Writing prompts: Ghost Story / A beauty salon / A box of cigars
The day started out great. I drove myself to work just like I had every single day for the last twenty years. Upon opening the door of my beauty salon, the smell of smoke greeted me. I wasn’t alone. It was odd, this smell. I didn’t know anyone who smoked cigars. And a cigar box. What was a cigar box doing sitting on the counter?
I walked through the salon and everything seemed okay until I got to the small breakroom in the back. The smell was strong. Smoke filled the air in a thick haze. The next thing I knew, his hands were around my neck. I didn’t even have a chance to struggle as life drained from my body.
I felt my soul drift away. I looked down upon myself laying there, lifeless and broken. I don’t know how long I floated in limbo, lost and afraid. Nowhere to go, no one to talk to. Just existing – but not really.
A plan slowly took shape, forming in my mind like mist. First it was thin and wispy, then grew thicker and more solid. Revenge, sweet revenge. A reason to exist.
At first it was the simple things. Shadows and flashes of movement. It took a while for me to learn how to move solid objects and make noises. I was like a baby learning first how to roll over, then crawl. But soon I was walking.
Everyone was different. Some people were more open minded than others. A simple shadow crossing their path would spook them. A dark movement in the corner of their eye. They would look to see what was moving and see nothing. After repeating this a few times they would be good and thoroughly spooked. They would first start to wonder if it was their imagination or if it was real. The more they questioned, the more I did it. By the time they left the salon, they knew.
The more skeptical they were, the harder it was. If the moving shadows didn’t work, I had to move objects. Sometimes I would slowly rotate the chair they were sitting in. If I was feeling especially spiteful I would raise or lower it. This really freaked them out.
Then I started turning lights on and off. Or setting the alarms off. Or opening windows. Then I was able to break windows. This took a little longer to accomplish. Destruction required anger. A lot of anger. And a lot of strength. But I was getting stronger every day.
Eventually the man noticed. He was the hardest to convince. He was skeptical and he was mean. It wasn’t as easy to get through his barriers. He was too arrogant, too superior, to know what was going on. Word got around though. Gossip spread. He started to lose business. Sure, the adrenalin junkies came to see me, but they weren’t there for haircuts. They weren’t there to spend money. I simply hung out on those days and watched. And waited. I wasn’t there for them.
Word kept spreading and now he was a laughing stock. He was accused of trying to sensationalize the mysterious death of the former owner in order to make money.
Eventually he became a joke. They accused him of making it all up. Of trying to get business by getting people to claim to have seen me. He lost clients. He was ridiculed. He was made a fool of. But I wasn’t finished.
He paid ghost hunters to find me. They brought in infrared cameras, EMF meters, thermographic cameras, motion sensors, and sound monitoring equipment. He sought out the best psychics, mediums, and exorcists. He even brought in the clergy. Nothing worked. I wasn’t playing with them.
It was time to move on to the next phase. Time to progress from walking to running. Time to pay this man a more personal visit.
It wasn’t easy for me to move from the beauty salon to his home. I had to attach to him. I had to be intimate with him, to invade his very being. It made me shiver in disgust, but it had to be done.
His house smelt like cigar smoke. The same smoke I smelled the day I died. The memory of it came rushing back and I was more determined than ever to make him pay.
He was getting ready for bed, puffing away on his cigar, smug in his perfect world. Things were bad but he knew he was going to overcome. He knew he was going to succeed.
He leaned into the bathroom mirror to smile his ugly smile, to wink at himself, congratulating his reflection on a job well done.
I stared back.
At first I held the image of myself as I had been on that day. On the day he put his hands around my throat. On the day he violated me. On the day he broke me.
Then I changed. My perfectly square white teeth slowly darkened and became pointed. My innocent blue eyes became black empty sockets. I growled at him. I snarled at him. My beautiful blond hair became a white wiry halo around my thin boney face. My clear pale skin melted off and parts of my skull peaked through.
He was frozen. He couldn’t move. Terror paralyzed him. The cigar in his hand slowly burned away, smoke wafting up, as he stared in horror at the image glaringback.
Slowly, my snarl turned into a laugh. A hysterical laugh. A laugh full of mockery and scorn.
Cigar smoke filled the room as he clutched at his chest. His throat constricted. He gasped for air. His hands came up and reached for me. Reached toward the mirror as if to grab me. To grab at smoke.
The cleaning lady found his body. There was an unexplained box of cigars sitting on the counter and the smell of smoke hung in the air as if he had just exhaled.
12 September 2018