My Boyfriends Brother

Chapter 19 Mathew’s Month

TRIGGER WARNING: this chapter mentions suicide and racial injustice 

“Fine, if you won’t tell me, I’ll just have to figure it out myself,” I huffed. 

“Be careful of what you wish for,” the old man said and turned to walk away but disappeared after a few steps. I’m definitely going to need to learn how to do that. 

Where do I even start? I just figured out how to blow up light bulbs and only because I was angry. Maybe some of the other ghosts will know…

*****

After asking a few of the other ghosts downtown, I found out that I might have luck with the ghost that lives in that old abandoned house just outside of town. Most of the ghosts I spoke to were very confused and seemed a bit crazy. A few had enough sense to be able to have a conversation. Nothing like how Ezekiel is. A part of me felt bad for ignoring Ezekiel’s warning but I had to do something. I couldn’t stand by and watch my brother with Sierra. It hurt too much. 

So here I was, standing outside this old worn down house. I remember driving by it before and Sierra always mentioned how she always got a bad feeling from it. Maybe that was because she’s a medium. The thought made me sure that I came to the right place. 

I cautiously walked up to the entrance of the old house. The door was rotting away and it looked like it had been broken into many times before. Most of the windows to the house were broken and clouded with dirt and grime. The paint on the house was peeling off and you could see the rotting wood underneath. The roof had caved in years ago and as I walked inside I could see the water damage on the ceiling, walls and hardwood floors. If I wasn’t a ghost myself, I would be totally spooked. 

“Hello?” I asked. 

“This place has been claimed, get out and find somewhere else!” a dark voice shouted. I couldn’t make out where the sound was coming from and I began looking around. 

“I’m not here to stay! I just want to ask you a few questions!” I shouted back.

Before I knew it a dark figure stood before me. He looked absolutely terrifying. He had black disheveled hair and his clothes were old and torn in many places. His eyes were dark brown with a red rim that seemed to be glowing. He must’ve been here for decades, I thought. Is that what I will become? I quickly shook the thought aside and spoke,” Hi, my name is Mathew.”

“What do you want?” the dark ghost spat. 

“I hear you know how to control things; how to use our powers.” 

He laughed and as he did our surroundings changed. No longer were we standing in a dingy old house but a beautiful cottage. The walls were bright and a bright light showed through the fully intact windows. The floors were bright and reflected the light that shone in. I looked back to where the dark figure stood and he no longer looked horrifying. He was clean cut and wearing trousers with a bright white shirt. His hair was neatly fixed, the style was fashioned in such a way it reminded me of Danny from the movie Grease. The only thing that stayed the same were his eyes that still had the red glow. 

“You seek to learn our ‘powers’ huh?” he said sarcastically.

“Yes, I need to know how to…scare the living?”  

“Why?” the man asked. 

“I need to scare my girlfriend and my brother,” I stated matter-of-factly. 

“I’m going to need a little more detail than that.” 

“They’re getting…too close. Sierra, my girlfriend, and I were supposed to be together but obviously I died,” I gestured to all of me. “She and my brother have been growing closer and I’m afraid they’re going to…BE together.”

“So are you looking to kill your ‘girlfriend’ so you two may live together in the afterlife?” the ghostly man asked. 

“No! I don’t want to kill her. I just want to keep them apart. She can see me, she’s a medium. I just want to live our lives together, even though I’m dead. It’s not fair my brother gets to touch her when I can’t.”

“If you can’t have her, no one can, aye?” he chuckled. 

I sighed, “No it’s not…well maybe it is a little like that…but I have to keep them apart and I don’t know how else to do that than to scare them into listening to me. I am still here and for as long as I am, Sierra is mine.” 

The ghost pondered for a moment, placing his hand on his chin. “I can teach you a few things…” he grinned an evil smile. 

*****

I’ve spent two weeks with Luther now. It took me a couple days before he’d tell me his name. Every day was the same. Each morning I would appear back on the beach where I died and I’d have to travel back to the outskirts of town to the house. Then we spent the day training, sometimes we’d go out to neighboring houses and he would show me what he could do. He started out with simple tricks like “chilling.” That one was the easiest to learn. We can lower the temperature around us by several degrees. Next was moving objects. This one was a little more challenging. I could rattle them but getting an object to fly was a challenge. 

“You have to let your anger consume you! Feel the rage building up in you and release it towards the plates!” Luther shouted at me. We were in someone’s house practicing and I was trying to knock plates off the counter. 

