart,” she mutters. Poor girl, reading. She goes back to her Facebook feed, liking photos of local babies. 

Briar pulls a lock of nearly white hair behind her ear as she opens the book on her lap. The South Was Right! given to her by Mr. Jackson because she often argued with him in class. She sighs and opens the book, rolling her eyes at the first few sentences. She closes it, and pulls out a tattered and worn copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Just as she’s about to start for probably 50th time, a rock lands near her. She looks around, and the only person she can see is Ms. Cabble, adjusting her glasses and scrolling. She shrugs and goes back to the book. A moment later, a rock hits her right on the crown. “Ow!” she says, rubbing her head. She glances up just in time to see movement in the bushes. She looks to make sure Ms. Cabble isn’t paying attention before going to check it out. 

“Judah!” she says, seeing a bush of unmistakable curly black hair within the green bush. A chills runs down her whole body and a tear comes to her eye. “I thought you were--”

Judah hushes her heatedly. “Is anyone looking at you?” 

“No...” she says. 

“Briar, please, no one else can know I’m alive. I need your help. You in?” 

Briar stands there, looking at a bush. The weight of Mr. Jackson’s fat book pulls at her back. “Yes,” she hears herself saying. “OK.” 

Judah smiles with all his eyes, which, just a moment ago she believed she would never see again. The smile fades just as quickly, as if another persons pulls it away. “Mr. Jackson is the one who killed my family...”

Briar twitches, feeling the urge to rip off the weight in her backpack. 

“Do you believe me?” 

“Yes.” 

A flash of light inside a house, and, just like that, his mother is gone. He blinks at a leaf, not seeing it. The smell of it is green and a touch bitter, like the dried little bay leaves his mother would put in her gumbo. 

“Judah?” Briar asks. She takes an unconscious step toward him. 

He blinks back to her and the tears away. “Sorry--” he says. His own backpack, weighted similarly with the gun that killed Mr. Jackson, is heavy. He turns to the cool dirt and puts a hand in it, wanting to lay down. 

“What do I need to do?” she asks, almost pleadingly. 

“OK,” Judah says, bracing himself. He avoids her eyes. “I need you to record Mr. Jackson saying that he killed my family.” 

“OK...” she says, eyes working. 

“Do you have a phone?” 

“No,” she says. “My mom won’t let me.” 

Judah pulls his own phone out of his pocket. “Take mine.” 

She takes it, thoughtful. “I don’t know how to get him--” 

“Leave it with him when he’s alone,” Judah says. “He, uh, talks to himself.” 

“Ms. Beckman!” says a jocular voice. Briar jolts fully upright and turns sickly white. “Are you reading that book I lent you?” 

Judah pushes himself deep into the bushes, his breath too loud; he claps a hand over his own mouth. The metal of the gun cools his skin through three layers of cloth.

Briar says, “Uhh,” after a long pause. “I started it.” 

“I know I ain’t going to convince you, now!” he says. “I just want you to know there is always another side to an argument.” 

“Yes, sir,” she says. 

“Who are you talking to over here?” he says. Judah watches his beady eyes sweep over him. 

“No one, sir,” she says. 

Mr. Jackson eyes her now. “Awfully proper today, Ms. Beckman.” 

She laughs like a bark. 

Mr. Jackson takes a step toward her, looking around to make sure no one can see. Judah’s hand starts toward opening the backpack. He finds himself bearing his teeth.

“Ms. Beckman,” he says, low and dark. She swallows. “I need you to help me grade some papers. For... extra credit?” 

Briar laughs with relief. “Oh! Yes, sir.” 

Mr. Jackson laughs too. “Did you think you were in trouble? I’ve never seen you look so nervous. What in the world could the perfect student, Ms. Beckman, be up to?” 

“Nothing!” she says. They begin to walk together toward his classroom. She looks back at Judah over her shoulder. 

Judah exhales. “Shit.” 

[lighterandpaper]

Briar

Photo by @tinaflour

“If I walk into my school and shoot my teacher with this gun, I don’t think that’s going to go over well,” Judah says. 

“Yeah...” Buddy Red says. They are back at his trailer and his mother is in the same room, watching Steve Harvey. “Don’t make that baby shoot his teacher, now...” she mutters. 

“Quiet down, now, momma,” Buddy Red says. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“I been around long enough to know it ain’t a good idea to get a kid to shoot up a school. I’ve seen the news...” 

Buddy Red sighs. 

“I should do it!” David says. 

