The Faxsom Ghost Book 1 of 2

By Mason Anthony Scott

This is not a ghost story but a story about a ghost. The deceased Henry Faxsom is the protagonist, an earth bound spirit that is a captive of his own making. Tanya Heal, the antagonist treats promises like currency that have no value. The afterlife is a place where the spirits spend eternity according to how they lived and treated others. Henry and Tanya have formed a bond to bring closure to those on both sides. This a story about death, greed and the regrets of those who chose a path where redemption cost them their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mason Anthony Scott
• Release date: Mar 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310642944

Mason Anthony Scott

Mason Anthony Scott (1966-?) was born in Homerville, Georgia to two of the poorest and most mismatched people on earth. Raised in Gulfport, Mississippi he excelled in being just plain strange and gifted as a story teller. Joined the army and was sent to Europe for 6 wonderful years in which he expanded his mind and learned to put his stories on paper. Loves to write about things that only go together in his own mind. "The Here and the After:What really happens after you die" was based on his Near Death Experience from pancreatitis and was published in Ink magazine of Kansas City, Missouri.

Book preview

The Faxsom Ghost

©

Mason Anthony Scott

1/3/2015

Part One

He was not perplexed but pissed, he could the math, the boy was one year old but he had been gone for three. The little boy was handsome but not his. Mary Faxsom had never in any of her letters mentioned being loved by another, that she was to be a mother and that the father was his brother.

She was ashamed but told him the boy was not to be blamed. He was the result of no ration, a result of heated passion. Look at me, she said, do not judge. This one time you'll have to budge. Accept him as your son, don't make him feel like none.

Henry Faxsom wandered in his mind, from Italy to France, he had left his kind. The women were lonely and so was he, it was I need you and you need you need me. He counted ten maybe twenty that were his own, that would be told the father was unknown.

Your brother has been dusted from this life, caught in the arms of another man’s wife. Both dead from a single round, both lay cold in the ground. We can leave here, leave this place, none ever need know of my disgrace.

Henry tried for five years to make a connection but he never showed the boy any affection. His mood was tolerant and bland, never once gave the boy a kind hand. Play with me, said the lad, but Henry just stared with eyes so sad. The boy starved for attention. Hungered for a mention.

Five years and almost every night, Henry and his wife would fight, make love and hope for a new life from her womb but inside she was as barren as a tomb. Nature was so cruel, to make a life it only gave her so much fuel.

One day Henry gave up hope and to the cellar he went with a rope. He made it short and he made it tight, he wanted it to be just right. Jump, snap, crack there was no looking back. He hung there till nothing was felt, he hung there like a fresh pelt. He could feel no heart beat but he felt dread, no looking back, he was dead.

He sensed a movement coming from up top, a cry and stop. He could hear, God no not on this day, not this way. The boy had won a contest, he wrote about his father and how he was the best. With paper in hand the boy cried loud, No papa! I wanted to make you proud!

The funeral was lovely, it was nice but every dish was made with rice. The boy sat near a window looking to the sun, it would be a long time before he would ever have fun. His thought was, how he to blame was and one day would he do the same. The mourners talked about how Henry was always depressed. One even asked, Did you see how he dressed? Mary sat with her nerves all a tatter, she could not understand why he let it matter. She was the only one with a clue as to why he was so blue.

Henry watched and waited for a light or a bell, a signal for heaven or hell. He tried to leave the house and go outside but every time he touched the knob it grew too wide. Now resigned to a fate worse than death, he regretted drawing his last breath.

Part Two

Mary Faxsom never remarried, she had loved Henry Faxsom with all her heart. Every year on the day of his death she visited his grave, asking him, Why Henry? Wasn't my love enough to keep you alive? She was asking the right question but in the wrong place and there is where she left the question and the tears.

Henry would sense her return as just another day. He would often try to reach out to her, whispering and touching. Mary put off the whispering and touching as a drafty house that her son Parker could fix if he had the time. Her son, never Henrys, grew to be a man that embraced life to its fullest, skiing, racing cars and chasing women. Henry watched Parker become a man and begin to want his own clan. He usually brought a girl home after his mother went to bed. There in his room he would seduce them with a hidden bottle of wine and a skinny cigarette that made them goofy.

Being dead meant that he could see but not be seen. Henry knew Parker and all of his habits, habits that Mary could only imagine. He started every morning with a cross between his hands and prayed for the strength, the will and the wisdom to go on. After doing twenty push-ups he turned Henry's picture toward the mirror when combing his hair, talking to Henry for advice and telling him his secrets.

Parker laid a whopper on him one morning, Well old man I've met the girl of my dreams. I love her and I am going to ask her to marry me. I am starting a new life with my future wife. I want mom to sell the house so we can all move forward and live in a place where we can go into the cellar and not be reminded of death. Not even Henry would go into the cellar, too much pain and nothing to gain.

Henry tried to whisper as loud as could to Mary when Parker told her the news. He placed a ghost hand on her shoulder hoping it would keep her in place but the cold touch made