NOTE:
Inspired by Ghost AU by eumonigy.
THANK YOU so much to eumonigy for inspiring this work and also partnering as a beta!
The title from this work comes from The Reason by Hoobastank. If you haven't seen the Scisaac fan-video based on the same song, you should take a look! While this work is not inspired by that video, I thought the parallel was worth mentioning.
Isaac hated so many aspects of his life, but he hated looking back into his past the most. Looking back proved that the present was that much shittier.
He liked to think that he hit rock bottom a long time ago and he had no other direction to go than up. The problem was he couldn't seem to move up no matter how hard he tried. Every time he made an attempt to better his life, he slipped and fell and everything around him would come crashing down again.
Working the graveyard shift at the Beacon Hills cemetery was supposed to better Isaac's life. Theoretically, if Isaac brought in some part-time money, his father wouldn't feel so hard-pressed for cash. They could afford healthier meals and decent laundry detergent. Isaac wouldn't have to steal the extra rolls of toilet paper from public restrooms anymore. Sure, everything wouldn't transform overnight into some amazing luxury lifestyle, but Isaac liked to think that maybe he could get some decent sleep out of it.
Nothing ever turned out the way Isaac planned. When he applied to work as a gravedigger, he assumed he would be doing so in the light of day, preferably directly after school when his father seemed to be the angriest. No, Isaac's shifts started at the awkward hour of eight o'clock.
There was no way Isaac could handle a normal teenage routine if he worked eight to midnight shifts most weekdays. He ended up coming straight home from school, attempted his homework and then started on a dinner that, half the time, he couldn't even eat because he was rushing out the door for his job. That meant that his father was stuck with the dishes which would only piss off the old man even more—sometimes to the point that Mr. Lahey would wait for his son to get home just so he could remind him just how angry he really was.
And after all that, Isaac would still be stuck with the cleanup.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Every paycheck went to some bill or another, so Isaac couldn't just up and quit his job. The actual work itself wasn't hard. When Isaac learned that he could work alone if he learned how to operate the back hoe, he made that his first priority. Soon, Isaac was trusted enough to just check in with the main office and then go out into the cemetery to dig up fresh graves for funeral services.
It was quiet in the graveyard at night. Beacon Hills Cemetery had a strict curfew at sundown that Isaac didn't mind at all. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a gaggle of weeping widows or other mournful relatives. It wasn't that he couldn't display any sympathy, it was more that he didn't have the energy for it, or that he never knew what to say—especially if he had to ask them to move so he could run his several ton vehicle over their dead loved one just to get to his designated plot.
At first, being alone was the best present Isaac could have given himself. After a few weeks on the job he quickly learned that being alone meant a wandering mind. He tried various methods to keep his mind from heading into dangerous territory, but they all ended in vain.
Headphones made it hard for him to hear the radio in case he was called for assistance elsewhere. They also made it difficult to hear when the backhoe became snagged on something, or if there happened to be a mechanical failure. He tried listening to the radio without headphones, but combined with the usual noises of his job, he could never really hear anything properly anyway.
Eventually Isaac started talking to himself with the hope that he could force his mind to think about other things.
He voiced his opinions about everything. The weather, school, his father, his work, upcoming tests… everything was a potential subject. There was no one around to listen. No one could hear him but himself. It was a harmless venture.
And yet, the only place he could really talk to himself was the graveyard. He'd tried this technique before at home after his father had gone to sleep, or out on the lacrosse field during laps. It wasn't the same. There was something about the graveyard that made him feel like he could speak freely.
It must have been the crickets.
For as long as Scott could remember, he belonged to the graveyard.
He couldn't remember how he'd arrived. He knew how everyone arrived. There was really only one logical way to appear inside a graveyard like this. The problem was that Scott had no idea how he died.
He knew his name was Scott McCall. He got that from his headstone. He also gathered from his headstone the approximate date on when he died, but not exactly how long. Time sometimes moved so fast for him that seasons went by in the blink of an eye, but time could also crawl along so slowly, an hour felt like an eternity.
