Forest Under the Bed 2: so your bedroom is haunted (Patreon)

Under Faustia’s fingers, the Unhumble Guitar strummed. The giraffe lamp on her nightstand flickered. Her phone was propped up against its long legs, and the woman on the screen was saying, Good, just like that. Now, let’s do the whole scale…

She did the whole scale. The door to her room tried to slam, but just kind of quietly thumped against the backpack she’d shoved against its jamb, full of new notebooks and folders. It creaked back open, sulkily.

Great, said the video, which hadn’t actually heard her.

She tried again, and the door tried to slam again, which was an entirely relatable feeling. Her mother caught it on the rebound as she came in.

“This place better not be haunted,” she said, pushing it back open. “You’re supposed to get a discount when places are haunted.”

“I think that’s only in horror movies,” Faustia said.

Her mom picked her way around broken-down boxes and the ones that were still taped shut to come sit on the edge of her bed.

“Are you sure you don’t want a little dye for tomorrow? Some pink on the tips, maybe?” She ran her fingers through Faustia’s bangs. Her own hair was tied back in a short ponytail of blonde roots and squeaky-toy-green tips.

“You’re going to be late for your gig,” Faustia said, instead of I don’t want to look like a strawberry or Stop trying to use up the last of your dye tubes on me or Brown hair is boring and boring is exactly how I want to look tomorrow.

Her mom’s hand brushed against her forehead. “I could stay home. We could raid a store for ice cream, and eat sundaes while we make fun of action movies.”

“Mom,” Faustia said, in her I’m not five voice.

“All right, all right. Do you want the door open or closed?”

“Closed,” Faustia said, and her mom nudged the backpack out of the way on her way out. They both knew that would do the trick.

“Light off?” her mom asked.

“On,” said Faustia, eyes back on the guitar. The guitar her dad had wanted. Her mom had helped her tune it, but didn’t remember much more than scales herself.

“Don’t stay up too late, kiddo.”

If Faustia told her mom that a ghost had moved into her bedroom, she would believe her. Which is why Faustia couldn’t: scary things and adults didn’t mix. She especially couldn’t say who she thought it was. But the ghost reacted when she played the guitar, her dad’s guitar, the one he’d wanted—

He wasn’t dead. But there was something missing from him, the thing that would let him wake up. The hospital had moved him over to a long term care center, and she and mom had moved into this house, so they could walk over on weekends or on Hard Days or whenever they wanted, as long as “when they wanted” was inside regular visiting hours.

This is where your dad grew up, her mom had said to Faustia, her hand wrapped around dad’s. I’ll take you by his old house, on the way back.

I brought it, Faustia had said, another time, when her mom was cameoing for a local band’s album and she’d come alone. It’s right here, see?

Her dad didn’t react to the Unhumble Guitar under his fingers anymore than he had to her mom’s hand.

The long term care center was new, and everything was white or off-white except the things that were shiny metal, and its tiles squeaked under her sneakers in a way that made her want to be quiet. She’d played the guitar in his room, softly and with the door closed, a strumming that wasn’t even chords because she hadn’t started learning those yet. Nothing had happened.

If her spirit was a little loose from her body, she wouldn’t have wanted to haunt a place like that, either.

“Love you,” her mom said.

“Love you, too,” Faustia said.

Slam, said the door.

She couldn’t tell her mom. Not until she knew for sure. But her mom was leaving, she would be gone for hours. Faustia would be all alone in a haunted house, which meant she could test it tonight.

Her mom’s footsteps creaked down the stairs. The van coughed awake in the garage, and after a few minutes of forgetting something and opening the door and shutting it again, she finally left. Then quiet. There were barely any cars in their new neighborhood, and no sirens, but somehow that made everything louder. Something scratch-scratched above her head: a tree branch against the roof, a raccoon in the attic, a psychopath in the crawlspace sharpening knives.

“All right, ghost,” Faustia said. “Let’s play.”

She paused the video on her phone, lay back against her pillow, and did.

Her lamp flickered at the first note. Something thumped against the door at the next, but it couldn’t slam what was already closed. She played and played, the one chord she knew and others she didn’t, and it didn’t matter that it sounded like a cat was clawing at the strings, because maybe if she was bad enough her dad would show her what to do.

She’d found his box of flashlights during the move, and put one in every room and three in her bedroom, on her nightstand and the dresser across the room and under her pillow where it was hard against her back. She knew what her dad had been afraid of, now, but she didn’t know what to do. She needed him.

The lights flickered again, and something jerked at the guitar. She caught it by its wooden neck and pulled it back close. Kept playing. There were scrabbling and scraping and thumping noises, like something was in her room, but she’d already known that. She kept playing. The lights flickered, flickered again, with a staticy feeling that lifted the hair on her arms and felt like she was building to something, like this was working. The night rushed in every chance it got, the darkness total except for—

Except for the flashes of wispy white.

She played, and the wisps twined around her fingers, trying to guide her or trip her up or maybe just make fun of her for having this guitar for six years but only wanting to learn now. Her dad had offered, and offered, but she’d never…

She played, and the wisps became clearer and clearer. Became fingers, became hands. The flickers of the lamp became more off than on, and she could see arms now, and the outline of a body that was kneeling in front of her, trying to grab the guitar away. She sounded so, so bad.

“You think you can do better?” she challenged, because it really was working, he was here, she could almost see—

The lights went off, and stayed off.

The wisps were a white-outlined ghost, translucent but there, and he was…

He wasn’t her dad.

He was just some kid, and he had his hands all over her dad’s guitar, and she jerked it back with a very final wrench and held it to the side and out of his reach. The last notes died, muffled against the pillow behind her.

“Who are you,” she demanded, “and why are you in my room?”

“It was mine first,” the ghost said, sitting back and crossing his arms. “And I’m really not the one you should be worried about right now.”

“Oh, so there’s more of you?”

He raised his chin. “I am quite singular, I assure you. But if you don’t stop throttling that poor instrument, there will be rather more than one of those.”

“Of what?”

“That,” he said, jerking his chin to the side. To the place where her bed met the floor.

They’d stopped. The scrabbling and scraping and thumping noises hadn’t.

Under her bed, shadows grew like a monster dragging itself up from some dark place.