“I told you, kid, it needs to really mean something if you want to take out Mr. Jackson. Judah has to do it, and the more public a place, the better.” 

David looks at Judah, whose curly black hair and open mouth make him look like when he was a baby again. A baby with an antique gun in his hand. David resists the urge to take the gun away and instead straightens a throw pillow. “I have to shoot Mr. Jackson in front of everyone? Won’t I go to jail?” Judah asks. 

“Yeah, how are we going to pin what happened on Mr. Jackson?” David says. 

A vein appears in Buddy Red’s neck, and he blinks. 

“What if I record him admitting it?” Judah says. “Doesn’t he hang around that ghost, Graham? Maybe he will say something about it and I can have the evidence.” 

Buddy Red nods. “There you go.” 

“What if you get caught?” David says. 

“I’ll bring the gun,” Judah says, finding it almost too heavy to lift without a quiver. 

“Ok, but you’re supposed to be dead, so how are you going to get close enough to him to record him without him or someone else seeing you?” David says. 

Judah puts his hand to his chin, going in his mind to the place that it was already going pretty often, “There is a girl in my class. Briar. She is the class secretary and helps Mr. Jackson grading papers and stuff.” 

“She does?” David says. “That seems inappropriate.” 

---

On Monday, Buddy Red drives the boys to Barham School in the next town over, Carter. The park out of view, and wish Judah luck. He has David’s backpack on, heavy with the gun. They watch him go, and he ducks into a bush. 

He slowly makes his way to the front yard of Barham, crawling carefully in the dirt, using all the hiding places he knows so well from playing hide-and-seek in this yard. He gets as close as he knows he can and waits for Briar to come out and sit in her usual spot to read. His heart beats with both fear and excitement. 

[lighterandpaper]

Lunch Buzz

Photo by @jd_alon

Briar follows Mr. Jackson up the stairs, pausing at each step patiently as she waits for his lumbering ascent. She grips her books at her front, only letting go to pull the hair from her eyes.

They arrive in his room, tattered flags on the wall, including a rebel flag, and trinkets on his sloping desk. He goes to a drawer, opens it with a key, pulls out a stack of tests and drops it on his desk. He darts his eyes up. “AP credit, Ms. Beckman. Harvard, here you come.” He wipes his nose with his hand, needing to breathe out of his mouth in that moment.

Briar smiles uncomfortably. “I won’t tell,” she says. 

He looks up, a cornered bear. “Of course you won’t,” he says. “No if you want to keep your perfect grades.” He tilts his head. “Why even put the notion in my head, now?” 

She shakes her head. “I was--I just--” 

He lifts a hand. “Grade the tests, Ms. Beckman. I need to get lunch--I’m hypoglycemic and my blood sugar is already low. You know what Ms. Kathy made today?” He fumbles around in his pockets.

“Yes, sir,” she says. “Salisbury steak, I heard.” 

“Ugh,” he says, looking up, for God, perhaps. He finds a handkerchief in his pocket and dabs the sweat from his forehead. He hikes his pants and toddles to the door, flipping his wrist in a little wave as he exits. 

Judah still squats in the bushes. His foot tingles, but he senses that he is sitting on a structural branch, and to move would shake the whole bush-system. Kids play nearby and scream at each other so close to Judah that it makes him angry in a way for which he can’t account. He closes his eyes, feeling that his gaze might somehow be sensed. One kid says, in reference to the made-up-kid-game they are playing, “Dude, I just killed you worse than Judah’s family.” 

The bell rings and the kids linger to finish their game, but not for very long, which lets Judah know it must be lunchtime. His own belly gurgles. As the last of the kids clear the area, the porch a few dozen feet away squeaks with a gait that Judah knows: Mr. Jackson. He peeks out enough to see him come down the stairs and turn away toward the cafeteria. No Briar. 

The last time Mr. Jackson walked away, the people he left behind were dead. Judah looks to the shabby little car parked on the side of the road, David and Buddy Red waiting inside. Everyone has gone to lunch, Briar has his phone, and this might be his only chance to move without being seen... He looks back to where Mr. Jackson appeared, and hurries toward there, up the stairs, moving swift and quiet. 

Upstairs, the phone in Briar’s pocket buzzes, which might as well have been a loose rattlesnake. She clutches her heart as if she is sixty, and pulls out the phone. Buddy Red. “Hello?” she says, like how she answers the home phone. 

“Judah!” a voice says. “Where are you going? You need to come back now.” 

“This isn’t Judah, Mister,” says Briar. 

