The Haunting of Ed I

​Ed, when the strange circumstances started to manifest, was only at the young age of two, sitting at his dinner table in a high-chair, watching his parents murder each other with kitchen knives. He did not cry nor did he scream in fear and being that this travesty happened so early in his life he could not remember it either.

​It was only at the age of fourteen that he started to notice there were differences between him and the other children at the orphanage. For one, the child whom he played with was not, in the physical sense, there. So when he passed the ball to said child and it caught it, the rest of the orphans were treated to their first sighting of a ghost when the ball floated in mid-air.

Now, Ed is twenty-seven, sitting on my couch.

“Ed, my name is Doctor Eckhart,” I told him simply.

“Okay,” was his only reply. He looked at me curiously, like most normal people would. He was cautious.

“I am here to discuss with you the behaviour you have been exhibiting the past two weeks,” I told him. “Ed, you have been forthcoming with your history in the most sense and I appreciate that, but you have told me little about your condition when it came to these deaths at work.”

“Well, it is her, Doctor,” he told me. “The ghost that follows me.”
“Yes, you have told me much about ‘her’, but have yet to reveal any proof. For all I know that floating ball that the handful of orphans saw was a trick. Can I speak to ‘her’ or interact with ‘her’?”

“Well, she likes jokes.”

“Oh really? Well, um...what is her name?”

“She doesn’t have one, but she knows when you’re talking to her.”

“I see. Can you tell me a joke?”

I asked the air this question, referencing some girl in the room. I was truly surprised when I received a response. There was knock at my door.

“Come in,” I called, but nobody opened the door.

“That’s not how the joke goes,” Ed replied with a perplexed look. It then dawned on me what he was referring to.

“Who is there?” I asked.

At this the door did open, but it simply eased open slowly. Once a crack of the outside had been revealed it stopped moving. There was strangely only darkness beyond the door despite the fact that I knew there should have been a well-lit hallway.

“She says, ‘It’s Timothy’,” Ed told me simply.

“I thought she is a girl,” I asked.

“That isn’t her name. Finish the joke.”

“Right. Timothy who?” I asked the darkened hallway.

Suddenly a face came up to the door, but it was only the pale, rotted, bottom-half of a male face. The skin was like chalk, but festering with black veins and it gnashed grey teeth. The mouth spoke and the voice carried over as if the response was being spat into my ear.

“Timothy Eckhart!” my father's voice yelled into my ear and in that moment the door slammed, blocking the hallway for only a moment before the door fell off its hinges to reveal the hallway as it was. Lights were on and I could see the secretary typing at her desk.

I sat there for a long minute. The hair on the back of neck was standing on end and I couldn’t staring at the fallen door.

“She asks why you are laughing,” Ed replied, unfazed by what happened, as if he had grown painfully used to these events.

Personally, I would have never believed that any of this happened if it wasn’t for the fact I heard my father’s voice speak to me. He was angry, pained and used by the ghost that haunted Ed. Only that voice made me a believer, otherwise I would have thought it an elaborate trick.

Still, here I am writing this first observation before I begin the second. When it came down to matters such as this I knew I could not approach it with traditional methods. What pill can you prescribe that relieves you from a malicious spirit? None, that is why I turned to the church. Of course, they were skeptical as well. I never thought I would say this, but in fact, it is harder to convince a priest that there is a demonic spirit haunting a man than it is to convince a man of science.

Nevertheless, Ed and I had from the spirit once more to prove her existence, but in the most violent way. As we were discussing the matter with a priest within the church we stood in-front of the main alter. This altar had Jesus standing over three sheep, looking out over them as well as the pews where the believers would sit, as if he were looking over his flock.

As we talked there came an animalistic noise from the alter. It was the sounds of sheep emanating from the statues. The stone sheep seemed to be alive, although they did not move. Next came the shocking power of the ghost, as cracks began to form on the statues. The sheep cried in pain and anguish as the cracks spread across them. It was piercing my very spirit to hear such pain being caused to the animals. Blood began to seep from the cracks as the sheep were ripped apart from head to tail.

Eventually they cries died with the sheep as they were split open, revealing the bones of dead sheep encased within their stone layers. The blood poured gruesomely, bubbling and no doubt still warm.

The priest, the scientist and the haunted stared at the terrifying actions of the ghost. Slowly our eyes raised to the tall statue of Jesus and as if in the cue the face crumbled off revealing a bony white skull which stared down at us. I felt my will crumble with the stone, but I still stood by Ed, willing to help. Now, with a convinced priest, I felt more able than I did before to be of some use.