voices written by Gage Illustration by KKC Bauder

I think I was about five, when I first heard the voices upstairs in the barn. Yep, I was five. All the locals said my house was where thousands of Union soldiers died in the Civil War many years before. It was a battleground where a massacre was held. Our lawn is even named 'Leewise Massacre House'. I had ignored all these comments, because I couldn't do anything. If my parents wanted to live here, I was living here, too.

I had never felt or seen anything in my house, but when I went out to the barn. . . after stepping past all the ATVs and animals and supplies, at the edge of the steps I heard voices. Voices of old men, wheezing and coughing, drinking their whisky, and playing cards. And those depictions of ghosts, they are wrong. They are not see-through or transparent or float.

They are like you and me; skin, bone, human. Although it is creepy that they have bullet wounds in their heads and blood leaking from gunshot holes… and they talk. Every night I would sit down with them, play cards and have conversations.

My parents never believed me.

Whenever I would say, "Who's up in the barn?"

They would just glance at each other and declare, "No one."

The soldiers are my friends. They tell me I see things others can't. Do Ma and Pop see the dirt mounds and gravestones and clear-as-day mourners? Of course not. That's impossible.


One night, as I was playing cards, Soldier Jarf spoke to me.

"You want to see my gun?" he inquired.

I nodded.

"Under my grave," he joked.

Soldiers. Where do they come up with this stuff?

One day, I stepped outside and saw General Dervart on his knees crying. A dead boy was in his hands.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"My son," choked General.

"Why is he here?" I said.

The General sobbed.

"Don't you see us here? We're all here."

Mourning and crying and graves were all around. My house transformed into a hospital. The hurt were healed and the dead were buried.

"I want to see my home, not the hospital," I said. "I miss Ma and Pop."

"How dare you!" yelled General.

"Have you no respect?" I ran.

He pulled out a gun.

BOOM.

I knew he made me one of them. I was a ghost. Now I spend my days haunting and playing cards.