Ghostly

Quincy looked at the strange thing in his hands.

“Mama!” he shouted, “You said you had gotten rid o’ all the creepy dolls!”

No answer. Typical. He picked up a doll, brushing the hair away from its face. Its faded porcelain eyes stared at him. It felt like it was staring into his soul, seeing everything about him. He put it down and picked up the jar and candle thing. It had some figurehead of a person with a veil covering their whole head and a flower crown to top it all off. Weird. He tried to open it when he had first been shoved down here but superstitions of other ghosts and hauntings stopped him from clicking the latch. He sighed, putting it down. The dolls all seemed to stare at him in unison, their dead, glassy eyes followed him as his feet brushed up the stairs of the basement. A head looked in his direction, a living, chilling scream echoed through the basement, making him pause. He didn’t realize there was a living person here. He turned around to see a woman with red hair, and real, living eyes. They were light blue. He was almost surprised if he hadn’t noticed her out of the corner of his eye a few minutes ago. He didn’t think she would be able to see him.

“Hey?” he called, but the person seemed haunted, chilled. They panted heavily as they watched him. He doesn’t remember being this scary, even after he died. Sure he scared his mother away, -which he keeps forgetting about, he needs to remember that- to the point where she moved out. 

He just didn’t have a ribcage, what’s so bad about that? He looked down at his torso, and then noticed some movement close to his feet. He giggled as he saw the cat brushing up against his leg, purring like a truck.

The woman looked terrified, face paled at the sight of him and the dolls around the room, her gaze lingered on each one, like they were each gonna pounce at her.

“What. . . what are you?” she whimpered. Quincy looked up at her, tearing his gaze away from the cat.

“Um, your friendly basement ghost?” He attempted to joke, but she screamed again and then raced upstairs, tripped once - which, HA! Classic horror movie mistake- leaving the cat downstairs. He felt bad for the cat, but it's not like it’s gonna get hurt or anything. He sighed, petting the little guy’s head.

“It’s okay.” he assured, “She ain’t going nowhere. I think.”

The figurehead in a bottle and candle thing was picked up. He carefully blew on the wick, lighting it with blue fire, making a half decent light source. He wandered up the stairs with the cat under his floating feet. He couldn’t really open the door, so he was stuck in the basement. He didn’t really like the basement, it was the only thing that never changed. It sucked. He was stuck as a dead, floating thing in a basement, the current friend he had was a cat that the frightened woman was surely coming back down for. Right?