Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast.




Mark walked with his daughter Lisa to school - chill autumn morning, kids running around. Leaves fell and circled around them. Mark loved the fall. He was a cold weather guy at heart. 
"Dad, did you hear about Sam's mom?" Lisa asked.
Mark nodded. Sam's mom was recently admitted to a rehab.
"I went to her house once," Lisa continued. "It was smelly, full of stacked mail and newspapers. I don't know how Sam lived like that."
"She sounds like she was very sick," Mark answered. "Thank you for telling me that."
Ministering in a redlined neighborhood in Chicago brought many stories like this to Mark's attention. Under-resourced health services led to heightened drug use and mental illness.
"Why was she like that?" Lisa asked.
"She's sick is all," Mark forced a smile. "We're all six inches from oblivion in one way or another. We need to have compassion for one another."
Lisa nodded and was quiet on the rest of their walk to school. 
---
Mark hung up his coat on the rack as he walked into the church.
"We got another letter from Clay," his secretary handed him an envelope.
"Oh?" Mark opened the envelope and started to read.
"I always expect anthrax in his letters." The secretary said.
"They are pretty wild."
Mark read the letter: A prophet is not welcome in his hometown. Luke 4:24.
"Huh," Mark folded the letter back up.
"Any alien conspiracies with this one?" his secretary laughed.
"No, just a single line."
Mark looked at the letter's return address to find it was in Cicero, a Chicago suburb. About twenty minutes from where Mark lived in the city. He wondered why he never considered where the letters came from. Usually the letters were filled with pages of paranoia, the usual noise of evangelical conspiracy theorists.
That single line told Mark something was wrong. He thought back to his conversation with Lisa, and imagined her pressuring him to visit Clay. 
"I think I'm going to visit Clay," Mark put the letter in his pocket.
His secretary laughed, "It's your funeral."
---
Mark hadn't driven in Cicero much. He remembered when he was a kid that Martin Luther King Jr. decided not to march through Cicero because it was mafia territory. King was told he would be killed for sure if he set foot there.
Mark always found that piece of history fascinating. Even King didn't want to go through this neighborhood. How bad was it to drive back someone who seemed to be the epitome of justice and love?
He thought back to Lisa, and how he wanted to be a good example for her.
"Turn left," said Google Maps.
"Yes, ma'am," Mark cleared his throat.
---
Mark knocked on the apartment door.
"Clay?" he asked. "You there? It's Revered Snyder from Logan Square. You write me a lot."
"What do you want with him?" asked a voice behind him.
Mark turned around and saw a woman standing in her doorway with a lit cigarette in her hand, "I'm doing a wellness check," he answered her.
"That guy's fucking weird," the woman took a drag of her cigarette.
"Have you talked to him recently, or seen him around?" 
"No, not much, but I try to avoid him. Again, fucking weird guy."
"Where's your landlord?"
The woman pointed south, "Just across the parking lot."
"Thank you."
---
"Clay?" asked the landlord. "That guy's fucking weird."
"So I've heard," said Mark. "I'm a pastor. I need to do a wellness check."
The landlord leaned back in his chair and scratched his beard, "Yeah, his kids have nothing to do with him. They pay his rent, deliver his groceries. That's it."
"Have you seen him around?"
"Recently? No. Not that I pay much attention. What do you have to do with him?"
Mark wanted to explain the bizarre, cult-sounding letters he received on a monthly basis, or the gut feeling he had that it was morally important to love even people who were outcast.
"He used to go to my church," Mark lied. "Before I served there."
"Ah, I see," the landlord stood up with his keys. "Well, let's see how he's doing."
---
The landlord opened the door, "Knock yourself out."
The smell of mildew and urine immediately hit Mark's nostrils. He put his hand over his nose.
"Yeah," said the landlord. "Clay's kids pay extra."
"I'll come to your office when I'm done."
The landlord smiled, nodded, and walked off.
"Clay?" Mark closed the door. "It's Reverend Snyder."
He looked at the walls to see newspaper clippings of random events around Chicago, as well as cut up Bible verses. Red marker was used to connect the news to the Scriptures.
On the table were a few opened letters.
Mark picked them up and saw they were from one of his kids.
Hey dad,
Thanks for writing. Unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable yet having my kids around you. Your mental health is still unstable, and you're refusing to get help. I'm glad you found religion, but you're still sick. You need to get help. If you want to talk more, please feel free to call me or meet me at a coffee shop.
I hope you'll find healing, for everyone's sake.
Arnie
A single tear fell down his cheek. He never wanted this to happen between Lisa and him. He said a silent prayer for their relationship. Mark realized he heard the sound of a distant TV. 
He walked down the hallway and knocked.
"Clay? It's Reverend Snyder. I'm here to check up on you, buddy."
Silence.
Mark opened the door.
Along the walls were jars of urine and even more piles of newspaper.
He fought back his gag reflex.
He could hear a gameshow playing on the television behind a wall of newspapers.
"Clay?"
Mark walked around the newspapers to see a bald, decrepit man lying on his bed and staring blankly at the television.
"Hey, it's Reverend Snyder. You doing okay?"
On the table next to Clay was a bottle of pills. From a short distance, Mark could see it was Vicodin.
Mark put his fingers on Clay's neck to check his pulse. There was nothing there. 
Mark took off a pile of newspapers from the side of the bed, sat down, dialed 911.
His eyes scanned the room. He remembered that twenty years ago he was in college and dealing with the worst depression of his life before he got involved in his church community. He made his slow and steady recovery partially because of genuine connection. He felt seen. 
Clay didn't get that chance.
The same brokenness inside Clay was also inside Mark in one way or another. 
---
The next day, Mark got news on the phone that Clay had been dead for a few weeks.
"Why didn't anyone check on him?" Mark asked.
"He was a mentally ill loner," the coroner said. "It's not unusual."
"Thank you."
Mark opened Clay's letter in front of him again. The last correspondence they had. 
What does a mind in isolation think?
It was the same ramblings - fire from the sky, death imminent. Natural disasters to fall.
"Are you doing his funeral?" the coroner asked.
"Yeah," Mark replied. 
---
The next morning, Mark walked into his office.
"There's another Clay letter," his secretary said.
"That's impossible," Mark hung up his coat.
"Left it on your desk," she shrugged. "That's all I can tell ya."
Mark walked over to his desk, saw the same scrambled handwriting, and opened the letter.
55 will die.
Mark's heart dropped.
---
A few hours later, there was a knock on Mark's door.
"It's open," Mark answered.
His secretary walked in: "Did you hear about the Madison Street bridge collapsing?
"No," Mark clicked out of his eulogy and went to a news site: Fifty-Five suspected dead
in bridge collapse. "Oh my God."
"You okay?"
"... yeah, yeah… just tragic."
"Yeah… just tragic."
---
Mark looked at the letter later that night in his office.
It could've been a coincidence. All of it. Clay was out of his mind.
But what if it was all… right? What if Clay was a prophet? What does that make Mark?
Mark shook his head.
His phone rang, he picked it up.
"Is this Reverend Synder?" asked a woman's voice.
"Yes," Mark answered.
"I'm Clay's daughter."
Mark bit his lip, "I've been waiting for you to reach out."
"I know."
"Do you have much to say?"
"No, no… it's just, my dad's mind was warped. He got into some kinda… religious addiction. It consumed him in the end."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"He was such a brilliant, smart guy before. Then he started getting these messages… these visions…"
55 will die.
"... he slowly started to lose his grip on reality. I once asked him what the point was of knowing the future if it's only going to destroy you. He didn't have an answer to that."
"They never do," Mark answered. "I'm sorry to hear that."
Silence.
"Reverend… I have faith, but what is the difference between hearing from God and mental illness?" Clay's daughter asked.
Mark opened his mouth, closed it. He looked at the cross on the wall.
"I'm not sure we'll know until we're on the other side of eternity," Mark said.
Another long silence.
"I'll see you at the funeral, Reverend."
"I'll see you there too."
Mark put the phone down. His eyes traveled up to his bulletin board. There was a new temptation inside him to pin it there to save. He shook his head instead, putting the letter through the shredder.
---
At night, Mark dreamt of the last time he saw Clay. This time Clay was alive.
Laying down, Clay's eyes finally traveled to Mark's eyes: "I sometimes listen to your sermons. You're a heretic, you know that?"
Mark forced a smile and held eye contact, "Of course I am. I'm a Methodist."
Clay chuckled softly.
They watched a nameless game show in silence.
"Are you my friend?" asked Clay.
Mark looked at him and realized Clay was clearly dead. All these years, Clay wandered alone through the world, alienated even from his children. Mark wasn't sure what Clay did to deserve that, but Mark knew then that the only right thing to do was to be present. Nothing more, nothing less. 
"Yeah," said Mark. "I'm your friend."
Clay's hand softly squeezed Mark's fingers. 
Mark looked down and noticed bandaged holes in the center of Clay's hands. Most likely self-inflicted. Maybe natural deterioration and the dying process. It wasn't for Mark to know, he decided.
That's when light emerged from the wounds, making the room brighter.
Then Mark woke up. 
---
The next week, Mark stepped into his office again. On his desk was another letter from Clay.
He sat down and sighed.
What did it matter if he knew the future?
Mark's fingers traced the frantic lettering on the envelope.

