Ghosts Next Door

Ghosts Next Door
by Lopaka Kapanui

Sep 30, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #31

31

The list of clientele was short today. So Ivan and Tiny left early. Ivan attended a meeting of his veteran's group while Tiny went to Ko'olau Farmers for a few medicinal plants he'd intended to cultivate. That left aunty Rita, who decided to stay behind and spruce up the office before she called it a day. Boy sat at his desk, finishing up his paperwork. "Where's Tabby and the Rizal Brothers, Aunty?" Boy asked.

"They're deep undercover," Rita said while wiping down the leather chairs with special oil. "We won't hear anything until they surface."

"All right," Boy replied while focusing on a few ledgers. "Are you going to vacuum? If so, I can just do this at home."

"No vacuum today," Aunty Rita sighed.

"What's that for?" Boy paused and looked up at his aunty. 

"What?"

"That sigh," Boy pointed his pen at her. "That usually means you have something you want to say in regards to a subject that I don't want to discuss."

"Hanson, it's time you found someone and got married and had a family of your own," Rita paused in the middle of her cleaning. "Your uncles and I can still run the office, and we can mentor Tabby and the Rizals. You wouldn't have to worry about anything." Her reply from her nephew was a heavy sigh and silence. It's what she expected but did not question. Not yet. She moved over to the big picture window, which overlooked South King street and the new student dormitory across the way. Pizza shops, chicken places, and still another coffee house. Rita found it all to be exasperating. "I understand a lot of what is the essence of you is in this office, that won't go away," she said as she pulled and walked one mighty curtain to part to the right, and then the other one to the left. Rita climbed onto the inner ledge, began spraying Windex on the end of the dry cloth, and swathed the thick pane of glass from right to left and then up and down. "And you'll still be the boss, but it's also a good time to start grooming Tabby. I know she's young and rash, and she has her own mind, but.."

It only took Boy a second to look up and see the glint of light make a brief sparkle through the picture window and on the sleeve of aunty Rita's coat. He shot up from his desk while simultaneously throwing his office chair toward Rita. "Iho I lalo!!!" he screamed. Rita dropped to the floor just as the hollow point bullet pierced the thick glass and tore the material on Rita's suit right at the shoulder. Boy's office chair made it just in time to block the second hollow point, obliterating the leg and the arm support. Boy gorilla crawled across the floor in an attempt to get at Rita, but she was already on her feet. "Kanakapapiki!" (son-of-a-bitch!)  Her arms shot out, and red flaming orbs blasted forward toward the intended target. Boy grabbed her by the back of her coat and pulled her to the floor. "Stay down!" 

"No!" she screamed. "That bastard tore up my good coat! You know how much this thing cost me?!"

Kealoha had already torn the office door from the frame and used it to cover Boy and Rita. As the three made their way down the back steps, a man in fatigues with a paintball mask was already waiting. He fired off armor-piercing rounds at the impenetrable portal. Expending his ammo, the assassin paused to re-load. Kealoha took advantage of the lull and threw the door in a direct line toward the gunman and crushed his sternum, and well as nearly taking off his head. "The car boss!" Kealoha pointed. Covering Boy and Rita, Kealoha got the two into the back seat and shot the Chrysler out of the garage and onto South King. "Let me off at the Jiffy Lube," Boy said. "Take aunty Rita home and stay there until I call you!"




~


The assassin burst into the first-floor dormitory room and dispatched the occupants with a chop to the neck, cutting off the blood supply to the heads. The room faced directly at Boy's office, and the perfect opportunity presented itself. He didn't have to wait. The big picture windows were wide open. The swordsman they sent who promised that he'd get the job done was found choked to death in his high-rise condo unit. His brother would finish the job. The woman named Rita stood in plain view. He'd take that shot first. She dropped suddenly, and his first shot missed the mark. The second followed right after, but a chair appeared out of nowhere and blocked it. The older Hawaiian woman stood up and sent a flame of fire in his direction. He barely got out of the way, but not without getting singed. Time was of the essence, he'd been made, and he had to leave as quickly as he entered. He just made it to street level on University and was now headed to the corner of Kuilei when he bumped into someone he hadn't seen initially. It was his main target, Boy. The assassin had no time to react. With blinding speed and precision, Boy punched the assassin's esophagus straight up into his sternum. With a second punch, Boy struck the man's heart, causing it to stop, thereby killing him instantly. 