A beat. “Are you the little girl? Where is Judah?” 

“Uh,” she says. “Last I saw he was in a bush...” Judah sneaks through the door, closing it quietly behind him. “No, wait, here he is.” 

Judah tears the door back open and scrambles half-way out before he realizes the voice. “Oh,” he says, standing up straight and taking sudden interest in a paint chip. “I didn’t see you there.” 

“Tell him he needs to come back, now, before someone sees him,” the phone murmurs.

“Mr. Buddy Red says--” 

“I heard him,” Judah says. “I just came up here to, uh, make sure you hid the phone right.” 

Briar narrows her elf-eyes. “I can hide a phone, Judah.” 

“Obviously not...” he says, gesturing to the fact that it is not currently hidden. He scoffs stupidly. 

“What the hell is going on?” David’s voice rings in the background of the phone call. 

“He’s coming now!” Briar says. “Go, Judah!” 

Judah looks around the room and taps his pocket, unsure of a reason to stay. “Yep,” he says.

“Why are you staring at me?” Briar says. 

“I, um--” Judah says, halts because of a familiar sound. 

“What?” she says. 

Judah steps in the room. “Hang up, hang up,” he hisses.

“Judah! Mr. Jack--” the phone says, hung up mid-word. 

“He’s coming...” Judah says. 

“You have to hide!” Briar says. 

Judah searches the room, one closet, which is currently blocked by a stack of textbooks. Briar has already made a move, but Judah walks to the window. It has been painted shut, but then forced reopened, maybe several times. He lifts it open with some effort and a wood-on-wood screech. The whole building shutters with each fall of Mr. Jackson’s foot. 

He clambers out of the window and on the exceedingly rusted fire-escape. The structure swings when he steps on it, and the joints groan. “Judah!” Briar says, turning from her effort to move books away from the closet door. Judah slams the window shut, and ducks. Mr. Jackson opens his door.

“What are you doing, Ms. Beckman?” Mr. Jackson says. 

Briar is splayed on the floor, textbooks tossed in all directions around her, opened, upside down, and fluttering. “Huh?” she says. 

Mr. Jackson gives her a moment. “What are you doing, I said.” 

She swallows. “Oh. The books? I was going to organize them.” 

“Uh, huh,” he says. “By throwing them around the room?” 

“Well, gotta start somewhere?” she says, a question. 

He nods. “OK. That closet is already full of books.” 

“Oh,” she says. “Oh well. I’ll put everything back.” 

He bites the candy bar in his hand and narrows his eyes, looking around the room. “I forgot my mug.” His mug sits on his desk, the only place he isn’t looking. 

“There it is,” Briar points. 

He does not look. 

Outside, Judah squats on the fire escape with his toes. His eyes happen upon an inspection sticker from 1973. He swallows. 

“OK,” he says, going to where Briar is. He steps around her and pulls the closet door open, shoving more books aside. It is indeed full of old books Prentice Hall World History and High School History. Stacks of each.

“Sure is, sir,” Briar confirms. She begins stacking books. 

Mr. Jackson looms over her. “Is someone else in this room, Ms. Beckman?” 

“No, sir,” she answers quickly, honestly.

“Well,” he says, grabbing his mug. “I’ve heard you try to lie before. That should do, now. Pick all that up and grade the tests.” He begins to walk away. 

The phone buzzes in Briar’s pocket again, and this time she yelps. Mr. Jackson stops. 

“What was that?” 

“Sorry--phone buzzed,” she says, feeling the truth might help again. 

“Mrs. Beckman finally gave in and got you a phone, huh?” 

Briar nods. 

He sighs. “You kids and your phones... This country is going straight to hell in a...” He walks out the door. He slams it hard behind him. 

That was the last nudge the fire escape needed. Judah drops. 

[lighterandpaper]

The Secrets of Barham Institute

Photo by @robbyj

“I heard that Judah killed his entire family and then came to school to shoot Mr. Jackson because he gave him a bad grade,” says a kid the following day. He smells like Axe Body Spray.

“They never could find him, you know,” says a girl so short she can rest her chin on the long, white lunch table without bending over much. “He’s still hiding in the school...”

Outside the cafeteria are armed security and local police, standing around, one guy near the window laughs. 

“I heard that Briar tried to help him and now she’s going to jail.” 

“Little miss goody two-shoes?” says another girl, an early bloomer. 

“Yeah. She apparently snapped because Mr. Jackson was making her grade papers for extra credit.” 

“I knew she was crazy,” says the early bloomer.