​                                                                 💀💀💀

Nathan Perrin (he/him/his) is a writer and Anabaptist pastor in Chicagoland. He holds an MA in Quaker Studies, and is a doctoral student studying Christian Community Development at Northern Seminary. His doctorate work centers on creating a writing program for nonprofits and churches to use to help under-resourced communities process trauma. His work has been published in the Dillydoun Review, Bangalore Review, Collateral Journal, Esoterica Magazine, etc. His forthcoming novella Memories of Green Rivers will be released in winter 2026 by Running Wild Press. He is also a screenwriter for an unannounced indie comedy series. For more information, visit www.nathanperrinwriter.com

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast.



Walter Mueller waved a thick arm toward the stained-glass windows. “We’re not going to knock those out, Imre, even with what the heat loss will cost me. We’re going to back-light and strobe them so they’ll pop out at our drinkers. Sanctified eavesdroppers. Should give the clubbers guilty pleasure staring at them while they’re hooking up.”

Father Imre Herceg winced at the man standing next to him in St. Emeric church. The Connecticut parish, once full of Hungarian-Americans, was almost without members, and unable to pay its bills. But its sale to a man creating a singles bar seemed close to sacrilege.

 The two men made an odd pairing. Father Herceg was gaunt and tall, with white hair, and in his black cassock looked like a lit funerary candle. Walter Mueller’s well-tailored gray suit struggled but failed to mask his portly frame. They looked like the personification of starvation dieting and binge eating.

“I’m glad the Bishop let you handle matters, Imre, you’ve been a lot easier to deal with than some of the Bishop’s gofers.”

“Thanks, I guess. You paid a large amount for a hundred-forty-year-old church in need of serious repairs. And disregarded the false rumors about the church being haunted. So long as what you do with the desanctified building is legal, we will have no objections.”

The concern in Father Herceg’s eyes was apparent. “Don’t worry, Imre, no sinning will be done here. Well, at least not consummated here. And the ghosts just add to the clubbing experience. I’m going to have the wait staff in pale makeup, like vampires.

Imre Herceg shifted topics. “The religious items—altar, tabernacle, statues will be out by the end of next week. You do still want the pews and organ?”

“Hell yes. We’re going to step the pews two high along the side and front walls. Pad the seats with suggestive cushioning, bolt down some little bitty cocktail tables and let ‘er rip. Figure to use the organ as background music for the wet tee shirt contests.”

The priest kept silent. He’d been given the failing parish as the last gasp of a forty-year career. Imre had wondered at his ordination if he might become a prince of the church, bishop perhaps, or archbishop. But between a weakness for the bottle and an unwillingness to be unctuous, he’d remained a journeyman priest.

After showing Mueller out through the sacristy door, Father Herceg left the church lights on and slowly paced down the central aisle to the rear of the church. The winter dark made the empty church seem dim, as if the season were fighting against the lights. As he walked, the priest once again thought he felt the brush contact of others, like commuters ignoring him in their passage. Just drafts, he reminded himself, or the misfiring senses of old age.

The Diocese had ruled that confessions must be scheduled weekly, so St. Emeric held them every Saturday evening from five to six, whether or not anyone showed up to repent. As he reached the confessional, Father Herceg extracted his breviary from a pocket in his cassock and opened the middle door. His flock strongly disliked sitting face to face with their confessor, so the carved oak confessional with kneelers and screens was still in use.

Imre picked up his silk stole from the shelf and placed it over his head so the ends draped down to his waist. Then he sat on the cushion he’d left on the chair and opened the breviary. He’d already read the daily selection, but had the strong feeling that God liked repetition in prayer and started over.

“Páter Herceg.”

Imre started and dropped his prayer book. He hadn’t heard anyone enter, and the confessional doors always creaked.

The man spoke in Hungarian, his voice wavering as if it were windblown. “Páter, I need to confess to you before I can leave.”

Imre said his pre-confession prayer to himself. “Of course, my son, please begin.”

“Bless me Páter, for I have sinned. It has been a hundred twenty years since my last confession— “

“Wait, a hundred twenty years?”

“Yes, Páter.”

“I don’t recognize your voice, but you sound much too old to be playing a prank like this. If you’re not here for confession, please leave.”

“Páter, this is very hard for me to accomplish, so please listen closely. My name was Halasz István, and I was a parishioner here at St. Emeric.”

Father Herceg had leaned closer to the latticework separating the two men, but the penitent’s side of the confessional was very dimly lit, and all he could see was a vague, gray shape.

“Mr. Halasz, you’re not making any sense, and if you don’t leave, I’ll be forced to call 911.”

Halasz’ sigh sounded like a slow leak from an air mattress. “The police could never find me. Please, Páter, I’d rather not demonstrate. Many of us were left here without choice after our funerals. But with the church closing we must find a way to leave. We hope if you confess us we can go.”

Father Herceg found his voice and took out his flip phone. “I warned you. Now get out, before the police come.”

He pushed the three numbers, but before he could hit send, his hands went numb with bitter cold, the fingers frozen in claw shapes.

“Please, Páter, we are desperate for your help. We live here with you, and know you to be a good man, despite your watching those cable television shows and drinking too much vodka.

Father Herceg began shaking his hands to try and get back feeling. The phone popped out and bounced off the side wall of the confessional. He jumped up and grabbed the handle of the confessional door and tried to turn it. But the handle, like his right hand, was frozen.

“Holy Mary, protect me,” he yelled. Imre slammed into the confessional door twice before it splintered off its hinges and hung sideways. As Imre ran out, the hissing voice resumed. “You should have more faith, Father. Now we must demonstrate.”

The priest ran awkwardly toward the front of the church, out of breath by the time he reached the altar. As he did so, he watched the flower-filled vases around the altar tip over one by one, spilling water onto the floor. The ciboriums inside the tabernacle began rattling together, and the water in the baptismal font began slopping over. A stray thought broke through his panic—that the vases and the flower stems weren’t being broken, nor was the font. It was careful mayhem.

The telephone land line was already disconnected, and his cell phone, if it still worked, was in the confessional. I am, however fallibly, a minister of God, he thought, and will stand within my faith. If this is demonic, I must face it. I will not abandon this church while I tend to it.

Father Herceg’s hands had thawed, and he took out his rosary and walked back down the main aisle to the confessional. He grabbed the penitent’s door and threw it open. The air inside seemed hazy, but there was nothing else in it. He stepped into the center cabin to retrieve his breviary and phone. The abused phone was dead. As he sat in his chair, punching phone buttons, the voice resumed.

“Páter. We are asking for a sacrament you are ordained to give. What evil can there be?”

Imre shuddered and wondered, Am I in an alcoholic delirium? Some aftershock from a stroke? “Mr. Halasz, was it? If you are a Catholic, you will know that the church’s sacraments are for the living and not the dead. What you ask is impossible.”

“Our baptisms are listed in the church records. And our other sacraments and funerals. We’re part of your flock, Páter. I can give you our names and birthdates.”

