"The Ghost of Jeff Walker"

After realizing that he was out too late, Jerry Smyth meets an intersting yet terrifying man.

“The Ghost of Jeff Walker”

By Cody Williams

 

1.

            “S**t!” Jerry Smyth shouted out looking down at his digital watch that read 11:00pm. Jerry was in the middle of his first semester at Betsy University in Betsy, Tennessee. He stood up from his blue chair in the back left corner of the band room and carried his Yamaha marked trombone into the instrument storage room. He reached into the pockets of his navy blue basketball shorts and pulled out a key chain with a key that read locker 72 on it.

            He slipped the key into the keyhole and twisted it to the left to unlock it. He reached into the locker pulling out a red YAMAHA Xeno trombone case. He unlatched the golden buckles on the case and opened the lid. He unscrewed the nut witch connected the bell of the horn to the slide. He placed the bell in the case and then the slide in the case. He shut the case and latched it up and quickly placed it in the wooden locker.

            He shut the door of the locker and once again placed the keyhole and locked the locker. He bent down grabbing his next to the locker and grabbed his silver and black backpack. He placed the strap around his shoulder and darted out of the door. He sprinted into the lobby of the music building and walked out the door, down the steps, and onto the sidewalk.

 

2.

            Jerry looked down at his watch again as it read 11:15. The campus of Betsy University was a lot quieter than usual. It was the week of fall break and his girlfriend Allison was away visiting her parents. In fact, the campus was almost completely empty. Nobody but a few faculty members. The reason he was the only one on campus was because he and his dad had a bit of a falling out.

            His dad, Brad Smyth, owned his own cleaning company called Brad’s Cleaning Service. Jerry served as the head manager. It was Brad’s dream that Jerry one day became partners and on day owned the business. Jerry wanted very little to do with his father’s business. The only reason he accepted the manager job was so that he could have a little extra money in his pocket. Jerry tried out for a variety of performance scholarships and was awarded the grand scholarship to be in the marching band. This scholarship would completely pay for his tuition and would get paid a refund check of eight hundred dollars. He accepted it with no hesitation thus cutting the strings between him and his father.

            He continued walking down the sidewalk where he reached a stop sign. He stopped to look both ways. He walked across the intersection to the other side of the street. He paused for a moment and looked up at the black sky. He looked at the moon, which was lit up in a Halloween colored orange.

            He continued to walk down the sidewalk. He began to think about how empty the campus was. He walked by the Turner Cafeteria. He looked into the window to see if anyone was in there. There was something about walking in the campus at night, even if it was empty. Most people assume that it was peaceful to have the campus to himself. The truth is he thought so too…at first. With his lesson books tucked under his arm and his backpack on his back, he continued to walk down the street.

            Jerry stopped for a moment. “Maybe if I could cut through the center of the campus, I could get to the dorm faster. He turned to his left and walked up a case of five gray concrete stairs.

 

3.

            Jerry continued to walk on the sidewalk towards the center of the campus. He began to imagine the fun he could have since he was the only living being on the campus. The only thing that made him feel uncertain about it was walking through the cemetery. The thought of walking through a cemetery a night was enough to make his skin crawl. He ignored the hairs standing up on the back of his neck and continued to walk along the sidewalk.

As he got closer to the cemetery he could see that goose bumps began to appear on his arms and he could feel the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He could feel an increase drop in temperature as an eary fog began to roll in from all angles. He stopped under a black metal railing, which read CEMETARY on it. He felt as if there was a lump on his throat. He good in a deep breathes and gulped with fear.

“Well, it’s now or never.” He mumbled to himself as he continued his exposition to his dorm. He began to walk with haste. He could not stand the thought of being in there more than a couple of minutes.

As he reached the center of the cemetery the temperature dropped to what he would describe as ten below freezing. His foot hit one of the head stones and he tripped falling down to the ground. He imminently grabbed his left ankle, which he twisted. He looked over at the now separated into two parts head stone.

JEFF

WALKER

NOT A VERY NICE GUY

            The headstone read.

            “Oh s**t!” He said to himself while picking himself up. He lightly put weight on his left foot and stood up straight. He picked up the upper half of the gravestone and looked at it again. At the top of the stone was the head of a cobra. He knelt down to take a look bottom half of the stone. The date was one thing in particular that intrigued him. 1850-1900 read the stone. What was even stranger was the writing below his last name. NOT A VERY NICE GUY was strange to him. Why would somebody write that about him? What was not nice about him?

            He shook his head and placed the top half on top of the lower half and waited for a moment to make sure that it wouldn’t fall. He picked up his backpack and placed the straps on his shoulders and picked up his group piano group and placed them back under his arm. His picked up the notebook paper he dropped on the sidewalk and shoved them into his piano book. He turned around and continued to walk through the cemetery.

