HERE was a town far away, off any road you might know, and further still from any city. It was one of those small quaint little towns that breathed and lived the colors and tones that Rockwell and Grandmother Moses tried to capture within a canvas. A town that, for one reason, or another is forgotten and left to be untouched and unseen as the great wide world grows.

However, this town in particular had a secret, one that Oliver Mangs was about to find out.

Oliver was hiking in the woods. The woods resided in one of those beautiful mountain states that people come to visit, and thanks to a few wrong turns, he was lost. The young man had roamed for days on end till at last, in the twilight, he found a worn and dusty road. His canteen had long run dry and he had gone without food for even longer. The road was his only chance at salvation. The road smelled of old earth and damp underbrush, sweet yet dank.

As he wandered the evening sky took on an eerie look, and the shadows grew as the October winds rustled through dark leaves and breathed life around him. The trees overhead oscillated with ominous intent. For what seemed like days he followed the old dusty road, until he heard the midnight chimes of some distant church tower, heard them strike and imbue the drifting fog with low somber tones.

“At last,” he thought. “A church means a town, and a town means I’m no longer lost!”

But he was seized by a cold chill— not far up ahead on the road was a figure.

“Hello?” he called, but the unknown person did not answer. The figure only stood, looming. Oliver walked closer, snapping twigs and fallen leaves under his cautious steps. He at last was close enough to see the figure properly. Oliver now knew with a sickening fear. Knew why the man did not answer. The plain and simple reason was that he could not. For the man had no head to speak of, or with, for that matter.

The bells rang again, and there appeared from the black midnight another man on the road, then a woman, and another, and another. Out of thin air these folks materialized, folks whose bodies faded in and out of this world and the next. Oliver’s heart was in his throat, for they were dead— a parade of ghosts gathering and moving together on this forgotten pastoral road. More and more appeared— their rotting faces half gone, eyeless sockets somehow looking forward as they marched onward, with Oliver the sole living man in this crowd of corpses. The only sounds were the moans of the October winds.

Oliver trembled but still he moved on.

“I’m going to die.” He repeated this phrase over and over in his head. Oliver realized while amongst the dead that he had never truly lived, that he had wandered lost most of his life and now had stumbled into some campfire story of old. And yet death did not come on the road. Strangely, these spirits seemed to pay him no mind, or at least mistook him as one of their own, so he treated the ghostly hosts as if they were wild animals and tried not to spook the spookies.

T last the town came into view. The sign read, “Welcome to Lundersville.” Oliver noticed that where it read “Population of” it had been poorly painted over and replaced with a single number— 1. Oliver and the ghosts walked down the streets. He was right in the middle of the crowd, so running was out of the question. They walked past a town square with a grocery store and ice cream parlor and courthouse; everything, although faded and dilapidated, was so quaint that Oliver was suspicious that he had somehow followed the road and spirits back in time. At any moment a milkman or other old-timey person would saunter up, but there was no denying that the town was indeed dead.

He saw in the town square a man as translucent as a moonbeam (and dead). The ghost spoke in a loud and commanding voice.

“Welcome, welcome, far away travelers! Welcome, welcome, dearly deceased.”

To Oliver’s astonishment, the crowd cheered. The one speaking continued.

“Our town welcomes those recently dead and others buried beyond recollection.”

A few of the more decomposed sort let out a loud, “Hear, hear!”

“Now, it’s on this night that we welcome you, one and all, to take our honest-to-goodness Inhabited House Tour.”

There were several murmurs as the spirits spoke amongst themselves.

“Now, now, hush! Our tour is about to begin.”

It was then that Oliver, looking around, realized that these deceased individuals were not evil or frightening. Grizzled and gruesome yes, most assuredly; but they seemed like any excited crowd gathered together to see a spectacle or wonder.

“Now, if you will all follow me.”

Their literal spirit guide began the tour.

“Old man Winston was born in this town 73 years ago. We are coming up on his birthday— October 31st, Halloween. He is an interesting man. In his youth he was a pilot and flew just about everywhere a man could. After that he served as the mayor's personal assistant and did several spectacular civic duties. He even once saved a child from a burning house.”