This delirium will pass. Find a witness who will prove this apparition false.

“Look, whoever you are, it’s a cruel, clever trick. I’m going to the Vilmos house next door and call the police. You’d be wise to run away before they come.”

“Vilmos is my great grandson. Please give him my blessing.”

The priest jumped up, stepped out of the confessional, turned around, and flung open Halasz’s confessional door. And again, nothing was there but a faint shimmer. He walked unsteadily out the rear door of the church and over to the Vilmos house.

Father Herceg watched Vilmos’ shocked expression as the priest telephoned the police and described the incident. “It was a, an attempted shakedown I guess, from a man hiding in the confessional.”

“There’s a patrol car on the way, Father. Please stay at the Vilmos house until it arrives.”

As the policeman was speaking, Imre could hear a siren getting louder. After the police arrived, they searched the entire church and the rectory, found nothing, and took Imre’s statement.

“The man wasn’t a thief,” Imre said, “but he’s seriously disturbed.”

“And you didn’t see him when he knocked all that stuff over?”

“No, officer. I know it sounds crazy, but I couldn’t see anyone.

“Yeah, crazy. Well father, do you want to move out of the rectory tonight?”

“Thank you, officer, no. You’ve searched the church, and I’m sure he’s long gone.”

Once the patrol car had left, Vilmos insisted on walking back into the church with Imre, and helping him clean up the spills. As he was removing the splintered door from the confessional, Vilmos jumped backward.

“What is it?”

“I thought I felt something tousling my hair. Just nerves I guess.” Vilmos’ smile was forced. “Or maybe our famous ghosts.”

“   kisértetek itt! (Nimchanack keesharetateck eett) There are no ghosts here.”

“As you say, father, but some of us are superstitious.”

Imre thanked Vilmos, locked up the church, and walked across the driveway to the rectory. Let it go, old man. You’re not leaving this church, this church is leaving you. You’ll probably go to a nice inner-city parish where everyone speaks Spanish.

He poured himself three fingers of vodka, added ice, and dropped into his recliner, the only piece of furniture in the house that wasn’t convent-Spartan. Imre launched a recorded episode of a mature-rated cable show and let the vodka work its magic. He paused the show twenty minutes later, got up and dropped fresh ice into his glass. 

How did Halasz know how much I drank? He started to pour, glanced around, and stopped at two finger depth. I could get an exorcist. But no, they’d never agree to an exorcist for a church that will be profane in a few weeks.


                                                                              ***
The next morning, before mass, Imre reentered the church and searched through all three confessional cubicles for microphones or wires, but found nothing. He stood outside the oak doors and spoke aloud, his voice echoing in the empty church.

“Infernal or ghostly, if you’re here, show yourself, and I’ll show you what an ordained priest can do with the Roman ritual!”

It sounded stupid as soon as he said it, and his bravado died away unanswered. Yeah, sure. 

After mass, Imre walked back over to the rectory. The death of a church involved about as much paperwork as its birth. Imre got busy officially notifying present and former parishioners of the closure, and suggesting alternate parishes that could minister to spiritual needs and would be grateful for donations, however small. The work extended, with a break for a sandwich lunch, until five that evening. It was again dark, and Imre paced slowly back over to the church. After letting himself in he walked to the front of the altar and looked up at the massive Crucifix.

How many marriages, and baptisms, and holy communions, and funerals. And this wonderful, old, dilapidated house of God is being discarded like yesterday’s vegetables.

“Páter,” the voice wheezed. “Páter, I’m afraid I must insist.”

Imre jumped and spun around, looking for its source. But the church was empty. “So, you don’t need a confessional to speak.”

“No, but dark spaces make it easier. You need to confess us, Páter.”

“Why don’t you all show up at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll invite the bishop.” Imre realized that he was being sarcastic because he was afraid.

“The light disrupts us, Páter, in a painful way I can’t describe to you. You will need to confess us in the evening, after dark. We were not sophisticated, and you will find our sins commonplace.”

“How many of you do you claim there are?”

“Twenty-seven, counting myself. If you use our years alive, there’s one boy of ten, and the rest of us range from our twenties through our eighties. Sixteen women, ten men. We’re not evil, Páter, it would be like confessing the Holy Name Society.”

Imre sat down in a front pew for almost ten minutes thinking. Then, without standing, he began to speak toward the altar.

“This is a moment when I wish I were trained in logic like a Jesuit. I am probably delusional, in which case what I do will be without moral consequence. And if I, in good faith, administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation, there should be no evil, perhaps only impropriety. But if you, my mental aberration, do not truly repent, the sacrament is null and your sins will remain with you. Do you understand this?”

“Yes, Páter.” The voice seemed a chorus of softly whistling words.

Imre was silent again for a few minutes. “And these confessions would involve penances.”

“Of course, Páter.” 

“Are all these ’parishioners’ here?”

“Yes, Páter.”

“Then let’s begin. With you. It will probably take a few hours.”

As Imre walked back to the confessional, his thoughts churned. Is what I’m about to do a sin of itself? If they’re not released, will they haunt me instead of my church? Just walk out the back door, priest, and don’t come back.

But Imre knew he couldn’t desert. At the rear of the church he entered the confessional, donned his stole, said the usual prayer, and slid open the panel that allowed him to hear a penitent.

“Yes, my son.”

“Forgive me, Páter, for I have sinned, it has been a hundred and twenty years since my last confession.”

“Go on……”

Their sins, as Halasz had said, were mundane. Carnality of course, and theft, greed and gluttony, all the seven deadly sins were well represented. But no murder, no acts so vile that Imre shuddered. All had died before the advent of porn sites or shaming on Twitter, which was refreshing. The boy, Gáspár, made Imre heartsick. He’d died at ten of pneumonia, before he’d had a chance to become good or evil. His confession could have been Imre’s at the same age. The boy did not deserve to serve penance, and Imre absolved him with an extra blessing.

By the third confession, Imre found himself asking their names, and where they had lived, and who among their descendants might still live near the church. He felt he was attending a parish reunion spanning more than a century, and was sorry to end the last confession a little before eleven that night.

Cretin, you’re just pandering to a delusion in hopes it’ll dissipate. May God forgive me for what I’ve just done.

As Imre stepped out of the confessional he thought he felt hands gently patting his back
“Thank God for you, Páter!”

“Halasz?”

“Yes, and everyone else.  Gáspár has left us. When he came out of confession he had a smile that would melt gold, and then, no words, he just left. You’ve given us hope, Páter.”
“There’s more for you to do, Halasz.”

“Yes, Páter.”
                                                                             ***
Father Herceg handed over the church keys and moved out of the rectory two-and-a-half weeks later, at eight in the morning. Mueller had crews waiting to rip out the pews and rearrange them. As he left, Imre could hear the rusty screams of bolts yanked from concrete. 

Priests never really retire, just work part time. Imre found himself housed in the rectory of a placid suburban parish, Assumption, where ethnicity had lost relevance. His new parishioners thought his being Hungarian exactly as significant as his being a Capricorn.
 
He read two months later that his old church, newly christened as The Sacred Sinners, had opened with a capacity crowd. Curious, Imre drove by the next Saturday night. The large church parking lot, nearly empty for Sunday masses, was full, and a long line of young men and women stood outside the rear doors waiting admittance. The emblem of the club, a heavily made-up angel wearing a low-cut celestial robe, hung above the doors. 

Thousand one…, thousand two…, Imre thought. Patience. Let’s wait and see.

The wait took three more weeks. As he was celebrating a 10:30 Sunday mass, he noticed a large florid blob in the congregation. It was Mueller, who trapped him after mass was over.

“Father, you gotta perform an exorcism.”

“Mr. Mueller, nice to see you too. What’s this about an exorcism?”

Mueller waved his arms, and Imre noticed sweat rings that had seeped through the suiting. “The club, ah, church. It’s possessed. People are afraid of it.”

“Please, Mr. Mueller, let’s just sit in this pew.” Imre hitched up his vestments so he could sit more comfortably and turned to listen.

