“Why’d you have to go and fall in love with this unwonderful man? Why’d you have to go and fall in love…?”
I still listen to that fucking song.
Y’know, it was probably my bands best hit. Hell, it’s probably the main reason I was able to afford the house I’ve got right now although nowadays the royalties don’t really amount to much. It used to be my dream. Being a rock star. Being in a band. And for a little while, I got to live that dream. My band, Ramshackle did alright in the 90s. We were a group of bright eyed kids with the world at our fingertips. Our first record was an underground hit that put our names out there, and our second sold like goddamn hotcakes.
Then came the third album, and people just sorta stopped listening. Me and the guys started fighting more. Eventually, our singer Mark quit and tried to go solo, then when his career crashed and burned, he tried to come back like nothing was wrong, but by then we were all just sorta done with it. The band quietly broke up, and people forgot about us fairly quickly.
‘This Unwonderful Man’ is probably the song that we were best known for, and even that’s something of a relic. I’d be surprised to hear it on the radio these days, and even more surprised if anyone knew it was us who’d done it. Ramshackle is a thing of the past, and honestly, that’s not what bothers me. I wish that we’d gone a little further, sure. But that’s not why I can’t stop myself from listening to that old song. It’s not about the glory days for me. I keep listening to the song, over and over and over again because it’s just about the only thing I have left of her.
Like me, Shauna’s career took off in the 90s. We’d played some festival together back in 94 and ran into each other at a party that night. She was more of a pop star, but she was sweet, funny and had an infectious laugh. We’d hit it off just about immediately. Our relationship was… Well. It was nice. But it wasn’t perfect. It had a lot of ups and downs, moreso than I think is normal. We both drank a lot, and when Shauna was drunk, she tended to get angry. She’d yell at me, push me. Once she even pushed me and knocked me through a coffee table… I’ve actually still got a scar from that.
During one of our drunken arguments, I’d thrown a glass at her and it shattered on her head. She’d walked out on me after that, and I’d spent the next few weeks hating myself for what I did. I’d written ‘This Unwonderful Man’ as a way to express just how shitty I felt about what I’d done. Someone said it might help me feel better. Jury’s out on whether or not it actually did.
Shauna and I didn’t talk for two weeks after that argument but after a while I’d reached out to apologize and we’d made up. I eventually showed her a rough demo of the song and she’d said it was sweet. She encouraged me to put it on the album, so I did.
Two months after the album launched, I asked her to marry me, and a month after that, I got to call her my wife. Never mind the fact that we’d only actually known each other for about a year at that point. But we were both young, stupid and thought we’d be in love forever. I don’t think either of us really understood what we were getting into.
To be fair, I’m sure there were worse couples than us. We still argued a lot, sure. But the arguments were different. I’d quit drinking entirely after the incident where I’d thrown the bottle after her. But Shauna couldn’t ever really bring herself to stop, and it wasn’t long before I started to realize that she might’ve had a problem and over time, that problem just got worse.
See, when my career started going down the shitter, I dealt with it by trying to support hers as best I could.
When her career started going down the shitter, she dealt with it by getting blackout drunk.
We still had money, but we were both terrified of it all drying up. I pushed us to be a little more frugal and she wasn’t interested. She wanted her fame back. She wanted to be a superstar. She wanted to live a big, lavish life and she thought that if she threw enough money at it, it would all come back to her.
But no matter what she tried, her career just kept on declining. Eventually, word of her drinking problem got out, and her reputation took a dive too. She got arrested after punching her manager, and I had to bail her out. People didn’t want to work with her anymore, but she didn’t want to accept the writing on the wall. Her behavior led to a lot of arguments between us… And about a month before our fifth anniversary, she served me the divorce papers.
She moved out, started dating some other guy, and burned through the last of her money. Her situation just kept getting worse and three months after we’d separated, she was gone.
On the night she died, she’d done a show at some small venue in New York, and shown up on stage too drunk to even stand. After slurring her way through a few songs, the audience started getting rowdy, and Shauna responded by screaming and swearing back at them before walking offstage 20 minutes in.