“I’M TRYING!” I shouted back. Concentrating on a stack of plates, I thought about Sierra with my brother. The way he looked at her. The way he spoke to her.

The plates flew down to the ground and shattered. I looked back at Luther and he grinned a wide smile. 

“Excellent. Now it’s getting late and soon it will be time for your death. Let’s head back to my house. It will take too long to walk there so let’s try teleporting.” Luther looked up at me from the pile of plates on the floor. 

“Finally, it’s been such s**t having to walk and hitch rides all the way there from the beach.” It really did take time out of my day that could be better spent training. 

Luther rolled his eyes, “Now I want you to concentrate on the place. Imagine the door in front of you.” I closed my eyes. “Good, now imagine the door opening. You see the room behind the door…Now, walk into the room.” 

I walked forward and opened my eyes, revealing the room I had imagined. Luther came up behind me and chuckled to himself. “Wow that was easy! Why are you just now teaching me this? That would’ve been helpful two weeks ago!” I yelled. 

“Careful Mathew, don’t raise your voice to me. I am after all the one helping you reach your full potential,” Luther noted. “It has been very entertaining haunting again. I’ve almost missed it. Since this house has started deteriorating at a faster rate, not many living have come to live here,” he trailed off. 

“I’ve been wanting to ask you about that…well about what you did before…”

“Before I died? Ha! I was a family man. My family lived here.”

“What happened to them?” I asked. 

“They were murdered.” Luther said angrily. “You see I was in love with a beautiful woman whose skin was as deep as chocolate. The town didn’t approve of our relationship so we opted to live a little farther from the main town. That didn’t stop them though… The 50s weren’t kind to us. I was always the one to pick up things in town. My family tried their best to stay inside, away from those that might harm us. I became very ill however and I needed medicine. My daughter, Edna, and my younger son, Elmer, were going into town with my wife to go to the local pharmacy to get medicine. They didn’t make it home.” Luther closed his eyes and bunched up his fists. I waited for him to continue but he stayed quiet. 

“What happened?”

“What do you think? They were lynched.” He spat. 

“I’m sorry…” 

“I couldn’t live without them. So I pulled the trigger of my shotgun to my head.”

“Oh…umm” I stumbled. 

He began to laugh again, “Wouldn’t you know it? They’re not here. They must’ve moved on. So I decided to take advantage of my…situation, and so every couple that decided to move in I would terrify to no end. Make them suffer like my family suffered.” Luther began to laugh again. He sounded sinister. “You know nothing of real pain, real loss. Your attempt at revenge is pitiful!” I could see his eyes glowing a brighter red and the house began to shake. “You want to know real power?!” He yelled as the air around us began to swirl and his voice boomed. “I’ll show you what you can really do!” Luther began to laugh harder. It was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen. He was getting carried away with himself. I knew the memories of his family resurfacing was to blame. He was chaotic. He was embodying chaos and from the red glow in his eyes you could see it consumed him. 

I was going to be different though. I was going to only control the chaos, I wasn’t going to let it consume me like it had Luther long ago. I had to remember that. Control the Chaos…don’t let it consume me… 

*****

Another two weeks went by and Luther and I had started causing more chaos in town. It became fun. I was enjoying the terrified faces of the living when something would fall in front of them. Sometimes we’d make a bet on who could scare them more. Luther usually won but I did manage to get him a few times. I had the power to make the living feel like they were drowning and take away their breath. Luther said it’s because that’s how I died and I could project my death onto them. I hadn’t killed anyone with it but I definitely scared them. The look on their faces when I let them breathe again was so satisfying. They thought they were going to die. They saw their life flash before their eyes and then snap, they could breathe again and I could see how relieved they were. I had almost forgotten about Sierra and my plans. It has been nearly a month since I’ve seen her last. I knew I needed to pay her a visit. Show her what I can do. 

“Luther, I think it’s about time I pay a visit to Sierra. Show off my new skills,” I beamed. 

“Let me know how it goes, tell me the look on her face when she sees you. It’s not every day you get to scare a medium. Ah to have them actually see you?! I’ll have to join you sometime.” He laughed maniacally. 

“I’ll give you all the details.” I said as I closed my eyes and imagined a door that opened to mine and Sierra’s house. 

Time for a show. 

A/N: Sorry for the wait on this chapter! To make it up, I tried to make it a little longer than my usual ones. Stay tuned for more chapters and let me know how you’re liking the story so far!