Haunting Father

Steve Zwilling Series of Unfortunate Events

“Go to bed, Jonathan! And I’m not going to tell you again!” slurs the mother, fresh off of her silly drunken slumber. Jonathan decides to stay up, seeing as it is only 6:30pm, guessing she would just crash ‘n’ burn into another deep intoxicated sleep soon.
The mother is not always like this. She developed this drinking problem around the time her husband died. She used to be a happy, loyal housewife that devoted her whole life to her husband. She was also a beautiful, petite woman with big blue eyes and long blonde hair.
Then, it happened. It was about 3 years ago today that her husband died. She remembers the day like it was yesterday.

The phone starts to ring at about 4pm which is usually the time her husband made his way home and sometimes he calls to see if he needs to pick any groceries up for dinner, so when the phone rings she sprints to the phone, like she is racing somebody to it.
Out of breathe and sighing with every word she speaks like a young asthma patient having an attack.
“Hello?” she says excited, yet worn-out.
“Mrs. Taylor, this is Mr. Burns from Burns Steel,” he says
“What is it, sir? Is there something wrong.” She says also concerned.
“Well Mrs. Taylor I don’t know how to say this, but…. ugh…” he chokes up momentarily, “Well, Mrs. Taylor its about your husband. He—He died in an electrical fire. I’m so sorry.”
Mrs. Taylor breaks into tears and calls her son Jonathan downstairs. The phone dropped to the floor as if she spikes it purposely. It bounces off the floor into three different, cream- colored pieces.
When Jonathan hears this he ran quicker than he usually came when his mom called him. He slips on his Tasmanian devil slippers with the hole in the right foot making the devil look like he got his eye ripped out and makes his way down the solid, oak staircase.
“What’s wrong momma?” Jonathan says.
“Honey, your father isn’t coming home for awhile,” Mrs. Taylor says sobbing, barely getting the sentence out.
“What do you mean momma?” he says alarmed.
“Well honey, there was an accident at work and he didn’t make it,” she says.


“Go next door and have Mr. Wilson buy me a pint of Brandi’s.” Mrs. Taylor says to her son as she chokes on a cigarette. She just started and she hacks as if she has too much phlegm clogging her throat passage.
Jonathan makes his way to school and he runs into his principal.
“Get to class Mr. Taylor or you have a detention this afternoon.” Mr. Jones says so nonchalantly.
Mr. Jones is a bigger man that looks as if he has eaten breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then did over again everyday his whole life. He has a comb over and he wears knickers and penny loafers along with his suede vest and tie. He also sweats more than any normal human being.
Like, an honest student Jonathan makes his way around the corner to his class until he is out of Mr. Jones’ sight and then he dashes for the bathroom. Then, BAM! He runs clean into something in the hallway, but there is not a thing there. There is not a locker, a person, or even a drinking fountain. It is just like oxygen solidified for that brief moment. The hallway is like any other hallway in a school. It was filled with different color squares inside of a blue border to the sides of the hall. It smelled as if it was freshly waxed although it was caked with dust and dirt. So, generally it was very dry so he couldn’t have slipped on the floor.
Confused, he gets up, brushes himself off, and then makes his way into the bathroom, thinking what that could have been that left him flat on his ass.
When he gets into the bathroom. He walks up to the second urinal of four, pulles his pants down, and began to do his deed. When Jonathan’s done, He turns around and again BAM! It happened again! He hit something that makes him fall right towards the ground. He fell right into the urinal this time though, soaking his butt from the bottom to his belt line.
“God damnit!” he says in a rage, “What the fuck is that and how the fuck does it keep knocking me over?”
Seeing as he was already late he sits still in the bathroom for the duration of time until his pants dry, reading the writing on the stall walls. “John loves Jane 4E,” and “H.G, 4-5-07,” he reads the writing in the stall he was waiting in.
He washes his hands and looks into the mirror to see if his hair was ok. Jonathan has this dirty blonde kind of hair that really bothers him because it is awfully curly so he tries to use gel to mat it down. Unfortunately, the gel never works correctly, so he has to keep up on the matting. Behind him the stall doors start to move interchangeably, but he is the only present in the lavatory. It’s like when crept through the bathroom moving these stall doors.