 

4.

            After getting out of the cemetery he could finally see his dorm. He continued to walk along the sidewalk. He walked for several more moments before he began to notice something. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He didn’t even have to look back. He heard the footsteps. He knew he was being followed.

He looked back over his right shoulder and saw a man standing in the middle of the sidewalk about the length of a school bus back. He could not tell who the man was. The moon was behind him so all he could see of his front was black nothingness. He could tell that he was wearing a long black leather trench coat and a tall black hat. In his right hand was what looked like a wooden cane to his side? It looked like he had long black hair falling down on his shoulders.

“Hello?” Jerry called out waiting for a response from the mystery man. No answer. “Hello? What do you want?” He asked again still waiting for a response. Once again, no answer. He turned back in front of him and continued to walk along the sidewalk. With every step he took, he could see the hear the cane of the man hitting the pavement of the sidewalk.

He stopped again and looked back at the man. There the man stood about the length of a school bus back in the same position with his face looking towards the ground.

“Hello? Sir? What do you want from me?” Jerry asked the stranger with a tremble of fear in his voice. Still the stranger wouldn’t answer him. “Damn it man, what the hell do you want from me?” He asked him again this time shouting. The mystery man continued to look at the ground without answering. Jerry looked forward again and continued to walk faster. Still with every step he took, he could hear the cane of the mystery man hit the ground. Every time his step got faster so did the stranger’s. CLICK, CLICK, CLICK he could hear the silver tip of the cane hit and echo throughout the valley as it hit the cold hard pavement.

He continued to walk faster and faster before he realized that he was sprinting across campus. He looked over his shoulder and could no longer see the stranger in sight. He stopped at a bench beside of the tennis courts to catch his breath. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a dark figure approaching him on his left hand side. It was once again the stranger walking urgently towards him.

He once again began to run towards the dorm. The dorm building was six stories high and was the oldest building on campus. The building was a light brown collared brick building. As he got close to the door he looked over his shoulder again and saw that the strange mas was no longer there.

As he reached the front door of the building he stopped of a moment and stuck his hand in his pocked to find his student ID so he could open the door. He grabbed the card and pulled it out of his pocket. He looked up at the door where he saw the mysterious man again. The palms of his hands began to run like faucets and his body began to tremble with fear. This time he could see them man a little bit better. The man was quite muscular and looked like he was about 50 years old. He had long black hair and was wearing a black t-shirt under a black leather trench coat with black jeans and black steel toe boots. In his right hand he was holding a long black wooden cane with the silver head of a king cobra as the handle.

“Who are you? What do you want from me?” Jerry asked the mystery man.

“The name is Jeff Walker.” The man said with a southern accent. Jerry’s skin began to crawl. Jeff walker continued to look down at the ground avoiding eye contact. His heart began to beat so fast he could feel the vibrations in the arch of his foot. “I believe you know that name from somewhere.” He said.

“Aren’t you dead?” He asked him knowing that he was going to regret getting the answer.

“Dead? I don’t like that word. I prefer deceased.” He told the frightened young man. Jerry’s hands began to shake with fear.

“What do you want from me?” He asked the phantom.

“What do I want? Do you think it was a quencidence that you tripped over my head stone? You have been chosen for a reason.” Walker informed the Jerry.

“And what reason would that be?” He asked him again as he once again had a lump in his throat.

“You were chosen to be my outlet.” Jeff Walker told Jerry.

“Outlet?” Jerry asked.

“Yes. You see young man, I have been waiting for over 100 years for this moment.” He said.

“What moment?” Jerry asked.

“The moment where I can once again walk among the living.” The apparition said with pride. He looked up into the eyes of the young man. His eyes were dark and cold. They began to glow red, that is the moment when Jerry realized he was no longer there. That he was under Jeff Walker’s control. Jeff’s black figure merged into the body of Jerry taking it over. Jeff lifted up Jerry’s arms. “Perfect” He screamed as his eyes began to glow once more.

Jeff smiled satisfied and placed his new student ID to the scanner and walked into the dorm.

 

5.

            “Jerry!” Allison shouted out while getting out of her Ford SUV. She ran over and jumped into the arms of her boyfriend. Jerry smiled and kissed her. He hugged her again as his eyes began to glow red as he morphed into Jeff Walker.