At one point, a funeral was held for him. He watched his friends and family mourn for his loss. No one could see him. No one could hear to him. They forced his body into some ridiculous tuxedo that made him look like a penguin. It had to be tailored to fit him properly. Scott hated looking at it. He couldn't remember much of his style, but he knew he wasn't supposed to be in that suit.
He learned a lot about his life in the first few weeks. He had a best friend named Stiles. Stiles used to cry when he came to visit, but that stopped. His eyes occasionally held a glossy sheen to them, but even that went away over time. At first he used to scream at Scott's grave. He would yell and curse and ask Scott why he had to leave him—why everyone had to leave him. Scott would try to answer, but of course Stiles couldn't hear him. No one could.
Eventually Scott stopped responding.
His mother was even worse. She never stopped crying. Sometimes she would tell stories to Scott's headstone. With a shaking voice, she would ask him if he remembered a time when he was little and they would bake Christmas cookies together and the edges always burned in the oven. Scott didn't remember, but he didn't doubt for a second that his mother was telling the truth.
His father never came to his gravestone. Scott wondered if maybe his father was dead, too, or if he just didn't care.
Scott knew time was passing because he sat through several winters. His mother grew tired and Stiles grew taller. He enjoyed their visits, but even those were becoming few and far between. He wondered how long they could keep it up before they gave up on him altogether.
Just sitting by his headstone grew tiresome, so early on, Scott found ways to entertain himself. He figured if he was going to be stuck here for the long haul, he'd better find something to do. He would wander around the cemetery and speak with a few of the inhabitants, but he quickly found that talking to other ghosts was counterproductive.
Many ghosts were not as fortunate as him. They had been dead for such a long time that they'd forgotten much of who they were. Many of them made up their own stories and proceeded to forget even those.
There was one collective thought from everyone that Scott picked up over the years: each ghost was here for a reason.
Some spirits found their reasons straight away and disappeared quickly. If everyone turned into a ghost after they died, the cemetery would be crawling with apparitions. In reality, there were only a handful of the Dead, and most of them were, in Scott's opinion, total nutcases.
The Living weren't much better. Most people cried or told stories in which Scott showed no interest. It was safe to say that barely anyone even registered on Scott's radar.
Until Isaac.
Isaac was the new gravedigger. He was tall and thin and pale with a mop of curly blonde hair and the most expressive mouth Scott had ever seen. He started working at the cemetery a little while back, but Scott swore he'd seen him before. The familiarity caused Scott to keep an eye on the new employee, mostly trying to figure out why he was jolting his memory.
Scott also tried to keep track of the days since he'd first seen Isaac, but he lost count after he ran out of fingers. It didn't help when most days molded together and he couldn't tell if a week or a month had passed.
What stayed consistent throughout Isaac's time at the graveyard was his attitude.
Sure, he came to the cemetery with many of the same emotions most of the Living had: anger, sadness, and frustration. His difference was that he felt those about himself, or about the Living. He didn't come to the graveyard to dwell on those lost. He dwelled on those still walking around.
Scott was no mind reader, and it wasn't like he could pick up on emotions as if they traveled on the wind, but Isaac wore his heart on his sleeve whether he wanted to or not.
Isaac took his anger out on his work. Scott knew Isaac was going to have a bad night when he came in looking worse than the night before. New cuts and bruises would often appear on his face and arms every night. Scott suspected there were more hiding under his clothing. He would spend hours hovering over Isaac as the curly haired teen grumbled over the many knobs and levers in the cabin of the back hoe. He watched the sweat trickle down his neck even though the leaves told him it was autumn.
There was something so familiar about Isaac. Scott knew almost nothing about him. He gathered his name from when Isaac began training—or at least that's how he thought he remembered it. Everything else he knew about Isaac, the boy said it himself.
