NOTE: This story will continue to grow and change as I have time
TRIGGER WARNING: This story contains scenes of suicide.
ONE MORE THING: DO NOT takes this seriously. It is a work of gothic creative fiction.

Chapter 1: The Garage

On a bright, crisp fall day at about 3:45 p.m. in the afternoon Wally Stepnuk walked into his garage with a cordless drill and 12 long wood screws, set up his small ladder, and proceeded to remove his belt, looping the loose end through the buckle.

With this done he climbed his ladder and wrapped the belt end around a high, strong cross beam and slowly drove the screws through it deep into the wood.

Wally began to cry. Tears poured from his face and great sobs began to heave from his chest as he casually placed the looped end of the belt around his neck and, without thought, stepped off of the ladder and into the air.

Within moments he could feel his heart pounding in his neck and hear it screaming in his ears. Soon he began to feel as if he were buzzing. It started like a cottonball numbness in his mouth and spread through his body as though he were covered in bees, filled with bees. Eventually his vision blurred and went black.

He could hear a robin singing in the yard. It sounded so far away. He smelled paint, Emily had been working in the garage earlier, refinishing the kitchen cupboard doors.

As his mind overflowed with fear and crushing remorse, he managed to croak one final, quiet word no one would ever hear:

“Emily.”

Then there was nothing.

The robin continued to sing as the sun continued to shine while a taut belt creaked quietly in the garage.

All had ended.

So you can imagine Wally’s surprise when he suddenly became aware.

It was as if he was waking up in the morning, as he had every morning for the past 47 years of his life. Except it wasn’t really waking up, but it was the best analogy he could find for the experience.

  “Was it a dream?” Wally found himself wondering as a great wave of relief passed over him.

He became aware that he was in his garage and that it was sometime in the middle of the night…by the moon outside lightly filtering through a high silver cloud that he could “see” out the window he’d guessed it was about 3 am.

Wally moved his hands to his throat and found…nothing…it was an odd experience. Hands moved but there were no hands. Arms lifted but there were no arms. Fingers touched a neck where there was no neck and no fingers. He looked(?) down and saw nothing but felt as though he was there.

Wally stood , or what he imagined as stood, motionless, for a very long time in a sort of thoughtless daze. What is this? Was he asleep? Was he dreaming still? No. He knew the difference between dream and awake…even the difference between a realistic, lucid dream and being awake. He was definitely not dreaming. So what then?

Several more minutes passed before a dawning horror spread through his consciousness. Wally was dead.

He looked up and saw 12 small holes in the cross beam overhead confirming his worst fears. He had taken his own life in a fit of depression here in this dark and empty garage, alone save for whatever spiders hid in the unseen corners that had watched his act of desparation with dispassionate eyes.

Regret poured through him like cold water through a sieve. Wally fell to what would have been his knees and cried out in a long, loud, scream of agony that he could not hear but somehow knew was there.

In the distance, somewhere upstairs in the house he could hear his dog Samson suddenly take up the chorus in a great and mournful howl as if joining him.

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Chapter 2: The House

Samson’s howling was the last thing Wally recalled before all things fell suddenly black.

Now as Wally regained whatever consciousness you could call his current existence, he found himself in the kitchen. The clock on the microwave said it was just after 6 am and the house was as quiet as a tomb, although one could hear the sound of birds chirping and going about their day just outside the open window.

Wally was puzzled. By the date on the same microwave 10 days had passed since his mistake in the garage. This is what he immediately called it to himself and it felt like the world’s greatest understatement. It was, in fact, an absolute horror show that kept repeating in his mind when he was not actively distracting himself with other thoughts.

As he wandered into the living room he noticed that every square centimeter of every flat surface was covered in sympathy cards, and where cards did not exist, containers of flowers festooned the place. Wally wandered over to a standout bouquet of metal stemmed roses with petals formed crudely from tin-snipped Molson cans.

Wally chuckled – the bouquet was from the boys. A group of mechanics in town that would get together Friday nights to drink away the week.