According to her new boyfriend, she’d gone back to the hotel and locked herself in her room to drink and cry. Then a couple of hours later, witnesses saw her climbing over the balcony of her room, and fall sixteen stories down to the sidewalk below.
They found nothing but champagne in her stomach, and two empty bottles of the stuff in her room. She’d left a suicide note hastily scrawled on the desk.
“If I can’t live this life. I’m not going to live at all.”
That was it.
Losing her was hard for me…
Despite everything, despite her problems, I still loved her. I understand that the picture I’ve painted of Shauna probably isn’t the most flattering. But you have to understand that, that was the worst side of her. The side that came out when she was drunk. That wasn’t the woman I’d fallen in love with, and it’s not the woman I remember when I listen to that song. The Shauna I remember most is the woman who was always smiling, the one with the dry sense of humor and the voice of an angel… She loved what she did. Just like me, she’d wanted to be a musician all her life. She put so much passion into her music!
She liked to dance. She used to maintain a garden in our backyard that was her pride and joy. She used to tease me about not liking the crust on my sandwiches, but it was always affectionate. When she held me, she always gave me a little squeeze as if to affirm to herself that I was right there. I’d always kiss her on the top of the head, and wonder how I’d ever gotten so lucky to have her in my life.
When the band broke up, she offered to help me go solo. I’d refused because I wanted a break from the music business and I wanted to be there for her. We used to sit in the sunroom of our house, me with my guitar strumming out ideas for songs, and her picking the ones she liked. She kept a notebook of lyrics on hand and every time she thought of something good, she’d add to it. That’s who I fell in love with. I wanted to be a better man for her. And I tried to be. I tried so fucking hard… And in the end, all I was left with were the memories and an empty house.
It’s been 20 years and I still miss her.
I still live in the house we bought together. I still write music occasionally. But I’m not much of a musician. I’m a better songwriter, so I sell most of what I write to other artists and I make an okay living off of it. Some days, I do think about reaching out to my old bandmates and getting back in the game. But I dunno. I’m getting pretty old and I’m not entirely convinced my heart would be in it.
I don’t really get out much. I’ve gone on about 3 dates in the 20 years since Shauna died… Maybe something could’ve come of them, but it just felt wrong… I know that I’m a wreck… I know that. But sometimes, it’s just hard to move on.
Karly is just about the only visitor I get who isn’t family. She’s been my next door neighbor for the past 3 years. She’s an alright girl. Long black hair. Good looking. Charming personality. She travels for work fairly often, but every time she comes back she comes knocking on my door, usually with a homecooked meal in hand.
Honestly, the girl’s a godsend.
I remember that the night before I had my first little ‘encounter’ she’d been over. She’d just gotten back from LA and had brought over some homecooked seafood linguini. I’d been more than happy to let her in and sit with her as she talked my ear off about her trip.
“Honestly. It was kinda fun. I’ve never worked with that studio before, but they were great! Plus, I got to work with Pepper again! So that’s always a treat!”
“Pepper?” I asked.
“You remember, the tiny blonde girl? She’s pretty in demand for some of the more hardcore scenes lately. And she’s flexible as hell…”
“Right, right.” I said, twiling some pasta onto my fork, “Well, suppose it’s nice that they were treating you alright. Sounds like it went better than your last shoot.”
She let out a dramatic sigh.
“Oh my God, that fucking guy is still texting me… Like… Dude. You work in porn too. When the camera’s off, we’re done! It’s unprofessional and I’ve already said something to my manager. I don’t have time to work with people who aren’t going to put in the goddamn effort to at least act professionally. The standards at Caliente are really dropping. It’s fucked up.”
“They don’t vet these people or something?” I asked, “I can’t imagine they’re actually getting random guys off the streets.”
“Supposedly they’re not. But who the fuck knows anymore?” She asked, shrugging, “Whatever… I’m over it. I’ve got a week at home, then I’m back in California for another shoot. So I’m just gonna enjoy my time off. Relax, and work on my novel.”
“You’re still doing that?” I asked.
“Yeah? Why not. I’ve got a life outside of porn, y’know.” She gave me a light kick under the table, “Besides. First one sold pretty good. I might just have a second career on my hands.”