Everyone spoke about their lives at the graveyard, but they only talked about the good. Children told their dead parents all about their birthdays and weddings and new babies. Isaac talked to the dirt about how much he hated his father.
He told the headstones how his father decided he didn't like the way Isaac overcooked the macaroni for dinner and threw the scalding food at him. His shoulder and forearm were burned and the pain was making it hard for Isaac to properly handle the gears.
After another round of fumbling with the gears, his face twisted in pain, tears pricked at the corner of Isaac's eyes and he eventually threw his head back and screamed in frustration. It sounded more like a howl, and Scott wished more than anything that he could do something about it. He felt guilty for only watching Isaac like this—for hovering instead of helping.
Scott never tried to communicate with the Living after those first few weeks with his mother and Stiles. He'd tried for so long to get them to see him. He made countless attempts to rustle the leaves or blow their hair or even touch them, but nothing ever happened. Eventually he felt like it didn't matter anymore, anyway. They were moving on with their lives, but Scott obviously couldn't move on, even in death.
But with Isaac—Isaac was different. He made Scott want to try again. In the never-ending expanse of ghostly eternity, Scott managed to find this troubled soul and all he wanted to do was fix him. He didn't know how to do it, but he figured at this point, doing anything was better than nothing, so he held out his arms and pressed his palms to Isaac's burned shoulder.
He didn't expect his hands to come into contact with anything solid, so he wasn't at all surprised when they passed straight through the other boy's arm.
Isaac shivered. His arm stiffened. The pain began to seep out of his eyes and disappear.
Determined, Scott tried again, just sweeping his hands through Isaac's burns. He could see the gooseflesh appear on the back of Isaac's neck and felt a sense of pride course through him. He could ease the burning. For once, his icy existence seemed to work for him. Isaac calmed down enough to fix the gears on the back hoe and resume his work with a loud sigh.
Scott was smiling—for the first time since he died, so really, the first time he could ever remember. He made contact—even though Isaac had no idea. Scott knew. Scott saw the difference. He wanted to whoop and to holler and to celebrate but there was no one to share his joy.
To make himself keep that elated feeling, he pressed through Isaac's burns and held his hand there, cooling the flesh and keeping Isaac calm. "You're welcome," he whispered eventually.
Of course, Isaac didn't hear him, but for once Scott didn't mind.
Despite working at the cemetery for a few months, Isaac never thought of it as haunted. He didn't believe in the supernatural. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves? They were all just stories because the human race had created such a dull existence for itself, it needed to escape somehow.
Isaac assumed that anything strange that happened while at work should be chalked up to coincidence.
Sometimes one window inside the front loader would fog up, but the other would stay clear, in spite of any weather differences. Other times, Isaac swore he worked in a bubble of warmth—especially if the controls on the back hoe were warm to the touch when they should be freezing. He'd lost track of all the times he would turn around sharply, suddenly aware that someone was watching him. Not to mention, on nights when his father had been unrelenting in his behavior, Isaac swore he could feel soothing, feather-light touches to his wounds.
It must have been the isolation of the cemetery. It had to be. He craved the absence of human presence so much that his body was physically reacting to the lack of contact. Ever since his mother and his brother passed away, every bit of human contact Isaac ever had was painful. He couldn't stomach being around people for longer than was required of him. Perhaps his body relished in the sense of being alone?
At some point, Isaac realized that he wasn't alone. He had no idea when the thought came into his mind, but it crept up on him slowly, like a cold or hunger. Soon the feeling began to follow him everywhere. On more than one occasion, he found himself glancing over his shoulder during a test at school because he had the sinking feeling that someone was looking at his paper.
The presence followed him home, too. Even though Isaac was at a complete loss for what the feeling was, he was glad for it. He no longer felt alone when his father was in a bad mood.
One night, in spite of spending hours studying, Isaac received a failing grade on a chemistry test. He thought he was prepared, but the exam threw him a few curves and he couldn't handle it. Mr. Harris, the chemistry teacher, requested that Isaac have the test signed and brought back to him to receive some extra credit points that would help him pass the class. Why any teacher thought it was a good idea to give extra credit for humiliation was beyond Isaac, but he needed those points. He could endure his father one night if it meant passing high school chemistry.