“My club is ruined. People come in, they don’t even finish their second drink, they turn all pale or flushed and almost run out. They claim something’s whispering in their ears, threatening them with damnation if they sin.  Word spread, nobody even comes anymore. That damned church is costing me a fortune. I gotta have an exorcism.”

“That’s something you should talk to the diocese about. I’m sure the bishop would listen closely to your complaint.”

“That son of a bitch! He told me there was no such thing as ghosts, and that I’d bought the church as is, problems and all. But you could do it for me. You know the church is haunted.”

Imre nodded in apparent sympathy, but inwardly asked God to forgive him for the almost lie he was about to utter.

“I’m afraid I’ve never seen a ghost, inside or outside of Saint Emeric. Maybe there’s something in the ventilation?”

“No, no, Goddamit! I know fear, and these wanna-be players are scared shitless.”

“Language, please, Mr. Mueller. I’m not authorized to perform an exorcism, but I could visit your club, could even bless it if you like.”

“When, Father? I’m hurting bad.”

“Well, I’m tied up this week with masses and visits to hospitals, but I could stop by… perhaps a week from tomorrow?

“You’re killing me, Father. Look, I’ll pay you to come by later today. We’ll call it a donation.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but no, thank you. A week from tomorrow?” Which should be enough time for you to slow cook properly.

“Oh, hell, all right.”

                                                                        ***
Father Imre arrived at four in the afternoon. Even in daylight the interior of the ex-church was garish, with nightmarish pink and purple lighting strips festooning the walls. A long bar with perhaps twenty stools had replaced the altar, and shelves of liquor bottles took the place of the tabernacle.

“It’s quite a change, Mr. Mueller, but I don’t see anything supernatural.”

Mueller frowned. “Nah, nothing’s happened during the day, but then there’s nobody here but the cleaning crew. And it didn’t attack the staff.  Can I get you something? A drink?”

“A healthy Gray Goose would be nice.”

After a sip Imre continued.

“I’ve had a chance to talk to some of my parishioners about your place, Mr. Mueller. It seems that its reputation is terrible. I don’t know how you’ll recover. You have my sympathies.”

“That’s not what I need, Father. If you bless this place, will the demons go away and leave me alone?”

“I’ve never seen real proof of any ghosts, Mr. Mueller. Any blessing is spiritually valuable, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be much use against something imaginary.”

“So, what the hell am I going to do?”

“I wonder. You have several other businesses I believe, all profitable?”

“Yeah, they’re good money makers.”

“How would it be if you were to take a tax loss on the club by selling it off cheaply and offset the loss against the profits from your other businesses?”

“You sons-a-bitches! You think you’re going to hustle me? I’ll burn this place down first and claim the insurance.”

“No, no, Mr. Mueller, you misunderstand. We don’t want the church back. Just think for a second. Depending on how you declare the value of the church and the costs of improvements, you might actually make money selling the building. I can think of several congregations that might be interested.”

Mueller remained silent during an internal calculation. “I don’t know how, but you’ve screwed me Father. I’ll think about it.”


                    ***
At Mueller’s invitation, Father Imre returned to the church about a month later, shortly after dark, and walked up to the bar.

“You know what I’ve done, Father?”

“Yes, Mr. Mueller, it’s been on the news.”

“I still think you and the bishop diddled me, but I sold it like you said.  I’m a little ahead of the game. And I could move the appliances and lighting to another church that hasn’t got any spooks. Would you consider acting as a consultant for me, help me get through all your holy red tape?”

Imre smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Mueller, but I can’t. Good luck though, maybe the next church will be your conversion.”
“Yeah. No hard feelings. I left you a little something on the bar. Goodbye, Father.”

Mueller let himself out the sacristy door while Imre looked out over the dance floor, trying to visualize people kneeling in pews. When he was sure that Mueller had left, he called out. “Mr. Halasz?”

“Yes, Páter.”

“Is everybody here?”

“Yes, Páter.”

“You’ve succeeded. The club has been shut down, and a Pentecostal group, Joseph’s Many Colored Coat, will be moving in. You have performed your penances well. When you whispered in the ears of those clubbers, you acted as their consciences.  I believe your penance is fulfilled, and pray that you can move on. The lord be with you.”

They answered with a sibilant group “And also with you.” Halasz spoke a last time. “We’re leaving, Father, the oldest ones first. Köszönöm!” (kaz a nom)

“You’re welcome. Goodbye, my little flock.”

Imre reflexively turned to face the absent crucifix and noticed a bottle of Gray Goose vodka and a glass on the bar.

Just one, he thought, for missing members.

​                                                                    💀💀💀
​
Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over four hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and nine books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of eight review editors, and as lead editor at Scribes Microfiction.
https://twitter.com/bottomstripper 
https://www.facebook.com/EdAhern73/?ref=bookmarks
https://www.instagram.com/edwardahern1860/'

  Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast.



I’ve got to tell this to someone before it’s too late, I don’t think there’ll be another chance. Something is coming for me. Something that wants me dead – and I’m freaking the fuck out. We’d call it a ghost, the Japanese have a different word, Yūrei. And it was in Japan that this whole thing started. I remember the last day of that trip when I just wanted to take it easy, but my friend Wayne said, ‘I’ve got a better idea.’
A better idea? I should never have listened. Things would have been so very different. Something happened there. We crossed a line. We opened a door we never even knew existed. It might never have happened. We might never have known if we hadn’t gone there. So, here’s the story of what took place that day. The day that changed everything.


First up, let me tell you something, I am not afraid of the living, but all that spooky, demonic stuff gives me the creeps; I steer well clear of that. Let’s just say I have my reasons. See, I’m a big fella and though I may not be in peak condition, I’m still in pretty good shape. Other men tend not to tangle with me too often, if at all, I believe it’s all to do with how you carry yourself. Years of playing rugby has made my face – interesting – to say the least, and if some clown starts to get a bit mouthy after a few beers, I make sure he gets a good look at the cauliflower ear as I lean in, pretending to listen to his bullshit. Works like a charm. Trust me. I don’t play rugby anymore, a bit of jogging and ocean swimming will do me nowadays, I even got back into skiing last year. That’s why me and Wayne went to Japan in the first place, a boys’ ski trip. It was more just a chance to get away really. A chance to let off a bit of steam. The job had been getting to me, especially since I’d hit the big four-0. Life begins, or so they say. Like hell it does. Not when you work on the psychiatric ward of a major Sydney hospital. Night shifts are a killer and my stress levels had been going through the roof, that’s why I’d suggested the trip one stinking hot February night in a pub in Surry Hills. I was due long service leave anyhow, and Wayne could pretty much please himself when it came to working hours, he was a senior financial advisor for a firm down in Martin Place. Good with sums, smart as a whip.
‘The season’s nearly over,’ I said. ‘We can probably snag a bargain.’
He’d stroked his chin like he was considering the statement, but that didn’t fool me one little bit, I know that almost all of Wayne’s major decisions are made with a mental coin toss.
‘Count me in, Murph,’ was all he said, and knocked his beer back. That was it. Land of the rising sun, here we come. Wish I’d never opened my big mouth now.






We’d finished breakfast and didn’t really have any plans for the last day of the holiday. Our ski passes had expired and the snow hadn’t been that great, anyway. The dining room was noisy, everything was glary and if I moved my head too quickly, I was in all kinds of trouble. Even though I’d cleaned my teeth twice and was on my third coffee it still felt like I had an old sock in my mouth. The problem was, I’d put quite a dent in a bottle of Suntory the night before and now I just wanted to rest up, maybe even down a hair of the dog, possibly two, but not Wayne, he’d been talking to some American the night before in the hotel lobby. That’s where he got the idea to go to Aokigahara Forest. That was his better idea.
I said, ‘What? Have you suddenly turned into a tree hugger? Will wonders never cease?’
He laughed disinterestedly and changed his tone, he was fishing, ‘I doubt it would be your idea of a fun day out anyhow. You know how certain things play on your mind.’
I paused for breath. Kept the voice cheery and sensible, ‘Care to explain?’
So, he told me what the American had said, in a voice that sounded more like he was quoting statistics. That it was the creepiest place he’d ever been to. That it was known as the Suicide Forest on account of the number of people who go there to kill themselves, hundreds a year, he thought. But the authorities weren’t too keen to advertise it. Hanging was the most common. Pills, a close second. Haunted too, he reckoned, by all the unhappy souls of the victims who wander among the trees, trying to coerce other weak-willed, depressed individuals to join them.
‘Sounds a bit far-fetched,’ I said.
He dropped his napkin softly on the table, raised a palm, ‘I’ll understand if you just want to stay here, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.’
I wasn’t going to fall for that old trick. No way was I going to succumb to peer pressure. So, I said, ‘Alright, let’s do it.’
I folded like a Geisha’s fan. Didn’t I?






