Chapter 5
The Haunting
Admiral Biscuit
Throughout all my life, I’d dismissed ghost stories as just that—stories. Nobody ever seemed to be able to describe them better than ‘a spirit’ or ‘a feeling’ or something equally vague. Any picture I’d ever seen of a supposed ghostly encounter looked either conveniently fake, or so blurry as to be potentially anything.
And at first, there was just a bit of a glow at the thatches, something that could have just as easily been my imagination. I’d heard that trying to stare at one thing too long could lead to hallucinations, and that could have been the case here.
At first there was just a bit of a glow, and it was immediately followed by a muzzle and that was immediately followed by the rest of her, eyes and a mane and a bow and forelegs and a torso and—and then it just trailed off into nothingness.
Not for the first time, my brain was at war with itself. My lizard-brain wanted nothing more than to run screaming from the house and never come back. That was tempered with the rational side of my brain saying, ‘told you so!’ and between the two impulses, I just completely froze up.
Later on, I’d play through the entire encounter again and again, trying to tease out just a bit more detail from what I’d seen, but there was a moment where I was entirely lost, where my whole mind was otherwise occupied and whatever I’d observed, I had no memory of. How long that moment was, I could never know, but it can’t have been too long, because I did remember her going over to the toybox.
Her forelegs were moving slightly, almost like a doggy-paddle, or maybe like she thought she was actually walking on the floor. I could imagine that if she’d had all four legs, that would have been a natural way for her forelegs to move.
Maybe that was just me trying to put some meaning to the movement; maybe that’s a natural sort of motion for ghosts as they move.
She went over to the toybox and hooked the edge with her forehooves, pulling herself up slightly to get a look inside, and if I’d had any doubts that she was a ghost, they were settled at that moment. That movement was completely inexplicable—she was floating above the floor and clearly didn’t need to boost herself up—which made it utterly, undeniably factual.
I knew there was nothing in there, although it would not have surprised me one bit if she’d pulled out something. Some ghost of a toy.
Instead, once she found the box empty, she moved over to the edge of the attic and reached where the floorboards butted up against the edge of the roof. There was a little recess in there--whoever had built the house hadn’t want to cut boards to fit the gaps between the rafters.
She fished out the duck, holding it gently in her mouth, and then set it in the middle of the floor, then went to get another toy.
Before too long, she had an entire collection of toys—all of which I remembered having seen in the toybox—arranged around the center of the attic. Not a neat circle or lines or anything like that, but not a pile, either. There was certainly some sort of logic to how they’d been arranged, although I couldn’t figure it out.
Apparently, the arrangement wasn’t right. She circled around it, closely studying her toys, and then moved off to another recess, looking inside. I hadn’t really paid attention to those, and didn’t know if they opened into my walls. Could be that she could get into my walls if she’d wanted to.
•••••
That wasn’t her intention. She checked a couple of recesses, presumably looking for more toys, and then moved close to my pile of boxes. I lost sight of her as she got close, and of course she made no noise as she moved around.
I didn’t dare budge—not out of fear, but out of wonder and curiosity. I was certain she’d sniffed me out, that she could feel my presence or hear my heartbeat or something. Maybe I had an aura around me, one that I couldn’t see but she could, so I concentrated as hard as I could on not being seen.
She made no noise as she moved around, and she could have been anywhere. I resisted the urge to move, to turn, to even reach behind me and kept my eye focused through the hole in the box until my vision started to blur. Where was she? Had she gone down the attic stairs? I’d left the trap open. Or was she on top of my pile of boxes? I wouldn’t have heard her get up there.
Was she even now inexorably oozing through the gaps in the boxes? Creeping slowly towards my back, ready to pounce? Ready to turn me into a ghost? I had to know, but I couldn’t move, so I concentrated as hard as I could upon being one with the boxes, pressing down the urge to blink or to breathe or to do anything at all, and finally my patience was rewarded as she came back around into my view.
Her back was to me, although I wasn’t sure that that mattered with ghosts.
She was holding a threadbare stuffed pony with button eyes in her mouth. That was a toy I hadn’t seen before, and it must have been the one she was looking for.
•••••
Once she had all the toys set out to her liking, she played with them. She wasn’t speaking, not as far as I could tell, although her back was to me, so I couldn’t be sure if she was moving her mouth.
If any of the toys had started to lift up off the ground or move around on their own or do any of the other things that toys do in horror movies, I would have made a break for the trap, but they didn’t. They were no more lively than they should have been, moved only by her ghostly forehooves.
They did make noise on the floor, and that was undeniably the source of some of the noises I’d been hearing at night.