As it turned out, his father was already in a bad mood because of some ignorant customers at the junkyard that day. Mr. Lahey hadn't been at his new job for very long and he already hated it. Granted, he hated every job he'd ever had since he lost his teaching position six years ago.
Isaac wasn't scheduled for grave digging duty that night, so he took his time making dinner. Throughout the entire cooking process, Isaac contemplated all the different ways in which he could bring up the failing test score to his father with minimal damage, but they were hardly five minutes into dinner before Isaac's father broke the ice for him.
"This dinner tastes better than usual. What did you do?" His voice was bitter and cold. He wasn't asking how Isaac cooked dinner, he was definitely implying that Isaac had done something to get into trouble. Isaac couldn't even accept the first portion as a compliment because his stomach had dropped to the floor in dread. Shit.
"I'm not working tonight. I wanted to cook something nice on my night off?" Isaac's words sounded so much more confident in his head. When he said them out loud, his voice shook.
Mr. Lahey glared hard at his son and shoved his plate of half-eaten food away from his spot at the table. Isaac resisted the urge to flinch. "Don't lie to me, boy. What the hell did you do?"
"Nothing!" Isaac protested. His stomach churned in uncomfortable knots. If he so much as took a bite out of anything, he would throw it back up. Fuck his life. "I just… need you to sign something. For school."
"Aren't you a little too old for permission slips, boy?" Mr. Lahey drawled lazily. For a moment, Isaac thought he was off the hook. His dad looked peeved, but calm. Mostly.
Isaac's eyed darted all around the room, taking care to look anywhere but at his father. It was now or nothing. Fail a test or fail the whole class? Why did he have to be stuck between a rock and a hard place? "It's not. I uh, have a test I need you to sign." There went nothing.
Mr. Lahey didn't bother to reaffirm anything else. He didn't ask any questions. Isaac knew his father already made a handful of assumptions and all of them were most likely correct. He nonchalantly wiped his mouth with his napkin and set it down on the table. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "Let's see this test, then."
What was going on? Isaac hadn't realized he was hunched over in his chair until he scooted his seat back to stand up. It was a reflex by now to just huddle himself into something smaller and harder to hit, but his father wasn't doing anything threatening other than glaring and existing.
He left quickly to retrieve his paper from his room, but when he walked in the door, he stopped abruptly. Everything was wrong. His desk, which had been neatly stacked with homework and other papers, was now in disarray and the papers were lying all about the room. The sheets on his bed were overturned, his cup of writing utensils spilled and pencils had rolled off his desk. It looks like a tornado hit the place and disappeared without ever having made a noise.
If Isaac's father ransacked his room, wouldn't he have heard it? It wasn't like he was listening to music as he cooked dinner, and it certainly wasn't as if his room was that far away—it was just down the hall. So what the hell?
Isaac couldn't spend too much time wondering what happened, because he knew just how impatient his father could be. He went to work quickly, rummaging through the tousled papers to find the one he needed. After a few seconds, he located it, but the paper blew forward as if by some unseen force. Instinctively, Isaac looked up to check and see if maybe he'd left the ceiling fan on, but it was as still as ever.
Confused, Isaac made another reach for the paper and it flew from his grasp a second time. After spending far too many precious seconds jumping around the room, trying to get a hold of his test, he finally let his hands fall to his sides. It was of no use. The world was against him. What had he done in a past life to deserve all of this?
He sat down on his bed and silently flipped off his stupid paper. He didn't understand anything—the weird feeling he had like someone was watching him, why someone went through his room, why he couldn't get a hold of this annoying paper, and why his dad wasn't beating him within an inch of his life.
Footsteps outside his room caused Isaac to stand up in a panic. He had taken too long. His father was checking up on him. Isaac needed to get that test and he needed to get it, now.
