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I saw a ghost
I know, I sound insane, I mean, really? A ghost? What are you, hysteric?
No need for all that, I've heard it a hundred times by now.
I know I sound insane. I know that, no matter how hard I try, no one’s ever going to believe me about what I saw that night, especially not a year later, when that place is nothing more than a Marigold drop off site…
No, I don’t need people to believe me. I just need people to at least hear my story, so that I alone am not cursed with what happened that night.
…
Well, since you seem like you haven’t left yet or called me crazy, I assume you actually want to hear my story for some reason.
Good.
Before I worked for Mr.Sweet, I worked for the Lackadaisy as a rumrunner. I was no Heller or Vasko, but I was damn fine with a Tommy, that’s for sure. It’s no wonder he kept me around for smaller runs here and there. I never really liked him all that much, but he helped me out of a tough spot when I was younger, and I kind of stook around ever since.
At least, until that night.
It was a shipyard, somewhere along the Mississippi, with roughly 8, maybe 10 guys guarding a small shipment of wine. And it was my job to go in there, turn all those guys into nice, holey spongers, and get out with some more wine for our wonderful establishment. It was going to be easy, I thought, nothing could possibly go wrong.
But there were already some warning signs.
A lot of women, particularly in that area, went missing, for one, and another, apparently the gang that controlled said shipyard was extremely violent, and they were definitely not going to hand over that fine booze through a peaceful discussion.
I already knew that. I mean, I was already planning on things going south. Finding out that they were going to try and shoot me on sight was hardly a shocker or a dealbreaker
So irrespective of the first item of concern, I drove over to the shipyard, my Tommy locked and loaded, ready to do yet another simple job for dear ol’ May.
And so, as I bursted through the doors and opened fire, I sealed my fate for that night.
Just as I had done with every other run before, all the men in that room, all 10 of them, were reduced to bloodied, bullet-ridden corpses. It took some effort to not get shot, it always did, but I’d say that the gun fight lasted 3, maybe 4 minutes before only the silence remained.
I didn’t linger too much on the increasingly high body count of mine, so I began searching the place for that all-so important booze…
It felt like an eternity searching for it.
Every hallway I entered, every room for storage, every box, all turned out to be empty, or filled with run of the mill items. It usually didn’t take that long, but it was nearing 8 minutes, and I still hadn’t found it. I remember slamming my fists into a nearby crate, shouting at the top of my lungs, “God dammit, just let me find the booze!”
And as if in reply, I heard it.
“Leave.”
I turned around, ready to open fire at the voice behind me, thinking I had missed one of them…
Only to find no one at all. I was alone. Truly and utterly alone.
I figured my mind was just playing tricks on me, and decided to ignore it. Instead focusing on finding that infamous booze…
And then, after another 4 minutes of searching, I had finally, finally, found it.
In all its glory, that wonderful, all so intoxicating box of pure wine, finally sat in my hands. I grabbed it without a second thought, as I made my way back to the car and-
“Leave.”
I heard it again.
I whipped behind myself again, this time towards the pile of bodies that I had mowed down before, ready to confront that voice once more…
And the only thing that greeted me when I whipped around to face it, were the very men that I had killed before…
Men.
And the realization struck me like a truck, when I realized what I had been hearing this whole time.
A woman.
I almost considered leaving then and there, ready to just get the booze dropped off and to never think about this place again.
But then, I took notice of a crate.
I had seen it a few times, one of the men seemed to be in the process of locking it before I blew him to hell and back, but for some reason, a reason I’ll never know, I felt compelled to open the crate, see what was inside of it. Irrespective of my wishes to leave and never return here, I walked up to the crate, and opened it wide.
I really, *really* shouldn’t have opened that crate…
I raised my hand to my mouth as I gasped in horror at what I saw, feeling my whole body tense up in fear. In front of me, sat a few dozen bags of concrete, a stack of large buckets, and a neat pile of several dozen dresses.
I didn’t want to stick around any longer, I just wanted to go. Without even a second thought in my mind, I spun around on my heel, made my way to the door-
And froze.
In front of me stood a woman… Or I thought at first it was a woman. But it only took a second to realize that women don’t look like they’ve drowned, or had eyes that were as dead as the corpses that surrounded this whole shipyard. I wanted to run so desperately, to just get the hell out of there, but I couldn’t move, I was frozen. She approached me, put her hand on my shoulder, drenching it, as her face approached mine, and she whispered in my ear with that all too familiar voice.
“Leave.”
And finally, I ran, screaming, dropping my Tommy on the ground as I shot into my car, and drove, going as far away from here as possible. I already on the bridge before I was even able to think, I was getting closer to the little daisy, and once there I didn’t care what happened to me, so long as that thing didn’t follow me-
And then I saw her on the bridge. Somehow she followed me here. I didn’t even think, as I slammed the wheel to the right in an attempt to drive away from her-
And with horror, I watched as the car flew off the bridge and into the river below, slamming with a resounding splash into the depths of the Mississippi.
I desperately tried to bang on the doors, finding some way, any way to escape, but they were sealed, as the water started pouring into the car. I could see the woman outside, and alongside her, dozens more women, all looking the exact same.
I didn’t want to die, not like that, and I pounded on the doors, as the water started to reach my chin, begging them to not kill me, for someone, anyone to help me.
And then, somehow, the door opened, as water flooded the rest of the car.
(Splash, underwater-to-surface transition SFX, river ambience)
I didn’t bother wasting time on how the door suddenly opened, or why it only opened then, as I jumped out of the car and swam as hard as I could, just barely breaching the surface in time before I coughed into the night.
I sat myself on the coast, trying to reorient myself, as I comprehended what happened. Somehow I was alive, somehow I was saved…
Why was I saved?
“Never return.”
I nearly screamed as the voice spoke to me, making due on her words as I ran as far as I could away from her and to the Little Daisy, never to return to that shipyard.
And I haven’t returned since.
It was a few days later that I quit the Lackadaisy and joined the Marigolds, mostly because Mr. May was, well, dead, but also because I didn’t feel safe there anymore, especially after that night.
And as the days and weeks in the Marigolds passed by, slowly, that night began to fade from my memory, as if it never existed…
Then, it came back.
I met one of the Marigold Room waitresses who, well… let’s just say she’s a good friend of mine. She and I got close, and one day, she told me a story about a friend she had in the past, who she cared for very dearly and one day went missing. Her appearance seemed familiar, somehow, and, without even thinking of that night, I asked where she went missing around.
I should’ve never asked.
A few minutes later, I was holding my hands in my face, barely keeping myself from just screaming, as I felt my whole body freeze up. All those memories came back, flooding my mind just like the water did the car. I tried to reassure myself, that it didn’t happen, it was just a horrible nightmare based off a run gone wrong-
“Protect her.”
I flinched as I twirled around myself, seeing nothing behind myself…
But I knew she was, for a moment, right behind me.
From that day forward, I decided to protect her, with my life. Not just because I cared for her, but because I was afraid of what would happen if I failed. I was afraid of her returning.
And I know she’ll be back one day, perhaps very soon.
If you are somehow not convinced enough by my warnings to not go to that damn shipyard, at least take this advice with you: Don’t stay too long, search as quickly as possible, and once you have the booze or feel as if you’re being watched, run. Don’t ever come back, even if you have to for a rum-run. And if you see her, listen to what she says, and obey it, because if you don’t…
You’ll be joining the Mississippi Spirits.