Ever seen a ghost? Brian has and he's none-too-happy about it. But, here's the thing about ghosts...they don't care if you're happy or not.

“Damn it...”
            Prying open tired eyes, Brian groaned. A bass drum pounded inside his skull, making mincemeat of his brain as the alarm clock next to the bed buzzed in anger. His arm flew out, slapping the crap out of the piece of truth-telling technology. It crashed to the floor, buzzing all the way down, its life cord taking the empty Wild Turkey bottle from the night before along with it.
            “Damn it,” he moaned, rolling to face a window that leaked sunshine through a slit in the heavy curtains.
            “Please,” a soft, rasping voice breathed.
            The voice cut through his exhausted brain, leaving pain so intense he was forced to hold the sides of his head. He wished it was all a dream, but knew better. Dreams were for those lucky people who didn’t live lives as hard as his. Sitting up, he rocked back and forth, putting pressure on his temples.
            “Please don’t leave me, Brian.”
            Tears filled his eyes, burning them as if they were a foreign substance to his body. Drops of salty fluid ran down his unshaven face, leaving trails of wetness behind.
            They wanted him. All of them did, especially her. They wanted what they could get from him, what he could do for them. They wanted him to become one of them.
            “Brian, please—”
            “Stop it!” he screamed, pressing harder against the sides of his head. “Just stop. God. Please. Just stop.”
            “I miss you so.”
            “No,” he moaned. “Just leave me alone.”
            “Get up,” the voice rasped. “Get up and join us. Don’t leave us alone.”
            Brian ran his hands over his face, wiping the tears he’d shed into the depths of his skin. Opening his eyes, he found he was alone. A strip of morning sunlight stretched lazily across the sheets of his bed. He shivered, naked against the frigid air, a tale-tell sign that there had been others in the room with him. He swept a pair of jeans off the floor, pulling them on one leg at a time as he walked into the bathroom.
            Pissing away the Wild Turkey from the night before, he pulled himself together. He needed a shower in the worst way, but the clock on his nightstand told him that would be impossible. So, instead, he settled for brushing his teeth and slapping deodorant under his arms. He heard the raspy voice again; begging, pleading, and demanding obedience.
            He ignored it, pulling on tee shirt and tennis shoes, readying himself to get the hell out of here before he succumbed to it. Swiping up his keys, he threw open the door and stepped into the morning sunshine. Pulling the door closed behind him, he inhaled air off of heated asphalt, a little vehicle exhaust, a hint of mowed grass. Beautiful.
            The hotel parking lot was littered with a few beat-up vehicles. His heap of junk sat in front of his room, dented and rusted. Climbing inside, he coaxed the vehicle to life and pulled out onto the highway. The car rattled in protest, squeaking and squalling as he stopped at intersections and steered around curves.
            Eventually, he made it where he was going. Shutting the damn thing off, he climbed out and slammed the door behind him. The old thing wouldn’t last much longer, he knew, but for now, it was all that kept him from walking.
            He opened the door to the local courthouse and slid inside. The busy atmosphere was almost overwhelming. Though the county was rural, the place was packed. Pissed off citizens sat on wooden benches against the old wall, waiting for whatever fate the local government planned on handing them. Brian strode past them, occasionally bumping into a suited and brief-cased human being as he made his way to a room filled with huge, thick volumes that held the county’s history. A couple of computer monitors stood on a corner table in the far side of the room. He took a seat in front of one of them and tapped the keyboard to life, telling it what he wanted done. After a few moments, he hit pay dirt. He clicked the print command, waited, then scooped up the sheet of paper that was spat out with aching slowness. He handed the lady at the desk two bucks for the printed page and left.
            He threaded herds of people on his way out, climbed back into his rusted heap, and drove to the first address listed on the printed page. He parked the car under a huge shade tree and walked.
            Headstones, some large and overdone, some small and almost invisible, soldiered the area. A couple of stone mausoleums guarded the center of the county’s internment for the dead. Some more extravagant, some more humble, but what lay beneath the earth was always the same; decomposed flesh and bone, mementos of love and affection, and the encasements that held all of them safely from the light of day. Walking and studying the writing on the stones took more time than he liked, but finally, he was able to confirm he was in the wrong place.
            He crawled back into his car and hit the next cemetery on the list. Behind a large grove of trees, on a gravel road about five miles on the outskirts of town, he found it. Black, iron-rail fencing surrounded twenty-some headstones that jutted from the earth, chipped and broken, half-hidden by tall weeds no one bothered to cut.
            “And they wonder why the dead are so restless.”