p.h.a.n.t.o.m.
This Writer's Playground contest story had some really interesting prompts to choose from. I went with the Pontianak and an office setting. A portrait that looks like a character was required.
A smothering mist drifts between merbau and durian trees, and unnatural silence saturates the damp soil beneath. With each uncertain footfall of the hikers’ boots, the moonlight dwindles overhead; the rainforest canopy oppresses their vision. One swallows a mumble of nerves while straining to see beyond the trees.
“Matt, I’m not sure we should still be out here.”
His partner smiles and points his flashlight deeper into the wood. “I just wanted to show you something, Dennis. I saw a patch of rubber trees during the tour.”
“So?” asks Dennis.
“SO,” begins Matt, “I think it’d be perfect for that night shoot we were thinking of.”
A low whistle of wind dances through the flora, and with it they hear the sounds of a baby crying. The men stop.
Dennis grips his satchel strap like a lifeline. “Oh, hell no. No way.”
“C’mon, it’s probably someone at the base camp.” Matt’s slight crack in his voice betrays his true feelings.
“Let’s go back, Matt. Please?” He tugs on his companion’s windbreaker, imploring it to coax its owner’s retreat.
Notes of tropical, woody accords brighten the surrounding scents of soil and pungent durian fruit hanging above. The hikers’ breath puffs out visibly as the temperature drops. The sound of wailing seems to grow more distant, yet feels eerily closer. Matt’s torch flickers and dies. The mist swallows their vicinity, leaving them blind.
“Shit shit shit!” Matt smacks his flashlight.
They feel it. A presence.
Dennis whimpers into Matt’s shoulder. He prays to any god that will listen.
The slender figure of a dark-haired beauty emerges from the haze. Ethereal iridescent wisps bubble like seafoam from an unseen aura, the unearthly cry of an infant fades to a whisper. She regards the wayward gentlemen with a distance felt only in one’s heart.
The hikers, enthralled by the vision before them, relax.
“Divine…” whispers Dennis.
Matt reaches for her delicate, pale hand. “What are you?”
She meets his gaze, mirroring his movement.
They are to touch fingertips…
A piercing, unholy shriek erupts from the entity, her face distorting in rage. Red eyes glower as viperous fangs grow from behind her soft lips. Her finger becomes a wicked blade, joined by its four mates, and the bubbling aura starts boiling.
“AAAAHHH!” Both men clutch each other, closing their eyes for the inevitable.
She looms, claws splayed for maximum destruction. Arms pull back, and—
She freezes. The light of her presence creating momentary glints of metal on the cowering men’s joined hands. Rings.
“Wait, they were partner partners?” Llorona finished her tiny cup of water. A single huge bubble gurgled up from the plastic jug sitting in the dispenser.
“Partner partners.” I shrugged. “So I didn’t kill ‘em.”
Mary leaned back in her chair from a nearby partition. “Well, yeah, why would you? They aren’t your thing, Ponty.” We smiled politely at her, all social momentum destroyed by the unrequested interruption. An exaggerated sigh further ruined the pleasant conversation. “I wish I could still go out in the field.”
Depressing fluorescent lights painted the entire floor in a blanket of mediocrity. Cubicles arranged in neat, efficient rows stretched the entire length. The dull ambience of office phones ringing, hushed voices pretending to be working, and the occasional growl or squawk fill in the background noise.
I tried to push on, frowning. “It just sucks because now I’m behind on my quota, y’know? I was behind last quarter, too. My motivation has been in the tank.”
“It’s getting harder to isolate victims with so much social media. Everyone has cameras.” Llorona brushed her perpetually-soaked hair out of her eyes.
Mary scooted her chair back even more. “I’m still stuck here answering phones.”
Llorona surrendered to the inescapable interaction. “Speaking of getting you out of this office more, how is construction coming on the new Willowbrook Ballroom?”
“Last I heard, they scrapped the project and the whole area is apartments now.” Spectral tears formed in the corners of the ghost’s eyes. “Probably never getting back out in the field. It’s so frustrating.”
