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My Uncle surveyed our faces as we sat around him in the darkened room. Waiting for him to begin, we gorged ourselves on chocolate from the bags and pumpkin-shaped buckets we had spent the evening hours filling at our neighbors' doorsteps.

"It was a dark and stormy night," he began with a grim look on his face. We all froze, sensing the intensity in his voice, candy stuck halfway to our lips as we stared up at him. "A newly-wed couple were driving to a resort for their honeymoon, but were caught by the weather..." He eyed each of us in turn, keeping us enraptured. "Benny and Jamie were their names. They were driving through the woods, with wind and rain tearing through the trees around them, and they realized they were lost... that is, until they spotted a heavy iron gate through the downpour..." By now most of us weren't listening to, so much as living, the story my uncle was relaying.

After a moment's tension, my Uncle continued, now seemingly lost in his own tale. "Benny pulled the car over, and ran out to the gate, desperately hoping someone was home. He couldn't find a doorbell or any other way to get the owners' attention, but saw the gate was slightly open. He couldn't see anything beyond the gate through the pouring rain. With a grunt, Benny managed to force the rusted iron open all the way with a wailing creak." My uncle accentuated the last word, causing most of us to tense up.

"Benny came back to the car and told Jamie that they would try the front door. They rolled up the gravel driveway, and an old mansion loomed out from the rain ahead. Jamie wasn't sure, but as a flash of lightening illuminated the dark building, she could swear she saw a person in a second floor window. After running out into the rain once more, Benny tried pounding on the front door, shouting for someone inside to open up - that they were cold and lost - but no one answered. Eventually he gave up, deciding they would try somewhere else. He ran back to the car and got in, dripping wet, and tried to start the car, but Jamie's hand reached out to grab his shoulder. Look, she said, pointing up at the house." Once again, my Uncle paused for emphasis, watching our eager faces. We wanted to know what she had seen in the rain.

"Benny looked to the house, and saw the front door swing open ever so slowly," my Uncle continued, leaning forwards in his chair, a hint of a smile on his lips. "It had to be the wind, said Benny, but he didn't sound convinced. After a moment, the pair left the car together and ran to the house. Past the front door was a large living room full of covered furniture. The corners and walls of the room were caked with dust and cobwebs. It looked like it had been abandoned for some time, so they decided it would be safe to stay the night. They explored room after dusty room, and eventually they found the master bedroom, but as they opened the door..." My Uncle trailed off, the hint of a smile now a full blown grin.

"Geeeeet ouuuuut..." My Aunt's voice echoed to us from the kitchen. We jumped, hearts pounding in our chests, but unable to move as my Uncle continued the story.

"They both heard it, but decided it was the wind again, stepping inside the master bedroom..." My Uncle resumed. There was a quiet thump as someone's half-eaten chocolate bar hit the carpet, all eyes darting to the source of the sound. My Uncle let it go, using the sudden jolt to enhance the atmosphere of his story. "They both froze in their tracks as they saw someone inside the room." There was a unified squeak from a few of the other children listening, and I could hear one of my cousins starting to hyperventilate. "It was a woman, completely covered in a long, white, robe. Jamie asked if she was the owner, but again..."

"Geeeeeeet ouuuuuut..." my Aunt repeated from the kitchen, unable to stifle the giggle that followed.

"Benny begged to stay, saying that they had nowhere else to go. He walked up to the white robed woman, reaching out to touch her shoulder." There was a whimper from one of the other children as the tension rose. "The woman turned around, but her face was just a skull, and you could see right through her!" My Uncle growled these last words, driving the group's anxiety through the roof as my Aunt stepped in one last time; she charged out of the kitchen with a white robe on, and a skull mask hiding her face.

"GEEEEEEET OUUUUUUT!" My Aunt howled giddily as the spell over us was finally broken. Most of us ran screaming or crying out of the room, the two adults laughing as we went. After the room cleared, I was left sitting there confused. My cousin, meanwhile, was curled up into a ball next to me, still hyperventilating and valiantly trying to restrain his tears.

"Wasn't scary enough for you, Joey?" My Uncle asked me as my Aunt pulled her mask off and kissed him on the cheek.

"What was she?" I asked, genuinely confused.

My Aunt looked down on me like I had just asked which way was up. "Honey it was a ghost story, she was a ghost," she explained.

"It was a story?" I asked.

My Uncle grinned. "This one's a true story," he said.

"So that was all real?" I asked, dumbfounded. My Aunt just shook her head and returned to the kitchen.

"Yeah, ghosts are scary stuff," My Uncle said. "If you see one, you better run!" He added, winking.

