Ghost Story

My friend Jones has been around the block a few times.  He's been an art dealer, done a little breaking-and-entering, dealt drugs, driven a truck, gotten a MS in Library Science from a rather prestigious university, and, among other things, learned to play a mean game of eight-ball.  Originally from Tallahassee, he's moved around a lot and seen more of the world than you might expect.  In the course of his adventures, he's had some rather outre experiences.  

Here is his one of his more uncanny stories, related to me over beers at our local watering hole, The Pickaxe:

In the late 80s, Jones was working deliveries in a mid-sized college town in the north-east.  I don't mean pizzas, mind you; what Jones delivered came out to about $225/oz back then, grown and distributed by a bunch of collectivist anarcho-psychonauts that ran a local co-op ("ah, the optimism of young idealists", Jones said). Anyway, he'd worked his way down his list, mostly college boys and a few blue-collar cats looking to wind-down after a hard day manning the widget-making machine, when his pager buzzed.  The dealer on staff had juuusssst gotten a call from a buyer who wanted four ounces, pronto.  That was a pretty big sell; most folks bought eighths or quarters.  Jones wheeled on back to HQ, picked up the goods and the address, and went on his run.

This address was pretty far out of their normal sphere of operations.  He crossed the river, drove on past campus and down to the "fancy" end of town, full of genteel old houses.  As he drove on, "genteel" started to give out, while "old" stayed strong and, indeed, soon came to be the dominant theme.  He came up on one of those old, gambrel-roof houses, a big barn-looking thing with a single, dim light in one of the upper windows.  If it weren't for the light, Jones said, he'd have thought the place was deserted.  Peeling paint, loose roof tiles, overgrown yard, the works.  Dilapidated, right?

He circled the block a few times, checking the address.  It looked rough, but given the neighborhood (white and affluent) he doubted it was a squat.  Eventually, the nearly $1000 payday got the better of him, so he parked his truck, and hustled across the weedy lawn up to the front door.  There was no bell, so he knocked hard.

Waiting for an answer, he looked around. The sun was going down, which is why (according to Jones) he hadn't noticed the thing sitting next to the door.  It was, at first glance, your standard bench; flat seat, four legs, nothing much.  But something made him look twice, and that second look made him take a closer third look. 

According to Jones, the thing that caught his eye was its texture.  Even though the light was fading, the whole bench looked unusually smooth or slick, no joints or breaks at all. Even where the legs met the seat there was only a smooth, continuous surface, like it was carved out of a single solid block.  Its outline was rounded though, with no hard angles or edges, even on the legs.  Rather, it looked "soft, almost organic and undulatory" in his words. 

He knocked some more, and still there was no answer.  The bench, being the only thing available, drew his attention again.  Even in the fading light it seemed to be an odd color, pinkish or sallow, and on closer inspection it looked slightly fuzzy, like a peach.  Given those strange visual impressions, Jones couldn't tell what it was made out of.  There was no grain, no woody texture, and it certainly didn't look like stone. Plastic possibly, but in a weird casting or mold.

Still no response from inside, so Jones figured he might as well relax while he waited.  Without thinking, he sat down on the bench.  He doesn't think he screamed, although he admits the possibility.  He must have leapt up and sprinted down the path, hopped over the front gate, and dove into his truck, although that too is a little hazy.  What he does clearly remember, though, is a single look back at the front porch and what he saw there.

"What the hell spooked you so much?" I asked.  We had to order another pitcher before he'd tell me.

The bench that Jones sat down on, pink and peach-fuzzy, smooth and rounded?  His hands touched it as he sat down, gripping the edge and feeling the soft spongy or rubbery texture of skin, lightly covered by a dusting of thin hair.  It was warm to the touch, and seemed to rise and fall with a steady rhythm.  

That so shocked him that he immediately pulled his hands away from the bench.  Jerking his hands away made him loose his balance, and he sat down heavily on the bench itself, feeling it sag beneath his weight.  But, worse still was that the warm, skin-covered bench moved under him, shuddering and adjusting itself, like a horse getting used to its rider.  

That was enough.  A warm fleshy thing shaped like a bench squirming and wriggling under you?  He jumped up and got out of there.  But, as I wrote above, Jones does clearly remember looking up at the porch before driving away.  What he saw, was simply this:  When he had sat down on the strange bench, it had been to the right of the door and pressed closely against the wall.  What he saw from his truck, however, was the bench, swaying slightly and standing at the top of the stairs in front of the door.

He drove as fast as he could back to the co-op, and reported that 1) no one had been there and 2) the house looked like a squat and so was probably too dangerous to make deliveries to anyway.  They took the number off their approved customers list, although they needn't have bothered, since they never heard from them again.  

Of course, I asked Jones if he'd ever gone back out there some sunny noon-time.  He said that, after a few weeks, he had tried to, but he never seemed able to find the street again.  Even on maps, he couldn't place it.