Ghost Story

“It happened on a Saturday morning.” Peggy said as she was trying to remember. “I was getting prepared for an interview and… Everything was normal, you know?” She smiled to the person the camera couldn’t see.

“You mean you didn’t expect anything to happen, right? Nothing was out of ordinary when it just… did.” A man said and the Agent nodded.

“Yes, yes, exactly.” There was a pause while she was looking away, frowning. “It was like… Like time had just stopped for a moment.”

“How?”

“Well, it was a bright sunny day and, even though the curtains were pulled, all the light in the room seemed to have left. It was getting cold as well and- And that’s when I saw him, standing in the corner, watching me.” She held her hands close to herself, still upset about that last part.

“Him? You knew it was a man?” Peggy shook her head.

“It couldn’t be a man.” She bit her lower lip, cutting herself off as if she had said something wrong. “I don’t know what it was, but it couldn’t be real.” She emphasized on the last word to be understood and didn’t say another word.

“Do you… have an idea on what might have triggered this… this apparition? Why did it happen?”

“I…” The woman was thinking again. “I wasn’t doing anything particular… Well-“ She huffed and smiled softly. “I was only looking at his picture… Because of this interview I had that day.”

“A picture?”

“A picture of Steve, of course.”

Rebecca woke up in the dark of their bedroom, feeling tired, but mostly confused. She didn’t know why she was awake since it was obviously the middle of the night as her eyes were already getting used to the lack of light. Her husband was softly snoring on the other side of the bed and it had never bothered her that much before. The woman hesitated between trying to go back to sleep or go have a glass of water in the kitchen when the sound of a door knob being manhandled stopped her.

The door creaking was clear, someone was coming into their room and Rebecca was frozen in fear. She didn’t even try to look at who was coming, but something was off. There were no footsteps to be heard, but a presence remained. The housewife covered her gasp when she felt the end of the bed sink under an unknown weight. In another universe, she would have screamed to get her husband to wake up and do something about the stranger in their bedroom, but in this one, she simply couldn’t.

When a hand started touching her foot, she didn’t move, even if it felt cold and unpleasant through the sheets. The unidentified presence was rubbing her foot and Rebecca was suddenly thrown back years ago, when the only person to do that for her was also the one her family missed the most.

“Bucky?” She asked quietly and the stroking abruptly stopped.

The door slammed shut and the woman didn’t cover her scream this time.

“You’re gonna wake the neighbours if you keep this up!” Daisy pulled her boyfriend up the stairs as the man couldn’t contain his laugh. “Will, come on!” She smiled nevertheless and looked for her keys when a detail caught her attention.

“♪ Daisy, Daisy, you make me so happy! ♪” Will approached her from behind and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Hey, what’s the matter?” He asked, still a little tipsy.

“I’m sure the door was locked when we left.” He frowned like he didn’t understand a word of English before looking at their door himself.

It was slightly half-opened and, of course, perhaps Daisy had simply forgotten to close it properly, but he knew her too well by now. She would always check twice before they were able to leave the apartment, so this was just impossible.

“Stay behind me.” Daisy obeyed without a word and took his hand by reflex as the man pushed the door open slowly.

The flat was dead silent and dark, but Will didn’t even try to turn the lights on since they still had a few issues with the electricity here. ‘Should have looked somewhere else, he thought, but would never dare to say it aloud in front of Daisy who had been the one to fall in love with this place.
The living room seemed to be empty, but the sound of breaking glass under his foot stopped the two-young people.

“What the-“ Daisy picked something up and let go of Will to cover her mouth.

“Will, it’s us!”

“What are you talking about?” He squinted in the dark and saw Daisy and himself on the beach, but with holes instead of their smiling faces. “What the fuck? Who the fuck would do this?”

Angry at whoever had done this, Will went into every room of their apartment and found nothing but the silence of a quiet night. He came back in the living room to find Daisy sitting in the middle of the mess, trying to save whatever pieces she could find. Her cries were so quiet, Will would have easily never noticed the tears rolling down her cheeks if he hadn’t come down to take her in his arms.

“They destroyed every one of them…” She told him.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. We’ll make new ones, all right? We’ll even make better ones!”

“But why, huh? Why?” Will would give everything to find these bastards and make them pay for what they did.

“Come on. We’ll finish this tomorrow, let’s go to bed, okay? Please, Daisy?” She let herself be manhandle and as they walked together towards the room, both heard the front door opening.

They turned around at the same time and saw no one on the other side of the corridor.

“’Must be the wind.” Will said and if he wasn’t looking forward to a good night sleep, he would know it couldn’t make sense.

“Will…” Daisy wasn’t looking in the same direction and he quickly understood why when he saw a shadow looming right in front of their bedroom.

