As I looked over my list of genres for my patrons, I was once again disappointed not to see comedy among them, strange I know. I must be a masochist. Though I was also staring down a publication deadline without a post in sight. With both of those factors rattling around my brain, I repeated what I did last month with Unlucky Voyager, I turned to Sebastian and Jimmy. This time, I didn’t have my trusty story cubes on hand, but I did have access to ChatGPT. So I turned to the AI and asked, can you give me a random story prompt with three objects/ideas? As I waited, I wondered what kind of nonsense it might toss my way. Luckily, it didn’t take long.
A child’s drawing, a forgotten cassette tape, and an abandoned train tunnel.
With those objects in mind, and a few follow-up rounds of brainstorming, I had the beginnings of my next Abbott & Costello inspired tale. Most people’s attics hold forgotten Christmas decorations or boxes of clothes they swear they’ll fit into again. But Sebastian’s Aunt Lorna’s attic? It holds a different secret. It holds a ghost. Not one that rattles chains or floats through walls. No, hers is subtler. The kind that lingers in cardboard boxes, hums in the static of a dusty tape, and waits in the silence between footsteps. The kind that doesn’t shout. It whispers. While Sebastian realizes her attic is odd, nobody’s been alive up there since Sebastian’s uncle died. Yet with an upcoming sale, she pulls her nephew in to help. Though since he’s unwilling to do the work alone, he ropes Jimmy into helping with the help of some miscommunication.
Neither of them knows what they’re about to uncover. Join me as we witness their latest misadventure.
The last time anyone had been in Aunt Lorna’s attic, disco was still king, and her brother, Sebastian’s uncle Gerald, was still alive. If Gerald were still around, he’d be sporting mismatched socks and rambling about conspiracies. But now Lorna was getting ready to sell the house, and she needed help. So she bribed her nephew with a combination of dinner, guilt, and the promise of her legendary peach cobbler.
Sebastian ultimately relented since family mattered. But Jimmy only agreed because he’d misheard his friend, thinking there’d be poker. As Jimmy carried a box toward the attic door, he paused and glared at Sebastian. “It smells like a sweater died in here. A very old and musty sweater.”
“You’re wearing a sweater,” Sebastian said, digging through a box, “and it looks old.”
Dust motes floated like ghosts in the beams of light from the dangling bulbs. While the attic was cluttered, it wasn’t chaotic. There were carefully stacked boxes, faded furniture under white sheets, and a worn recliner that once hosted many of Gerald’s late-night rants.
“That’s not the point.” Jimmy stepped around an ancient stack of National Geographics and pointed at a shoebox sitting precariously in the middle of the floor. “That looks cursed.”
“Everything looks cursed to you,” Sebastian said as he wandered over to it and removed its lid. Inside the cardboard container, he found a bundle of cassette tapes wrapped in a child’s drawing. The sketch was nothing more than crayon lines forming a crooked train tunnel, with a bright red sun in one corner and two stick figures standing near the entrance. While one sported a grin, the other had Xs instead of eyes.
“Creepy on its own, but the fact a kid made it? Makes it extra unnerving.” Jimmy deposited the box beside the door and sauntered back to Sebastian. “We agreed not to mess with creepy children’s artwork, remember?”
“We never agreed to such a thing.” Sebastian pulled out a tape, finding a handwritten label, ‘Tunnel: Final Recording.’
“Nope,” Jimmy said, backing toward the exit. “No ‘final recordings.’ That’s like opening a video labeled Don’t Watch Me.”
But Sebastian had already retrieved a dusty tape player. He blew out the speakers and slammed the tape inside before clicking the play button. A soft hiss filled the attic, then a voice, warbled with age but unmistakably childlike, replaced it. “I went in again. The tunnel’s deeper now. Mom says I’m dreaming, but she doesn’t hear it.”
Jimmy pressed his back against the wall, eyes darting around the attic. “We’re listening to the eerie tape. This is how we die. Headline’s gonna read, ‘Two idiots done in by EVP.’”
“Shh,” Sebastian said, narrowing his eyes. “I’m trying to listen to our doom in stereo.”
“I left a drawing, so people could follow me,” the voice continued, “in case I don’t return.”
A low rumble crackled through the speaker. Not static. It sounded like distant wheels on a track.
“Who records a train?” Jimmy rubbed his lips and shook his head. “Was this a travel vlog?”
“Someone who didn’t make it out.” Sebastian glanced at the drawing again. “These stick figures… this one appears to be waving goodbye.”
“One’s got Xs instead of eyes! What kind of kid draws that?!”
They sat in silence as the tape wound on. The quieting voice continued, as if it walked away from the microphone. “There’s something down here. It watches. Sometimes it talks back.”
Then it ended. They sat in the stillness, the only sound the creaking of the old attic and Jimmy’s nervous breathing. “Well,” Jimmy said, rubbing his hands together, “your uncle had a hobby, ghost journalism.”
Sebastian picked up the drawing again and turned it over, finding a date. “June 12, 1978, I think that’s the day Uncle Gerald disappeared for twelve hours. Aunt Lorna said he came back covered in soot and wouldn’t talk about it. He never went into the attic again.”
Jimmy’s eyes widened. “Soot, a tunnel, and a ghost train? We’re done. Let’s get cobbler.”
“Maybe it’s just a story,” Sebastian said, but his voice lacked confidence.
Jimmy raised his hands. “We don’t have to play more. Let’s just toss them all in the creepy box and go downstairs. The cobbler’s calling us.”
But Sebastian shook his head and swapped out tapes. A mechanical screech burst from the speaker, like a train slamming on ancient brakes. Then Uncle Gerald’s voice, gruffer and older, filled the attic. “They want me back. I see them in my dreams. The smiling one keeps waving. The other’s still watching. It’s deeper now. I hear the engine again—”
Static cut off Uncle Gerald’s words, and Jimmy leaped forward, knocking over a box of Monopoly. Its pieces scattered. “I’m out. I am so out. You and the spooky cassette can stay here, marry a poltergeist, and name your kids EVP and Static.”
Sebastian’s gaze flicked back and forth, wild, like his uncle’s must have.
“Sebastian, forget about the creepy box. Let’s get cobbler.”
Sebastian didn’t move. “We should show this to Aunt Lorna.”
“Why?”
“She has to,” he said, packing up the box.
As they descended the creaking attic stairs, Jimmy shook his head. “Next time, let’s help her clean the garage. The worst problem would be a raccoon.”
With a grin, Sebastian glanced over his shoulder. “Unless it’s a possessed raccoon.”
Jimmy grabbed his friend’s shoulder, forcing him to stop on the stairs. “I’ll drag you outta here myself!”
Aunt Lorna stepped in front of the stairs and chuckled. “I wondered if you’d find those.”
Jimmy blinked. “You knew about these?”
“I told Gerald to burn them after he came back from that tunnel. He never could.”
Sebastian hurried down and placed the box beside the wall. “What’s in there?”
Lorna looked out the window, her eyes distant. “Something that wouldn’t let him forget.”
“Guess I’ll be lying awake all night thinking about ghost trains.”
Sebastian elbowed his friend and grinned. “At least you’ll have cobbler.”