“I heard that Mr. Jackson is still alive and that he forgives Judah,” 

“I guess that proves it,” says the first kid. “Mr. Jackson is a ghost.” 

“Oh my God, stop it with that stupid rumor,” says the short girl, straightening her spine and her glasses. “He’s been through enough. We saw him get shot... I think that proves he’s not a ghost.” 

Mr. Jackson sweats in a hospital bed. The nurse finishes checking him. 

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he says. He registers her smile as finally, a real man who knows how to talk to a woman. 

“That dude just called me fucking sweetheart,” she says to another nurse outside the room. “Ew,” says her friend, not looking up from her phone. 

“Good to see a pretty woman like that. Really lifts the spirits, Graham.” Next to the bed stands Graham, looking grim and absent-eyed as a Civil War-era photo. 

“You sure these nurses won’t be able to see me? I know they probably seen death...” 

Mr. Jackson sighs. He places a gentle hand on his solar plexus, which is wrapped with white bandages. “Death isn’t felt properly in these sorts of places.” He gestures to the curtain around his bed, as if the paisley pattern was the evidence to his claim. 

Graham swallows, lifting the prominent Adam’s apple in his neck. “Why don’t you just let your form die?” 

Mr. Jackson looks sharp. “I made this form over these years...” he taps his own leg. “I made it big... I turned the misery of Lee into power. Physical power. I can move the world better than any living man. I don’t want to start over...”

While Mr. Jackson talks, Graham places his hand on the hospital bed and focuses on it intently. He tries to push it, but only manages to flutter the sheets. His crest falls. 

“Keep me company, Graham, and I will get your physical manifestation back,” Mr. Jackson says knowingly. “The boy shot me, good for him. But now everyone thinks he killed the family. He did me a favor. I feel myself getting stronger and stronger by the love and attention I’m getting and the hatred toward him. Even now, sitting here with a hole in my chest...” 

Graham tilts his head, playing in his mind all the times he had shot Mr. Jackson in reenactment to little or no effect. “How did he managed to hurt you so bad?” 

Mr. Jackson chuckles. “He shot me with the gun that killed me. I didn’t expect him to be helped by Buddy Red. If it wasn’t for the attention he got me, it might have taken me back to my creator for good.” 

...

In the chaos, Judah ran. Briar told him to run. He went right back to that bat-tunnel and dove in. A few people saw him do it, too. He could hear them talking about it. So, he kept crawling. The dirt and the spiders and the bats could not stop him now. Things crawl on him, touch him, possibly even bite him in the total dark, but he keeps going, pushing through his fear. 

Adults can’t fit in the tunnel, and the kids are too afraid to go after him, besides--he has a gun, Ms. Perkins reasons. 

Judah finds an old ladder by running into it with his nose. He feels it until he understands what it is, and climbs. He realizes that the gun is still in his hands, and puts it in his backpack. 

The ladder seems to go on and on, rising through the total dark. The smell of long-untouched things disturbed invades his other senses. He shivers. Now that his eyes are adjusted, he can begin to see rays of light coming through the plaster of the inside of the walls. He squirms through the guts of the school. 

At the top of the ladder is a trap door. He pushes it open and climbs up. The room is covered in a layer of dust and long-abandoned--locked from the outside. 

“Hello, Judah,” says a voice, like audio from an old phonograph. Judah jolts to the source. A man, not entirely solid, skin as dark and reflective as stained wood, stands before him. “We have been waiting for you.”

More translucent beings emerge from the shadows.

[lighterandpaper]

The Boy with The Antique Gun

Photo by @leliejens

Judah and David are boy scouts. The older kids, David among them, organize an event--it’s tradition--called “skeet hunting” where they get the younger kids to take all their clothes off in the middle of the woods to catch an imaginary bird called a skeet. Once done, the older boys take their clothes, and leave them in the woods, naked, at night. Hazing. It’s meant to be funny. 

“Don’t take your clothes off,” David whispers to Judah. “When everything starts to happen, just follow me.” Judah nods. 

As the trick starts to play out, David makes a motion to Judah, and they leave with the older kids.

They quietly follow flashlight beams down a trail, laughing and horsing. “Donny looked like he was going to shit his pants!” says one kid.

 “Why are you bringing your little brother, Davey?” asks another older kid. 

“Shut up, Ethan,” David says, loudly. “You still miss your mom?” The other kids laugh. Judah walks there, silently. 

Presently, he sits in the scary bat-tunnel under his school, watching Mr. Jackson threaten to kill Briar’s family. Something suggests that he should move, but he hasn’t done anything yet. Briar sobs. 