Wandering to the south end of the 1960s split level bungalow Wally made his way into the bedroom and stood silently watching Emily sleep. Her red, now graying hair draped partly over her face. She seemed drawn and exhausted. Older. Beside her Samson, their 7 years old Saint Bernard lay sprawled out taking up three quarters of the bed.

Wally had never allowed Samson in the bed. “Dogs belong on the floor,” Wally insisted not long after Samson had come home. Emily tried to get Wally to see reason. “He’s going to be part of the family now Wal,” she would say. “He’s lucky he doesn’t live outside or in the shop yard all year long,” said Wally. Eventually Emily let it go but clearly things had changed now that he was gone.

Within moments of Wally entering the room Samson’s eyes shot open and a loud, low bass rumble began to emanate from deep within his chest. Samson glared in the direction Wally imagined he was. Could the beast actually see him? He couldn’t even see himself how could the dog see him?

Wally wandered to the corner of the room near the ensuite bathroom door…the dog’s eyes followed him and remained riveted. The growling increased and Emily, shifting, spoke out in a quiet, confused, sleep filled voice.”

“What’s with you boy?” She slowly sat up and looked where Samson appeared to be growling. “Is it ghosts or just that squirrel in the wall? I wish Wally had taken care of that before…” she trailed off and sat silently for a few moments as a chastened Samson quieted and appeared remorseful for having woke her.

Wally just stayed where he was. Eventually Emily left the bed and wandered to the bathroom where she stood in front of the mirror for a few moments and then removed her pajamas and stepped into the glass enclosed shower in the corner.

Routine. If there was a word Wally would attach to what he was witnessing it was routine. Emily went about her morning much as she would have when he was alive. She washed, dried, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, dressed and went to the kitchen to prepare a sparse meal of two slices of toast and margerine along with a glass of orange juice and a coffee.

Emily had no urgency about her. It was Saturday and she didn’t have work until Monday.

Wally was puzzled. Had he expected more perhaps? A constant state of weeping and proclamations of loneliness? Maybe. Wally read in an old Reader’s Digest once that people grieved in all kinds of ways. Some people bottled it up. Maybe that’s what Emily was doing.

Later Emily’s mum came over with a casserole for lunch.

“How are doing Em?” asked Hannah. Emily’s mum was a spry 78 year old woman, long since widowed by her husband, Emily’s father, Harold.

“I’m ok mum,” she said. “Mostly just tired.”

“That’s to be expected with such a big thing happening in your life. You know I’m here for you if you need anything.”

“I know mum, thanks,” said Emily. “The weird thing is it doesn’t really feel any different now than before when Wally was alive.”

“What do you mean,” Hannah probed cautiously.

“Well, Wally was up before me, breakfasted and out the door to the shop all day and usually not home til six. He get home, wash up and we’d eat dinner about 6:30 pm. Then he’d spend half an hour just sitting on the toilet reading his phone and eventually come collapse into his easy chair to watch t.v. for the evening. Half the time I had to cover him with a blanket and just head to bed alone. I’d let Samson sneak into bed for company and shoo him out before Wally would wake up.”

Hannah just listened.

“This was the pattern for the better part of more than two decades mum,” Emily said. “He was like a ghost most times and didn’t even talk much.”

Wally listened in a state of stunned disbelief. He replayed Emily’s words over and over again long after she and her mum had gone out to the patio with coffee and cigarettes.

Was she right? How could he have not seen it before. He knew he was a man of habit. He knew Emily enjoyed a more interactive and busy life. She had her volunteer work, her non-profit board role, she took nearly every class at the arts centre, hosted a weekly book club and had dinners with her mum on Friday’s while Wally hung with the boys. He thought she was happy.

Slowly as the light outside began to fade and darkness crept into the house Wally realized with a sense of sadness and shame that he had been a ghost long before he had taken his own life. He had haunted this house and Emily’s life for more than 20 years.

With this came blackness.

Chapter 3: The Yard