“Well I hope like hell you do.” I said, cracking a small smile, “What’s this next one about anyways?”
“It’s sorta this fantasy, horror type story. It’s about this demon that lures planes into another world. Sorta like the Bermuda Triangle, y’know? Only the Triangle is this entity and it’s sentient and it feeds off these guys… It’s based on some dreams I’ve been having over the past couple of years. I’ve actually been really digging into the supernatural to help write it. Witchcraft, summoning rituals, exorcisms, stuff like that. I’ve even been speaking to this High Priestess of some occult group out in Ohio for research. I think this one’s gonna be a winner!”
“Sounds like it.” I said, “Well, can’t wait to read it. I thought the other one turned out pretty good. Never been much of a horror guy, but you do it pretty well.”
She put a hand over her chest and batted her eyelashes.
“Flatterer.” She said, “Speaking of hobbies… You been up to anything interesting?”
“Same old, same old.” I said, taking a piece of garlic bread to soak up the last of the pasta sauce on my plate.
“So, nothing?” She asked, “Brad, you really need to get out more.”
“And do what?” I asked, “Case you haven’t noticed, I’m not as into sex, drugs and rock and roll as I used to be.”
“And you can’t get a hobby that isn’t sex, drugs or rock and roll?” She asked, “Kinda limiting your options there. Y’know you could try birdwatching… Or keeping fish. Maybe get a dog, I dunno.”
“You know what I mean.” I said, “I’m good where I am right now.”
Karly gave me a dramatic leer over a forkful of pasta, with a solitary scallop impaled on it,
“This is me looking at you with doubt.” She said, “Do you see it? Do you see this doubtful look?”
I laughed.
“I’m fine. I promise.” I said.
She still didn’t look convinced, but at least she changed the subject.
After she left for the evening, I cleaned up the plates and tidied up the kitchen. Karly was good company, and her little visits always did lift my spirits a little. I never thought I’d be so happy to have a porn star for a neighbor, but she was a smart girl with a good head for business and a good heart. Much as I didn’t like her doting, I did appreciate it for what it was. It was nice to feel like someone out there gave a damn about me. As I ran the dishwasher and wiped down the table, I heard it. That old familiar chorus coming from somewhere deeper in the house.
“Why’d you have to go and fall in love with this unwonderful man? Why’d you have to go and fall in love…?”
I perked up a little bit, listening to the song. Was my computer playing it? Odd. I was the only one in the house and I’d never had either my computer or stereo play anything unpromoted before. And come to think of it, the song sounded different than usual. This wasn’t the version of the song that was on the record. For a moment, I wondered if it was a live recording, but I didn’t recall us ever releasing any live versions of the song… And the more I listened, the less certain I was listening to Mark’s voice.
It sounded more like Shauna… But there weren’t any recordings of her singing that song! She’d never performed it, not that I knew of, anyways. So why did it sound like her?
I left the kitchen and stepped out into the foyer, listening to the faint lyrics as they drifted from another room, echoing off the walls.
“I’m a sinner, I’m a monster, I’m the beast within my bones. And if you run away, could you ever find your way back home?”
I headed for the stairs. The music sounded just a little louder, and it sounded like it was going into the guitar solo… I’d been going for a sort of November Rain or Stairway to Heaven vibe with it, although I just heard silence in my house. There was no music accompanying this song and the voice just sang the final chorus.
“Why’d you have to go and fall in love with this unwonderful man? Why’d you have to go and fall in love…?”
As I reached the top of the stairs, the chorus ended and a heavy silence settled over the house. I checked the empty bedrooms but found nothing. No indicator as to where the singing had come from, and after coming up with no answers, I finally started to wonder if the whole thing hadn’t just been in my head.
To hell with it… It probably was just in my head. When was the last time I’d slept? I went back down into the kitchen to finish the cleaning, took a sleeping pill, and went to bed. I figured that come the next morning, I’d be right as rain. I hit the mattress and was out like a light.
“I am not a man deserving of your affection because when I look at myself all I see are imperfections. Can’t even tell you what I’m thinking without this sea of cliched couplets. You just need to look at me to know I’m not a poet.”
