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Since I’ve died, I’ve wandered the halls of this estate, the closest thing to home I have in this afterlife. I don’t know exactly how long I’ve been an apparition; my earliest memory as a phantom was hearing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on the radio back in 1939 and I’m mostly sure I was dead long before that. With only a few foggy memories to call my own and this large house the only thing I can call a home, I became a bit…territorial, as ghosts tend to be.
I’ve never killed or seriously hurt anyone if that’s what you’re thinking. I just give them a good scare to get them off my property; it’s what any homeowner what do to people trespassing, right?
The pestering and therefore the haunting began in 1956 when an All-American family (one father, one mother, a son and daughter, all WASP) by the name of the Millers decided to start squatting here. Following the war, the country became affluent, and more people were moving into suburbs, where my abode just happened to be. In the end, the Millers were just trying to pursue the American dream and there’s nothing wrong with that…I just didn’t want them doing it in my house. So after a year of moving furniture, throwing items around and even causing the house to rumble, the Millers left, a bit frazzled but no worse for wear.
After the Millers, different families (and one group of college stoners) moved in the following decades. Every time I had to scare them off, developing new tactics and tricks to make sure I stayed effective. Eventually the reputation of the home combined with the housing crisis left my cozy little home vacant of any mortals.
Outside of the realtors coming in cleaning the place up every once in a while (hoping in vain they’d be able to sell the house to the first suckers they found), I finally had some alone time. I didn’t do much outside going for long rests in crude imitation of sleeping and wandering the halls once more, but it was a pleasant life after death…until the next family showed up.
Yeah I couldn’t believe it either. I was taking one of my usual weeks long “naps” in the attic when the sound of automobiles in the driveway woke me up. Snapping to attention, I floated over to a window, peering to the front yard. Sure, enough there were moving vans and handymen hauling furniture into my house. Seems while I wasn’t paying attention, the realtors finally found some suckers to buy the place, probably for dirt cheap!
As tempting as it was to get angry over my slip up, it was time for planning, not frustration. I immediately decided that I would wait and save my energy for later on. I would be at my most efficient at night and the family wouldn’t expect to be scared once they were settled in. Just like that, I was back in business.
Once evening came along, it was time for action. I figured now that the moving had been done, they’d all be gathered in one place. It was part one of my usual scare strategy; size up the new meat, take some quick notes, and maybe get some early terrorizing in. I made myself invisible and floated out of the attic, creeping along slowly downstairs. Sometimes I took too much pride in the whole ghost act.
Arriving on the first floor, I looked around the living room and sure enough, the new family was all gathered around, admiring their new home. This new pack included a dad, a mom, an older son, and twin sisters.
The dad was an Asian American man, wearing square glasses and his dark hair combed back. The mom was a fair-skinned blonde-haired woman with green eyes and her hair cut just below her ears. The son inherited his mother’s green eyes but had his father’s black hair, worn shaggier and longer. The twins stood apart from each other; the peppier one had her dark hair cut as short in a “pixie cut” while the more serious looking twin had her hair long and straight. Both shared the same, emerald-colored eyes. What was new about this family was that they were…utterly…completely…naked.
‘What. The. Hell.’ The only thing that came to mind when I saw this…display. I tried rubbing my eyes until I remembered that I haven’t had normal functioning eyes for the last century; they couldn’t be fooling me if they couldn’t go bad to begin with. I wondered if I was suffering from some sort of ghost dementia, and I was hallucinating naked people but that didn’t feel right.
The new family before me was very much real…and they were nude. In the buff. Undressed. Wearing their birthday suits. Disrobed. Full frontal. Bare-assed.
I assumed these people to be bunch of sickos but watching them talk to each other and paying close attention to their interactions, they didn’t seem to fit the pervert label. They acted like the other happy, functional families that lived in this house only…well, you know.
“It’s a little on the old-fashioned side and I think they could have done a better job fixing the place but by golly I think this is home for us,” the father beamed with joy.
The daughter with the long hair glanced around, unimpressed. “You’d think they would have changed the depressing gray paint…and cleaned out the cobwebs in the corner.”
“Nothing a little tender, love, and care can’t fix if we all pitch in,” the mother replied, “Just be on the lookout for spiders. We don’t know how long those webs have been there.”
“Oh, can I help pick out the colors? I think spring colors like sky blue with pink trim would really make this place pop! Maybe get some green curtains too!” chimed in the other daughter.
Throughout all the chatter, the son was looking around the house, suspicion creasing on his face. For a minute, he looked towards my direction; even though I was invisible, he felt like he could tell I was there in the room with them.
This was too weird, even for someone like me. I floated back up to the attic, trying to think how I would handle this weird new family.
After a few days of taking notes on the Watanabe family (the naked friendly weirdoes in question), I think I understood them a little better. Wanting to get away from the hustle and bustle of Houston (and to practice their way of life more privately), Don Watanabe moved his family further down south. I can understand more than anyone wanting to live quiet life away from the noise of the world…I just didn’t want them doing it in my house.
I got to work immediately with the peppy twin (Allison) and her love of all things musical. Every time she played a song from a Disney movie aloud, that was my cue to come in and cut the power on her phone. She assumed it was just her phone acting up but by the twelfth time it happened, she started getting antsy.
Allison’s sister, Amber, was a bit of tough nut crack. She didn’t seem especially concerned about her sister babbling about the phone; “Just take it to go get fixed” was Amber’s flippant response. She changed her tune when I started leaving long claw marks on her wooden furniture; that always gets them.
The next couple of days were more on the fun side. When the mother (Rebecca) tried getting into the tub, she found black sludge lining against the porcelain. That freaked her out quite well. For Don I was especially mean in setting tacks on his seats, leaving a nasty surprise for his bare bottom. Just goes to show that pants have their advantages.
A week and a half of this and the whole family was starting to get antsy living in this house. A few more days of this and they’ll be packing their nonexistent clothes out of here, just like the rest. I was thinking of what next move would have been when I heard the attic door open.
On instinct, I made myself invisible, seeing who was up here. To my surprise, it was the one son, Luke, carrying a sandwich on a plate.
“Hey uh ghost?” Luke called out. “Just came up here to give a little peace offering. I once heard that ghosts tend to be like this is because they get hungry for the things they no longer have.”
He then gently set the plate on the floor, “It may not be much but I hope you accept the offering. May your afterlife be a lot more tranquil and all that.”
With that, Luke walked away from the attic, closing the door behind him. The moment he left, I wandered over to the plate and picked up the sandwich. A peace offering huh? Tranquil afterlife?
I couldn’t help but crack a smile. No one had ever done something like this. This family was different…in more ways than one.