The Bad Man in the Garden

The Ryan family probably didn’t deserve to die. Carl didn’t think so, at least. They seemed like nice enough people, and their boy, a cheerful lad named Shane, reminded Carl of a child he’d known long ago in Germany.

Carl supposed he could have prevented them from moving into the house, but he had not. The house was not opposed to them, and so Carl was not opposed to them. It was not his place to defy the will of any of the other ghosts or the house itself. And he’d thought that perhaps things could be different. Maybe things would change.

It had been a long time since the Andersons were in the house. A long time since the house had taken out its anger on the living who found themselves there. Vivienne and the Dark Ones had been very quiet for years. Things could have been different.

But they weren’t.

There was little Carl could do for the boy inside the house. He was not in a position to stand up against everything in the cellar or the girl in the pond. But, as it happened, that was not all young Shane Ryan had to worry about.

Shane’s torment had already begun. He was just a boy, but the Dark Ones didn’t care. The girl in the pond didn’t care. That had been proven time and again in the past. Thaddeus and Eloise were testaments to the girl’s cruelty. Death was death to her; the victim’s age did not matter. What they had done did not matter. Her only goal was to make them suffer.

Carl had lost some sense of humanity when he died. He felt its absence in him but could not account for it. It was like realizing something important had been forgotten before going on a big trip abroad, but not being able to remember what.

He felt differently than he had when he was alive but could not explain what or why. He thought perhaps it was a profound indifference. Had he always felt such indifference to life? He couldn’t say. But it was not complete indifference. He felt something for the boy, Shane. A sense of guilt, maybe. Carl knew what the house could do to Shane, and it did not sit well.

The parents were another matter. Carl did not know them, but they were adults. They had bought the house. They walked into a situation they had created for themselves, and it was their problem to deal with. Sink or swim, Carl thought. But the boy? He had no choice.

Carl had grown fond of Eloise and Thaddeus. They were not evil. They had not deserved to die. Nor had he, but he understood that his death was partially his doing. He had allowed Anderson to dupe him, and he’d paid for it. Did this child deserve the same? Carl did not think so.

“There is a man in the garden,” Shane told his mother once, his voice cracking with fear. They had been in the house only a short time, and it seemed to Carl that the child had taken a preference to spending more time outside than in. The house could torment him less outdoors.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” his mother said. “We own this whole property, and sometimes, trespassers will cut through. Just stay away and don’t worry so much.”

“But—” Shane began. His mother would hear none of it.

Carl watched from the walls, curious to how the boy would react. He had not seen a man in the yard, but he had not been looking for one, either. The property was large, the garden covered a lot of ground, and Carl kept most of his focus indoors.

“Have you seen a man in the garden?” he asked Eloise, as the mother sent young Shane on his way.

“Sometimes,” she said. “There’s a ghost that wanders there. He’s not from the house.”

“Where is he from?” Carl asked. There were spirits in the cemetery, but they stayed in the cemetery.

“I don’t know. I’m not expected to go everywhere he goes,” Eloise pointed out.

“I have never seen him.”

“You wouldn’t,” she replied. “I don’t think he likes adults.”

The words left a sour taste in Carl’s mouth. A ghost that only appeared to children was a ghost he did not trust. The urge to remain hidden made sense, but not the urge to remain hidden from adults both living and dead.

“What does he want?”

“I believe he wants to hurt people,”