The next thing you know, we were on a bus to the world’s second most popular suicide destination. You won’t find that in any tourist brochure, believe me. We drew some stares too, seeing as how we were the only foreigners and Wayne was being all chirpy, and by that, I mean annoying. He was scrolling on his phone and rattling off information, ‘It says here that all this suicide stuff started way, way back, centuries ago in fact. There was this custom called Ubasute, which literally means; abandoning an old woman. Sheesh, nice people.’ Holding the screen that close to his face made his skin look sickly green, which was exactly how I felt. ‘There’s more; also known as senicide or the practice of killing the elderly, it says it falls somewhere between murder and suicide – I mean, it seems they went willingly. According to legend the practice of Ubasute was performed right here in Japan, where an elderly or infirm relative was carried to a remote place and left there to die. Can you imagine, just leaving your old gran to starve – on her own – out there in the forest. So that’s what started this whole thing off.’ He switched the phone off, ‘So, you needn’t feel too bad anymore about dumping your old gran in North Sydney.’
No filter, that was Wayne, he was never intentionally cruel, he just said what he was thinking. Like it or lump it. We’d been best friends since boarding school. Not everyone got him, that kind of honesty can be off-putting. From day one, he looked like someone that had no trouble sleeping and wasn’t particularly overburdened with pointless worry in his daylight hours. I wanted to be his friend from the get-go. They say opposites attract.


The bus rolled out of the suburbs and into the less dense neighbourhoods. I chewed a fingernail and looked out the window. It was getting greener, almost pleasant, it was the brightest day we’d had so far. But my guts still bothered me. Then the bus slowed and the engine whined as we turned off the main drag and started to lurch down a winding road. I had to concentrate hard to keep last night’s booze down and it must have showed on my face.
‘Not too much longer now,’ he said.
I had a bad feeling about the whole deal.


Everyone filed off the bus, we were the last two to leave, and it seemed the polite thing to do, so I made a point of thanking the driver who gave me a friendly little nod. As we stepped off, Wayne said, ‘What was that for? He can’t understand you.’
I said, ‘That’s not the point, is it? It’s the gesture. Good manners cost nothing.’
It came out a bit short and stroppy. I was still kicking myself for being swayed. Again. And I can’t really blame him for being who he is, for being Wayne, but it made me feel a bit contrite so I rasped my hands together like I was thrilled to be there, ‘Best crack on,’ I said.


We shuffled after the little knot of people crowded around a signboard that stood near to the bus stop. You know the type of thing; a walking map with dotted lines that branched off a main track that snaked through the trees with an arrow pointing: you are here. I remember thinking; how morbid do you have to be to come here? I mean, we were clearly tourists, not that that was any excuse, but locals? The low murmur of chatter grew quieter the closer we got. Wayne caught the eye of an older man who seemed to be supervising the group, and pointing at one of the dotted lines that wound deep into the hinterland, made walking motions with two fingers, and asked him, ‘This one okay?’
That’s when things got weird, and I mean quickly. Everyone started babbling at once, full on amateur dramatics, hands flew to mouths, eyes widened, one or two even seemed to stagger, you name it. Quick as a flash, the main man grabbed Wayne by the arm, started shaking his head and wagging his finger, and in broken English said, ‘No. Must not go there.’ And with the slightest of bows, he, and his cohort, scarpered.
‘Friendly bunch,’ I said.
‘Screw ‘em,’ Wayne said.
And once we were alone, we could really take in our surroundings, and they were none too cheery, I must say. For one thing, there were a lot of abandoned cars, and not just old rust buckets either. Even the newer ones were covered in leaf litter and bird shit. Not something that happens overnight. We exchanged a look that hinted maybe we’d made a mistake and propping a bar might have been the better option. Wayne pawed at his chin and shrugged, ‘Sooner we get started,’ he said. ‘Sooner we’ll finish.’
And with that little pearl of wisdom, we shuffled into the cool darkness of the trees. Instantly, it felt different to any bush walk I’d ever been on. It was soooo quiet and the trees were so densely packed that there wasn’t the slightest hint of a breeze. Faaark!


The trail was wide enough and well maintained, so I began to calm down a little until we came to a warning sign that read: Your life is a precious gift from your parents. Please think about your parents, siblings, and children.
Standing in that absolute silence I worried that Wayne might hear my heart pounding like the bombing of Cambodia.
‘Nothing like a bit of encouragement,’ said Wayne, and on we went, saying little apart from the occasional swear word as we stumbled into the ever-darkening forest. It was eerie, totally alien. The gnarled, moss-covered tree roots that sprang from the tortured ground appeared to strangle the life out of all they touched in that awful, heavy stillness. Not more than a few minutes in, a cold sweat began to trickle down my chest, and Wayne was moving at a fair old pace, so I shouted, ‘Wayne, fucks’ sake, what’s the hurry?’
But I didn’t like the sound of my voice in the dank gloom. It sounded like the voice of a madman. There was no answer, so that was that. No more chit chat.


Before long, we were forced to walk in single file as the path hemmed us in more and more. I could hear Wayne’s laboured breathing up ahead and it was getting hard to see clearly. A sickly-sweet smell caught in the back of my throat and I hadn’t thought to bring a bottle of water. My shoes kept slipping on the mossy roots and though I didn’t want to lose him, I couldn’t risk twisting an ankle. In here, of all places – are you kidding? Eventually, we came to an intersection with no signpost, so it was anyone’s guess. Instinctively, we both turned to the left. That was comforting somehow, but not for long. The path quickly narrowed yet again, clogged in by the oppressive trees. Lumps of rock jutted from the ground in haphazard clusters. Every third step became a sickening lurch, and the dim light was being further suffocated by the canopy of trees. I wasn’t even sure if we were still on the path, or if it had ended and we were soon to become just another statistic. Everything was chaotic. It was like the forest itself didn’t want us there. Like we were an infection. A feeling of deep melancholy pressed down on me, but I didn’t want to be the first to suggest going back, told myself I was overthinking it, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I started to notice all the leftover bits and pieces, grim reminders of those who had lost hope. A pair of mossy trainers here, an empty vodka bottle there, articles of clothing snagged or draped on branches, dangling ropes, sleeping pill packets. It went on for who knows how long, and all the time there was one solitary thought that screamed inside my skull; Dear God, get me out of this. I don’t care how, when or where I kick the bucket as long as it’s not here. Not today. And He must have heard, because just up ahead, the trail started to get brighter and our spirits lifted.
Wayne turned, hooked a thumb over his shoulder, ‘Think we found a lookout.’
I forced a smile and picked my way forward. What was I playing at, letting myself get spooked like that, how old was I? Seriously. But what a relief it was when I finally stepped out into the clearing and dragged down a lungful of bright clean air. I knew I’d need it for the trip back. That’s when I saw the spit of land stretched out before us, a narrow strip that led to a wider viewing platform, a natural lookout about six metres away with a deep drop to the canopy below. I had to get out there, to get some light and air after the pandemonium of the forest.
‘You coming?’ I said, looking back, one foot already on the catwalk.
‘Nah, you go. I’ll just rest here for a minute.’
That’s when I remembered, he didn’t like heights. Never did. Then he asked the question I’d been dying to hear, ‘Soon as you’re done communing with nature, can we please go back?’
I gave him a thumbs up and started along the narrow bridge. It was trickier than I’d expected, but I’ve got good balance, I was a surfer back in the day, so before I knew it, I was at the end of the platform. I looked back for a bit of reassurance, but Wayne was staring off into space, so I turned slowly to gaze out over the vista that stretched away before me. My God, it was so peaceful, jutting out as it did over that soft green silence. I sat cross-legged and closed my eyes. The low sun warmed me and made me drowsy. Peaceful and drowsy. I don’t meditate. Never have. My mind races too much, but I suppose that what I felt that day was like a form of meditation. Because faintly yet unquestionably, the feeling of drowsiness morphed into one of ecstasy. It was like being delightfully stoned, as if I’d been lifted a hair’s-breadth off the ground. That’s when it happened.