“What do you say, Mr. Danielson? Would you like to come out now and be done with all of this?” calls Mr. Jackson to the open air. 

The bell rings, which means lunch is over and students are going back to class.

“Last chance, Mr. Danielson,” Mr. Jackson says. “I have to teach these kids the truth about the war of Northern Aggression!” 

It dawns on Judah that David is not coming to rescue him this time. His family isn’t coming either. No one is coming. Tears fill his eyes, and he pulls the gun from his backpack. He can barely lift it with one hand. He crawls out of the little tunnel, and stands, covered in dust and cobwebs. 

“Judah!” Briar says. “No! Run away!” 

Judah shakes his head and lifts the gun with both hands. 

“Well, well! Mr. Danielson has a gun!” 

Judah flashes the profile of it. “The one that killed you!” 

Mr. Jackson’s eyes flash the smallest moment of fear. 

“That student has a gun!” says a voice. It’s a teacher coming out of the bathroom behind them. 

Mr. Jackson smiles. He puts his hands up slowly. “Put the gun down, son,” he says, loudly enough for the teacher to hear. 

The teacher pulls out his phone. “Ms. Perkins!” he says. “A student has a gun!... Behind the school near the football bathroom!... Well, I called you first-- OK, OK, I’ll call 911 now...” He hangs up. He dials and quickly calls again. “Student at Barham school with a gun!” he shouts into the phone. 

Judah hasn’t moved. He isn’t even sure what will happen if he pulls the trigger. 

Mr. Jackson grabs Briar. “Don’t shoot us,” he fake-pleads. 

“Let her go!” Judah says. 

“I won’t let you shoot her!” Mr. Jackson says, again loud enough for the now approaching crowd to hear. 

“I thought he was dead... Where did he even get that gun?... Is he the one that killed his family?” says the hushed voices of the people gathering around. 

Reality seems to be falling into pieces before Judah’s eyes. Puking seems like a reasonable plan of action. 

“What is going on here, Mr. Jackson?” says Ms. Perkins. 

“I saw Judah sneaking around the school, and I followed him,” Mr. Jackson says, hands still in the air. “I knew he was missing, and I was concerned. It appears that he was trying to contact this young woman.” Mr. Jackson, more mindful now, puts Briar behind himself in a show of protection. “And he pulled a gun from his backpack and pointed it at her.” 

“That’s not true!” Briar says. 

Ms. Perkins looks at Judah and speaks slowly and calmly. “Why do you have a gun, Judah?” 

Judah struggles to show that he is not very close to fainting, which he is. “Mr. Jackson...” he says. “He killed my family.” He does not go on about how he is a ghost, not feeling at all that he has the wherewithal to back up that kind of claim.

All eyes turn back to Mr. Jackson. Now all the students are gathering as well. Teachers shush and try to control the rising noise. 

Mr. Jackson acts dumbfounded. “Son, you are the one with the antique gun. Wasn’t that the sort of thing that was used...?” 

That aspect of the crime was published and gossiped about thoroughly. This proves to be a very salient point for the crowd, who turns back to Judah and his shaking gun. 

“He’s lying! Judah was trying to protect me from him!” Briar shouts. This does little for the growing consensus. Mr. Jackson puts her more firmly behind him, as if Judah were casting a spell on her to make her say such things. 

“The police are coming, Judah. Can you put the gun down?” Ms. Perkins says, as if asking him whether he wants any gravy on his mashed potatoes. 

Judah lowers the gun, the suggestion reminding him that it is very heavy, if nothing else. 

“Good...” she says. 

Mr. Jackson approaches him now like you might approach a trapped wildcat, one hand extended, one hand back toward Briar. “Everything is OK,” he says. “We are going to get to the bottom of all this, and as long as you have nothing to hide, you ain’t in any trouble.” 

Two flashes in the windows of his home, and his family is gone forever. A man waddles out of the house. There he is, walking toward Judah now. When he is only a few steps away, Judah raises the gun and pulls the trigger firmly. The thing practically explodes, flinging itself back into his chest. Good thing Mr. Jackson was so close, because there was no aiming involved. 

The lead ball plunges into Mr. Jackson’s sternum, and he flops backward. 

Many scream. A few rush to Mr. Jackson. A few more run away. The boy behind the gun seems to vanish in the chaos.

“Run!” Briar screams, and Judah does.