“Don’t say that!” said Llorona with a panicked reassurance that was more for herself than her coworker, “Archer Avenue still needs Resurrection Mary! If they’d just stop modernizing everything, you’d be back hitching rides from strangers in no time. Right, Ponty?”
I wasn’t paying attention. My focus was on Silbón, his stark white Latin skin hanging loosely inside his oversized black button-up. With the large-brimmed hat and the white stitching, he looked like a mariachi musician. He was leaning over the wall of a cubicle, laughing quietly with The Dullahan’s headless torso. Time felt slower whenever I watched him.
Silbón had been the spirit I first spoke to after onboarding at Professional Hauntings And Next-gen Training Optimization Management. He was charming, charismatic, and, in my eyes and Llorona’s words, fine-as-hell. If I thought I was ready to date after several centuries of disemboweling skeezeball men who never asked for consent or who left their wives after learning of her pregnancy, that ghost was easily my “type”: polite, chivalrous, and fine-as-hell.
Sometimes, I imagined the two of us riding kelpies down a bone-covered beach, rotting seagull carcasses filling the air with putrescent romance. We’d laugh as the salty waves washed over our incorporeal feet while we picnicked on the dripping hearts of adulterers and abusers. I’d playfully steal his hat, he’d chase me down the shore, and then he’d whistle his maddening-yet-enchanting tune. Bystanders would go mad, of course, and we’d frolic in the mass hysteria of panicked humans trampling each other to death. Then we would collapse into a beached whale corpse and he’d lightly caress my—
“PONTY.” The voice wasn’t Llorona’s. It was like chalk murdering a chalkboard in cold blood, followed by the chalkboard’s friends and family.
“KOI KOI,” I replied sardonically, “I’m right here. You don’t have to yell.”
The Nigerian schoolteacher, a perfect vision of beauty and class, stood where Llorona had been moments before. Perfect to the finest detail, Koi Koi was a reliable constant: irritatingly attractive and she knew it. The large canvas under her arm was new, though.
I cocked my head. “Taking up a new hobby? Was being ogled by Hock and the rest of the male monsters getting old?”
“Don’t be crass, Pontianak.” The ghost’s lips were pursed so tightly they could collapse a star. “The FedHex imp dropped this off for you.”
Curious. I wasn’t expecting a delivery. “What is it?”
“It’s you.”
“Me?”
She flipped the canvas around, revealing a portrait of my face—or at least a face that looked eerily like mine. Koi Koi’s smugness was toxic. “You always say I’m so self-absorbed, but at least I don’t ship paintings of myself to work.”
I ignored her unearned snark as I took the picture. “This isn’t me.”
She leaned over to glance at the image again. “Mm, I see what you mean. This woman has personality.”
Despite rolling my eyes as she sashayed back to her desk, I couldn’t help but admit that she was right. The woman in the portrait was bright and filled with life. She clearly hadn’t been exposed to the horrible truth of the human world.
Fear. Prejudice. Greed. Lust. Self-entitlement.
My claws dug into the edges. Blood-boiling rage began to overwhelm me, and I was ready to chuck the thing in the trash until—
“She’s beautiful.”
I whipped around with the canvas narrowly missing Silbón (who ducked) and clobbering The Dullahan (which knocked his head out of his hands and sent it into the garbage can).
“Oh! I’m so sorry, The Dullahan!”
His body was already digging through the bin and I could hear his muffled voice:
“No, lass, it’s my bad! This ol’ noggin is always in the way.”
Silbón shook his head and chuckled. “Classic The Dullahan.”
“Silbón, don’t startle me. I almost tried to slash your intestines out!” I was doing my best to appear annoyed.
“Lo siento, Ponty. We were heading to the break room when your art caught my eye.” It was at that moment I noticed he and The Dullahan were wearing latex gloves and aprons.
“What’s with the getup?”
“Okay, I know I’m in here, why can’t I find me?”
The handsome revenant looked grim. “Hock was cooking kraken in the microwave again.”
“How big is this garbage can?”
If I could have turned more pale, I would have. “Whooper is gonna make a meal out of him. The smell hasn’t even faded from the last time!”
“It’s crazy that I’m still looking, right? It’s a finite space!”
Silbón folded his arms. “I mean, that’s Hock for ya. The little weirdo does what he wants. Honestly, I kind of respect it.”
