Friday, June 03, 2005

I Thought We Agreed to Never Speak About What Happened to Jenny

Why are you bringing this up again? It was all so long ago. Don’t you agree that what’s in the past is best left there? Why do you want to keep on dredging up ghosts?

What do you mean “Funny I should mention ghosts”? Tom, don’t start this haunting business again.

I thought we agreed to never speak about what happened to Jenny.

I don’t care how much blood suddenly bursts forth from the walls every June 3 or that sometimes there are bizarrely-patterned scratch marks on your arms when you wake up in the morning. We just shouldn’t talk about it.

No, I can’t explain why all the fish in Sandover’s Pond have suddenly started to die off or why the water is a soupy black. Nor do I have an explanation as to what slaughtered the livestock at the Merwin place. But I don’t think it has anything to do with Jenny or the horror that the three of us endured five years ago to this very day.

Do I know why a pack of feral dogs chased you through the woods when you were walking home from Lauren’s party last week? No. But instead of immediately assuming it’s a manifestation of an incredibly powerful demonic energy, why not just chalk it up to bad luck?

Dozens of people spontaneously combust every year, Tom. I’m not surprised that it happened to Father O’Shaughnessy.

I’m sure there are scientific explanations for all these things: the surge in the locust population, the eerie howling from the attic, the giant maggots that suddenly crawled out of the stew.

Can we please put this behind us? Well, then, can you at least dismantle those gigantic crucifixes you erected around the house? We’ve got enough wolfsbane in the basement to choke a horse and when I go to work every day people ask me why I smell like garlic.

You’re being ridiculous. I’m going to bed now and if, in the middle of the night, another disembodied goat-horned skull that vomits forth flies appears in the bathroom doorway where we found Jenny’s ritualistically mutilated body, then, maybe, I’ll start to believe you.

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