[lighterandpaper]

Find The Boy

Photo by @mak_jp

“Y’all stay there,” says Mr. Jackson as he marches across the parking lot toward the shabby red car that had vanished behind the trees. The growing crowd of students watches him go; children watching a paternal figure go check out the noise.

Buddy Red is holding his bleeding shoulder in the car when Mr. Jackson clears the trees. He fumbles for his keys to try to start the car, but gives up once it is clear he won’t make it. “I should have known you’d get involved, Mr. Green,” Mr. Jackson says. 

Buddy Red just breathes. 

“Why hang on, sir?” Mr. Jackson prods. “If you survive, it’ll be some long months of suffering. Don’t you agree?” 

Buddy Red reaches into the back seat and finds a bottle of vodka. He pours it over the wound with a shaking hand. 

Mr. Jackson grimaces. “Oh, I imagine that whole arm is shattered, now. Might need an amputation.” He reaches across Buddy Red, leaning his great body into the car, and presses his stumpy fingers into the shoulder. Buddy Red groans and tries to get away, but Mr. Jackson is steady as stone, and holds him in place, kicking legs and all. “Where is the boy, Robert?” A whispered grumble. 

Sweating, Buddy Red manages to catch a full breath. “I’ve been beat worse to give up less,” he says. 

Mr. Jackson smiles, understanding. “A good slave owner don’t beat his slaves. That’s like beating up your coffee maker. A waste.” 

Buddy Red spits in Mr. Jackson’s face, and Mr. Jackson pulls himself out of the car, pats his pockets until he finds his handkerchief. He whips the spit away carefully, thoughtfully. “You were always more trouble than you were worth. Really the reason why I let you fight for your freedom. But you were rarin’ to fight for the South, weren’t you?” 

“For my kids, Jason,” he says. “For my kids.” 

“Oh and where are they now, Robert? Where are their kids? On the streets of Chicago, Detroit?” A moment is filled with Buddy Red’s labored breathing. “Where is the Danielson boy, Robert? Why do you want to protect a white boy anyway?” 

“Danielsons was like family, and I’d die before I’d tell you.” 

Mr. Jackson raises his eyebrows. “Sounds brave! If you weren’t already dead I might be inspired.” He grabs his finger, as if starting a list. “Let’s see: I kill you now and you come back a little fainter?” Next finger. “A little harder for the living to see? No. I’ll let you suffer in this form. That is the worst I could do you.”

Buddy Red nods, chuckling: they agree.

“I know about as much as you do, anyway, I reckon. The boy is at the school. And I’m going to find him.” 

He grabs a branch, too heavy for a normal living man to lift, and raises it above his head easily, creating a shady canopy. He places it on the car, mostly hiding it from view. “There, now you can suffer in peace,” he says, tapping the roof of the car twice. He toddles back toward the school. 

When Mr. Jackson is out of sight, Briar hurries toward the last place she saw Judah. She rounds the corner, taking care to attract the attention of no one. 

“Judah!” she hisses to the open driveway behind the school. No one is around. She waits and Judah does not answer. 

During the summers, when Judah and David aren’t staying up all night to watch stand-up comedy, they come to Barham school and climb around on the old structures. The find passage ways into attics and basements, never meant to be seen by student eyes again. One place they are always too afraid to go: a tunnel under the school. “Filled with bats,” says the lunch lady, Ms. Dot. “I get here early, and I seen ‘em coming in to sleep for the day,” she explains. 

Struggling to breathe, Mr. Jackson near with a gun, Judah pulls the door open to the tunnel and climbs in, preferring the bats to Mr. Jackson. 

Once inside, he pats for his phone and its light, and realizes that Briar still has it. And there she is, walking down the driveway, calling his name. He watches her, longs to call back to her. No, she’s had enough danger thanks to Judah. 

“Judah!” she calls, tears in her eyes. 

Just as he is about to change his mind, Mr. Jackson appears behind her. Nearly invisible, Judah catches a glimpse of Graham, Mr. Jackson’s partner. “Reason to think he’d be near here, Ms. Beckman?” 

Briar jumps. “No sir!” 

Mr. Jackson might have laughed, but enough is enough. He storms to the girl and grips her shoulder. “Judah Danielson!” he calls. “Every moment you do no present yourself to me is a moment closer to this young girl’s death and the death of her entire family.” He squats down to Briar’s level. “I will save you and your family if you find me Mr. Danielson, OK?” 

Briar cries. 

“Just find the boy!” he says. He stands and hikes up his khakis. “Y’all have 24 hours to figure it out.” He looks at his watch. “By 12:45 tomorrow, I either have the boy, or the Beckman family is my next project.” 

