Father

I just want to start by saying this is not easy for me to talk about, even after six years it still hurts me deeply. But that being said, I feel it is important for me to share my story, so here we go I guess. My name is Timothy and in 2012, I lost my Dad to throat cancer. I was 18 years old at the time, and it was the hardest thing to date I have ever had to deal with. One of the hardest parts was leading up to when he passed, do to his throat being so eaten up, his voice was very, very rough, and it hardly sounded like him.

And in the very end he couldn't even speak. His last words to me, were words unsteadilly written on a piece of copy paper, Those last words will not be writen here..... those are just for me, I dont know exactly why it hurt me so deeply that his last words were not spoken to me but it did, it cut me deep, deeper than I thought I could be cut. Any way, the next morning, my loving Father, was gone, just an empty husk left behind. It is a feeling that is very difficult to describe, looking at a dead parent, this person that raised you, that loved you, and has always been there for you, is now just not there..... and never will be again..... and knowing that and seeing this lifeless thing that was your father just sitting there, hurts & confuses you to the core.

After we said our goodbyes and were leaving the hospital, me and my mother rode with my uncle and his wife, we were quite hungry afert this whole ordeal, so we stopped at a Mcdonalds and got some burgers and gorged our pain ever so slightly away. That night when we got home, i fell face first into my bed and lay there, face down, for what had to be 10 minutes, before I even shifted my weight. Now it's important to note that I have believed my house to be haunted for some time at this point, nothing scary though, just  some bumps here, thuds there, and I saw a few shadow like figures over the course of about 4 years.

So nothing to get all worked up over, but that night, the house felt...... well, just off. It was uncommonly chilly in the house, and it was so.... quiet, if you listened hard enough, I'm convinced you could have heard a moths wings slicing the air around them, if only ever so slightly. I rolled onto my back and proceeded to engage in a staring match with my celing. The celing won as I perdicted, so with a sigh of grief, sorrow, and ever growing boredom, with one quick motion, I sat up on the edge of my bed. I rubbed my eyes, and stood, I shuffled over to my dresser and opened the bottom drawer. And from within that drawer, I pulled a 15 year old bottle of spiced Rum, I know beautiful, I had snuck this bottle out of my Grand-Dads massive alcohol colection, he had like 12 of these and would never miss the one.

I jogged to the ketchen, and grabbed a bottle of coke from the fridge, and back to my cave I slank away, to get inebriated, and struggle to forget some of the pain I was feeling inside. So as I was dipping in to my 3rd rum & coke, I hear my dad call my name, and I instinctively reply with "Yeah dad, what is it?" and as I stood and began walking to the door it hit me, and goosebumps rose all across my body, as ice cold neddles drove themselves into the length of my spine, one vertebrae at a time. I froze, and with a shaking voice whispered "Father?" I never used that word before to adress my Dad, I don't know why I used it in that moment.

A thousand thoughts were racing threw the grooves, and channels of my yough, perplexed, and terrified brain. At the exact moment the thought struck and stuck in my head that, "Holy fuck! My Dad is dead! How did I just hear his voice!", as if what ever had called out my name could hear my thoughts, a deep, guttural laugh rummbled through the house. I squealed and dove on to my bed, and grabbed the 9mm I keep by my bed. I aimed it right at the door, just waiting for something to come bounding through, but nothing did, minute after minute, still, nothing. I lowered the gun, and chastized myself for being so stupid as to think a gun could stop a ghost in the first place.

I mustered the strength and courage to stand, and walk to the door of my room. Ever so slowly I swung the door open. The living room was dark, like pitch fucking black like tar. Save for a few splotches of bluish white light. The threshold to the kitched was one such light, a bluish-white window cut from the blackness, and there, standing, motionless in that window of light, as black as the pitch surrounding it, was a figure, a figure, of my Father. My eyes must have grown 3x there normal size, My breath caught in my throat, and insted of oxygenating me it was choking me, and I can only imagine my skin tone matched that of a vampier's last victim, bled dry, white as a sheet.

We just stood there, neither one moving an inch. It felt like an hour of just standing there, but it could have only been a few seconds before this things head swiveled up and to the right to rest its gaze on..... me. I shuddered, I felt urine trickle down my leg. Then in a voice that shook, and trembled, but was so deep, and full of hate, and sounded as if it came at me from all angles....... it spoke. "Hello my son, have you been....." it breathed in, filling my ears with a horrid rattling noise, "missing me?" tears were poring down my face, my eyes were so hot they hurt, and i sobbed uncontrollably. All I could think was "This evil fucking thing...." It ckocked its head to the side, and sniffed loudly, "Why do you reek of such terrible fear child? Do you not recognize your own Father?"

When it said "Father" it sparked a rage in me, I cried out in hate "You are not my fucking father you filth!!! And I am not your son!!" It roared with laughter, a deep, gutt fuled laugh, that shook the walls, and sent bugs crawling over the entierty of the surface of my skin. It stopped laughing as suddenly as it started and spoke again, "That may be child.... But do you hear it?" It paused, and tilted it's head from one side to the other, "It's..... It's your Daddy, crying out to you from the pitt! Will you not save him!! Will you not try." I could hear it, my fathers screams, It howled with laughter and jeers. I fell to my knees sobbing, begging it to stop, but the more i begged, the louder the screaming grew.

I was holding my face in my hands, tears flowing out form between my fingers. I glanced up, and I wish I would have just died before i had gotten the chance to, for what I saw has haunted me more, and caused me more pain then anything else I have ever endured, Its face was right there, a hands width away. It resembled my father in the most feeble attempt possible. Its skin was bluish and splotched with white, like a corpse, It had no eyes I could see, just gaping holes from which the reek of decay and death, seeped, Its mouth was curled into an evil grin, its lips were deep blue, and the teeth behind those lips were crooked and rotting.

I gasped and lunged backwards, I grabbed the first thing my right hand could find, and with as much force as I could focus, struck It in the face. It cried in agony and flew away from me, I looked down and in my hand, was my fathers crucifix, that alway hung over his side of the bed in my parents room. I have never been and really even after this am still not religious, but started quoting ever Bible verse I could think of. I screamed Jesus Christ's name at It, and it shrieked in fear and hate. I struck it with the cross one last time, and in that instant, poof!! The light came on, the heat was back, everything in the house was back to normal.

After the funeral, I moved in with my brother, My mother sold that house and moved to a lake house, a small one but cozy. I have never told anyone about this, and I still wake in the night screaming. But when I do, I look at my fathers cross that now sits next to my bed, and fight back tears at knowing, that against all odds, even death its self, that from where out there my Father put his crucifix into my hand, and in doing so, my Dad saved my life, one last time. I love you Dad, thank you.