Terrifying Tales by Jon Scieszka

Author:Jon Scieszka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

MY GHOST STORY

BY DAV PILKEY

MARCOS AT THE RIVER

BY DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER

I haven’t been back here since that night two years ago when my father died. Then, it was summer. I wore a red T-shirt and even though it was late, the sky still glowed purple and red over the abandoned sugar factory across the river. Now it’s October, and the night is everywhere, pushing through the skyscraper corridors on the howling wind. The air tightens and releases like giant gasps; the whole city seems like it’s trembling, waiting for the storm to hit.

That night two years ago, my abuela sent me to get my dad—he’d gone for another of his walks down by the East River. I was alone, but I felt strong, excited by her trust in me and full of the joy of the city around me, right up until the gunshot shattered all that. Today, a dozen shimmering spirits hover in the air behind me. They stir slightly; I hear them rustling and their guttural moans and impossible whispers. We look out at the river, and then the sky opens up and it begins to rain.

After it happened, everybody had questions, but I could tell they didn’t really want to know. The cops, for instance. They sat me down in an ugly gray room with bad words and love poems scratched into the ugly gray walls. They gave me soda and some old candy, and one sat down and leaned in real close, way too close, and said, “Marcos, I understand you haven’t been speaking. Well, I want to tell you something. It’s very important that you speak and tell us what happened that night, okay, little buddy?”

Like I had chosen to stop speaking.

Like I didn’t want to speak.

Back then, I was still trying. That was before I realized that me trying made people think I actually would and then they’d get frustrated when I didn’t—because I didn’t, hard as I tried. I never ever spoke, still haven’t spoken—and then frustration turned to rage and rage to apologies, apologies to discomfort and then absence.

Now I don’t even try.

But that was before all that, so when the cop asked me to tell him what happened, I opened my mouth like I’d been doing and nothing came out, not even a little gulpy noise. A therapist came in, asked the same questions, gave me some paper and markers to draw with, looked at me with big, blue, sorrowful eyes like I might somehow feel bad for her and start talking so she wouldn’t shatter.

Didn’t work.

Nothing works.

My abuela sees the spirits too, although she probably doesn’t see much else through all those cataracts. She wears gigantic librarian glasses that make her eyes look like foggy planets, too big for her wrinkly face. But she’s been seeing the spirits even longer than I have. Says they been around her since she was little like me, but never this many, and never this wet.

More important, she understands them. Back when those glowing shadows first started showing up, Abuela was the one who taught me not to be afraid.

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