The Ghost of Ben Hargrove Read Free Page A

cryptic message? Why not give me a clue as to where I am and why I am trapped here against my will? I am grateful for the note, but bitter over being here. I’ve tasted something different, and I want more, more, more.
    Frustrated tears escape my eyes. Such thoughts make me angry with myself. I’m behaving like a child.
    Stop behaving like a child.
    Don’t be such a child, Ben.
    A child. It was a child’s voice that whispered into my room, I’m sure of it now. And not just any child. My little brother.
    Dad kissed my brother on the head as he entered the kitchen. “Going outside to play today, bud? That sunshine won’t last all afternoon, y’know.”
    â€œBen’s taking me to the park today.”
    I opened the fridge, mentally kicking myself for having forgotten my promise to him. In my defense, he’d always be my brother. But Samantha might not always be my girlfriend if I didn’t go to the lake with her today like I said I would.
    â€œIs he now?” My dad sounded doubtful. Of course. Because I couldn’t do anything right.
    I grabbed a soda and shut the fridge door. “Can’t today. But we’ll go tomorrow. I promise.”
    I couldn’t take the shimmer of tears in my little brother’s eyes, so I looked away from him as I cracked the can open and took a drink. The faster I got out of this house, the better.
    When Dad spoke, it sounded like it was taking every ounce of his restraint to keep from screaming at me. “Ben, did you say you’d take your brother to the park today?”
    â€œI did, but something came up. Next time, kiddo. I promise.” I ruffled his hair on my way out the door. There would be time for that later. Dad just didn’t understand.
    He didn’t understand anything about me.
    I have to strain to remember his name. But then I see it, written in blue thread on his little green backpack: John. I have a little brother. His name is John— was John. In my life outside this cell. Of course. How could I have forgotten? It makes me wonder what else I have forgotten about my life before I came to this place. Did I have a girlfriend too? Friends? Where did I live? Why did I leave? Why is my memory so foggy? Is the voice I think I hear simply my mind playing tricks on me?
    I finish eating second meal, staring at my mattress the whole time, and the note that’s buried underneath it.
    There is no freedom.
    There are no walls.
    The boy is real.
    The Hand returns to collect my tray, and then I am alone again in my cell. Alone with my new memories. Out of boredom, curiosity, something—I don’t know what—I step closer to the bed and reach for the corner of the mattress. I just want to check on the note, make sure it’s still there. If it’s gone, then maybe I have lost my mind, after all. Maybe there never was a note, or a little brother, or a life before this cell. Maybe I imagined it all.
    â€œHello.”
    The voice startles me this time, makes me jump. I whip around to face the source of it, and my mouth falls open in confusion. A boy, maybe eight or nine years old, is standing at the far end of my room. He too is dressed in scrubs, only his are dirty and stained. It looks like they were white at one time, but they’re gray now, not blue like mine. Maybe his cell is blue, the way mine is white-turned-gray. Clutched in his hand is a teddy bear. Its ear is crusted with something brownish burgundy in color. It’s soiled, maybe even rotten. Something tells me that if I were standing any closer, I’d smell its foul stench. I can’t stand to look at it, so I look at the boy instead. His eyes are sunk in, as if he’s malnourished. His skin is pale. His fingernails filthy. I don’t know what the dark stains around his fingernail beds and beneath his nails are, I just know that I don’t want to look at them, either. The air about him seems heavy, lost, sad. He also seems