Money Is Only Paper
By Zaida Lysle

An eerie tale about a bad conscience's overpowering influence

The rainstorm was conspicuously absent and the glass screen door was not pelted with water splotches. The old man frowned. He didn't have the energy to drag himself completely outside, as he had done nights before, to find nothing amiss. He just stood there, looking out through the dry glass. The yard was quiet and still. No songbirds, or hooting owls, no whispering wind to rustle its way through the blooming lilacs. The crabapple tree was breathtaking, even in intense darkness, but stood sentinel without stirring. The old man recognized the irony, because just moments before, twigs and turbulent wind gusts pattered the windowpanes. The whole house rattled. The noise had awakened him. He awoke clutching at his chest. Now you could almost hear an angel fart. He shook his head in disbelief, unsettled by the sudden stillness. It was a little too quiet. It felt like death.

He quickly shut and bolted the front door. A shiver ran through him. He knew he'd never be able to get back to sleep again, after having his rest so abruptly disturbed. And he knew it would only happen again. It usually did. There was something even more eerie about this night. The old man felt it in the pit of his stomach. Ever since Cass had passed away, he'd been afraid she would come back for him. After leaving her in that awful place, she'd said the most vicious things to him, wished all the horrors of the underworld upon him. She'd gotten too ill to care for, and after all, was he expected to be a nursemaid? He might have found a nicer facility in which to desert her, but he had to think of him didn't he? There was only so much mileage to their resources.

The old man shuddered. He thought now that he might have done things differently, had he known she was not going to last very long, but how could he know this? And she couldn't have expected him to drive that immense distance every week to see her, what with the price of gasoline being so astronomical. He'd done the best that he could do for Cass. Instead of haunting him, she should have been grateful, yes grateful. After all, she'd never worked, whatever money he hoarded was earned by the sweat of his own brow, not hers. Instead of gratitude, she chose to rattle cupboards, hide his belongings where he could not find them, even leave shoes and toppled objects in his path, in the hopes he would fall and spit his head open. He'd already twisted an ankle and was painfully hobbled.

And now it began again in earnest, the clanging and banging upon crystal panes, the howling of the wind. It was always the same. He wondered how much longer the house would stand this abuse, without crumbling in on its foundation. It was as if the violence of an invisible twister were being unleashed upon it. The old man covered his ears, wrung his trembling hands. He pawed at his palpitating chest. He began to shriek at the top of his lungs, “Stop it! Stop it!”

Then, at once, it all just ceased. He limped into the kitchen, to pour himself two fingers of scotch. Draining the glass he balanced his unsteady legs by clapping a hand to the countertop. In the reflection of the glass cabinet door, he saw her face as clear as a bell. He belted out a stunned scream. A second look determined the apparition was laughing at him. Her gray face and hollow eyes vibrated in amusement. He covered his eyes with his hands and by the time he drew them away, she was gone. His heart struggled to right itself.

What could he do about this? He had clipped a number out of the classified ads that very morning. Miss Suki, the ad had read, Medium and psychic advisor, The Silvia Brown of the Orient. The next morning, the old man picked up the phone and dialed. The voice on the other end of the phone sounded pleasant enough, at first. “I be there by twelve, but I make you no guarantee,” she warned. “Some spirits very testy Mr. Carter. They not always go into light first time I tell them, this going to cost you big time.” The old man frowned, and then he let out a long hard sigh. This was the third psychic he'd summoned since Cass had passed away. The others had made him no promises either.

“Very well,” he moaned. “Don't be big cheapskate Mr. Carter. In afterlife, money is only paper,” she snapped. “Ghosts very expensive. If you spend lots of money on wife when she alive, maybe she not haunt you now.” The old man could not argue with her logic. Cass had had to beg for every penny he'd ever given her and he rarely agreed upon the amount she requested. “Twelve o'clock,” Miss Suki spat, “On nose too, I not like people, who always late.”

The morning passed with the usual, or one might say, unusual fare. A vase slipped off a living room shelf as the old man went by, and nearly clocked him on the head. His bank statement disappeared from the desktop, or was ferried off by invisible hands. And one of the stove burners suspiciously lit itself up every now and then. His nerves were frayed by the sound of the doorbell, though he had expected it to ring. It was exactly twelve o'clock. A tiny olive-skinned woman in a Yankees tee-shirt and jeans assertively entered. Her dark eyes were framed by tiny lines; her hair was short and shimmering.

Miss Suki wasted no time. She explored the house from top to bottom, grumbling words in Cantonese under her breath. Finally as she descended the stairs she exclaimed, “This major poltergeist you got here Mister Carter, very volatile situation. This woman want kill you. What you do to her to make her so mad at you anyhow?” The old man put his head down and brushed the few thin strands at the top of his scalp away with a twitching hand. He went directly to the dining room table and dropped into one of the chairs there. “There's no need for insignificant questions,” he said. “I just want to be rid of this, this thing.” As submissive as Cass had been in life, he found it hard to articulate what he was feeling about her. He just wanted her gone.

“Ha,” Miss Suki ranted, taking the seat directly opposite him. “You wish it be so easy. This ghost very pissed off Mr. Carter. She want you filleted and deep-fried afterwards, maybe she too strong for me.” Taking articles from a duffel bag she shook her head with great concern. “I not know if I can save you.” The old man fell immediately into sobs. “Okay, okay,” she said, handing him a Kleenex from out of her bag. “It not so bad, she only ghost after all. She not Wonder Woman. I see what I can do for you.”

With that Miss Suki's head dropped down upon the table top with a loud thump, and she began moaning and groaning. When she lifted her head again, her face was expressionless. She spoke in a voice completely void of any distinguishable accent. Her voice was remarkably octaves lower too. The old man watched in horror for he saw upon the woman's face a look that brought along with it, unmistakable familiarity. “Cass,” he whimpered.

She arched an eyebrow and grinned, then finally stood erect. The old man began to clutch at his chest. It was throbbing. There was a heaviness inside him that felt as if someone had suddenly laid a stone there. She finally spoke out in a deep raspy voice. She began to recite:

“I promise to love and cherish you, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, and forsaking all others, keeping myself only unto you, for so long as we both shall live.”

The old man recognized the vows immediately. The words stung, and gasping, he keeled over. He laid sprawled face-down, his nose pressed against the polished oak. Miss Suki shook off the trance and began ransacking through the old man's pockets. She cleaned the house of whatever money and valuables she could find. She headed straight for the door, and clutching a rather large wad of cash in a greedy little hand, she whispered, “You not need this Mr. Carter, where you are now money is only paper.”

Z.B. Lysle is a female Fiction Novelist, who as of yet, has not completed either of two Horror/fantasy novels. She also writes Short Stories, Poetry, Haiku and Tanka.Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe are Her favorite authors. She's a book worm who loves to read the classics and a middle aged mother/student at work on a degree in the humanities. She hope to one day teach English or work with the minorities.