[lighterandpaper]

Learner’s Permit

Photo by @andriklangfield

Judah falls from the third floor. There is another fire escape on the second floor window, which the falling one above deposits Judah on, hard. He collapses on the grating with the hum of struck metal. The fire escape above knocks into the one below as it falls, jolting it one, twice, and then giving way. Judah drops again from the swinging fire escape into the bushes. The pivot action of the last holding anchor swings the mangled rusted metal, so that when it snaps and falls, it lands just a few feet away from Judah. The bushes slow him little, he lands on his back, gun digging into his spine, with a hollow thump and possibly a crack. 

Once, he had turned just as a basketball was making its way to him, out of the hands of the most aggressive boy, whose face was covered in painful acne. The basketball thumped him in the chest, and he believed for the next few minutes that he was dying and no one cared. “Got the wind knocked out of you,” said an older boy, later. Spencer looks out for Judah, and scores the most points because he’s the biggest. “First time, you think you’re dying.” 

This memory is very little help, as Judah is again convinced he is dying. “Can’t breathe,” he gasps, not nearly loud enough for anyone to hear. The bushes  conceal him. 

Briar leaps to her feet and yanks the window open with a few frantic tugs. She sticks her head out, not seeing Judah anywhere. “Judah!” she hears herself saying. 

A thick pair of hands land on her shoulders and pull her away from the window, so hard that she falls on the hardwood floor and slides. She looks up to see the seat of Mr. Jackson’s stretch-waist khakis as he sticks his head out the window. He looks for a while, like a sniffing dog, before he ducks back in and turns to Briar. “Where is he?” 

“I don’t know!” she says, again honestly. 

He lurches toward his closet, opens the door, and digs around in a corner until his hand appears again, this time with a Musket in it. 

“Mr. Jackson!” Briar says. 

Buddy Red sees movement out of the corner of his eye. He whips the car into drive and pulls around toward the teacher’s parking lot, the side of the school with the fire escapes. 

“The fire escapes fell!” David says, pointing across Buddy Red’s eye line. 

“Get down!” Buddy Red says, shoving David by the head lower in the seat. Mr. Jackson’s form appears in the third floor window. 

Mr. Jackson sees the shabby car, and inside it is a man he’s known for over a century now. He laughs to himself, raises the gun to his eye, takes careful aim, and fires. The crack echos over the parking lot. 

In a tearing moment, the windshield shatters, and Buddy Red’s right shoulder erupts suddenly like a volcano of blood. “Damn!” Buddy Red says, almost calmly, given the situation. David screams so loudly that the sound seems to contain mass. 

Mr. Jackson calmly replaces his gun in the closet, closes the door. “Now, Ms. Beckman, if you tell anyone what you have seen here, I will not only kill Judah, but I will kill your family as well. St. Marysville ain’t my domain, but that will eventually change. Do you understand me?” 

Briar nods. 

“We are going to go downstairs, pull the boy out of the bushes where I’m sure he is lying with a broken leg or some such, and you don’t tell no one nothing I didn’t say first, you understand me, now?” 

They walk down the stairs again, Briar again following, step by step, behind Mr. Jackson’s lumbering decent. 

Judah regains the ability to take a breath just when a shot cracks over his head. A musket sticks out of the window for a moment, a billow of black smoke lingering after it. He turns his eyes to the sound of broken glass, and he sees Buddy Red’s car. “No...” he says. He starts to get up, when Buddy Red gets out of the car. “Hide, Judah!” Buddy Red calls out in no particular direction. 

Buddy Red opens the back door of his car and lays down. “You drive, kid,” he grunts to David. 

“Huh now?” David says. “I just started on my learner’s--” 

“Drive, kid!” Buddy Red shouts. 

David scurries over the middle and sits in the driver’s seat, “I picked the wrong day to quit smoking...” he mutters to himself, never having smoked. He puts the car in drive and in lurches. “Where is Judah?” 

“He is hiding, just go!” 

The car lurches and halts its way out of the parking lot. At the exit, David steps all the way on the gas in a 15 MPH speed limit. The road is narrow, solid black, and banked by deep ditches. They reach about 55 MPH when he flings the car to the right, screaming. They lose control, spin, both screaming now. After an endless moment, the side of the car slams into a tree. David slaps the car into park, as if that was all intentional. 

“Ok, this should be far enough away for you. I’m going find Judah.” He opens the door and steps out. They are a block away, hidden behind a curtain of trees and an abandoned house. 