"Come on!" Isaac whispered hard at the paper. "Before my dad gets back!" As stupid as it was to shout at an inanimate object, Isaac didn't feel embarrassed at all—especially when said paper flew up and pressed itself against his chest as if it were flying with the wind. Isaac clutched the paper tightly in his grasp just as his father stood in the doorframe.
Mr. Lahey took a second to survey the damage before his eyes rested on his son in the middle of a trashed room holding a failed test.
His eyes were hot with anger and he grated his teeth together. Isaac flinched once again, expecting a hand or a shout or something. Instead, he got, "I think it's time we paid the basement a visit, tonight, don't you think?"
It was all Isaac could do not to let his legs give out. It was like every drop of blood left his body. This was so much worse than the shouting and the hitting. It had been a year since Isaac was last in the basement. He didn't think he was ever going back.
"I didn't do this!" Isaac waved his arms frantically around the room. "It was like this when I got here!" His argument sounded weak, even to him, and he knew he wasn't gaining any favor in his father's eyes.
This time his father reached out for him and grabbed onto his wrist tightly, twisting and yanking him hard until he stumbled forward. Mr. Lahey didn't say another word. He simply dragged his son down the hall to the basement door and shoved at him until he tripped over himself trying to get down the stairs.
By the time Isaac reached the bottom, his face was covered in tears. He hadn't meant to start crying—he didn't even know he had. His throat was hoarse from pleading and begging. It was like he was on autopilot. He didn't want to go back—not back down here. He hated it down in the basement. He had hoped most of what happened down here was in the past as a horrible, horrible nightmare, but here he was again, still trapped.
Minutes later, Isaac was half-forced, half-threatened into the freezer.
When he was younger, this was his father's favorite punishment. It was dark and cold, but there was room. Now that Isaac had hit a few growth spurts, he couldn't quite fit anymore. His neck cramped up and his knees seemed to fold in on themselves as his father slammed the lid down. He could see artificial light coming from the holes drilled into the top of the door but nothing else. The light wasn't even enough to illuminate his own hands.
He tried to wipe at the tear stains that itched on his cheeks, but he couldn't move. He couldn't pound on the lid anymore. He couldn't even try to stretch enough to force the lid upward.
All he could do was sit and cry and curse and wait until his father, or someone, anyone freed him.
His hands and feel began to tingle, and Isaac grew worried. His blood circulation was doing poorly and he knew that if he stayed in the freezer for much longer, he would have some serious health problems. Soon the tingling turned into something warm and slowly began to engulf him entirely.
It was a strange feeling. Even though it felt like the warmth of fleece, it was sad. If Isaac could be soothed in a melancholy way, then this was certainly it. The feeling covered him like a blanket and he felt almost… safe. Here he was, in the worst punishment his father could place him in, and he felt like he was being enveloped in a hug rather than a freezer.
It had an amazing effect on him. His heart rate slowed to a comfortable pace. He was able to squash his panic attack down to something a little more reasonable, and most of all, he could calm down enough to fall asleep and pretend he was anywhere other than where he was.
Leaving the cemetery was the single greatest decision of Scott's death.
He hadn't even realized he could do it. He figured he was stuck within the confines of the graveyard fence, mostly because he'd never actually seen one of the Dead leave and come back.
The idea was planted into his head by a pretty ghost with blonde hair named Erica that haunted a headstone a few rows behind Scott. She arrived some time after Scott died and spent most of her afterlife scaring the children that came into the graveyard, or playing tricks on teenagers who trespassed on dares.
"Scotty," she addressed him one day while hovering a few feet over the ground. She was lying on her back with her hands behind her head and looked positively bored with herself. Scott didn't blame her. Most of the afterlife was boring. "Have you ever been outside the fence?"
"No," Scott replied shortly. He was busy trying to manipulate the dewdrops on the morning grass. The more he practiced, the better he became. "Never tried."
"I wonder what it's like out there," she said wistfully.