The opening lyrics of the song drifted through the house as I slowly eased back into the waking world. They echoed off the hollow walls, rousing me from my dreamless sleep and I stirred in my bedsheets, slowly opening my eyes and sitting up.
“What you deserve so much better than what I could give you. And if I mean it when I say I love you, then I should just move on without you.”
“Shauna…” My voice was hoarse and weak as I sat up in bed.
The voice I heard sounded exactly like hers.
“Shauna?” I asked again.
“Why’d you have to go and fall in love with this unwonderful man? Why’d you have to go and fall in love…?”
The voice faded away as I stumbled out of bed, still groggy from the morning and a little out of it, thanks to the sleeping pill.
‘You’re hallucinating, Brad… This is some sort of auditory hallucination.’ I remember thinking. But I’d never had anything like that happen to me before. This was something brand new.
“Shauna?” I asked again, quietly hoping for a response as I shuffled out into the hall. For a moment, I thought I saw movement somewhere, but I couldn’t be sure. The house was empty just as it always was…
I’d been to Karly’s house a few times, although never that early in the morning. It was around 6 AM when I knocked on her door. I could see her behind the glass, coming to answer. She was dressed in a cozy looking, food stained sweater with long sweatpants and thick fuzzy socks that toed the line between socks and slippers.
“Morning Brad, you doing alright?” She asked as she answered the door. She looked like she hadn’t been up for long.
“I think I’m going crazy…” I replied.
“Crazy, huh?” She asked as she let me in, “What’s on your mind?”
Karly’s house had sort of a cozy feel to it, with lots of houseplants and comfortable looking chairs. There were various books scattered all over the place. I almost got the impression that she had a different book for every chair.
“I heard something last night.” I said, “A voice, in my house. Singing…”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Singing.” She repeated, “You sure you didn’t just leave the stereo on, old timer?”
“No.” I said, “The voice I heard… It was Shauna’s. She was singing my song. Unwonderful Man. She was singing it.”
Karly just stared blankly at me, before taking a sip of her tea.
“Did you try sleeping?” She asked, “People’s brains get weird when they’re tired.”
“Course I tried sleeping it off. I heard it again when I woke up this morning. And I saw something moving in the hall… Hard to describe it. Just… Movement, but no source… I don’t know… Christ…”
“You been taking anything?” Karly asked skeptically.
“A sleeping pill last night. Just one. I take them every now and again for my insomnia and I’ve never had anything like this before.” I said, “I don’t know if it was a hallucination or what… I just…”
I paused, then sighed. Karly put a hand on my shoulder.
“You just need to talk.” She said. I hesitated for a moment before nodding.
“Yeah…”
“Have you been thinking about Shauna a lot lately?” She asked.
“Not much more than usual.” I said, “Sometimes I listen to the song… But that’s really it.”
“Right. You’re being an old guy wallowing in his own misery.” She said, before thinking for a moment, “Have you ever noticed anything like this before?”
“Maybe?” I said, stopping to think about it, “Couple times when I’ve been by myself, I thought I heard another voice in the house… But I never thought too hard on it. Never saw a ghost, or anything like that if that’s what your asking. Never noticed things moving around without my touching them.”
Karly nodded.
“Right… I’m gonna be brutally honest, Brad. It probably is all in your head. But if you want reassurance, we could try a seance.”
I actually laughed at that.
“A seance?” I asked.
“Sure. Why not?” She said, “Look… I think it’s pretty obvious that you want to believe that this is something it isn’t and that’s why you’re here. So I can tell you that it’s all in your head, right? Or maybe so I can tell you that you need to go to a doctor.”
“Do I?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Are you having any other symptoms you can’t explain? Cuz if so, yes. Otherwise… Well. Brad, I love you honey. But you’re not exactly the picture of mental health.”
“Gee… Thanks…”
“You came here for honesty. I’m just being honest!” She said, “So my thought process here is that a seance might… I don’t know. Put your mind at ease. Give you proof that this isn’t Shauna’s ghost coming back for you, or something like that. And once you’ve sorta cemented that in your head, you’ll stop moping about and start living your life again. It’s never too late to adopt a dog!”