 

Copyright 2013 by Cody Williams

Courtesy of TRUE TERROR PUBLICATIONS

A division of TTP Entertainment

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Copyright 2013 by Cody Williams

Courtesy of TRUE TERROR PUBLICATIONS

A division of TTP Entertainment

Author's Note

This story came to me after about a week after moving in on campus. It was the first weekend and most everyone went home for the weekend. Living two hours away from where I am attending college I decided to stay and go home the next weekend (Labor Day weekend.)

I was at the music building practicing well after ten o'clock. I quickly left the music building and began my walk across campus do my dorm. While I was walking, the campus was completly deserted. It was practically dead. Nobody was roaming the streets, and there were no cars anywhere. That is when my imagination began to run wild.

I began to think, what if there was a strang man walking behind me? What if he stopped every time I stopped and accelerated every time I did? This was the product.

So please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!

-CW

Reviews

[Astro]

Once again, taking the cliche and making it new in one form or another. There were a couple of things I noticed that you could tweak perhaps to make this piece even stronger. Again, as in other stories you begin the majority of your sentences with "He did this, he did that" It seems like a list rather than a retelling. An exercise to try is to come up with a different way to approach an action so that it seems natural but also in a way that isn't so standard or repetitive. ie:

"Jerry reached into his right pocket and found his locker key. In front of him stood a line of lockers numbered 1 to 100. His eyes scanned left to right until they found locker 43. With one swift movement of his wrist Jerry turned the key in the lock and then swung open the door."

Can you see the difference?

Also, men from the 1800's didn't wear T-shirts. ;)

Other than a little editing with respect to spelling, this was a good one my friend. You have a great imagination and descriptive qualities which make your characters interesting and drive your stories.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks again for reading Astro!

-CW

[Astro]

No problem CW keep up the craft.

[Alleyway Rover]

Cheers! Got a read request on this story a while back, sorry it took me a while to get to it.

I don’t think I’ve reviewed any of your work in the past so, just a quick disclaimer before the games begin.

What follows is just one fellows amateur opinion, nothing more. I don’t claim any actual knowledge, I don’t pretend to have all the answers or any answers for that matter. Every artist is different and every story is a product of that unique view of life. These are just my suggestions and if they make sense and click for you, then I will do a happy dance. If not, then fight on proud word-warrior and write a story that proves me wrong.

And let us begin.

“He stood up from his blue chair in the back left corner of the band room and carried his Yamaha marked trombone into the instrument storage room. He reached into the pockets of his navy blue basketball shorts”

The first thing I am noticing is a lot of, frankly useless adjectives. The ‘blue chair’ the Yamaha-marked trombone, the navy blue shorts. Those really don’t give us a lot of information about the setting and tell us next to nothing about the story. (Would it really change the story if the the trombone was an Edwards? If not you probably don’t need to specify the brand until you get a product placement deal from the Yamaha corporation.)

The second thing I noticed is that your entire first paragraph could be shortened to this: Jerry Smyth put his trombone back in it’s case and put it in his locker. As a reader, I understand how lockers work. I may not know the specifics about the storage procedure of a trombone (although, I play saxophone so I kinda do know the procedure and… ewww, he didn’t clean it first!) but unless something about the process is vitally important to the story or says something about this character, leave it out.

Remember, often you have only a few sentences to hook the reader into reading your story. If I’m flipping through a book of short stories and I come across the first paragraph of this one, I’m most likely going to shrug and go to the next one. Putting away a trombone just isn’t that interesting. So start with something gripping. Make it next to physically impossible for me to NOT keep reading your work.

“His dad, Brad Smyth, owned his own cleaning company called Brad’s Cleaning Service.”
Again, unless his relationship with his dad is critically important, leave it out. It’s just another bit of information that keeping me from getting to the actual story.

A good rule of thumb and a maxim for writers is always start the story far into it as possible. Especially in short stories, you need to get the reader to the conflict as soon as possible. You should probably be presenting it in the first sentence and, if not the first, then the second. Jerry Smyth needs to cross a cemetery at night. Lead with that, that’s your conflict and conflict is the essence of story.

Beware of cliche statements like:
make his skin crawl
hairs standing up on the back of his neck
goose bumps began to appear on his arms

We’ve read these statement a hundred times. A thousand even. You’re trying to show us that your character is scared as opposed to just telling us ‘Jerry was scared’, and that’s excellent. Now you have to tell us that in a way only you can. Instead of using the same old words that everyone else has used, find your own. Say, “His heart beat against his chest like a drunken monkey on his cage” … … actually, don’t say that. That’s mine. Dibs. Dibs!! But you know what I mean.

Finding your own way of showing people the world around you is the essence of an author’s voice.

“The building was a light brown collared brick building.”
Watch out for typos like this.