"You don't remember?" It was a dumb question. No one remembered. It was still nice to ask, though, because one never really knew.
"Not really, but I think it was cruel," Erica's voice turned bitter, fast. "When I try to remember my life before this, my entire body just becomes a ball of anger and shame. I want to go out there one day, when I'm stronger, and just give everyone a big fucking scare like they all deserve. I want to watch them scream."
Scott looked at her quickly. He stopped working on the dew drops and moved across the air to be closer to her. "What brought this on?" Erica was a vengeful spirit, but not this vengeful.
"I found out how I died, today," Erica spat. She popped away from her lying position and reappeared at her headstone a few feet away, staring down at the lack of flowers on her grave.
Scott willed himself to stand next to her, trying to keep his eyes focused on the words carved at her grave marker:
Erica Reyes
1995-2011
She was 16, too, but he knew that much already. Scott stole a glance at her face and she looked so sad and faraway. "How did you find out?" he asked.
"My Aunt came by," Erica said, still staring at her name. "I recognized her. She and my mother have been fighting for a long time and she just found out. She said she came as soon as she heard. I've been dead for months, Scott. Months. And she just now found out?"
Scott shrugged because he didn't know what to say. "Well, if she and your mom were fighting…"
Erica waved at him, cutting him off. "Seizures," she said suddenly.
"What?"
"That's how I died. I had a seizure. I had a lot of them apparently. My Aunt wanted me to get treatment, but my mom thought I would get better. She wanted to check up on me, but found out I was six feet under instead, and now she blames herself," Erica let out a weak bit of laughter. "Here I thought I died in some awesome way and instead I just had epilepsy. Way to rain on my parade."
"I'm sorry," Scott said, wishing he could reach out and put an arm around her. It seemed not even the Dead could touch the Dead. They were completely alone.
"The worst part is that I can remember it, now," Erica continued. "I remember kids laughing at me in class. I remember the hospital lights. I remember hating everyone."
"It explains a lot," Scott said nonchalantly. He hadn't meant for it to sound rude, and was thankful that Erica didn't take it as such.
"It makes sense. I really want to go out there and scare the piss out of everyone who laughed. They deserve it. All of them."
"Do you think that's your Reason?" Scott raised an eyebrow questioningly. If Erica's reason to be a ghost was to haunt everyone who had been mean to her, then she would be here forever. Vengeful spirits, it seemed, were the worst.
"Who knows," Erica said. "It's worth a shot."
Scott was silent for a while before he finally spoke up, "Do you blame your Aunt for your death?"
"No," Erica sighed sadly, like she was deflating. "I blame everyone else."
"Maybe you should find a way to let her know that."
The next time Scott remembered seeing the sun, Erica was gone.
He didn't see her for a very long time. He naturally assumed she was never going to come back. Either she preferred it outside of the graveyard or she had moved on. Either way, Scott was ready to venture far from his headstone. He didn't need the gates to keep him in anymore.
And besides, when Isaac wasn't at the graveyard, time moved far too slowly, and Scott missed him. So he attached himself to Isaac's side and followed him home one day.
He wasn't satisfied with just being with Isaac at home. He wanted to be with him all the time—at school, sleeping, anywhere. He discovered firsthand the cruelty Isaac's father bestowed upon his son. All Scott could do was be there for Isaac and stay by his side. He tried to wrap his arms around the curly haired teen and send as much spirit energy as he could to give the taller boy strength and courage. Scott had no idea what kind of effect he was having, just that something was going on.
He swore that Isaac could see him. A few times, Scott found him looking straight at him. If Scott called out, though, Isaac still wouldn't answer. It was frustrating.
Scott became so wrapped up in following Isaac around that he didn't notice that what he was doing was harmful. Isaac ended up becoming so distracted by Scott's presence during a test that he failed. Scott became so ashamed of what he did that he tried to hide the test in Isaac's room. When Isaac came in looking for it, Scott did his best to keep it from him—only to find out that the act got Isaac into deeper trouble with his father.