~

"You didn't ask who or why?" Rita wanted to know while Kealoha already fitted the frame for a new office door. 

"The who or why doesn't matter," Boy said. "It's the message that I send back that's important."

"Every few years, some new disgruntled group pops up that we don't know of, and somehow their agenda is to try and kill us," Rita shrugged her shoulders. "I don't get it."

"In answer to your earlier question, aunty," Boy looked at her thoughtfully. "What happened here today is why I haven't tried to find someone and get married."










Sep 28, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #33

33

"I'm old," Deena De Lores began. "I can't walk far which is why I use this electric wheelchair to get around.

Sep 26, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #35

35

If not for the incident that would bind us to the location where everything happened, I wouldn't have bothered giving these two people the time of day.

Sep 22, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #39

 39

It's the fourth time this week and the umpteenth time this month that I've received Ken Perez's mail in my mailbox.

Sep 20, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #41

41

"Maile," the female voice seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere when it called her name suddenly.

Sep 18, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #43

 43


1995

The day was here. The day that had been pre-arranged, pre-planned, and nervously worried over, was here. The bachelor and bachelorette parties were had the night before.

Sep 16, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #45

 45

No one could explain the overwhelming sadness and grief in a store whose inventory consisted of quirky items meant to elicit giggles and laughter.

Sep 15, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #46

 46

The security guards who worked at the pier at aloha tower complained about having the tiny hairs on the sides of the head yanked and jerked very hard. The pain was so sudden and so intense that it made them cry. Other times, they would feel fingertips in the middle of their back, and without warning, something they couldnʻt see shoved them to the floor very hard. They couldnʻt quit because they needed the job. But, they were out of options as to what they should do? Blessings or a cleansing did not work. The only thing I could tell them was that a portion of that pier used to be where the Pakaka heiau once stood. A temple of human sacrifice.



Sep 14, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #47

47

I was so intrigued to receive my first box from the dark web that I was stunned when I read the large wide sticker from the cover down to the bottom of the box. 

Sep 12, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #49

49

The late '80s and early '90s were all about the VHS and then the DVD rentals. I worked in such a place that was the best and the worst kind of job to have toward the end.

Sep 11, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #50

 50


My wife called me to make sure that I had set out the juice bottles and PB&J sandwiches for the kids before they came home.

Sep 10, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #51

51


This very last Capitol ghost story comes from another former security guard who shared his experience while working there during the '80s.

Sep 9, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #52

52

This is another one from the state capitol, which I thought was funny, but also kind of sad and scary.

Sep 8, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #53

 53

Itʻs a famous story of a state senator who worked at the state capitol, waiting for her daughter to return from the bathroom, so they could leave and go home.

Sep 7, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #54

54


When my boss hired me here at the Mahalo Mart, he first told me that the mart was haunted but that I shouldn't let it bother me.

Sep 5, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #56

 56

"This is my anthropology class," Palekoa Lamela began. "I thought doing an early evening session at the abandoned mansion would be fun.

Sep 4, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #57

 57

The blue-lit discs of the floor and on the ceiling directly above fluttered for a second before the full image of Ka'onohi Lamela appeared before her son, who sat on the microbe-filled couch that independently chose its configuration according to the body type of the person who sat on it.

Sep 3, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #58

 58

The dogs shit on the carpet. Not the kind of shit where you can pick up with some toilet paper, but the half solid, half liquidy kind.

Sep 2, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #59

 59


1

It started as what the authorities said was a prank. First, street signs were disappearing, and then the signs for street names not too long after.

Sep 1, 2021

100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2021 #60

60


My brother was the one who got all the attention from my parents growing up because he was always in trouble.