These Walls Still Talk (A Get Haunted Tale)

Christian stopped the rental car in front of the ominous stone entrance to the bloodiest forty-seven acres in America-at least dubbed so by Time magazine. The two-glass front doors and an array of windows peered down at the roadway, judging its nightly tour of guests and choosing which of those guests the abandoned prison's disembodied inhabitants will toy with tonight.

Christian leaned over Hannah, who sat in the passenger seat, to get a better view of the two sprawling castle-like towers on either side of the Missouri State Penitentiary entrance. Those towers stretched beyond his vision and looked as if they had suffered and had weathered their own arduous battles-internal and external-and had lost more than they had won.

"I told you that I don't want to talk about it anymore," Hannah said into the phone as Christian found an empty parking spot farther down the road from the prison.

"Looks like a full house. Did you see how many people were already lined up?" he asked.

She flashed him the hold-on-one-second symbol with her index finger and scowled at him. She knew Christian had only said that so her boyfriend-if Dollard even should be called that anymore-could hear another man's voice in the car with her. A not-so-subtle reminder that Hannah had asked Christian, and had not asked her boyfriend, to attend this overnight ghost hunt on one of the country's most-haunted properties.

Little did Christian know, Hannah had only asked him to go to see if it would make Dollard jealous. She felt like she had literally tried everything else to salvage the relationship. And she was sure her therapist-and her alcoholics anonymous sponsor, for that matter-would have a field day with her intention.

"Fine, Dollard. I'm going now. Talk to you tomorrow. That's if the ghosts don't eat me or anything." Hannah slammed the phone onto her jeaned thigh and released a frustrated scream that ricocheted back to her from the windshield.

She didn't want to look at Christian in the driver's seat. She knew he was glaring at her. She knew he was judging her. She wanted a moment to breathe-or to not breathe. Maybe that would be better for everyone involved.

No. She had worked tirelessly with her sponsor and therapist to expunge those thoughts during the past year of sobriety. Those days were over. Or at least they would be after tonight-after she made the last purge of her demons and returned to the penitentiary what rightfully belonged to it. Then she would be free.

She steeled herself and slowly espied Christian. Just as she thought; his brows were furrowed, and the look of disappointment of her and the look of longing by him were written all over his face.

"I don't know why"-he stopped himself; she assumed it was to prevent him from saying something he would regret-"you put up with him."

She looked away. Didn't want to answer. Wouldn't answer. It was just too hard to explain to someone who hadn't gone through what she had endured over the past fifteen years. Rather, the past fourteen years of being a functional alcoholic, and then a not-so-functional alcoholic.

"He was there when no one else was," she muttered, even surprising herself.

"I'm here for you. I'm here right now to do the most important thing for you. To prove to you that this faceless shadow man with a brimmed hat, who you've been seeing, is just a figment of your imagination and a product of your ." He let his words trail off. Again, probably not to say something he would regret. Christian was both great and terrible at doing that.

She snapped her gaze at him. "And my what? You were going to say alcoholism. He wasn't a hallucination, Christian."

"Then why the fuck have you not seen him a single time since you've gotten sober?" he yelled.

Hannah quickly stuck the tip of her index finger into her mouth to nervously chew on a cuticle and pushed her black-rimmed glasses farther up her nose with the back of her other hand. She focused on the line of guests lengthening in front of the penitentiary doors.

She slipped her hand into the front pocket of her jeans and slowly removed the rolled-up stolen item from the last time she had visited the penitentiary. She felt the thick and worn fabric between her fingers, the texture reminding her of a karate belt. The dark gray strip of fabric was about eighteen inches long and about two inches wide. From top to bottom, it contained loops made of the same fabric that rested one atop the next. Hannah didn't really know what it was. Maybe she would have an opportunity to ask someone here tonight about what the inmates had used it for.

"Hannah, I want to show you that these demons come from within you from faulty beliefs, not from that object nor from any ghost attached to it." He nodded toward the item in her grip, then sighed. "However, as the supportive friend that I am, you know I'm your biggest cheerleader for this quest of yours to purge your demons by returning that strip to the prison tonight. And, if you doubt that, keep remembering that I am the one here doing this with you and not"-Christian inclined his chin over his shoulder, indicating a boyfriend who had decided to stay one thousand miles away on the East Coast-"that guy."

Hannah wiped a single tear from her eye. "It's the final thing I have to do to close that chapter."

Christian sighed heavily and thumbed out the window toward the growing line of people. "I also think it'll be fun to show all those other crazies that all their ghost experiences are just creations in their heads too."

"I just can't anymore." Hannah stuffed the strip of fabric into her pocket and flung open the door. She slammed it, leaned against the car, and folded her arms. She felt the car jerk and heard Christian's door slam on the opposite side.

"C'mon. You know I'm only hard on you because I love you."

She arched an eyebrow at him as he rounded the front bumper, slinging his backpack around one shoulder.

"As a friend! Jeez, Louise."

"Yeah, right." She chuckled and pushed herself off the side of the car. She matched Christian's pace toward the end of the line sprawled down the sidewalk toward the entrance of the penitentiary.

When they solidified their place in line, Hannah pulled her phone from her back pocket. "Oh, did you download the ghost-hunting app I told you to?"

Christian flashed her a devilish smirk. "Maaaayyyybeee."

Hannah punched his arm. "You didn't."

He released a full-blown laugh and kneeled to unzip his backpack.

Hannah watched some of the items stuffed inside try to escape, then gasped. "Are you fucking crazy?" she whispered forcefully, bending to meet his gaze.

He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "What?"

Hannah pulled her lips taut, reached into his backpack, and slid a vodka bottle with a blue cap out just an inch so he knew what she meant but so no one else could see. "Not only do they have a strict no-alcohol rule inside the prison, Christian Halifax, but how fucking insensitive are you to bring that? What? You thought you would just get wrecked around me, while we are hunting ghosts?"

"Calm down, Hannah Banana."

"You didn't know me when I was drinking. You've only known Sober Hannah."

"I know. I know. You tell me all the time how meeting me the day after your final bender felt like it was a new beginning." He reached up and tucked a wayward strand of her brown hair behind her ear that had gotten stuck in the frame of her glasses. She knew he had only done that to soften her; she hated herself that sometimes small acts like that usually always worked. "It's just one of those break-in-case-of-emergency liquid-courage things. For me. Not you."

Hannah smiled at him, not because she forgave him for bringing the liquor but because she knew unequivocally that Christian would be there for her, through thick and thin.

Christian met her gaze and returned a coveted smile of his own-one that said so many more things than her smile had conveyed. Things she didn't know if she could ever reciprocate. Or at least in the manner he wished for.

Maybe one day. Maybe.

"So, what's the app called again?" he asked, breaking her reverie, his phone in hand and his backpack zippered again and slung over his shoulder.

Hannah cleared her throat and tried to rid her brain from the distractions of Christian's energy that he was so good at projecting toward her. "It's called Casper-Capture."

Christian's fingers tapped on the screen as he navigated the app store. "I assume it's this one, with the image of everyone's favorite friendly ghost as the icon?"

She chuckled and smirked as she lowered her gaze. Sometimes his goofiness worked wonders on her mood. "Yeah, that one." She surveyed the cluster of guests in front of them, who clearly were there together, to see how many people were present. She heard another group get in line behind them and said to Christian, "The hunt doesn't start for another thirty minutes, and so many people are here already."

Christian glanced up from his phone. "Can't believe this many people believe in this hocus-pocus."

"Stop being so cynical. And stop using the name of my favorite movie to make something sound juvenile."

"Okay, Hannah Banana, then explain to me how...