There they are again, unboxing their fucking noise-makers. Attaching long orange snakes from my walls to their things, horridly neon things. God, what an endless din. I watch them through gaps in the lath, peeking out between its cracks. Rattling vibrations shake me loose from my nap and I slipped through a fresh hole in the plaster.

“Stop!” I beg. “For fuck’s sake, will you please stop!” I reach down to an orange snake and pulled. It drags a lamp across the floor, hit a bent board, fell. Shattered glass and filament lend me a brief, shimmery body.

“Holy shit, you see that? That lamp just exploded out of nowhere. There was like, there was a thing there. I saw it!”

“Buddy, it’s probably the old wiring. Blew a fuse.”

“I swear to god Mark, something yanked it.” The other men tell him it was nothing, he was seeing things, it was nothing except his mind pulling tricks, stop being a baby. They sweep the broken glass away, mix it with other detritus into piles by my baseboards. They pick up hammers and saws and attack the walls, plaster dust churning up into the air. It swirls around me, another body in another form, before it settles to the floor with the glass and the old nails and screws and one hundred years of footprints. None of them see me before I dissipate, a waste of a corporeal form.

Right in front of me, they rip the house open to carve out a new pantry, pulling down an original wall with its original wood trim.

“Are you kidding me? That was a perfectly good 200-year-old wall!” I stomp my foot down.

“Did you hear that?” they asked each other.

“Was that fucking footsteps?”

“Fuck this house, I’m out. I told you I kept seeing something, I’m out.”

“Don’t be a bitch, Nate. It’s just an old house.”

“Whatever man, I don’t fuck with ghosts.” He boxes up his fucking noise-makers and leaves.

***

“Is someone here? Hello? We heard that there might be a spirit here and we’d like to try and talk to them.” I peek out from behind another edge of broken plaster. A little group of three stand there, three men in a variety of shape and size and face (though not as large or burly as the previous batch). The talking man holds another strange little thing in his hands, less horridly neon, this time a small device that seems to make him jump when it crackles. They creep further into my house, more men bringing more unwanted noise.

“Hello? Anybody home?” one calls. “We’re looking for someone who may have lived here a long time ago. Maybe somebody who still lives here?” They hold their breaths in their throats, listening, heartbeats thumping, anticipatory meat. I try to force air through myself to ask them, ‘Who are you? And pardon me but why, the fuck, are you here?’ but the words swirls; they are fugitive breaths that my mouth cannot catch. Goddammit.

“Did you hear that? Just now, a moan. I swear to god I heard a moan. Like a female moaning. It sounded so melancholy, I swear to god dude.”

“No way, you did not.” They all huddle around the device and listen to it crackle and pop.

“Holy shit. That’s a voice! That’s a goddamn voice.” One of the three puts a little box on the floor and steps back.

“Okay, if someone is here, we’re going to try and ask some questions. This device will make a noise if you go near it. Can you make one noise for yes and two for no? Can you do that for us?” I wave the idea of my hand over it, and it reacts with a clear tone. Three mouths, cavities of real body, sinew, and bone, drop open and suck at the air. Fleshy idiots.

“Holy shit! Look at that.”

“Just to confirm, is there someone here with us?” I wave my hand once. beep (yes)

“How freakin’ cool is that. Were you someone who used to live here?” beep (yes)

“Do you know why those men have been here?” beep beep (no, please enlighten me, fleshy idiots)

“They told us that you’re scaring them. Are you trying to scare them?” beep (sure)

“Wow. Okay, so clearly dealing with a very intelligent entity here, it was able to give both a yes and a no. Ask another.”

“Okay so these men. They’re changing the house. Is that upsetting you?” beep (duh)

“That guy Nate was right. Whatever is here is clearly upset, it was probably dormant until they came in and started ripping stuff out and pissed it off. Okay let’s keep going while it’s hot. Are you a male spirit?” beep beep (why do they always assume I’m not a fucking lady?)

“Okay, so were you a woman who lived here?” beep (duh)

“Are you the only spirit here?” beeeeeep (oh my god yesssss)

“Wow, that is the clearest yes we’ve ever had. Okay, so just one female entity.”

“We should just ask her to be a bit calmer. Explain that the guys aren’t trying to harm her, you know. Maybe she’ll let go of the house for the new owners.”

“Totally,” they all say to each other. And then to me—”Thank you for talking to us, we really appreciate it.” beep (whatever dude)

“Oh my god. That’s crazy. So, ma’am, these guys who are here every day, they’re going to come back. This house, your house, was bought by a new family. They want to live here. They’re not trying to hurt you, okay?” They pause, the silence steeping. I wait. Surely they will ask more of a real live ghost? Surely?

“Well, that should do it. Did we get all that on film?” He picks up the small trinket from the floor and packed it away, my voice packed with it.

“Oh yeah, dude. This is going to get us craaaazy views.”

“Hell yes. You’re not still filming, right?”

“Yeah, but I edit out the boring stuff. Leaving it on just in case we can use something.”

“Sweeeeet. All right, let’s go. I sort of want a truly, like, massive burrito right now.”

“Porky’s?”

“Oh, dude, you had me at massive burrito.” The three men leave, the house becoming still. In the quiet, I feel a new, disquieting desperation and try to call out—’What’s a burrito?’ but nothing breaks through the silence to give me an answer.

————

Erin Elizabeth Williams (she/her) has two degrees in religion that she doesn’t use, a dead cat named Kurt Vonnekat, and a house from 1890 that leaks every time it rains. Her fiction has appeared in JAKE, God’s Cruel Joke, and some other cool places. Her only social media is Instagram and she barely ever posts, but she can be found at @erinelizabethyo or at erinelizabethwilliams.com.