I’ve got to be honest, the ending wasn’t very satisfying. I feel that your story is lacking three of the most crucial things that make for a good story:

Theme:

For one there is no theme that I can find… except for ‘walking through a cemetery at night is basically begging for trouble.

Every story should be some kind of argument. Every story should have some kind of statement about the human condition. Otherwise it’s just a series of events with no meaning attached to them at all.

I would suggest that you try and find some sort of statement within these words or construct one that you can weave the story around. If, for example, you want to tell a story that says, ‘true evil never dies, it just sleeps’ then you have an idea to wrap your story around. You don’t need to beat your reader over the head with this message, this isn’t a sermon, but it should be in there, peaking his head around the corner and whispering into our ear.

Conflict:
There is kind of a conflict here, Jerry needs to get home. What’s preventing him from doing that? A cemetery with an evil spirit between him and his dorm. How does our hero struggle with and overcome this obstacle? He doesn’t he trips, falls on a grave and awakens and evil spirit that takes possession of his body. That’s it? That’s it, George.

A good conflict involves a struggle. It involves rising tension and… will he! Won’t he! Oh God what is he going to do! etc. Your hero doesn’t have to win, but there’s got to be a struggle. There have got to be some fights, some words exchanged some mysteries uncovered, strengths displayed and weaknesses exploited. That is your story distilled to it’s most potent, intoxicating form.

I would, for just a moment, like to direct your attention to another conflict in your story, one I find much more interesting. An evil spirit trying to ascend back into the world. That’s a conflict.

You’re protagonist doesn’t have to be a hero per se. Hell your protagonist doesn’t even have to be likable. He just has to be interesting. Jerry Smyth… isn’t all that interesting, but Jeff Walker… oh lord what I wouldn’t give to walk around that maniac’s mind for a few minutes…

That brings me to…

Characters:
Your main character, Jerry is about as flat as they come. You spend a few paragraphs talking about details in his life, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the story. Zip, zilch. Nada. Unless his trombone prowess is going to be a factor in the conflict between him and Jeff Walker (and that would be an interesting idea in and of itself really) I don’t need to know about it. Unless his relationship with his dad is somehow in play, that can probably bugger off as well.

What we need is motivation, what does Jerry really want? Why does he cross the cemetery in the first place? Does he want to prove something to himself or something else, is he just curious, does he have some bizarre headstone fetish? Motivations have got to be in play and they got to be driving the character forward. What kind of person is he, is he headstrong and foolish, is he cowardly, does he meticulously plan, does he just improvise as he goes along, does he say whats on his mind or does he prefer to be in the background? His personal qualities will determine how he reacts to the situation. Lastly what skills does he come to the fight armed with? Is he a natural boxer, is he especially resourceful, does he have an extensive knowledge of campus spirits, IS HE IMMORTAL! Don’t forget his weaknesses. Is he clumsy, does he not pay attention to his surroundings, is he ignorant to the dangers of dark cemeteries, does he leave easily trackable trails of scardy urine when he sees a ghost?

Same questions for Jeff Walker. Make no mistake, this is a fight to the death and both your characters need to come to the arena armed. That’s what makes conflict interesting and it’s what make characters dynamic and fun to read.


That’s all I have. I hope there’s something useful in here for you.

Cheers!

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for taking the time to read it! I value your critisism and encouage you to check out some of my other work. I do have some better stuff on here.

Thanks again!

-CW

[The dark story]

man!!this was too creepy!! I like yhe description here and the setting makes it powerdul. Though there were slight errors in typing whixh threw me off the line., iliked it a lot.
Thanks for sharing

[Cody Williams]

Thanks so much for the review!

-CW

[The dark story]

Your welcome.

[dw817]

⊰ℛℛ⊱
Just noticing as I'm reading this, perhaps I find patterns in things. I know when I worked as office manager years ago that was one skill I was especially hired for, not just my typing but to catch discrepancies in forms even if I don't know what they meant, as long as they seemed out of place.

In the first paragraph, you start a new sentence with, "He" twelve times in a row, and you do it ten more times consecutively in the 2nd paragraph. Now I know I've had difficulty in my own writing when I fall into this pattern. Usually I interject something to break the familiarity, like "Then he," and "Having completed," "Once he had" etc.

"Cemetery," is a funny word isn't it ? There is a movie called, "Pet Sematary" and if you check with the author he finally begrudgingly admits that he deliberately misspelled it because children buried a pet there and that is how they would spell the word. Hmm. Perhaps. :)

It could also be that it is an exceedingly difficult word to spell. Took me years to get it right myself. As a kid, "animal" was my biggest problem, I would spell =AND= say it as, "aminal."