I suppose you’d say I felt it rather than saw it, as my eyes were closed, but it was there alright. It was most definitely there. It just floated up next to me from the forest floor. Like a balloon at a kids’ party, a big bright helium balloon. That’s the impression I got. But who’d bring a kid all the way out here? Besides, it didn’t keep floating up and away. It stopped there, gently bobbing next to me, a little off to my right, in all that empty space. And a feeling of warmth gently surged up my body and danced like ten-thousand pin pricks on my scalp, making my head loll back and I could feel myself smiling, blissful to the point of tears. It was like Dad was there. Like Christmas. And it spoke to me. Well, it didn’t really speak. It was more like thoughts than spoken words. But I wasn’t thinking them, I swear. It was like the voice of a child, but not exactly, there was something off-putting about it. Something that didn’t seem right somehow; it was like the tinkling of a little glass bell. It was giggling and cooing, and the sound made me feel all warm and dizzy, it was the most seductive sound I had ever heard. Join us, it said. Stay here with us. It kept repeating in whispers that overlapped like soft little waves on a moonlit beach. My head was feeling light, but I struggled to hold it up. And that’s when I heard Wayne screaming, ‘Open your fucking eyes.’
The shout came from a million miles away. Down a deep, dark tunnel. And again.
‘Murph, open your fuckin’ eyes.’
And I tried – I really tried – but I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t. All I wanted to do was to sleep and forget the world, and Wayne screamed it again, so I tried even harder and managed to unglue the lids a tiny bit and see a flicker of light and that’s when I remembered where I was and what I was doing. But the little voice became more insistent and I shook myself awake and blurted out, ‘No, I have to leave this place! This isn’t right.’
And suddenly, it was as if someone pulled a big, heavy, black curtain across the scene and I felt the presence of something so malevolent that I started to gasp for breath. I blinked the valley into focus as it spoke to me in a deep resonant growl that sounded like a manhole cover being dragged over flagstones – you wiill staaaayy. Immediately, I felt a malignant energy pressing in on me from all sides. I rose unsteadily and turned to see Wayne frantically gesturing for me to come back. But the stone bridge seemed to have tightened and everything was heavy and dark and my stomach churned and I struggled to breathe. I had never known fear like this. The only possible way back now was to crouch down on all fours and crawl as carefully as I could without looking down from the precipice. My whole body trembled and my palms were sweaty, which made me slip once or twice and all the while the malevolent force kept pace with me, growling its command, join uusss. Stay here. I knew that if I vomited now, I would likely go over the edge. I fought to keep down bile, my head swam, I didn’t see this ending well. Then I saw Wayne lying flat and stretched out toward me as far as he dared. He was wild-eyed and his mouth was screaming, but all I could hear was the spiteful voice repeat its command over and over. I felt myself being dragged to my feet and Wayne’s flattened palm between my shoulder blades, as he pushed me back into the sea of trees. Where he got the strength from, I’ll never know. There were tears in my eyes. We ran. We never looked back. The only thing he said to me when we were safely back on the bus was, ‘Who the fuck were you talking to out there?’
I didn’t have an answer to his question, well not a satisfactory one at least. We hardly spoke two words on the flight home, and when we got back to Sydney, he went his way, I went mine. And now it’s too late.

​                                                                     I💀I💀I💀I


Paul Walter is an Irish-born, recently retired illustrator, art teacher, and occasional author.
He has had two children’s books published by Penguin; Grandpa’s Big Adventure, and Grandpa’s Space Adventure. His literary novel, Fin Rising, was originally published by Really Blue Books in 2012 and was re-published in 2022 by Púca. It is available on Amazon In his spare time, Paul likes fishing, playing pétanque and writing novels. 'Hungry Ghost' is the first chapter of a half-finished manuscript with the working title 'The Suicide Forest'

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.


They work quickly, quietly and efficiently in this room built for one function, because that one function is to be performed early tomorrow.
Standing on the stepladder and holding a length of chain in his left hand he reaches up with his right to slide back the pin in its steel bracket. This bracket is bolted to the underside of the oak beam running athwart the room. He slips a link marked with chalk onto the pin then slots the pin back into the bracket. The chain depending from the bracket is six feet three inches long, the length calculated by dividing one thousand by the weight of the subject in pounds.
His assistant hands him up a coil of rope with the regulation length of twelve feet. It has a pear-shaped brass eye at one end though which he shackles the rope to the end of the chain. He jumps down, his shoes thumping hollowly on the metal of the trapdoor. The rope, its other end looped through a similar brass opening, is left coiled on the floor while they leave to fetch the sandbag.
                                                                         #


There was something off, something self-conscious about her movements. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but she seemed like she was walking down the street for the purpose of walking down the street, and it bugged him. There were tassels on her skirt, peacock patterns on her blouse and a feather in her hat. She was supposed to be a flapper. Couldn’t she flap a bit?
Passing a darkened alleyway she was pounced on by a figure, indistinct and blurred in the viewfinder. She fell back with a cry, arms flailing.
Yes, that’s better. Struggle. Yes, yes. Struggle. Yell.
Although the yelling was unnecessary – the mic was muted to eliminate ambient noise – it helped. Sound would be dubbed later. Struggling and unnecessarily yelling, she was dragged into the alley, her kicking black stockings on her thin legs disappearing into the dark.
He glanced up and down the city lane off which the alley ran. Morning sunlight slanted in, shining into this slot of tall buildings one side, boutique shops and a little café just opening for business on the other. Nothing stirred among the long shadows. The Sunday streets of the city were empty for the moment, which was just as well. Moss hated rubber-neckers.
He zoomed his phone’s camera in on the woman’s black leather bag lying on the pavement, then did a slow tilt up to the sign on the wall: Morgan Alley.
He turned off his camera. “OK. Thank you.” He opened the phone’s address book, selected ‘Weird Beard’ and emailed the video file.
From within the alley a man’s voice said, “Ups-a-daisy,” followed by a grunt of exertion. A young man of somewhat stocky build, thin face, dark hair, emerged. Dressed in high-waisted trousers with old-time braces over the shoulders of his white woollen shirt. A round faced diminutive woman of twenty or so followed immediately behind, brushing at her loose skirt, blue-grey and tasselled.
Moss put his phone away in the pocket of his suit which was clearly tailor-made -- though clearly not for him and not recently – and brought out a pencilled list headed Scenes to be Shot. Half the lines were crossed out. He crossed out another that read: nat passes alley entrance owen attacks nat. “That’s that done,” he said with satisfaction.
“Don’t you want to do another take?” said Owen. “You know, just to make sure?”
Nat, straightening her hat, gave him an evil look as if not welcoming the thought of another drag into a dirty alley.
 “It was all right in the viewfinder,” said Moss. “It’ll do.”
“That sounds the sort of thing Ed Wood might’ve said.”
“Ed who?” Moss dragged out his phone again, dabbed at its screen, opening Facebook.
“You’re the wannabe Spielberg and I’m just your lay-about house-mate press-ganged into playing a bit part,” said Owen, “but even I know Ed D Wood Jnr -- world’s worst director of the world’s worse movie, Plan Nine from Outer Space.”
“Sounds sci-fi,” Moss sniffed. “No one’s interested in that sort of thing.”
“Aren’t they? Have you noticed what some of the most commercially successful films are these days?”
But the wannabe Spielberg was on a roll. “What’s we’re doing here is the real thing, what people are really interested in. What we’re doing here is history, raw emotion and ultimately the mystery that is death.”
“What we’re doing here,” said Nat, “is a student film, and from what I’ve been seeing while editing it not a particularly good one.”
Moss gestured to his phone. “Weird Beard’s just posted on Facebook. He likes the vid we just shot. ‘Your delve into surrealism is eccentric brilliance, reminiscent of the early work of David Lynch.’” He made with a self-satisfied smirk which quickly morphed into a thoughtful frown. “Surrealism?”
“Your film professor would find eccentric brilliance in a Cornflakes commercial,” said Owen.
Moss made to say something, stopped and stared at Nat. “That’s it. That’s why I thought you looked wrong. You don’t have a bag. No flapper out and about in the 1920s would walk down the street without her purse or some –“ He stopped again, stared again, this time at the empty pavement behind his actress. “Where’d the bag go?”
Nat didn’t even bother to turn around. “If by bag you mean the one I suggested I carry while we were coming here? My own crocheted woollen bag? The one you said looked too modern? That bag?”
“No, I’m talking about the black leather bag you dropped at the corner.”
“How can I drop a bag I don’t have?”
But Moss wasn’t listening, didn’t even seem to be aware he’d just contradicted himself. He scanned the alley paving stones, then glancing up thought he glimpsed someone at its far end, a flash of colour in its drab depths, an impression of a shortish figure, there and gone. He turned back, searching again for a bag that wasn’t there. “I thought it a nice detail you added because dropping her bag was exactly what Jinny Lee did when Josh Brannic attacked her.”
“I had no bag,” said Nat pointedly.
“Time for breakfast, don’t you think?” said Owen.
#


