On three. Turn it on and pull back the blanket. One…

Kamp felt the cool knowledge of inevitable death upon him.

Two…

And what might it look like?

Three…

He pulled the blanket back and flipped the switch.

He screamed.

There was something there. Mom’s corpse flat on her back. Dad wearing a suit of centipedes.

“Get out!” Walter called, closing his eyes.

But when he opened them, he saw that the crinkles in the blankets had made funny shapes and that was all.

From out in the hall he heard footsteps.

“Mrs. Doris?”

Maybe. Maybe something else.

Kamp got back into bed and pulled the blanket tight to his nose. He stared out at his rooms for a long time, but not long enough for the sun to come up again. Not even close. By the time he fell asleep, the rain was the heaviest it’d been all night, and the Goblin sky was as black as an unaccounted-for corner where death might be found crouching, readying itself for the spring.

6

At two fifteen a.m. the alarm nearest his bed went off.

Kamp sat up with a gasp. He looked the length of his rooms before he understood that the sound was coming from the small box beside him.

With a plump pointer finger he turned it off.

Silence.

It was time to check the tapes again.

Stepping over the rubble of former walls, he sat at the television and rewound the tape an hour. At the beginning of the footage he saw himself pacing the apartment. He winced as the him on the screen pulled back the powder-blue blanket on the bed and screamed.

He watched the rest in fast-forward then, sleepily, got up.

But halfway to the kitchen he turned right and stepped to the front door.

Somebody was out there. Walter heard him.

His ear to the wood, he waited for a sound. It didn’t take long as he could distinctly make out the steady breathing of someone in the hall.

“Mom?”

“Walter?”

Kamp jumped at the sound of his name. He inched back from the door with his hands raised before him.

“Not yet, Mom! I’m not ready! It’ll kill me! It’ll scare me to death!”

“It’s me! Mrs. Doris!”

Kamp recognized her voice. He lowered his hands. “Mrs. Doris? What are you doing out in the hall so late at night?”

“I’m restless. Sounds like you are, too. Come have a drink, teach me some history. On a night as rainy as this, I could use to reconnect with Goblin before it washes clean away.”

Of course! History! This was a topic that could take Kamp’s mind off the ghosts. Funny, no?

“I’ll be right over,” Kamp said. Then, to himself, Incredible how bringing up the ghosts of Goblin make me forget my own.