“What the hell happened?” Mrs. Taylor thought to herself, “Where in the fuck is Johnny with my damn pint?”
Then, she realizes he is at school. He was always a good kid. Very independent and has his head on straight. She is very proud of him. On the other hand, he doesn’t listen to her when she needs him to do something.
“Well I guess I’ll just go get it myself,” she thought.
“Shit, where are my car keys?” she says rifling through her pockets and found them in her coat.
“Ah, here they are.”
When she steps out of the house she hits something and falls down abruptly. Still drunk from the night before, it takes her awhile to gather herself enough to get up.
“What the fuck?” she mutters and looking around, but there is nothing there. It is like she hit a huge invisible wall that is made out of pure steel. So, she continues down the blue-painted wooden steps that sits in front of the porch like old dried up pieces of plywood that would break if stepped on wrong.
She pulls out of the driveway and notices all the buses. This meant she observing that Johnny should be on his way home from school. In a daze, she continues down the road to the liquor store on the corner. It goes by the name of Bob’s Beer House. Ironically, named this because they have the slimmest selection of beer in town. As she walks in the store, she is looking at all the kids passing and disappointed in herself because she wonders if her drinking has an effect on Johnny since the passing of his father.
Johnny always seemed irritated and quiet with his mother. She, although in her drunken state, still realized when something was bothering her son. Mr. Taylor was a big part of Jonathan’s life and still is, even after his passing.
She asked for her 8-dollar pint of Brandi’s and jingled through the change in her pockets like she was trying to make a bizarre melody with the coins and finds some dollar bills at the bottom.
“Here you go.” she said. Then, she makes her way to the front door.
Before she got to the door a wild man barrels in bearing a gun in his left hand.
“Give me the god damn money and you get down!” he shouts very demandingly, “No, fucking around lets go! Lets go! Lets go!”
Willingly the cashier did it and threw him the bag of money. Quickly, the man runs away and right before he hit the front door he just falls backwards. It looked as if he slammed into the window on the door or an invisible wall, like she had earlier.
“What the fuck?” said the Robber.
He gets up quickly brushes himself off and continues to the door. As he gets there, he runs to his car and starts it. Right as he pulls away, he has to swerve around her car because she didn’t park to respectable in front of the store. My front end is sticking out into the street and kids on their bikes have to keep going around it. The car looked as if she cut the wheel way to early while parallel parking and just satisfied herself with that.
All of a sudden, outside there is an atrocious sound of screeching tires and busting glass.
“O shit! Shit, shit, shit!” yells the robber as he jumps around his open door.
As she runs out she sees a bike twisted up under the car and the feet of a child lying motionless on the ground sticking out in front of the car. She makes her way over there to see if there is something she can do. When she gets there she couldn’t believe her eyes. It is her beautiful baby boy. Johnny lay there motionless on the ground. “Speak to me honey, speak to me!” she says crying, kneeling to his side. “Not another one! God please no.”

A sound of loud sirens and heavy-duty engines comes barreling around the corner. It was an ambulance and a fire engine. The fire engine is from the local firehouse engine 45. The lights were reflecting off the car along with the sun. it was almost blinding to look at. The puddle of blood the boy lays in is also a heavy conductor of the reflection of the lights.
The paramedics and firemen came out and asks questions and tends to the boy. Speaking his name trying to get his attention
“Hey, Buddy, Hey!” says the firemen, but there was no response.
He turns to Mrs. Taylor and asks “Whats his name?”
“His name is Jonathan, It- It’s Jonathan,” she said in a quivering voice.
The fireman continues to yell his name, but there is no response and so they try C.P.R and to revive him.
The paramedic’s pump on the kids chest, as if they are trying to collapse his rib cage, he was a rather large boy so this is required. After several failed attempts, the paramedic gets up with a stern look on his face, wipes the sweat from his brow, and signals the fireman to come over.
Mrs. Taylor stands in the arms of a stranger who trying to comfort her, nervous as a mother would or should be. She is trembling and sweat is beading down her face like rain drops on a windowpane.
“Is he alright? Sir?,” she said.
The paramedic looks at her walks a rather significant distance and then looks away and announces:
“Time of death, 3:35pm.”
Mrs. Taylor drops to her knees as if she is purposely trying to shatter them and starting mourning for Jonathan. She looks at him lying there and decides to crawl over to him. She looks like she is an infant who can’t walk yet. When she does get to him she holds him with blood all over her body from his. She rubs her red stained hands through his hair.
“It’s ok baby, It’s ok, momma is here,” she said crying.
The professionals have to grab her and separate Jonathan from her, which is like pulling a leg from a bear trap. She held on to him as tight as she could and continued to yell at the top of her lungs in bereavement.
The paramedics put him into the body bag and go through with the necessary procedures. Then, they continued to express their regards to Mrs. Taylor and go on their way and Mrs. Taylor lies in a puddle of her son’s blood, weeping in her own sorrows while strangers are caring for her. She looks up as if something called to her and sees a shadow-like, figure following the back of the truck as it pulls away.