Using a block and tackle attached to the oak beam they haul up the sandbag through the open trap from the pit below. It has been secured to the loop of rope and left overnight. Carefully measured, the rope is found to have stretched almost an inch.
The twin leaves of the trap are closed by pulling the release lever back which is then secured by slotting a cotter pin into place. The stepladder is returned to the centre of the room and ascended. Adjustments are made to the chain to accommodate the stretch in the rope.
Two sturdy planks are brought in and placed either side of the trap. Two lengths of rope with their ends balled into fist-sized knots are attached to hooks in the ceiling so that their ends hang at shoulder height above the planks. The rope attached to the chain is gathered up, its loose coils tied together with light twine so that the loop is now positioned at head height.
Their work for the moment is done and there’s the pleasant smell of brewing coffee and frying bacon. As they exit they pass those tasked with laying the seagrass matting on the steel decking of the gallery.
#


Nat stirred her coffee with a plastic spoon and from her seat outside the café looked down the city lane. “Bet this place has changed a lot the past hundred years.”
“Over there,” said Moss, pointing across to where a driveway swept down into the basement of a modern office block, “was where Brannic was standing in the door of his pokey little draper shop early on the morning of November 12, 1922 when he saw Jinny approaching on the other side of the lane. He darted across and hid in Morgan Alley to wait for her to pass.”
“Creepy,” said Nat.
Owen glugged his coffee in one go then got out his own phone to Google Josh Brannic. This produced what was likely a police mug shot of a man with shallow cheeks and unshaven face, untidy black hair, an unmistakable look of terror behind his dark eyes.
“Something like me,” Owen observed.
“Which is why I asked you to play the part and because you work cheap,” said Moss.
Owen gave his empty coffee cup a significant look. “Yes, I must remember to declare this next time I’m paid my unemployment benefits.” He studied the photo of Brannic again. “That’s a troubled face if ever I’ve seen one.”
“By the time they took that he had reason to be troubled.”
“Why was Jinny walking alone in this lane so early in the morning?” asked Nat.
By now Moss was fiddling with his phone again, trying to locate the video file he’d sent to Weird Beard. “She’d been to some gala affair in town and had had an argument with her boyfriend and stormed off,” he said off-handedly, then glanced up, frowning. “Haven’t you two done any research on the people you’re playing?”
“We’re not …” Nat paused, searching for a phrase that eluded her. “What do you call those obsessives who psych themselves into their roles?”
“Method actors?” Owen suggested.
“Yeah. We’re not method actors, Moss. I mean, I’d never even heard of the Morgan Alley Murder till the day before yesterday when you asked me to do some editing for you.”
“Which I greatly appreciate, but I sometimes wish you two would make more of an effort.” He began again searching through his video files.
“We got dressed up,” said Nat. “Owen and I spent all yesterday morning going through op-shops and vintage bazaars. That’s effort enough. Anyway, why didn’t Jinny just cross the street if she saw him enter the alley she was about to pass?”
“Maybe still pissed off with the boyfriend and didn’t notice,” said Owen.
Moss swiped at his screen again. “Actually no. Jinny worked at Josh Brannic’s draper shop so they knew each other. If she saw him cross into the alley ahead of her it wouldn’t have seemed creepy at all. She lived with her widowed mother in the next suburb east –“ Moss pointed along the lane towards the morning sun, “--so this was her usual way home. Anyway, the story goes that there’d been some sort of romance between Jinny and Josh Brannic, but when he saw her coming up the lane so early that morning he guessed by the way she was dolled up that she’d been out with someone else, so he killed her in a jealous rage.”
Owen conjured up an image of Jinny Lee on his own phone and showed the screen to Nat. “Looks something like you.”
Nat studied the black and white round-face of the long-dead young woman, lace collar, hair in curls. “Poor girl.”
“The police had their motive and their moment of opportunity too,” said Moss. “It didn’t help Brannic’s case that he had her blood on his hands. He said he’d found her body, but of course he would say that. The newspapers of the day stirred up public opinion against him. I mean, illicit love, passions raging, a grubby shopkeeper with a vaguely foreign sounding name, the rape and murder of a young and pretty innocent. There was also a confession to a cellmate while he was awaiting trial.”
“An unverified ‘He told me he done it’ I bet,” said Owen. “Hearsay confessions are not evidence.”
“The judge in Brannic’s trial thought otherwise,” said Moss.
He went back to searching his files, muttering and swiping. After a couple of moments of this Nat said, a little touchily, “Moss, don’t tell me you’ve deleted this morning’s video. I really don’t fancy being dragged into Morgan Alley again to be ravished and –“ She broke off with the realization the waitress was there beside her with their raisin toast.
The woman stared at them. Owen and Nat – Moss was too preoccupied with his phone – stared back.
“We’re making a film,” said Nat in the awkward silence.
“OK,” said the waitress. She clattered the plates of raisin toast on the table and fled back into the café.
“Great,” said Owen. “Now she thinks we’re a bunch of weirdoes shooting a hard core porno in a back alley.”
Moss, oblivious to what had just happened, had finally found that morning’s video and was now watching it with a growing look of confusion. At last he looked up, a curious expression on his face. “I want you to take a look at this,” he said in a curiously strained tone, He slid his phone across the table to them. “I want you to tell me exactly what you see. Describe it, if you don't mind, rather minutely.”
Nat and Owen put down their raisin toast in mid-bite and peered down at the swirls of pixels and light on the phone screen.
“It’s Morgan Alley,” said Owen, carefully, not sure what was expected of him. “Your initial establishing shot before Nat comes into view. There’s a sort of smudged form at the corner of the alley, sort of like oily smoke. Is that me? No, can’t be. Too small. Odd that it’s out of focus yet everything else is sharp enough. OK, here’s Nat walking into shot … no, no, it’s another smoky shadow … it’s just reached the shadow at the corner … and it’s stopped. Now you’re panning across and … yes, here’s Nat walking into shot and now you’re tracking with her to where the two shadow blurs seems to be … there’s a lot of bending and twisting about them … Now they’re coming into focus a little … I can see them clearer now. Looks like a man and a woman struggling or gesticulating. The man seems to be wearing some sort of striped blazer and the woman is wearing … green?” 
“Yes. Green,” said Nat.”
“OK, now it looks like they’ve changed positions and the man has the woman against the wall … thought he had a hat a moment ago but it looks like it’s fallen off.”
“Think she just pushed him. Not sure. I’ve just stepped in front of them and obscured them. All right, here’s Owen jumping out of the alley and dragging me back in.”
“Yes, I drag Nat in and the shadows are revealed again … oh shit!” Owen flinched back from the phone screen. “The guy in the stripes just stuck the woman in the face … at least I think he did.”
“Go on,” said Moss.
 “Now they sort of tumble back into the alley and disappear … and now here’s your tilt down to the bag … Moss, where did that bag come from?” When his only answer was a testy gesture Owen took the hint. “OK … OK … now you’re tilting up to the street sign ... and the video ends.”
“What the hell was that?” said Nat. “It’s like a double exposure on a film, but you can’t get double exposures on digital imaging.”
“No, you can’t,” said Moss and his voice trembled.
They watched it again, then again, trying to make visual sense of the blurred images, the chaotic motion.
“I see now it’s definitely a shorter guy in what looks like a striped blazer,” said Owen at last, getting a clearer cognize with repeated viewings. “Think he’s wearing a snappy bowtie and a flat-brimmed hat, but he loses it during the struggle with the woman in the green dress.”
Rewatching it and rewatching they were soon convinced the man in the blazer had stuck the woman a fearful blow.
Nat silently put her hand to her mouth as the two men, wide-eyed and white-faced watched the woman in green once more dragged into the alley by the man in the striped blazer. The scene tilted down and zoomed onto the bag on the footpath, lingering a moment before slowly tilting up to the street sign: Morgan Alley.
#