I was silent for a moment, before sighing. I’d heard crazier ideas, and I figured this ‘seance’ would be a good excuse for me to cook an actual meal. Why the hell not?
“Alright.” I said, “Let’s try this seance thing… See if it works.”
She patted me on the shoulder.
“There we go! See? That’s the spirit!”
She laughed at her own dumb pun and to be honest, it got me cracking up too.
We’d agreed to try our seance that evening, and I’d made a roast ham for the occasion. As I cooked, I thought I’d heard the song from somewhere in the house and had followed it, but it faded quickly. Like before, I never found its source.
Karly showed up around 6 with a plate of stuffed mushrooms and we’d had a lighthearted supper. I’d mentioned hearing Shauna’s voice again, and that had led to a discussion of how the seance was going to go.
“I’m pretty new to this, but according to the book I’ve got, you need candles, incense and of course, a spirit board.”
I gave her a blank stare as she showed me the ouija board she’d brought.
“Karly, that’s a children’s game.” I’d said.
“You got a better way to allegedly talk to the dead? Because if you’ve got Satan’s phone number, feel free to share it.” She replied.
“Pretty sure it’s 666.” I said, and she just chuckled.
“Well, let’s not try dialing that into the phone, okay? Just don’t disrespect the classics. You never know what secrets this world holds.”
“Whatever you say.” I replied.
We finished our supper and when we were done, we set out the ouija board. Karly lit the candles and the incense, before dimming the lights for effect. She burned some sage to ‘cleanse the area’ before sitting before the board. Once she was ready, we both set our hands upon the planchette.
“Alright…” She said, “Breathe softly. In and out… Clear your mind of distractions, and open it to whatever is to come…”
I just gave a half nod as she began her work.
“I call upon any spirits in this house to honor us with your presence this evening.”
There was no response. Strangely enough, I’d almost expected one… Perhaps that was silly of me.
“I call again upon any spirits in this house to honor us with your presence this evening,” Karly said, her eyes closed.
The planchette didn’t move.
But I heard the voice again. Far away, drifting from somewhere deeper in the house.
“I am not a man deserving of your affection because when I look at myself all I see are imperfections. Can’t even tell you what I’m thinking without this sea of cliched couplets. You just need to look at me to know I’m not a poet.”
Karly’s eyes opened and I could see the color draining from her face as she looked over her shoulder.
She heard it too.
We both looked around as the singing came from nowhere. It was clearer than before, and there was no doubt that it was Shauna’s voice.
“What you deserve so much better than what I could give you. And if I mean it when I say I love you, then I should just move on without you.”
“Shauna?” I said softly, slowly standing up. Karly reached out to grab my wrist, stopping me from following the voice. The grave expression on her face looked out of place. She didn’t just look terrified. She looked worried.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She gave me a look that made it clear the question was kind of dumb.
“Why’d you have to go and fall in love with this unwonderful man? Why’d you have to go and fall in love…?”
“This isn’t normal…” She said quietly, “This shouldn’t be possible… This wasn’t…” She trailed off.
“You hear it too.” I said, “Karly… What the hell do I do now?”
“I don’t know…” She said, “I don’t…”
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“We need to leave. I’ve got to talk to some people, figure out what to do and you… You need to get out of here.”
“What?” I asked, “Why? It’s Shauna!”
“Maybe it is. I don’t know! But this isn’t normal! Brad, you know that this isn’t normal!” She said, “This kind of stuff can be dangerous. Trust me. I’ve seen it before.”
“You’ve seen it before?” I asked, pulling away from her, “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?”
“I’ve seen more than enough to know that I believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe that this was a real ghost.” She clarified, “Brad, I know you miss her. But this isn’t the kind of thing you fuck around with.”
“You’re the one who suggested a seance,” I said.
“Well, I didn’t think it would actually work! Christ… I…” She rubbed her temples and sighed, “Please, just get a hotel for the night, okay? Hell, you can stay at my place if you want to! Just don’t stay here!”
I looked back towards the sound of the voice. I could still hear Shauna singing.