“The funeral was nice,” said Mrs. Taylor’s sister, Penelope, while sitting in the car after Jonathan’s funeral.
“Yes, it was,” states Mrs. Taylor.
Penelope’s car sits running in the driveway of The Taylor house and she continues to tell her sister, if she needs anything to call her as soon as possible. Mrs. Taylor expresses that she will be all right for now, but she thanks her for the offer. Penelope drive’s away leaving Mrs. Taylor alone to walk up to her vacant house. Without a son or a husband she feels alone in the world. She felt as if God is punishing her for something she did wrong in the past.
She looks at the dead grass in the front yard as she walks up the driveway. The grass sits so yellow and brown. It looks as if death himself came up and draped his cold lifeless hand across the top of it.
“This is awful looking,” she says disgusted.
Then, she walks up the same tattered wooden steps as before and has the similar thoughts as before. When she gets into the house she feels the vacant nature of the house. Feeling hungry she makes her way into the kitchen and proceeds to make dinner for herself. She pulls out some chicken and throws some corn into a pot on the oven. Then, she continues to pull a pint of Brandi’s out of the freezer and continues to pour that into a glass that she pulled from the cupboard. The cupboard was filled with empty pints and dust that she has to maneuver around, just to get a glass.
When she turns she saw an image appear in front of her face, but then in a flash it whisked its way on up through the ceiling. Nervous, she runs into the living room and grabs a barbecue scour that lies in front of the fireplace. The scour was long and black with a sharp end.
The figure that showed up in front of her looked like a floating black shadow that just has more detail to it. It looked as if a man outlines himself in black and pulled all the rest of his body off and continued to move around like that successfully.
“What the fuck is that?” she says scared for her life.
Upstairs there is a violent crash. It’s sounds as if there is somebody up in the bedroom throwing objects in the room around or that there is some kind of party and people are crashing. Interested and nervous at the same time Mrs. Taylor slowly creeps up the steps making sure not to be heard. She finally gets to the room and calls out the first thing that came to mind. Immediately regretting her decision.
“Hello?” she said, “Is anybody there?”
When she got fully into the room the door slams shut and there stands a figure. The figure like downstairs, but in more detail because she stands closer.
“Who-Who are you?” she says quivering in fear.
The spirit than forms to a vibrant bluish glow and the image of her husband came to be in front of her. He looked as if he just got back from a wedding or a proper event. He is young and dressed up in a suit. His hair is slicked back with the grease he used so much when he was alive and he had a smile that went on for days.
“Hello, honey,” he says, “How are you?”
She stands in shock not saying a word and Mr. Taylor begins to laugh.
“Now, come on now, honey it’s me.”
“No, No it cant be,” she said confused, “Your dead.”
“Yes, Yes I am, sweetheart, but that’s no reason to be scared,” he said laughing still.
He walks up to her as if he were a real person. There was no floating or hovering like a typical ghost stereotype. He walked up to her like a normal person of the flesh.
“Now, listen to me baby,” he says, “Jonathan is alright. He is with me now. We needed him up here and he fits right in and he’s happy. Do not worry about him.”
“How can I not worry about him? He is my baby--.” She says quickly and upset.
“Shh, Shh, don’t over work yourself. I got him up here,” Mr. Taylor says smiling.”
He hugs her and holds her as she cries into his suit that he is wearing. She hugs him back so hard, but loving at the same time. She missed him so much it hurt her to even live another day without him.
“I tried to prevent you from problems baby,” he says
“What do you mean?” she questions him.
“Do you remember when you ran into something before you went to the store?” he says.
“Yes-“ she says confused
“Well that was I. I was trying to prevent you from trouble, but there is only so much I can do at one time,” he says, “I cannot fully prevent you because I will be messing with the scheme of things. However, there are some loopholes that I found, but I can only get in your way, not fully stop you. I did it to Johnny too”
“What did you need to do these things for?” She asked him.
“Well baby, the way you guys were living your life was inappropriate and appalling,” he said concerned, “That was the only way I could stop you guys from going down the wrong path. You were making Johnny unhappy and ruining yourself. I just had to but in and try to keep you from walking into bad situations.”
“Well, why didn’t you help Johnny then?” she questioned him.
“Because it was his time baby,” he said, “I hate to say it, but it was. You were supposed be coming too, but I prevented it. When that robber ran into something in the store that was I. His intentions were to turn around and shoot you and the clerk, but I threw his mind off by getting in his way.
“Well, I still don’t understand why you didn’t help Johnny!” she said very upset.
“Sweetheart, I tried, but he was hit before I could get to him. It just didn’t work out in our favor, but it’s time for me to go. I love you.”
He began to disappear into the shadows and then Mrs. Taylor began to yell.
“No! No! NO!” she screams.
Then, she hears his voice, but could not see her husband. It sounded as if he was on a stereo system talking to her from a higher altitude.
“It’s ok baby, I will see you soon enough,” he sas to her confidently, “Live happy for me.”