“Two raisin toasts, two flat whites and a Pepsi ‘n’ goat milk.” The woman behind the counter tapped up the price. Moss flourished his card with a hand visibly shaking. While they waited for payment to be electronically confirmed she added, “Are you filming something about the murder in Morgan Alley?” She glanced out the café window to Nat and Owen in their period clothes staring down at the phone on the table.
“The murder … yes,” he said like a man whose thoughts were elsewhere.
“You know you’ve got her dress wrong.”
It took Moss a moment to pick up on what she’d said. The video was playing over and over in his mind. “Sorry. The dress is … what?
“The wrong colour. She wears green, not the grey-blue number that lady’s wearing. Her hat’s wrong too.”
He fixed her with a hard look. “How do you know this?”
“Her ghost still walks that alley.”
When Moss emerged from the café a minute later Owen remarked his fixed gaze, his twitching mouth. All three were disconcerted and nervy by what they’d seen, but now Moss looked bewildered as well.
He stopped by the table and gripped the back of his chair as if needing support. He turned his head and stared down the laneway in the direction of Morgan Alley a few shop fronts distant. Owen made to stand but Moss laid a hand on his shoulder and pressed him gently back into his seat.
“I need to check something.” he said, more to himself than to the others. Scooping up his phone he headed down the lane with a hesitant step as if not really wanting to arrive where he was going.
From their table Nat and Owen watched him stand at the entrance to Morgan Alley, peering into its depths. They heard him say in a loud but quavering voice, “Jinny Lee … Jinny Lee … Jinny Lee …” He drew his phone to his eye.
“This has gone too far,” said Owen with decision. He stood. “It’s getting weird and dangerous.”
“Yes, it has,” said Nat, understanding what he meant on a purely emotional level.
She stood and joined him and together they carefully approached Moss still muttering the dead woman’s name with his phone focused on the alley’s shadowed interior. They craned their heads around its corner, inwardly terrified at what they might see. It was very empty, very still, very innocent of its dark past.
“What are you doing, Moss?” asked Owen, trying to keep his voice calm.
“The camera sees more than we do. I want to see what it sees.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“No. But I want to see it anyway.”
 Moss continued to work his camera, stills and video, all the while intoning, “Jinny Lee … Jinny Lee,” panning, zooming, snapping, “Jinny Lee … Jinny Lee …”
Nat watched the alley in anticipation, desperately wanting Moss to stop. He was provoking and provoking and something would surely respond. Owen had to fight down an urge to snatch the phone and throw it into the gutter, half-convinced Moss was being irrational and sure he was meddling with things better left alone.
Moss dabbed at his phone, stopping the video. Nat and Owen began to breathe again. The shadows had brought forth nothing.
Their breakfast plates and cups had not been cleared from the table when they returned and they didn’t notice the waitress watching them from the café window. Moss, holding his phone up for all to see, activated the still photos on a fast slide-show.
The green spectre appeared almost at once.
The rapid flickering series of shots animated her. She looked left, looked right in a stutter of movement, twitching to stare at the camera, raising her arms, head blurring to left, to right, shaking “No” and “No” then stepping forward, mouth agape sobbing “No” coming close, coming closer, filling the screen with her dead round face, her crying eyes …
 The video began at the corner where there might’ve been something standing, shaking its head, lost as the view panned across to the right bringing in sharp and clear the back of a man’s head, hair slicked and topped with a straw boater. He stepped forward to bring himself fully into shot as if in awareness of his viewers. And deliberately he turned and grinned from a scratched face, the man with the striped blazer and snappy bowtie. His eyes were wide in lustful leer. Out of nowhere he thrust out his hand, fingers splayed jabbing through the screen. Moss and Nat and Owen jumped back in their seats, grabbing at their eyes, palming at the sudden gouging pain.
The phone clattered to the ground and went dark.
The first few moments were exclamatory as each sat in their own personal darkness, hands over tightly closed eyes. Cautiously they drew their hands away and opened their eyes to a squint, fearing the worst. They were not blind, though vision was unfocused and clouded. They barely registered the presence of the waitress, gripping their shoulders, touching their faces.
“What have you done? What is it? Oh for god’s sake what is it?”
 At once the pain eased from their eyes and vision cleared.
Moss looked up through involuntary tears, grateful to see the woman, the street, sunlight. “It’s all right, Miss,” he said though he sounded far from all right. “We had a moment with your ghost. Please let us be. We’ll be fine in a moment.”
Dubiously the waitress left them. Reluctantly Moss searched for his phone under the table, what it might show, what might reach for him as he reached for it. He found it with its screen a cobweb of cracks and smelling of burning. He threw it in a nearby bin.
Nat was the one who said it, though they’d all been thinking it.
“In the 1920s a Sunday morning shop keeper wouldn’t wear a striped blazer, a straw hat and a bowtie. But someone attending a Saturday night gala event with his lady friend would.”
“Bet their argument was about sex,” said Owen. “It’d explain a lot.”
“Let’s go,” said Moss.
From the café door the waitress watched them disappear down the lane, then took a quick, nervous glance up at the entrance to Morgan Alley before withdrawing into the shop.
#


The seagrass matting deadens their footsteps as they assemble, a group of three outside the cell door, a group of several more at the other door further along. Those inside must not hear their approach, though they know they are coming. They know it like they know the sun has just risen.
Somewhere far above in the clock tower a bell begins to strike the hour.
The cell door is opened with a jingle of keys. The warder in his prison blue uniform enters, followed by the hangman and his assistant in business attire. The man at the table is talking with the clergyman when they come in. He stands and faces them, a young man of stocky build, a little above average height. His shallow cheeks are clean shaven now and his black hair is neatly combed, though terror is still in his dark eyes.
The assistant turns him around and pulls his arms behind his back, binding the wrists with a leather strap, fastening it with a wooden peg. The warder has already slid aside the cupboard hiding the door into that other room. It has been hidden there unknown all these weeks of waiting. The hangman, the linen hood folded like a handkerchief in the top pocket of his suit coat, says, “It’ll be all right,” to the prisoner in his calm, professional voice. He passes through the erstwhile hidden doorway and into that other room where the prison governor, the under-sheriff, the doctor and other officials are waiting. Directly ahead is the noose positioned at head height, tied by light twine to two or three loose loops of rope. A warder stands either side on planks across the trap door, guarding against last minute surges of desperation. For safety’s sake both have one hand gripping a length of knotted rope depending from the ceiling.
Touching the prisoner on the shoulder the assistant says, “Follow him,” and they move off in procession: the hangman, Josh Brannic, the assistant and the spectre in green, shaking her head, arms raised in despair and sobbing, “No …No …”
​
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​A life-long resident of Melbourne, Australia, I am retired now after 42 years in the transport industry. My stories have appeared in many magazines, anthologies and podcasts and I have several books up on Amazon. I've not been owned by a cat for decades and these days have to make do talking to next door's white tom who sometimes condescends to talk to me.