“I don’t believe it,” cried one woman whose arms were missing.

“Believe it, Miss. If we are very quiet, we might be able to hear him singing in the shower on a night such as this.”

“I bet it sounds lively, almost joyful,” a partially rotted ghoul said next to Oliver.

“Some have claimed!” answered the guide, and they all walked a ways till they turned into a neighborhood. All the homes were faded and worn down, and most were dilapidated with overgrown lawns, the windows broken, save one on the very end of the cul-de-sac. There was a house, one that by its normalcy and upkeep stood out as unique. It was this that sent a wave of delight amongst the group.

“Oh, lord,” cried one ghost.

“Look,” they all shouted, “the lights are on!”

Sure enough, the porch lights were a dim orange, and they cast a warm glow on the recently tended yard. It was then that they all heard a voice singing at full volume, singing the half-remembered lyrics of a song.

“There are those who say that old man Winston wakes up at dawn. They say that he does yard work on the weekends and on Sunday in particular he leaves clothes out to dry overnight.”

The singing stopped and they all heard a frustrated groan through the open window.

“Blasted all creation! Not again!”

There was a sound of splashing, and a thunder of footfall, and out of the front door and onto the front porch charged an old man in his bathrobe.

“Get off my lawn!” he roared, and all the ghosts cheered and screamed with delight and the worry that comes with witnessing a lion at the zoo.

The old man was not pleased by this reaction—his eyes were afire as he waved his cane, cursing.

“Ralph!” Old man Winston hollered at the guide. “For the love of all that is good and holy, stop showing me off like a damned prized pig! You're not the mayor anymore. You've been dead for 17 years.”

Winston spotted Oliver and just about keeled over with shock.

“What’s this!? Who is that man? Have you started bringing living people on the tour now?”

The lost man finally spoke.

“I’m Oliver, I got lost in the woods. I just got caught up in all this. Honestly, I still don’t know where I am.”

The ghosts and Winston all shouted at once.

“You’re in Lundersville!”

The gathered ghosts now noticed the living man, and they let out howls and hoots and scattered in all directions like a bunch of spooked alley cats. Some soared off into the sky, others sank down into the ground below. The old man rushed over and took Oliver up by the arm.

“Hurry boy, quick, they'll be back.” He then snorted.“There's no use standing out here with all the dead folk. Come inside, where it's warm and you can have supper.”

Even as he spoke, the spirits began to return. He ushered Oliver into the house and slammed the door. This was of little use against them as a few stuck their garish heads through the solid wood and gawked at the two living folk. Oliver was drenched in sweat. 

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

“Nothing!” the old man cried as he pulled two TV dinners out of his freezer and stuffed them into his microwave.“Nothing we can do but eat our meals and be stared at like we're a set of damned circus animals.” He sat at his worn dinner table and stared at his young guest.

“Wait! So we're not in any danger?” asked Oliver.

“My God, man! My privacy is!” He stood up abruptly and pulled his curtains back and screamed, “A bunch of peeping toms is what they are! A poltergeist of peeping toms!” He turned back to Oliver. “Not a moment’s peace in the evening, not a moment alone in the dark. They come at night at the witching hour. Every cursing one of ‘em, up and out of the graveyards and right to my house and there's not a blasted thing I can do about them! This happens every October. At first, it was just the folks I knew. They weren't so bad, but word of my mortal coil has apparently spread, and now more and more have come to see.”

As if on cue, many of the spectral spectators had entered into the house and gathered into the living room.

“Every night it’s like this. I’m just a man, a simple man, you blasted ghosts. Leave me be!” He shooed them away with his cane.

“What do we do?” asked Oliver.

“We do our best to ignore them, that's what I try to do. But it's so hard sometimes to not just yell and swat at them like flies buzzing around. It only lasts until my birthday, thank God. Then I can have peace.”

They ate dinner silently except for the murmurs and whispers of the dead.

“Just look at that! I haven’t eaten in over a hundred years. O, to have a stomach again...”

“Look at how he chews,” said a corpse whose mouth had rotted and lost all its teeth.

Both men now ate apple pie. Winston poured them each a cup of coffee.