I smiled. “For a guy who killed and ate his dad, you’re very understanding of others.”
“Tá sé díchéillí, this is bollocks.”
He shrugged. “Well, who am I to judge others? I killed and ate my dad. So,” he nodded at the canvas, “did you paint that?”
I shook my head. “No, it was sent to me.”
“There’s a half-eaten bagel without any schmear in here. Who eats a plain bagel plain?”
“Really? How mysterious! May I?” Silbón took the painting and examined it. “This is old. Like old old. A century, at least.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
He pointed at the figure’s cheeks. “The irregular craquelure.”
I squinted, trying to see what he was talking about. “The… what?”
“He means the cracks in the paint, lass!”
“Oh! I didn’t realize you knew so much about paintings, Silbón!” Did I mention he was fine-as-hell?
Handing the painting back, he beamed. “History of Art MasterClass. Gotta have hobbies or you’ll go insa—The Dullahan, are you still in the trash?”
“Not by choice.”
“I’m gonna go sort our Irish friend out, but—” he paused while brushing some of his coarse, oily hair out of his eyes, “—we should, I don’t know, meet more often and chat about ourselves.”
“You mean like a date?” My undead heart would’ve fluttered if it hadn’t been burned away by years of people failing to demonstrate the positive side of humanity.
Silbón seemed thoughtful for a moment. “Yes, I suppose that is what humans do on dates, isn’t it? So yes, Ponty, would you go on a date with me?” He went over to our struggling coworker.
My undead heart wasn’t fluttering. It was not fluttering. I was feeling flushed for the first time in 100 years for some other reason, clearly. I’m Pontianak. I’m a creature of vengeance and hate. It was not fluttering.
“I want your ghostly goods inside mine.”
“Hmm?”
“I said: ‘Sure, I guess.’”
“Great! Let’s talk after work.”
I took the framed portrait back to my cubicle, feeling like I’d just slaughtered an adulterer for the first time. My adrenaline (or, I don’t know, whatever spirits have) was coursing through my veins (or, y’know, whatever spirits have). I’d need to tell Llorona before she heard about it through the office grapevine, otherwise she’d drown herself in a lake for a week just to punish me.
“I… have a date.” I said, not fully believing it myself.
“Congratulations.”
I automatically grabbed my letter opener, spun in my chair, and chucked the metal blade at the sound. It narrowly missed the little man’s face and stuck into the partition with a thunk.
The Aufhocker, cradling his knees on the floor in the corner of my space, didn’t break eye contact with me. “A date. That’s exciting.”
“Hock, what in Tartarus are you doing in my office?”
He didn’t move. “Hiding.”
I started bleeding from my eyes in annoyance. “Let me clarify: Why are you hiding in my office and not your own? And a follow-up: Why shouldn’t I be cutting you open like the corporeal demon bastard you are and sipping from your intestine?”
He still didn’t move. “If I don’t want to be found, hiding in my office would be really obtuse, don’t you think?”
My claws grew longer and my hair began to float. “And how about my second question?”
He was like a statue. “Company policy?”
We stared at each other for about ten seconds, then I relented and turned back to my computer.
“Please get out. I have work to do. I’m behind on my death count and need to use the F.A.T.E.S. to divine a new client.”
“The Fear Algorithm Trace Engine Software is down right now.”
I spun back around. “What? Why?”
“Virus.”
“...”
“...”
“You were—”
“—using the company computers to look at succubus porn again,” we said in unison.
“Yes.” Hock showed no emotion whatsoever.
My disgust was old hat by now. “Get out, Hock.”
“Whooper will find me.” His voice wavered slightly.
“Whooper will find you when I tell him where you are.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“I cooked Kraken in the microwave.”
“So I heard.”
“Again.”
“Mm.”
“With Surströmming butter.”
“Surströmming is fermented fish, not butter.”
“It can be.”
“No.”
“When you liquify the herring.”
“Hock?”
“Yes?”
“GET OUT OF MY CUBICLE.”
“‘K.” The little imp stood up, dusted his ratty pants off, and strode out.
A hurricane of a sigh escaped me.
