By Olyver LaGabed, Staff Writer
The year is 2026, and Carter Kaine still isn’t famous. Quite the opposite, in fact; since moving back in with his parents, they haven’t so much as spoken to him. He can’t blame them; he’s been pretty disappointed himself since he dropped out of college in California to go all the way back to Ford’s Worth, a shitty little nowhere town in the mountains. See, Ford’s Worth isn’t the kind of town you pass through. It’s the kind you get stuck in, wrapped up in every small shop and school, slowly drowning in mountain fever until you can’t tell yourself apart from your own damn neighbors. It’s the kind where who you were in high school follows you everywhere you go. It’s the kind where everyone knows your name in the worst way possible.
Yeah. Carter isn’t happy to be back home. But California is expensive, and the world of acting just isn’t ready for him yet – or, at least, that’s what he likes to tell himself. At the end of the day, being back in with his parents beats being homeless in LA, so who is he to complain?
Carter now stands on the porch of an old house, his gaze trained on the sun as it sets into the neat row of old suburban houses before him. Each house looks as if its very foundation hardly supports it anymore, but in the orange hue of the sunset, that run-down look is oddly beautiful; rustic in a nostalgic way that makes something in Carter almost appreciate Ford’s Worth. It’s this hollow feeling he can’t quite explain.
The porch he stands on belongs to a house that resides in what has to be the oldest neighborhood in Ford’s Worth. This neighborhood, as creepy and run-down as it is, is where the annual Ford’s Worth Freight is held. It’s not as scary as it sounds – it’s really just a ghost tour, where a bunch of washed-up theatre kids tell scary stories to each other. Carter’s been volunteering to be a part of the tour since he was 13, acting as a ghost for so long that they don’t even ask him to volunteer anymore. They just kind of expect him to be there now. Hell, even at 23, he can just walk right up to his usual tour spot, and no one bats an eye. Some small, lonely part of him wishes that they would.
It feels so numbing to be home, Carter realizes as he stands, looming over each passing tour group. The sun settles lower as the tour goes on, replaced by a full moon and streetlights illuminating each face of every patron in the crowd. Carter does what he’s done every year, stalking the edge of the crowd, remaining just slightly out of sight. Every move feels robotic – not like he’s rehearsed it a thousand times over, but like he’s been doing it for so long that it’s lost its meaning. The crowd doesn’t even look at him. The voice of whoever is telling the stories this year goes in one ear and out the other, the low drone of their voice only adding to the aching feeling in Carter’s chest.
Everything has been so weird since he’s returned to Ford’s Worth. He expected as much, having left Ford’s Worth with no expectation of ever returning. He hated who he was when he was here – he hated who he wasn’t when he was here. Because it’s not that he was bullied; it’s not that this town hated him and he hated them right back. He wished that was the case, because it was a lot more like he was invisible. His whole childhood, it was as if he was see-through, not even noteworthy enough to be bullied. And maybe that’s why his chest aches at each pass-up from the crowd. Maybe that’s why his insides twist with this feeling he can’t name each time he’s ignored, with each word that the tour guide speaks. This biting, aching desire for someone – anyone – to see him, to just fucking look at him.
And seriously, what is so goddamn enticing about this story that the crowd can’t even acknowledge him—
And that’s when he hears his own name slip from the tour guide’s mouth.
He flinches instinctively, freezing in place for a moment before he realizes that the words aren’t directed at him. They’re directed at the crowd. The tour guide is still telling the story.
What?
“Some say he walks these very streets,” the tour guide continues, gesturing to a house – the house that Carter always had his ghost stop at. “Looking for his parents, faces he never saw again after leaving home.”
Carter feels planted, the most grounded he’s felt since returning to Ford’s Worth. No. That can’t be right.
“Some say he’s angry. Some say he’s sad. As for me? I’d say he’s lost…”
Carter finds himself dipping into the crowd now, forcing himself to the front with increasing horror as each and every one of them looks right through him. They’re not ignoring him. He’s just not there.
“. . .But he won’t find his way by dwelling on things that he can’t change. One can only hope, in the next few years, that he will find his peace.”
This can’t be happening. It doesn’t make sense – only it does. Why else would his parents pretend not to see him? Why else would he catch his dad crying in his old bedroom when the old man thought no one was looking? Carter never made it home; he never—
“Carter Kaine,”
His name rang again. He turned, unable to help himself as his gaze landed on the tour guide – a woman whom he’d worked with for years before going to college. Her gaze was different from the crowd’s. It landed on him as she spoke.
“We can only hope you find what you’re looking for.”
And with that, she turned to the crowd, waved a hand, and walked away as the crowd moved with her. Carter hardly noticed the way the crowd passed through him, watching the back of the older woman.
The year is 2026, and Carter Kaine still isn’t famous – he’s worse than that. He’s dead. He’s dead, and has been dead for a long time. He’ll be 23 forever. He’ll never be seen again. He looks up at the sky, abandoning the older woman as he peers up in hopes of an answer, only to find the moon staring back at him.