It was all Scott's fault that Isaac was locked in that freezer. Scott hated himself for it. All he wanted was to learn more about the sad boy that dug graves in the cemetery. He hadn't wished for this. Scott's influence was ruining the life of the one person in the world Scott found interesting.
He made a promise to himself that night. He was going to stay by Isaac's side until morning. He wasn't going to abandon him. He was going to do everything ghostly possible to fix things. No one deserved to have this kind of life, least of all Isaac.
And so Scott curled his body around Isaac's cramped form in that lonely freezer. He was thankful for once, for his non corporeal form. It allowed him to share the small space and more readily press his good intentions into Isaac's soul. He imagined himself as a soft light in the middle of the darkness—a light so bright it would leave no room for shadows.
As Isaac drifted off into a hazy slumber, Scott couldn't help wondering why he was so impacted by a stranger like this. What was it about Isaac that made Scott's entire afterlife revolve around him? Why did Scott even do any of this? Surely he was here to do something to help his mother or Stiles—so why was he here with Isaac?
And why did his entire being ache?
Over the next few days, Isaac's life became even stranger. He thought he would have nightmares after what his father did to him, but they never came. He walked around with a sense of peace. He didn't even feel alone, which was the weirdest part about the whole situation. Isaac, if anything, was more alone than ever. He worked alone, he had no friends, and he avoided his father at all costs.
Nothing his father did seemed to have any effect on him. Several times Mr. Lahey would move to strike Isaac with an object and it would mysteriously fling itself across the room instead, missing Isaac's body completely.
Much of what Mr. Lahey did do his son was to instill fear, but the fear just wasn't there anymore. After Isaac survived unscathed from the freezer, it was as if everything else his father did had no meaning. His test was never signed. He never received that extra credit. But he did find something else: a sense of self worth. He had absolutely no idea where it even came from.
Isaac was no idiot. He could see the signs all around him, and whether or not he really chose to believe was beyond him. Ever since he got that job at the graveyard, his life began to change and not in the way he thought. He pictured the world as black and white. He assumed the supernatural was reserved for stories and television.
And yet, he had to acknowledge just what it was that was happening to him.
It wasn't scary. Most shows or movies always portrayed the unknown as something to be frightened of, but Isaac didn't feel like that. When he felt a presence in his room at night, he didn't find it malevolent. He found it comforting. The same presence made him feel like he wasn't eating lunch alone at school… and he swore it helped him with the dishes.
The bottom line was, if Isaac was being haunted, it was with some Casper level of ghost and he couldn't argue with that.
One night at work, as Isaac fiddled with the gears at the control panel, he felt that familiar tug on the back of his neck and stopped his work. He froze in place and allowed his eyes to close. This was a common occurrence at work. It was mid November and the weather was heading into consistently colder territory. Whatever it was that was following Isaac would raise or lower the temperature within a given space and usually kept the cabin fairly warm. It was odd—because Isaac always though ghosts were cold, but he was no expert.
Isaac never spoke out loud to it before. Despite being essentially alone, he still felt weird about talking to thin air. Tonight was different. He'd been steadily gaining confidence over the last few days—ever since the presence really made itself known. And now, Isaac was ready to speak.
"Thank you," he said to the air around him. He felt a little foolish at first, but then the warmth disappeared from inside the cabin of the front loader, and his foolish feeling dissipated instantly. That could not have been a coincidence.
He felt alone, like maybe he'd scared it off. The thought itself was sobering. It was like hearing a teacher explain how a spider was more scared of him than he was of it.
Reluctantly, Isaac took the engine off idle and began his work. He had two graves to dig tonight: one for an elderly woman and the other for some guy in his twenties who probably overdosed, even though no one would really say. Working through the ground took a lot longer than most people realized so he needed to start his shift right away.
The second the backhoe bucket connected with the dirt, the windshield in front of Isaac fogged over and Isaac had to scramble to keep himself from pivoting into any headstones. He cursed as his hands flailed over the controls and stared wide-eyed at the scene before him.
