Yellow Mama E zine

BANSHEE BUSINESS

 

Roy Dorman

                                                                                                         

 

         Decked out in his forest-green Peter Pan costume, Eddie O’Connor was on the Number 34 bus, headed across town to a friend’s Halloween party.  He was feeling pleasantly mellow from the half of a joint he’d smoked before leaving home.

         It was only 3:30 and he had plenty of time.  He’d traded some shifts with co-workers at the Quik-Mart, and didn’t have to be to work again until tomorrow afternoon at 2:00 o’clock.

        Halloween was Eddie’s favorite holiday.  He thought it was even better than Christmas.

        After having ridden only a few blocks, Eddie choked on his soda when he saw a huge construction worker get into the bus. 

        He chuckled to himself as the worker and the bus driver exchanged a few words.    Laughing at something the man said, the driver waved him on, and he started toward the back of the bus.

        Eddie thought the guy would look great in a gorilla costume.

        The worker stopped when he got alongside Eddie, who was still chuckling.

        “Whatcha laughin’ at, asshole?”

         “You, ya big gorilla.  I’m laughin’ at you.”

         “Everything okay back there, Carl,” the driver called out. 

         “Everything’s just hunky dory, John,” Carl said to the driver.  “I’m gonna just slap this punk around a bit and then throw ‘em off at the next stop.”

        The driver stopped the bus.  “Hell, ya can throw ‘em out right here if ya feel like it.”

        The driver had stopped the bus in the middle of the street, about three or four blocks from the next scheduled stop.  He’d opened the front door, but was not prepared for the passenger who stepped in.

       “Eddie?” the new passenger called out.  “Mum says it’s yer time and I’m supposed to bring ya back with me.”

       Eddie and everyone else on the bus stared at the new passenger.  She was obviously some sort of spirit.  She didn’t look “real.”  She was standing next to the driver and was blocking the front exit.  Though since she was barely more than an apparition, she really couldn’t block that much.

       “Jenny!”  Eddie yelled.  “What are ya doin’ here?”

       “I told ya.  Mum sent me.  Yer to come with me.  Let’s go!”

       This was his sister, Jenny, who’d died with his mother in a fire he’d started when he’d fallen asleep after drinking and drugging three years ago.  “Careless use of smoking materials” had been stated as the cause of the fire.

        “Get off my bus, you…, you…,”

        “Banshee,” Jenny said without looking at the driver.  “I’m a banshee and I’m here for my brother.  It’s his time.”

        The driver stood and was about to push Jenny back out the door when she gave out with an insanely high-pitched scream that ended in a mournful wail.  It pushed the driver back into his seat and sent all of the passengers except Carl scurrying out of the side exit.

        Carl grabbed Eddie by the arm and roughly pushed him up toward the front of the bus.

        “Get up there with your freakin’ weird sister and the both of ya get the hell off this bus,” he said.

         Jenny watched with crimson-red, hungry eyes as Eddie approached. 

         She turned to the driver and said, “Take us to the Crestview Cemetery and drop us off there.”

         “This ain’t no fuckin’ cab,” mumbled the driver.

         Jenny let out another shriek, even louder than the last and the driver, covering his ears, relented.  He closed the bus’s door and started down the street.

          Carl and Eddie took seats on opposite sides of the aisle behind the driver.  Jenny just stood next to the driver with her hand on his shoulder.

         “Ya have to take a seat to ride on my bus…,” the driver had started, but had then stopped when Jenny threw back her head as if to let go with another blood-curdling scream.

         “Okay! Okay, already!” he said.  “Don’t yell!  Stand there if ya wanna.”

***

         Eddie and Jenny entered the Crestview Cemetery and Eddie noticed the temperature seemed to have dropped twenty degrees.   Though it had been a sunny afternoon outside the gate, inside the shade of stately old elms, maples, and oaks made it appear more like dusk.

        The cemetery had gotten into the Halloween spirit.

        Eddie toyed with the idea he could maybe make a run for it, but Jenny’s ice-cold hand descended onto his shoulder.  As if reading his mind, she very slowly shook her head from side to side.  Her eyes were narrowed with a look of disdain. 

         They walked on.  Or, rather, Eddie walked on.  Jenny floated on.

        Eddie gazed down at the two gravestones placed next to each other.  One was for Molly O’Connor, his mother, and the other was for his sister, Jenny, who was now hovering a foot off the ground next to him.

         “Now what?” he asked.  “Why are we here?”

         “It’s yer time, Eddie.  Our mum had me bring ya here to die.”

         “I’ll be dyin’ in a cemetery?  Ain’t that a bit cliché?”

         “About as cliché as me and our mum burnin’ up cuz of yer stupidity.”

          Eddie thought about that and nodded.  “And how am I supposed to die here?”

          Jenny threw her head back and started screaming.  Her scream seemed to last an eternity to Eddie, but it finally trailed off into a low moan.

          And then she disappeared.

         Flames shot up from the slightly mounded earth where his mother lay.  Eddie tried to run, but couldn’t move.  His feet were welded to the spot, held in place by boney, blackened hands that had pushed their way up from the earth.

          “Mum!  Mum!  Noooooo!”

          “Eddie! My little Eddie!”

          The flames increased in intensity as they moved from his feet up to his head.

          The flesh of his face melted, and rivers of it ran down over his neck and chest.  His eyes bulged and finally popped.

          Minutes later, Eddie was a small pile of ashes that a good wind would scatter among the nearby grave sites.

         Jenny had no remorse for the part she’d played in her mother’s revenge.  In death, she was now a banshee, a caller of people to their own deaths.

          She called.  And if it was your time, you went.

THE END

​

     Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 65 years. At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer. He has had flash fiction and poetry published in Black Petals, Bewildering Stories, One Sentence Poems, Yellow Mama, Drunk Monkeys, Literally Stories, Dark Dossier, The Rye Whiskey Review, Near to the Knuckle, Theme of Absence, Shotgun Honey, Punk Noir, The Yard, and a number of other online and print journals. Unweaving a Tangled Web, published by Hekate Publishing, is his first novel. 

​

      Cynthia Fawcett has been writing for fun or money since she was able to hold a pen. A Jersey Girl at heart, she got her journalism degree at Marquette University in Milwaukee and now writes mostly technical articles about hydraulics and an occasional short story or poem on any other subject.