I don’t know how long she played with them, but she finally got bored of whatever she was doing and picked them all up one-by-one and hid them again. Each one had its own spot, and I could tell that she was doing her best to remember where they were supposed to be.
When her play area was clean again, she went and looked back in the toybox one last time, presumably to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything, and then she drifted back out the attic the same way she’d come.
I’d been tempted to rush right over to one of the windows, where I might be able to see her moving through the sky or across the lawn or even climbing down a rope ladder she’d strung up the side of my house—given how far my mind had already been bent, anything was a reasonable possibility.
But I didn’t move, not far. I slowly, quietly, cautiously moved into a more comfortable position and then pondered the mysteries of life. Who was she, would she be back tonight, why was she haunting my house? Or was it me specifically she was after?
I must have sat there for an hour, and come to no conclusions, so I finally crawled out of my box-fort and carefully made my way down the ladder. I was completely numb and completely exhausted and knew full well I wasn’t going to be sleeping at all.
Rather than frustrate myself lying in bed and waiting for sleep that wasn’t going to come, I went all the way down to the living room and lit a lantern.
And then I just sat and thought some more.
Coming to Equestria had been a constant string of amazement, of disbelief, of wonder. It had had its highs and lows; there were times where everything felt right and other times that I’d cried myself to sleep.
Somehow this was different. This touched me more deeply.
There’s a constant human longing to know what happens after we die, and of course it’s an unanswerable question. We know what happens to the body, of course, and I’m sure humanity has known for thousands upon thousands of years. But the question of whether there is some spirit, some soul, some part that’s separate from the body, that’s a question that’s never been answered, that perhaps never can be answered.
And yet, she was there.
I pondered her all night long and while some small skeptical part of my brain insisted that there might be some practical explanation for what I’d seen; the idea of a ghost or something that looked like a ghost could be a perfectly natural occurrence given all the other wonders of Equestria, a land where ponies could fly and maybe pigs could too. A land of unicorns and magic and the occasional monster.
I rejected that theorem. I knew what I’d seen, and it was a ghost. A pony ghost.
If it had just been a brief glimpse, that could have been explained away. A trick of the light, swamp gas, some unicorn playing a practical joke on me—although to what end? If I’d been drinking, it could have been a hallucination, but I was sober as a judge. It was no hallucination.
I’d watched her. I’d watched her deliberately gather her toys. Play with her toys. Put her toys back away. I didn’t know how long it had taken, but it hadn’t been just a few minutes. Maybe an hour, maybe longer. Maybe next time I’d take an egg timer with me so I’d know for sure.
Because there was going to be a next time. I hadn’t known that when I started my pondering, but I knew that now. I had to know more. I had to build a better observation point—more spyholes, for starters. Maybe put it right over the stairs. Bring something to snack on while I waited and watched.
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
673 users online
893,300 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
"Wow! A full-torso, vaporous apparition! And it's real!"
"So now what do we do?"
....
"Stay close... everybody stay close... ready... GET HER!!"
morganrlewis.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/ghostbusters_pdvd_184.jpg?w=640
This is totally how this story should happen from now on.
And Zuul can be a Diamond Dog, lol.
And proceeded to write a best seller autobiography called "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ghost pone"
Wonder if Boo shows up on cameras of various sorts and the main reason for the bad images is because she is faint, so it has to be dark to see her, but the contrast and illumination is low, so you need a large lens and long exposure which leads to depth and motion blurring etc?
Somehow I dont think Amazon could do next day delivery of a good passive low light electronic camera to him, cheaply.
She's cute! I admit, when he said he was setting up a box fort, I assumed it would be for her.
It still could be...
Also I assume she's spending some time in the kitchen getting herself snacks.
9281190
More to the point, have you ever tried to get a decent photo on a camera phone in the heat of the moment? It's not pretty!
Also, the few times I've seen ghosty things, I've definitely been the stereotypical guy who forgets to pull out a camera and then it's over. And then you smack yourself in the face.
If you were going for the feels... You did a good job
Well damn. Now I feel bad for a poor little filly who didn't make it far in life.
Wonderful and touching :)
Not much interaction but i can't say i would have done better; in fact i think running and screaming might be the choice to make once she left sight.
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/097/722/b8c.gif
Goddammit... a foal. The ghost of a foal. The ghosts of children are a heartbreaking concept.
*sigh* Goddammit. Now I'm sad.
Poor little lost foal...
My only gripe about this fic is the fact that I already have a fic with this cover art on my e-reader so I'm going to have to edit it for transfer.
So.....is there two ghosts?
He went up to give the toys away but the box was empty.
Lil Boo went to play with the toys and found the box was empty.
Lil Boo isn't the one that moved them!