The painting was there, staring back at me with her vibrant smile and kind eyes. She seemed to be both sympathizing with me and guilting me simultaneously, as if to say “You didn’t have to be so mean.”
“You don’t understand,” I said to it, “this is what my unlife has become. Everyone thinks folklore and mythology is so magical, but it’s a slog. A miserable job where you’re forced to stew in your trauma, relive every horrible thing you’ve done, and terrify people to maintain some imaginary status quo that won’t let you be happy.”
The figure simply smiled back with hope.
“I don’t know why I’m even bothering with this. I… I can’t be happy. The whole Silbón thing… I need to call it off.” My skin was growing paler and my hair darkened. “I’m just Ponty. I’m a creature of misery, and hatred, and murder because I had the shitty misfortune of dying during childbirth? Can you believe that?”
The painting’s happiness was deafening.
Bloody tears were dripping down my cheeks, and the air around me grew colder. “Because I couldn’t be a mother, I’m cursed. Cursed! Society decided I’m a monster, and now I have to play the part. I bathe in my anguish and spite constantly. I distance myself from everything, everyone, even other monsters! The ones who could understand me more than anyone! I can’t help feeling like a fucking failure. How can I? I can’t remember what it felt like to be happy! To feel joy! To be… well, to be you.”
Her eyes. My eyes. Staring back at me from centuries ago.
“She looks happy.”
I didn’t have the energy to spin around and attack whoever’d just spoken. Fully undeadified, I just cocked my head to look.
My boss, the Dungarvon Whooper, was leaning on the corner of my partition wearing the clothes of a 19th-century Irish cook who lived in Canada. His death garb. Of all of us at PHANTOM, he was a “true ghost.” He could only manifest as he was when he died, and he couldn’t interact with the corporeal world at all.
I quickly tried to retract my form into office-appropriate horror. “I’m so sorry, Whooper, I wasn’t—”
Wordlessly, he floated next to me and looked at the picture. We sat in silence, gazing at that canvas.
After a few minutes, he spoke softly as he always did. “Some of us made a choice to be this,” I saw his eyes dart towards Silbón in the breakroom, “and for some the choice was made for us,” he glanced over at Mary sulking at the copier. “We don’t get to choose how others remember us, only how we remember us. She looks happy.”
I felt confused. “Yes, she does. So?”
“Who painted this?” He asked, directly looking at me.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Who could have painted a portrait of you, Ponty? Who, of all the creatures and monsters and people in existence, would want to paint you?”
I felt lost in the picture, but finally whispered: “My… my son.”
Whooper grinned. “You didn’t know he survived after you passed?”
My eyes couldn’t break away from the image. “I’d always assumed… because I became this…”
The ghost continued to hover next to me, his eyes filled with life despite the very opposite being true.
“But,” I began, “my son never met me. He never saw my face.”
“I’m sure he did. Many times.”
“How?”
“Dreams, Ponty. He dreamt of his mother, and eventually he captured her on a canvas.”
I was awe-stricken for the first time since awaking after death.
“Most importantly,” continued Whooper, “he painted her as he remembered her.”
“She’s… so happy.”
More silence, save for the quiet ringing of phones and idle chatter further off.
“Our business is unpleasant. It is sad, and violent, and manipulative, but it also carries our cultures forward forever, ensuring that the experiences of everyone, like your son, meant something. I know it isn’t easy (I’m a ghost for Christ’s sake), but I hope you can grant yourself permission to be that woman again, every now and then.”
I felt tears sliding down my cheeks, but they were… different? I reached up and wiped one away. It was clear, not blood. I was actually crying tears.
“So you sent this to me?” I asked, sniffling a little.
He nodded.
I tried to hug him (which felt weird without evisceration), but passed through his incorporeal form. “Sorry, I tried.”
Whooper held a hand up. “I’m used to it.”
After I had composed myself, I glanced over to Silbón, who was carrying a smoking trash bag out of the breakroom. “I’m going to let myself be happy. At least a little.”
“I’m glad,” said the ghost.
We took it all in for a moment, before I finally said: “Hock was hiding in here.”
“Yes, I know. What do you think Silbón has in that trash bag?”