“Fine…” I said quietly, “Let me just pack my things and I’ll be on my way…”
“You mean it?” She asked.
“I mean it.” I said, “You do what you’ve got to do and call me when you know more.”
She was quiet for a moment longer before giving a curt nod.
“Alright.” She said.
She left a few minutes later, hastily packing up her things and leaving.
I quietly moved my car to the garage and turned out the lights so it would seem like I wasn’t home. I didn’t want Karly knocking on my door again, telling me to leave. My wife was there with me… I had no intention of going anywhere.
Shauna’s voice had faded again by the time I was fully alone in the house. I’d left my phones ringer on in case Karly called me. She’d sent me a few texts, asking if I’d left and I told her I had. She seemed to buy it, since she didn’t ask again.
I’d gotten my guitar and come down to my living room with it. I’d gotten comfortable on my old couch and strummed the chords of ‘This Unwonderful Man’ gently, hoping that maybe Shauna would hear it and come back to me. I swore I could hear her voice faintly coming from somewhere in the house, but it was hard to say for sure… I played the song over and over again, silently begging her to come back to me. A few times, I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Shadows in the shadows… It was hard to be sure if it was really her or just my imagination, though… When the silence became too much, I sang the song myself, praying I’d hear her voice singing along with mine… But I never did.
I fell asleep on the couch that night, my guitar in my lap and the sound of the gentle rain outside lulling me into a dreamless slumber.
“I am not a man deserving of your affection because when I look at myself all I see are imperfections.”
The voice woke me up again. Distant, but inside the house.
“Shauna?” I asked hopefully. I checked my phone. It was around 4 in the morning.
“Can’t even tell you what I’m thinking without this sea of cliched couplets. You just need to look at me to know I’m not a poet.”
My hands fumbled with the fretboard as I started to strum the song along with her. When she sang the next verse, she sounded closer.
“What you deserve so much better than what I could give you. And if I mean it when I say I love you, then I should just move on without you.”
I kept playing, listening with bated breath as the voice got closer to me. She was coming! She was really coming! The room seemed brighter suddenly. It was her spirit! Shauna was with me again! I could feel the tears filling my eyes, knowing that she’d finally come back to me… After all these years, she’d finally come back to me… Even if she was gone, she was there for me… Finally… Finally…
“Why’d you have to go and fall in love with this unwonderful man? Why’d you have to go and fall in love…?”
The light in the room grew brighter and brighter… And I could feel her with me! I could feel it! I could feel…
Burning…
“Why’d you have to go and fall in love with this unwonderful man? Why’d you have to go and fall in love…?”
The voice sounded wrong now… Distorted. Warped. My skin tingled, like pins and needles. The burning sensation grew more intense and it became harder to play. It hurt! Dear God, it hurt! Why did it hurt so badly? Why would Shauna do this to me?
“Shauna…?” I asked, my voice raspy and hoarse.
The light grew brighter and standing at the top of my stairs, I swore I could see a figure looking down at me.
It wasn’t Shauna.
I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t my wife. It seemed to have no features at all. The light that came off of it was blinding. My skin was burning. The light grew brighter. I heard myself screaming as the distorted voice grew louder and louder and I realized that I was dying…
Oh god…
Oh God, I was dying…
The tears that streamed down my cheeks became tears of the most miserable kind of self pity as I realized that this was how I was going to die. If it hadn’t been whatever it was that was impersonating Shauna, it would’ve been something else. What a miserable life, confined to a house, wallowing in my own misery… I never got to live again. And up until that moment, I’d never wanted to.
Funny, it’s only when you’re staring at death that you realize you’re not ready. There was nothing I could do to fight it, though. My skin burned. My body burned… And I stopped fighting it.
I let it take me…
“ENOUGH!”
Karly’s voice cut through the music that filled my ears, “YOU SHALL NOT TOUCH HIM!”
The scent of sage filled my nose, and the light around me seemed to dim.
“I invoke the name of the Ancient Guardian to cast you out! I invoke the Wolf! I invoke the Pale to cast you back into the Midnight!”