I like your description of, "length of a school bus." That really gave me a very clear picture of the setting immediately, and the creepiness of the situation.

As for the man with the metal cane. I would've found a branch or something. Check the environment behind me. And take a step backwards to see if he followed me. In any case, that much following without a word and he'd have the business end of the branch to his head. :)

Real fear is derived from things you cannot control. That young man could've dealt with the situation of being followed quite easily. As I consider myself a bit of a coward, I either would've ran off top speed where he wouldn't have a prayer of catching me unless he had my legs, or confront him head on.

Not just to be frightened and try and walk it off. If he really was scared, he could've made a phone call to the police. I've been stalked many times in a car when I walk out of a club at night and I always wind up at the front steps to a police station, which is always open. And my would-be-followers would tear off once they see where I'm at.

Have your head on a swivel, my Dad used to tell me. Always be aware of your environment and surroundings. Let no man corner or box you in. Now - at school, that's a little difficult with bullies, especially if you're cornered in a bathroom or worse one of the bathroom stalls, but outside, I could definitely get away from a creep like that.

Also, that is -umm- not the correct spelling for, "coincidence" but wow - that is absolutely how it sounds. :D

Reading the whole story, I dunno, The spook was definitely a doppelganger then. Still think that guy could've gotten away if he tried a little harder.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read it. I really value your criticism. I'll admit that it was about one in the morning when I was writing this and I made a few typos. By the way, I am a huge Stephen King fan and I love Pet Sematary:)

-CW

[dw817]

Oof ... You're not alone. Sometimes I see myself up past 1am and I have to scold myself most severely and tell myself to GET TO BED right this instant. I guess as far as teaching misspellings go, the series Winnie The Pooh does the same, "Plez cnoke if an rnsr is not reqid." Which I suppose might mean, "Please knock if an answer is not required."

And yet, if you think about that, it's a funny statement. If you don't knock, will an answer be forthcoming then ? :)

As for the movie, Pet Sematary, it was a bit creepy for my tastes. Minju, I'm really not one for horror films unless they are intelligent like Hellraiser 2 or Halloween Season Of The Witch which I thought were exceptionally well done and overall creepy.

[Cody Williams]

They're pretty nice movies as well. I'm just a fan of Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft...writers like that. They inspired me to write.

[dw817]

In truth, Max Rabinowitz inspires my writing. He wrote, "The Day They Scrambled My Brains At The Funny Factory." I'll definitely be mentioning him in the Foreward once I finish up Nancy Principle.

Oh ! I almost forgot to post it for today ! I better do that now !

[Cody Williams]

Very cool! Have a nice Labor Day Weekend!

[dw817]

Labor Day, the one day where you don't do any labor and celebrate America. Hmm ... Holidays sure can be strange sometimes. :7
http://gg.gg/gbn6

[Cody Williams]

lol! Very true!

[dw817]

Chris just wrote me. Says he has a cold, but - maybe we'll get together a little later this evening and go out for a later dinner. Hope so. I hate not doing stuff on Sundays. :/

[TL Boehm]

creepy! interesting premise - I also liked the bit about the band room. I remember my high school days and Yamaha brass instruments. Well done.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for the review!

-CW

[Nia Hope]

I like this one but you definitely have written better. If I were you I would go back through and double check your grammar and spelling and maybe add more vivid descriptions but I like the idea you have and I'm a bit curious to find out what happens with the girlfriend

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for the review!

-CW

[Rhiti Bose]

Good work Cody. The best part is you use very understated language to express, which makes the read much more enjoyable.

You are really good at the mystery/horror stories.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks so much for the review!

-CW

[Prritiy]

Its a very good work, i was totally into it while reading. liked it.

best wishes

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for the review!

-CW

[Prritiy]

you are welcome :)

[shallimarRose]

OK Cody.. I read this over.. I assume it is creative writing you are taking in school? Because this is very very well written. A good story line..
I caught some type-0's you need to fix.. nothing major.. Very nice.. shallimarRose

[Cody Williams]

thanks for stopping by and checking out the story. I am currently a music education major at Carson-Newman University. Being a music major require certain sacrifices one being that I have 18 credit hours a semester. That being said, I am not nor have I ever been enrolled in a creative writing class. i really wanted to take one my senior year in high school, but I couldn't fit it into my schedule. I would like to take some creative writing courses in a couple of years, but just don't have time for them right now. At C-NU we offer a minor in creative writing and I have been told repeatedly that I should minor in it...we'll see:)

Once again thanks so much for your complements.

-CW

[shallimarRose]

You're welcome Cody..

[Rosaria_V]

This was so very well put together!! Awesome read! :) good job!!

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for the review!

-CW