"An Inventory of Ghosts" by Whitney McShan

A fog does not roll in.

Rain does not fall, does not soak the earth until suffocating worms rise, blind and glistening, to be met by opportunistic birds.

When she opens the door, it does not creak. The air is very still. Dust does not rise.

As she steps inside, the floorboards do not groan. Nothing moves. The house is so well behaved.

Walking through the old, empty hallways of her childhood, she feels no cold spots. 

It's amazing, really. You wouldn't know this place was haunted, if not for all the ghosts.

She can hardly wade through the crowd of them. They linger in doorways and recline on the couch. Some are seated politely at the kitchen table. Others stand at windows, looking out at an unfamiliar world. They are all her, of course. Slight variations. Discarded drafts.

The one who never moved away. The one who married too young. The one who was brave and followed Jenny Barnett to college. The one who never answered the phone. The one who did and wished she hadn’t.

They are everywhere, soft and overlapping. The silence of all of her unfinished sentences.

At the end of the hallway, there is a door that should not be there.

On the other side of the door is a desk where a single ghost sits, writing.

This one looks up, smiles. Her face is older, calmer. “You made it back,” she says. The ghost signs her name, their name. The others begin to fade. 

Not gone, but gathered. Slipping into her. Filling the empty rooms beyond her ribs.

Outside the rain begins at last. Soft, certain, and real.

Whitney McShan is a Texas native who lives outside of Austin with her wife and son. Her work has been featured in Hellbound Books Anthology of Horror, Instant Noodles Lit Mag, and the upcoming anthology With Teeth. She is interested in the strange, the uncanny, and the monstrous.