Free Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman Page B

Josh’s arm draped around the other boy’s shoulder, the fingertips almost touching the other boy’s neck. Both smiled, and Josh looked at the other boy rather than the camera. I felt instantly jealous. Last night when he asked me if I was a virgin, Josh had suggested he had far more experience. This seemed proof of that. I closed the yearbook, ready to leave.
Trace was sitting on the floor, still reading when I returned.
“How goes it, Kolchak?” I asked her.
“So-so.” Trace smoothed out an errant lock of hair from in front of her eyes. “The book doesn’t always make sense. Maybe the author was nuts. Anyway, he sometimes says ghosts are nothing more than memories which a medium can tap into. But then in other places he lists a whole variety of spirits.” She turned a page. “Apparitions. Black dogs. Corpse candles.”
“So wait, I’ll be haunted by roadkill next?”
“Cute.” She held out a hand for help standing up. “I wish there was more on the subject.” She gestured at the stacks. “But after these two books,” she took from me the one I had looked over, “the rest are on animal magnetism, fairy faiths, and crystals. Damn it, if we lived in New Orleans, we’d have a decent occult library.”
I chuckled. “If we lived in New Orleans, I’d be working on my third ghost boyfriend by now.”
We ordered hot soup at the diner off Rt. 47. During the day, the patch of road where I had first seen Josh looked different: just another stretch of Jersey highway
The trip to the library had given me some answers but opened up even more questions—none of which I wanted to consider much. My head hurt, my sinuses complained. I massaged my cheeks just below the eyes.
Trace read her book. I tried with mine, but it all took place in Wales and I quickly lost interest. The paper placemat under the bowl of cream of chicken was decorated with Halloween clip art.
“Heh, that’s what I want him to make me.” I broke up a packet of crackers into the bowl. I stabbed at them with my spoon until they sank.
Trace looked up from the page. “Hmm?”
“Your brother. Would be cool if he made me a jack o’lantern.” I glanced down at my fingers remembering the feel of the clay he brought to the dinner table. A few crumbs clung to the tips and I brushed them off.
“Sure. He’d like that.”
The notion of someone bothering to make me a present was the first good thought of the day. That quickly soured though, when I realized that he’d probably make anyone who asked a sculpture. I wasn’t sure why, but I wished that he’d make a special exception just for me.
    Back at my aunt’s house, I collapsed onto the sofa. A newspaper, open to the crossword, lay on the coffee table.. Aunt Jan had filled in only a third of the puzzle. Maybe she lost interest? Who really cares what German port city is on the Rhine or a five-letter word for tearjerker? I took up the pen and be gan filling the boxes with words that mattered. Josh became 33 down. Trace 12 across. I saw that 2 down started with M; without thought I filled in Mike and blackened in the final empty box so the name would fit. Then came ghost and passion and why not 1957 as well.
“What’s with 1957?”
    My aunt startled me. I looked up to see her reading over my shoulder.
She groaned playfully. “Have you been reading my driver’s license?”
“No. Why?” I quickly pushed away the paper. “You were born in ’57?”
She nodded and sat down in the recliner.
“So you’ve lived your whole life here, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Ever hear anything strange happen? Say out on Rt. 47?”
“Has Trace been telling you about the ghost?”
I had been hoping she would say something like that. “Ghost?” I tried to act ignorant.
“Yeah, well I guess every kid in town hears it at one time or another. It’s our own little spook story. In the 50s, some high school student got run down on 47. A couple people say they’ve seen him walking the road. Like that legend of the