Chet Williamson - Reign

But Abe didn't let the time element stop him. He told the priest everything he could remember, fifty years worth of sins, ending with the tormenting that had driven Harry Ruhl to his death.

The priest gave him absolution. Though Abe didn't see how a few spoken words on the priest's part and a few more spoken on his own could save his soul from hell, he was quite willing to go along with the deal, and felt much better as he left the church.

He felt better for all of three hours, until he tried to go to sleep, and the guilt came back to torture him again, robbing him of sleep, making his stomach feel cold with a coldness that neither whiskey nor tea could warm.

After he found Cristina dead, he thought that might be the end of it, that it might have been God's way of punishing him, by taking one of the only things that he loved and killing it. But after a while, he didn't think that God would really do that, especially if the priest said that he was forgiven.

Abe enjoyed the time away from the Venetian Theatre, after Mr. Hamilton had decided to close the place up and go back to New York. He watched a lot of television and read some books, since when he did those things he couldn't think about what had happened at the theatre. When Mrs. Deems called and told him when they would be coming back, he discovered that he did not want to return to the theatre, because, as he had learned to believe in God again, so he had also learned to believe in the existence of something else supernatural, the very things with which he had teased Harry Ruhl.

Abe Kipp had learned to believe in ghosts.

It made no difference that he had been working in the Venetian Theatre for decades and had never seen a trace of evidence of the reality of spirits. That was then and this was now, and Abe, his shell of materialism cracked by Harry Ruhl's death and his resultant reacceptance of his childhood faith, felt the same fear at being alone in the theatre as he had forty years before when Billy Potts had told him the ghost stories for the first time…

They'll come ta getcha, Abe, don'tcha turn yer back. They'll getcha sure you don't watch out and be careful and say yer prayers and carry a cross…

And he had carried a cross, in spite of his disbelief after the war, a little gold one that had belonged to his mother. And each time he went into the theatre alone he had said prayers to a god in whom he did not believe, and looked over his shoulder a thousand times a day, looked for the Big Swede…

His head 'n chest's all messed up, crunched by that sandbag 'at kilt 'im. He got jes half a face, I seen it oncet, and the half thet's left smiles at ya when he tries to push ya offa the flies down onta the stage where he died…

… looked for the Blue Darling…

She's so damn pretty you think it's a little girl got lost and is lookin' for her mama, wears a pretty blue dress and got pretty blue eyes, and she reaches out to take yer hand, but don't you let her. She touched me oncet, and her hand was jes's cold as the grave cuz' at's where she's from, come to see aVaudeville ' n fell offa the balcony. ..

… looked, especially, for Mad Mary, the worst of all…

Just lookin' at her makes ya half crazy yerself. She was a actress whose boyfriend left her 'n she found out about it here in this theatre 'n she waited after the show till everyone else left and then she hanged herself offa the balcony where them flats are. I knew the guy who found her, an' he said her hair'd turned all white and her eyes were poppin' out and even though she was dead she still looked crazier 'n hell, 'n all she wants ta do is get revenge on the man who left her, but she's so crazy she thinks any man is the one. So watch out fer her sure, cuz she's the only one who can really scare ya t' death…

They were ghost stories, just the kind of ghost stories that get told in any old theatre. And for a while, before he found out what a rummy and a horse's ass Billy Potts was, Abe had believed them. But after a few months of getting to know both Billy and the theatre, he realized that the horrors of Anzio had been far greater than any ghosts of little girls or crazy ladies or stagehands who had been dumb enough to hang themselves over some man, or fall off a balcony, or get themselves under a falling sandbag at just the wrong moment. A bunch of dopes, that was all those ghosts were, and he had stopped believing in them.

Until forty years later, when he started to believe, not only in them, but in Harry Ruhl's ghost as well.

Ghosts came back for good reasons, didn't they? That's what all the stories said. And no ghost could have had a better reason for coming back than Harry's. Abe had been the one who had driven Harry to his death. He had died aching and in torment, and it followed that his spirit must be restless, still floating or walking or however the hell ghosts got around, near the place it had died.

And why was it still here? Because, Abe thought, it wanted to get him, to haunt him, scare him, maybe even scare him to death, Abe's life for his own.

Now the damn thing was, Abe told himself, that he should just stay out of the theatre from now on. But he couldn't. He had paid back God for his sins with his Hail Marys and acts of contrition, and it had gotten rid of some of the guilt. But not all. The only way he was going to get rid of the rest of it was to pay back Harry Ruhl. And the only way to do that was to be where Harry Ruhl could…

Not get a hold of him. Abe hated the sound of that. Get in contact was better. Maybe if Abe saw Harry's ghost, he could tell Harry how sorry he was, and maybe Harry would go away, get out of Abe's head, leave him the hell alone. Abe couldn't live with the bad thoughts and dreams any more. He had to do something, had to tell Harry how sorry he was. And the only way he could do that, he thought, was to be where Harry had died.

He didn't go up to the old operating room. That was one thing he couldn't do. He knew he'd start to blubber and cry and break down before he got within fifty feet of the place. But he could be in the theatre. He could do that much. And if Harry wanted to see him – or have him see Harry – well then he could.

Abe constantly looked for Harry when he was alone in the place, which wasn't too often. Mrs. Deems had hired two temporary custodians to help Abe. They were young fellows, one of them a college graduate who hadn't been able to find a teaching job, and the other a kid who reminded Abe of himself when he had started, just out of the service. They were nice and considerate, always asking him what he would like them to do next after finishing a job, instead of goofing off somewhere. Abe felt pretty sure that Harry Ruhl wouldn't show up as long as they were around.

So he went off by himself on solitary jobs, going in to the once hated restrooms, cleaning their stark surfaces, bare tiles, a deed that was a subconscious penance for what he had done. Harry Ruhl had spent many hours, and, amazingly enough, happy ones in these toilets, polishing, wiping chrome until it gleamed. The rooms were filled with reflections, and often Abe fancied that he saw the image of movement behind him, but when he turned around, nothing was there except his own face, gawking at him from the mirrors, or curved and distorted by the plumbing fixtures.

Once, when he was using a urinal, he was looking at the chrome collar atop the porcelain, amused by his face as seen through a fish eye, when suddenly he saw another face over his shoulder and twisted his head around, dribbling the final droplets of urine on the side of the receptacle, the wall, and his pants leg.

No one was there.

He cleaned up the urine, cursing, then asking God to forgive him for cursing. All the rest of the day, he felt as though he was being followed by a playful child, remaining perfectly behind him, turning when he turned, dodging out of sight in mirror-like synchronization with every rearward motion he made, until he began to whisper, "C'mon, Harry, stop fu… messin' around…” After that, the sensation was gone.