I looked over to see her standing in the hall, brandishing a stick of burning stage with both hands. Despite the power in her words… Karly looked anything but confident. She looked terrified. She seemed to stumble over the words as if she had no idea if any of this would work.
The figure at the top of the stairs stared down at her, but it didn’t shrink back. I saw its head tilt to the side and for a moment, I was sure it was smiling.
“You’ve no idea what you’re doing, little whore…” It said, and when it spoke, the voice it used was not Shauna’s. It was something else entirely. Neither male nor female.
Karly stared up at the figure and watched as it began to descend the stairs. I could see the look of fear in her eyes growing more intense as the light began to spread again. She watched it, mouth hanging slightly agape. The sage burned in her hand. The figure reached the bottom of the stairs. I saw her take a step back, before glancing at me.
What she did next seemed to be a motion of pure, dumb instinct. Not really a thought out plan. Just a knee jerk panic reaction.
As the figure approached her, she swung the sage stick at it. They effortlessly swatted the stick aside, knocking it onto the couch beside me. The embers smoldered on the fabric, before beginning to catch.
I saw the figure reaching for Karly, grasping her by the throat and I heard her scream in pain.
My skin still burned, but the smell of fire and the sound of Karly’s screams finally compelled me to move. I grabbed my guitar off the floor. Every movement I made felt like dragging my feet through concrete. But I needed to do it. I swung the guitar as hard as I could, letting it shatter against the back of the figure. It didn’t make a sound, although it flinched. Just enough so that Karly could slip out of its grasp. I could see its head turning towards me, and I stumbled back a step.
“Run…” I heard Karly gasp, and I didn’t need to be told twice.
The figure took a step toward me, but I was already moving. The fire had begun to engulf my couch, and I rounded it, avoiding the figure as I sprinted for the door.
Karly was just up ahead, waiting for me, a look of terror on her face.
“Brad!”
Shauna’s voice echoed through the house behind me and I looked back. Where the figure stood, now stood Shauna… As beautiful as she’d been the day I’d lost her. The fire lit her from behind, making her seem almost ethereal in the surreal light.
“Don’t go!” She cried, her voice cracking as though she were on the verge of tears, “Don’t leave me!”
I couldn’t muster up the words to speak…
I felt Karly grabbing my hand to pull me away, and I let her take me. We ran out the front door together, leaving the house and the figure behind to burn.
“You know, you’re too damn stubborn for your own good…” Karly said as we watched the firefighters put out the blaze from her porch. She’d been nice enough to make me some coffee that kept me warm in the early hours of the morning.
“I know…” I said softly, “I just thought… I thought it might actually be her…”
She sighed and patted me on the shoulder.
“Do you know what it was?” I asked hopefully.
“I’ve got a vague idea.” She said, “After I left your place, I called my friend in Ohio. She said it sounded like a kind of Demon she’d heard about. Something called a Grovewalker… That’s about as much as I know. I was looking up ways to get rid of it when I noticed the light show at your house.”
I nodded and took a sip of my coffee.
“Well… Thanks for risking your neck for me…” I said.
“Yeah, well I wasn’t going to let you die, you old coot… Who’d I cook for?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that.
The fire did a lot of damage to the house, and Karly said she’d find someone who might know how to ensure that whatever it was that I saw that morning wouldn’t come back. Despite everything, I do want to keep the house. It’s still my home. But I’d like to spend less time in it.
I reached out to my old bandmate Mark. He’s still trying to make it in the music business. We haven’t really discussed getting Ramshackle back together, but we’ll see. For now… I’d just like to have some more friends.
I’ve been staying in a cheap apartment while the house gets repaired, although I visit Karly whenever she’s home. When she’s not, I’ve got other ways to keep myself busy. My computer and most of my record collection burned up in the fire. I haven’t listened to ‘This Unwonderful Man’ since and honestly, I don’t miss it. Instead, I took Karly’s advice and adopted a dog. I named him Leon. He keeps me busy and gives me a reason to wake up and get out a little more. He’s actually helped me a lot, when it comes to recovering from everything… So I guess that’s one more thing that Karly was right about. It’s never too late to adopt a dog.
I still need time… But I think I’m going to be okay.