So the attic is... (wait for it)... A room with a Boo.
The moment when you realize you can't hug a ghost.
As it has been pointed out that the fact that this is a ghost of a foal makes this story so heartbreaking. I hope nothing happens to those toys.
9281596
I’m imagining his new hiding place as an actual duck blind.
9281651
That feeling when you realize that the afterlife was the only life she got to live.
Actually...
What way did she come in?
Now who's the spook, human?
I wonder if you can earn cutie marks posthumously.
That settles it, the lack of food and water made him delusional. Even considering swamp gas as an explanation in an attic for a fraction of a second.. he's gone off the deep end afterall
9281829
The thatch glowed and she passed through the glowing spot into the attic (presumably from the outside). Her disappearance would then most likely have been the same thing in reverse - she approached the thatch ceiling at a convenient point, it glowed as she passed through, and then the glow faded. The protagonist didn't check to see if she passed through to the outside.
9281634
I know! I do want to hug her. She can move the toys so perhaps she can hug too.
Second opinion is buy her a new toy.
9281862
I agree, buy her a new toy to become friends with her.
Thus begins the paranormal investigation. This should be very interesting. Especially if it turns out everypony in town knew about the ghost and didn't think she was a big deal.
I’m just waiting for the chapter where she apologizes for disturbing him without meaning to and he (tries) to hug her and tell that it’s alright and that she’s welcome to stay!
Correction(s)!
9281473
If you want sad imagine if her name is really boo.
Pony mothers could have prophetic visions of their children and name them acordingly.
So her mother would now that her filly would not make it far in live...
9281834
What an intriguing idea.
The tricky question of course is how equestrian ghosts work and what happens to her next? Because she's adorable but she should probably have died properly instead of being stuck playing in the attic... maybe she can have a normal length life as a ghost and move on when she's ready.
9281182
"That was your big plan? Get Her?"
9282924 I just got overexcited.
on
the
9282096
Considering the old
manstallion a few chapters ago and the way the town officials were acting, at least some of the villagers know and may have some kind of problem with her.I already feel sad for her.
9281182
Maybe our protagonist should let his fingers do the walking through the yellow pages and see if there are local ghost-removal companies.
9281187
I’d buy a copy of it.
9281190
You know, that’s something I’d never thought of. Taking pictures at night is tricky; you’ve got to really know your camera settings and have the right kind of film and I’m thinking you’d probably want to manually set your shutter speed and f-stop for taking a picture of a ghost, since it’s entirely possible that the light sensor on a camera would be completely useless in that situation.
Back in high school, I did some photography of the football team, and we weren’t allowed at the edge of the field, so we used the fastest film we could afford and hoped for the best. Maybe one or two pictures on the roll would wind up being useful; all the rest were blurry or underexposed or both.
No, probably not. Depends on how long it takes to ship things through the portal, and how good the pegasus delivery system is (which, let’s face it, a pegasus delivery system is far better than drones).
9281197
“Here, I built this for you.”
Or at least looking through the cupboards. One wonders if ghosts can eat.
My favorite quick camera story is when I was riding a train and had an old Canon. Built like a SLR, but it wasn’t (there’s probably a name for that type of camera). Shutter speed was automatic; everything else was manual.
I saw something--can’t remember what--that I wanted to take a picture of as we were passing, so I lifted the camera, flipped open the case and popped the lens cap in one smooth motion, focused and shot and the picture actually turned out decent, much to my surprise.
I think that younger kids than me are better at capturing everything (perhaps to excess). Back in my day, film and developing were both expensive, and I’d often consider carefully before taking a picture of something (like, is it worth $2.00 to remember this?). Nowadays, digital is so cheap there’s no reason not to.
9281200
Thanks!
9281231
<hugs>
9281251
Thank you!
Running and screaming isn’t a bad option, or at least curling up in the fetal position under the covers (because it’s a known fact that if you’re completely under the covers, you’re safe).
9281473
They really are.
<hugs>
9281518
I know.
9281592
Here’s another option:
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/7/16/937933__safe_artist-colon-jordo76_oc_oc+only_oc-colon-sophia+specter_angry_bow_cute_ghost_ghost+pony_glare_hair+bow_nose+wrinkle_puffy+cheeks_scrunchy+.png
9281596
He was going to, but he hadn’t done it yet because the box wasn’t in the way.
9281617
Bad pun.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/4/15/299135__safe_artist-colon-aginpro_oc_oc+only_oc-colon-pun_animated_simple+background_solo_trotting_white+background.gif
9281634
I know, right? So unfair.
9281651
9281733
I’m not entirely sure that would be an improvement, but it might be.
9281826
I know, right?
Through the roof.