It was like he was living out a scene from Psycho, minus the shower and the serial killer. The only real similarity was the writing on the foggy glass. Isaac watched in fascination as the presence simply spelled out:
SORRY
Isaac could have laughed right at the windshield. Seriously? "Why are you sorry? Is it because you fogged up my windshield? For haunting me?" The minute Isaac said it, his brain immediately moved into dangerous territory. Maybe the spirit was sorry for something it was going to do in the future. Isaac didn't like that prospect at all. For the first time, he thought he felt the prickle of fear creep through him.
Whatever it was didn't respond. Isaac didn't really expect it to, but he didn't want it to leave just yet. This confirmed everything. This was important. He took a deep breath and tried again. "What's your name?"
This time, the word came instantly, like maybe the spirit had been waiting for it.
SCOTT
Isaac stared at the name. It was such an ordinary name. A modern name. He was half expecting to be haunted by some outlandish old spirit with a pseudonym. Scott was just so… normal. Normal, but familiar. Isaac felt as though he'd known a Scott once, but the memory was something he hadn't wanted to keep and so it was hard for him to bring it up.
Instead he gave a little wave, as awkward as it felt. "I'm Isaac."
He gave a little laugh and it escaped him like a puff of air. The temperature was back to being cold and he could see his breath. When he looked back at the windshield again, Scott had drawn something and it made Isaac actually, genuinely laugh out loud.
In fact, he laughed so hard his insides hurt, and he held his side as if that would help. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed. Had he ever laughed in his life?
There, on the windshield, was a smiley face.
Isaac wasn't being haunted by just any ghost. He was being haunted by a kid.
While Isaac laughed, the air became warmer. It was like the ghost had turned into his own personal de-fogger. Soon Isaac could see the boom and dipper of the arm through the windshield as clear as any night. He geared himself back up to begin work again, but this time he was in a fantastic mood.
He knew he was supposed to run screaming from the front loader, because that's what the world told him to do, but that felt silly and wrong. Isaac wasn't in any danger. Any ghost that drew a smiley face on a windshield and was named Scott had to be harmless.
Isaac began his work, pushing the levers down to let the bucket sink into the graveyard soil and remove the dirt, one bucketful at a time. As soon as he pivoted the massive backhoe to the right a couple degrees to drop his armful of dirt, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
A teenage boy was standing right where he was supposed to dump the excess dirt. He had on jeans and a grey t-shirt with a black jacket draped loosely over his shoulders. His hair was cut short and he had his hands deep in his pockets as he smiled hopelessly up at Isaac. His smile was so doofy, it was adorable. He had a hint of teeth that poked out of the corner of his mouth and his eyes crinkled up at the edges.
Isaac reacted immediately. Before he could even think about why the hell someone was standing in the middle of the graveyard at night, he stood up and leaned out of the cabin, waving his arms.
"Hey, get out of the way before you get hurt!" he called out, frantically. The look on the boy's face changed drastically from his happy smile to one of complete surprise as he looked around and pointed to himself. Isaac rolled his eyes. "Yes, you! You're trespassing on private property and a construction site." He really didn't want to rattle off the spiel he was required to say to anyone caught around the backhoe while it was in motion.
The teenage boy only gaped at him for a second and finally said, "You can see me?"
His voice was oddly soft and faraway. Isaac wasn't entirely sure he could hear it. It felt like maybe he was whispering, but the tone of his voice indicated otherwise. Isaac raised his eyebrows to indicate that yes, he could see him, what the hell was he talking about, but he couldn't say anything because at that moment, the spotlight from the top of the backhoe burned out with a fizzling pop.
The air around him shifted drastically into an icy chill and when Isaac turned back toward the teenager, he was gone.
He looked everywhere. He climbed from the cabin and walked around the backhoe just to be sure. There was no sign that anyone but him had been here.
He was completely alone.