“No, kid!” Buddy Red says. “No one can know you’re alive.” 

“I’ll stay low!” David says. Buddy Red groans, apparently too wounded to argue more. 

David pauses. “Are you going to, uh... die?” 

“No,” he says. “If I don’t make it, I’ll just be less solid...” 

David doesn’t consider this an answer, but turns to find his little brother anyway. He runs through the trees, keeping low. 

Mr. Jackson arrives at the porch just in time to see the car disappear beyond the trees, followed by a crash. A crowd is already gathering, looking for the source of the gunshot. Mr. Jackson glances at Briar one last time, to make sure she looks sufficiently afraid. He walks down the last few steps to the bushes below his window. He gazes in, and there is no boy. 

“What was that?” says an older student. 

“Came down to find out, myself,” says Mr. Jackson. “Did anyone see the car that just left here?” 

“I saw an old, red car tear out of the parking lot from over there,” says a girl wearing a skort version of their uniform.  

While Mr. Jackson is looking at where the car disappeared, Briar sees the head of curly black hair disappear around a corner. She a sigh of relief comes over her, and Mr. Jackson twists to see why. She hurries her gaze toward the trees where the car is. 

“Come with me,” Mr. Jackson says. “We’re going to find that car.” 

[lighterandpaper]

The Plan

Photo by @dhelentjaris

“Yes, he will,” says Judah. Everyone turns to him because this is the first time he’s spoken in a while. “Mr. Thibodaux is a gun collector and a doomsday prepper. He will definitely call the police.” 

“Judah!” David says. He glances at the two ghost men, and pulls Judah aside a little. “We need to get to my dad...” 

“Your dad won’t understand what we’ve seen, will he?” 

“I don’t understand what we’ve seen!” David says. 

“If we go to your dad, he will tell the police, Mr. Jackson will know we’re still alive, kill us, and take over the town.” 

David throws his hands up and walks away, like, aw hell no. 

Buddy Red approaches Judah, and extends the lovely antique gun. “It’s got to be you.” 

“David is bigger,” Judah says, glancing helpfully at his panic-attack-having-half-brother. 

Buddy Red squats to his level, which makes Judah flinch. He flips the gun around so that the shiny dark wooden handle is right in front of him. “You are the only full-blooded Danielson. He needs you dead more than anybody in the world. I think that will give you some extra...” He turns to Marcus, who is looking bored hovering over in the corner. “What you think?” 

Marcus nods. “As a ghost, you should know that your ability to stay in the world it tied to meaning, Red. The Danielson boy with the gun he was originally killed with--that should be plenty of meaning.” 

Buddy Red turns back to Judah. “Take it, then.” 

Judah hesitates. “Why are you so solid, Mr. Red?” 

Buddy Red sighs. 

“Red is remembered around here more than us because he is a war hero for the South,” Marcus says derisively. 

“Like I say, I was just fighting for my kids and their freedom,” Buddy Red says.

Judah looks between them. “You fought with Mr. Jackson?” 

Buddy Red sighs again. 

“When Mr. Jackson died in battle, Red here took his flag and led the men onward,” Marcus says. “A traitor to his own cause, in the end.” 

“I was protecting my friends,” Buddy Red says. He holds out the gun, and Judah takes it. 

“This is too much!” David says. 

They walk out on the grounds, and they see lots of translucent people milling around the grounds. “Why didn’t we see them when we came in?” Judah asks. 

“Y’all are getting more sensitive to the world of the dead, I suppose.” 

Judah looks up at Buddy Red, who looks as solid and alive as any man. “Will I always be able to see ghosts now?” 

Buddy Red remains stately and tired. “It fades away for most adults,” he says. “Sometimes people take a second look at me and could swear someone was there, but they can’t see me.” 

“Seeing my parents die made it easier to see, too?” 

Buddy Red nods. “You got a long road ahead of you, kid.” He finally looks down. “My boys... struggled. When I was gone.” 

David finally composes himself enough to join them. “Well, he’s got me.” 

Buddy Red nods and adjusts his hat. “Yaw sir, he does.” 

Judah is holding the gun, and David takes it out of his hand. “I’ll hold it for now.” 

They get back into the car. Marcus watches them with arms crossed. “So, what, Judah just goes to school and shoots him? Sounds like something you’d hear about on the news,” David says. 

“We gotta makes some plans,” Buddy Red says. They drive back through town, and the people sitting on the porches seem much less aware of his shabby little car.