Honestly, this sleepy New England fishing village with a dark past was so much better 175 years ago when I started haunting it. It was this malevolent enclave of ghosts and ghouls, expressing our eternities of existential agony for an affordable cost of death well below the national median. We’ve spent countless years carefully nurturing our unique culture of terror. But all of a sudden they opened a Panera Bread where the abandoned mine used to be, and then the humans started coming in droves, sucking the soul out of our community. Back in my day, it was the ghosts who did the soul-sucking around here.
To us, they aren’t just haunted houses. They’re haunted homes. The living humans move in with their revolting skin cells and fluids. They pretend like they can coexist alongside us. But in the bathroom when they close the mirrored medicine-cabinet door and see my reflection behind them? They scream. Every time. As if I’m the one that’s not supposed to be there. It’s MY HOUSE! I am just trying to get ready for the day here too, so move over, you bag of blood.
These bipedal basics think they can just stifle our practice of demonic artistry. For example, every night at 2:45 a.m., I take a pitchfork and I drag the spikes up and down the walls of the upstairs hallway. Yes, it’s loud as shit. Yes, it leaves marks in the wallpaper that look like a hound beast is trying to claw his way back to hell. But this is how I express myself. Now some flesh family has moved in, and I have to stop nightforking the walls because baby Oliver is going through a sleep regression? And what kind of asinine name is Oliver, anyway? What happened to the classics? Heathcliffe. Asmodeus. Gorgon. Those are proper names for spawn.
I’ve been lurking in my house for 175 years and now everything around me is suddenly much worse. Those walking organ farms have uprooted my nightshade and planted a drought-resistant succulent garden. They’ve replaced the stained glass with subway tile. And the secret passage behind the bookcase? They’re using it to ferment organic vegan kimchi. It’s only a matter of time before they convert my impossible maze of infinite hallways into an open concept design.
It’s not just my house. It’s happening in the entire area. These bone-limbed lung breathers are moving here and opening up businesses, crowding out the ghosts’ unfinished business. And what’s up with the real estate people changing the names of all our neighborhoods? Demon’s Mouth is now “DeMo.” Dead Man’s River is now Riverbend East. And they’ve tried to completely erase the rich history of Slaughter Valley. That’s “Sunset Park” now.
It’s true the influx of the carbon-rich has been beneficial in some ways to us ghosts. We have had way more flesh to gobble and souls to damn than we used to. Yesterday one of those meat monsters asked whether he could take one of my rattlin’ chains to his CrossFit box, and I just murdered him on the spot. It was thrilling.
But the surplus of victim resources doesn’t overshadow the destruction to our way of death. The living will continue moving in and change everything that makes our community so bleak and threatening. They’ll make our neighborhoods vibrant and alive. It’s terrible. I try to be open-minded, but blood is for running down walls, not running through veins!
Something must be done or there will always be some new family moving in after receiving a house through an unexpected inheritance. Without a plan, our haunted street cred will be dead in the water—which is ironic because that’s also the motto for this sleepy New England fishing village with a dark past. It’s probably too late. One day I’ll wake up and gone will be the abattoir and the bell tower—replaced by Chipotles and HomeGoods. It’s a shame. This town used to be so cool.