“Oh my-“ It looked like a human, but the dark aura surrounding it made them want to leave right away and never go back again.

“GO!” A demonic voice ordered and it couldn’t have much clear as Will took Daisy to their only way out of this hell.

They left all they had, along their broken memories, and never came back. He should have known somehow that this was never their home in the first place. Perhaps he also should have asked more questions about the former residents, especially about those two soldiers who never went home. Even if he didn’t really believe in ghosts, perhaps tormented souls did stay on earth for a reason.

The key he was given instantly bought back memories of his time in this building. The city had changed a lot over the years, but his home only seemed to have aged instead of being destroyed and rebuilt again. The old man told him they couldn’t without explaining any further, not because Steve hadn’t asked, but because the janitor had turned to look at something before leaving abruptly. When the blond looked over the staircase as well, nothing could have helped him understand his strange behaviour.

The ex-soldier started climbing up the stairs slowly, carrying a suitcase that didn’t feel heavy since it was mostly empty and also because as a super soldier, he wouldn’t be able to feel it anyway. Most of his stuff were either lost forever, in some museums or with him, thanks to Peggy and his commando who had kept them and gave back to him as soon as they knew he had made it back. He was home, but could he still call it that way when everything he knew was gone? Except for the apartment, he had shared with his dead best friend, of course.

When he reached the top of the stairs, a tension started building up inside of him. He hadn’t been back for seventy years and people must have lived there after both Bucky and he had left for Europe. However, it was still a shock to come back in front of that same door and wish it had been sooner. If only he wasn’t alone.

Steve pushed the door open after unlocking it and stood on the doorstep for a moment to let all the different feelings overwhelm him and pass. Nothing seemed to have changed from the colour of the walls to the floor. He took a hesitant step forward while looking around and realized that everything was pretty much the same expect for the lack of furniture and life. Nobody was living here at the moment obviously, but the blond felt like it had been this way for more than a few years as it was hard not to notice the dust.

“I’m home.” He whispered to himself and a cold breeze sent shivers down his spine.

The young man put his case down and looked for the opened window that reminded him why he disliked the cold. After checking almost every room, he went to the bedroom and had to blink twice to get the hallucination out of his view. For a second, a man was standing next to the window and he looked exactly like Bucky on a Sunday afternoon, enjoying his free time before the war came and killed him. There wasn’t a day or a minute that Steve didn’t think about him and especially how he had lost him.

He finally closed the window and sighed heavily. Maybe coming back here wasn’t such a good idea. The National hero shook his head and pushed his bad thoughts away for now before leaving to get his stuff. Steve was frowning the closer he got to the front door when he didn’t see his suitcase right where he was sure he had left it. There had been no sound of someone entering the flat and as he turned to look for it, he found no suitcase lying around.

“Where-?” He put his hands on his hips as on old habit when he heard a crash in their former bedroom. Something started to feel off with this place, but Steve didn’t really want to think about it as he made his way to the room where he found his broken suitcase like it had been thrown to the ground. “How?” He knelt down to pick his things up and came across his old sketchbook, opened. There were several sketches on these pages, but the one that caught his eye was the one representing Bucky, the one he had been drawing during a rainy day in Italy without knowing whether his best friend had been killed or not. If it hadn’t been the case, Steve didn’t know what would have happened then, but perhaps it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing. Steve would have still crashed the plane and survived and Bucky would still be dead. Bucky. “Bucky?”

Steve was not over that strange incident and he did believe in God, so what did that make him?

The feeling of a presence behind him was suddenly very much clear and Steve decided to turn around quickly only to see that there was no one there.

“Stevie.” He heard whispering to his ear and Steve backed off against the wall in surprise.

No one was in the room with him, but he swore the voice belonged to a dead man.

“Bucky?” He asked in disbelief and stood up. “Bucky?” He continued almost desperately.

The window opened itself right in front of him and Steve stepped towards it.

“I’m here, punk.” This voice. The man looked at the old, but so familiar face and couldn’t believe his own eyes.

“You’re here.” Steve said and Bucky was in his uniform, smiling at him, like the day he had told him the news. “You’re really here.” He moved to be closer, but didn’t know what to do anymore. Losing him had happened yesterday for him after all and this just felt like a dream. “It’s been so long, Buck’. So long.” And he had no idea how it felt to be this old.

“I know.” He had missed him so much. “I know, Stevie.” The ghost was the one to make the first step and it was cold again. “But you’re here, so it’s okay.” Steve saw his hands coming to touch him, so he lifted his own as well when he realized that Bucky was pushing him away.

“Bu-“

His strength was unexpected, but Steve didn’t just stumble backwards. His back hit the window ledge and he fell from the 6th floor.

“We’re home, Stevie.” The skinny blond nodded and snuggled into the other man’s arms as both were drifting off to sleep.