Chapter 1
Darkness. Everywhere you looked, there was nothing but a never ending darkness. There was no moon or sun nor stars to light up the sky. There were no artificial lights coming from lampposts or storefronts. And the familiar glow of the lights hanging above the front doors of what used to be people's homes had gone out a long time ago.
But the silence was far more dreadful than any darkness. Nary a sound could be heard, giving the world the feeling that its time had truly come to an end.
The bleak stillness was interrupted by an old sedan making its way down the road.
Inside the badly rusted car Ray was scanning the radio, hoping to find any signs of life. Every station he came upon, however, was filled with nothing but irritating static.
Lacey, who was sitting in the passenger seat, stared judgingly at her husband.
Even after scanning through all of the stations, Ray continued to search.
"You're never going to find anything, Raymond," said Lacey.
"You never know," replied Ray. "One of these days we might find something. Maybe someone figured out how to send an SOS."
Lacey turned her gaze out the window. The light from the car's headlights helped to illuminate only a small portion of the quaint suburbs the two were traveling through, but it was far better than the smothering void the couple had become accustomed to.
"Remember when we were young and we'd take those late night drives?" asked Lacey. "This kind of reminds me of that."
"What makes you so sure it's night?" asked Ray. "Every minute of the day is pitch black. It could be two in the afternoon, for all you know." Ray then sighed. "My internal clock hasn't been this out of whack since high school. I used to stay awake until four or five in the morning during summer break. My mom would let me sleep in. One time I didn't wake up until dinner time."
"That wasn't my point," said Lacey. "When we would go on those drives, we had no idea how long our trips would be or where we would end up. We kind of just let fate decide for us."
"That is a horrible way to live," remarked Ray.
"Don't be that way," said Lacey. "Why don't you turn off the radio so we can talk? I'd do it myself, but . . . you know." Being a ghost, Lacey had very limited abilities in the world of the living.
Ray turned off the radio. "Okay, what do you wanna talk about?" he asked.
"I don't know," replied Lacey, who was a bit taken aback by being put on the spot. "Hear any good jokes recently?"
"From who?" asked Ray. "You're the only human contact I've had in who knows how long."
"I've got a good one," said Lacey. "You're gonna love this. Who do fish worship?"
"I don't know," said Ray. "Fish Jesus?"
"What? No. Cod. Get it? Like God, but cod, because cod is a type of fish."
"That was hilarious," said Ray, sounding less than enthused.
"Okay, then you come up with a better one, Mr. Sour Puss," said Lacey.
"How about a riddle? Timmy's father buys his son nine marbles, but Timmy loses two of them. How many marbles does Timmy have left?"
"That's easy," said Lacey. "Timmy's got seven marbles left."
"Wrong. Timmy has zero marbles left."
"What?" asked Lacey. "That doesn't make any sense. Nine minus two is seven. How can Timmy have zero marbles left?"
"Because Timmy's father took the rest of the marbles away from him. He works way too damn hard for that stupid kid to be losing them like that."
Lacey began laughing. "Okay, I'll give it to you," she said. "That one was pretty good. But it was more of a math problem with a mean answer than a riddle."
"I always was the funny one in the relationship," said Ray, a smile now upon his face.
"Whatever," replied Lacey.
The moment of levity was much needed at such a time, but it was very short lived as merely looking out the window was enough to bring Lacey's spirits back down.
"You ever look at these houses and imagine what the people who lived there were like?" asked Lacey. "Like what kind of lives they lived, or what kinds of dreams they once had."
"Hmm," said Ray, who was again staring at the radio.
"I swear, sometimes I wish I still had my physical body so I could strangle you," said Lacey.
"Honestly, I try not to think about stuff like that," replied Ray. "A situation like this one doesn't really need a bunch of backstories to take us to the next level of misery."
"I know it's bleak, like really bleak, but you shouldn't have such a defeatist mentality," said Lacey. "We're still here, after all. There has to be a reason why this stupid house hasn't gobbled us up like it has with everyone else."
"It's pretty difficult not to have a defeatist mentality at a time like this," said Ray. "The fact that we're still alive, or . . . you know, is kind of like being down two thousand to nothing in a basketball game with only two minutes left on the clock. Yeah, it ain't over, but let's be real, it's over."
"See, now you're looking on the bright side of things," said a now smiling Lacey, prompting Ray to give her a look.
Amongst all of the houses blanketed by darkness in the distance, one of them was visible. A flicker of light could be seen through one of the windows, producing just enough light to illuminate a portion of the front of the house.
"Raymond, stop the car," said Lacey.
Ray slammed on the brakes, which sent his body jerking forward. Only by the narrowest of margins did he miss slamming into the steering wheel. "What is it?" he asked, his heart beating rapidly.
Lacey's eyes were wide after witnessing the display. "Holy crap, Raymond," she said. "I knew you were wound tight, but I didn't know you were wound that tight."
"You told me to stop the car," said Ray.
"Yeah, I told you to stop the car, not slam on the brakes like there was someone in the middle of the road."
"Then why did you tell me to stop?" asked Ray.
"That light, do you see it?" asked Lacey, pointing at something in the distance.
Ray squinted to better see what it was that Lacey could see. "I'm not seeing anything," replied Ray. "Maybe you have the ability to see things that I can't."
"Yes, Raymond, I have ghost vision that works like binoculars," Lacey said sarcastically.
In the blink of an eye, the flicker grew to a size where Ray could easily see it. And it wasn't before long when the light had grown so bright that it was evident that a fire had started inside of the house.