“To think— he can move that mug with the slightest of ease. Do you know the amount of energy it takes me to just rattle a door knob?”

Several spirits nodded in agreement.

Winston grunted at the comments with his eyes closed.

Now that Oliver knew there was no real danger he looked and noticed several model airplanes scattered around, some on the mantle, others hanging from wires. Winston saw him looking.

“I used to be a cargo pilot.”

“Yes, I know,” said Oliver.

Winston’s face clouded with annoyance. “How?” he demanded.

Oliver blushed and stammered.

“T-the tour.”

Winston stomped his cane. “Not an ounce of privacy!”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you still here?” asked the young man.

Winston looked at him.

“Towns die, son. I didn’t, and in some ways I am haunting this place. I could move to the city if I wanted, but it's the city that killed my home. That's what cities do — they grow and choke all the life out around them, till it's just concrete and chaos.”

“What about the younger generation?”

“They left to make it in the big city. They left the old folks to do what they do best— die.”

He leaned in real close so that the others in the room couldn't hear. “Just between you and me, I’ll choose the ghosts over city life. Too much noise, too much moving, not enough living.”

Oliver took a bite of pie. “That's right, you youngster,” a ghost interjected. “You enjoy them sweets whilst you can. Try a few decades without the taste of chocolate in your mouth, then you’ll see.” This spirit was dressed like an old prospector. A tear slid down Oliver’s cheek, then another and another. The whole experience had finally caught up with him. He had truly thought he would die lost in the woods.

Winston put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “It’ll be alright, son. We are alive, and that is worth celebrating. You can go home in the morning. You were on the right road, you just took a wrong turn. You go back the way you came; there's nothing living in this direction except me.”

Winston said goodnight and headed back up stairs with a few ghosts following.

“Just look at how he walks,” exclaimed the mayor.

“Yeah, yeah,” hollered Winston. “You should see me flush the toilet.” They all let out a collective gasp.

He halted mid-step. “That's not an invitation!”

 

LIVER lay on the old man’s couch staring up at the ceiling, wide-eyed and awake. Winston’s words had made an impression. And he realized that he had taken his life for granted, wandering and never truly committing to really anything.

The ghosts came and went on their tour, pausing in amazement at the young man unable to sleep.

Perhaps it was because Oliver was so encompassed by death that he came to understand why they watched with such interest, why they gathered to take a tour of a living man’s house. Just as humanity wonders and thinks of the afterlife, so do the dead contemplate and long for their lives before. The old man’s mundane life was their miracle.

“Excuse me,” Oliver called out to the mayor who was upset at having his tour interrupted.

“Yes, boy, what is it?”

“Well, I was wondering if Winston has any friends or family?”

“Why, son, the residents of Lundersville are his friends. As for family he never really had any.” The mayor looked mournful. “That's why I started this tour in the first place.” He then gave a mischievous grin. “It’s also a damn good tourist attraction.” He shrugged. “Old habits die hard!” He winked and resumed his tour.

Oliver realized that for all the old man’s protesting, he actually liked their company, and perhaps even took a little pride in being the center of attention. He sat up. Why had it taken a night with the dead to appreciate the living?

The ghosts faded as dawn came and poured autumn gold on to the forgotten town.

Oliver walked back to the main road. He looked over his shoulder, back at what was lost, at the inhabited home lived in by a lonely man, and then looked forward towards the city and took a breath.

A few weeks later it was Halloween and Winston’s birthday.

It was evening. Winston sat in his living room working on his model airplanes, when there was a knock at his door. Astonished, he opened it, and there stood Oliver smiling, his face full of life. Around him were several people dressed up in all sorts of costumes. 

“What’s going on? What are you and all these people doing here?” Winston asked. 

“We've come to celebrate the life of a man who saved mine.”

The old man seemed shocked. “Is that so?”

“Yes, sir, in fact I've been telling everyone, the living and the dead, of the legend of Old Man Winston. Maybe it will catch on. Maybe others will hear of his legend and be inspired and just maybe we can breathe a little life back into his old haunting ground.”

Winston let out a loud deep laugh and grabbed Oliver up into a big bear hug.

“I’d say you're as crazy as them ghosts!”