"So what happened to Benny and Jamie?" I asked, still confused.

"Who?" My Uncle asked.

"The newlywed people," I explained. "What did the ghost do to them?"

My Uncle just gave me his usual smirk before he stood up and left, joining the rest of the adults in the kitchen.

That night I went to bed scared and confused, this new concept terrifying to me. I started seeing shadows in the dark as I tried to sleep, and this drove me to insomnia. I couldn't be sure if this was another one of my Uncle's tricks - after all, how could he know the story if the ghost really had gotten Benny and Jamie. Eventually, as all children do, I succumbed to sleep, though my dreams were haunted by new skull-faced specters.

The next day I didn't have school, but while it normally would have filled me with elation, I was instead consumed with worry. All day I avoided my friends in favor of sitting in my room and thinking. I did that until my mother kicked me out so she could clean, so then I sat in our backyard, still thinking. Our lot was fenced in on two sides, and directly behind us was a wooded area that served as the local park. It was notorious for getting foggy at night, but on that cloudy November afternoon it was clear all the way to the highway, and cars whizzing by in the distance.

Thinking back on it, if my mother hadn't kicked me out of the house I might never have met Munin. I spotted him through the chain-link fence, walking across his own yard to his garage, hauling what looked like a bundle of wire, muttering to himself. He had a head of thinning, white hair. He wore a white tank top, covered only by his worn leather suspenders which held up his dirty, khaki trousers. He didn't see me his first trip through, but coming out of his garage he spotted me.

"Hey, shouldn't you be in school right now?" He asked in a raspy, confrontational voice.

I jumped a little from being called out. "N-no," I muttered back. "Yesterday was Halloween," I explained.

At the mention of the holiday, a nostalgic look came across his face. "Ah Halloween... now that brings me back. Spooks and Ghosts and Monsters and all that." His tone was significantly calmer now.

Only one word stuck out at me. "You know about Ghosts?" I asked, standing up and quickly stepping over to our shared fence.

Munin looked at me, confusion wiping away the nostalgia. "Course I know about Ghosts, kid," he said, sounding a little offended.

"Are they real?" I blurted out, seemingly the most important question I had ever asked in my, admittedly, short life.

Munin seemed taken aback, before a scowl crossed his face. "Kid they ain't just real, they're dangerous." It was a warning I wouldn't soon forget.

Wide-eyed, I just stared at him, my head swimming, unsure of what to say. When he shook his head and started to walk away, I panicked. I couldn't lose this, my only opportunity to learn more about my newest fear. "M-my name's Joey!" I spat out, causing him to stop and look back at me with a questioning gaze. I swallowed hard, but pressed on. "W-what's yours?"

Munin finally cracked a smile. "Munin Fryan," he answered. With that, he returned inside.

I remained outside, alone, ruminating over what I had just learned. Up until then, Munin had been the weird old recluse with the funny name. Many a parent warned their child to stay away from Old Man Munin out of paranoia, but I had been the first to make a connection with him, moving past the moniker we'd forced onto him.

It was a few days before I spoke with Munin again. My initial anxiety over the existence of ghosts had waned somewhat and school had started again, keeping me relatively distracted. School had let out early, and I was once again booted from the house by my mother, this time because of my parent's date night. I usually spent this time at a friend's house, but elected to sit in the back yard again; though I quickly came to regret this decision as the chilly autumn evening quickly set in, bleeding through my little sweatshirt.

It was about this time that Munin appeared, once again dragging something to his garage. I ran over to the fence to watch, catching his intention.

"Hey kid," Munin grunted, as he dropped his burden - this time a box of electrical junk - and started fiddling with his keys.

"What are you making?" I asked, staring at the container of scrap on the ground.

Munin glanced at the box, then winked at me. "Secret for now kid," he said, opening the door and dragging his box the rest of the way into the garage.

I waited for him to reemerge and start locking up, then asked my question: "How much do you know about Ghosts?"

He eyed me up and down, seeing a young child clinging to his fence and shivering. "Your parents know you're out here?" He asked.

"They sent me out here," I said.

Munin sighed and walked over to the gated portion of the fence. "You want to come inside and warm up for a bit?"

This question caused a slight jolt of panic in me, the warnings my mother had given to me about strangers rising from my memory. However, after a particularly stiff breeze, I decided he lived close enough to my house to make visitation safe, and I nodded for him to lead the way

Munin let me into his kitchen from his backyard, grabbing a, "disabled living," pamphlet from the table and tossing it aside before offering me a seat. His kitchen was messy and yellowed, the air reeking of cigarettes, but the smell didn't bother me. My parents were smokers, after all.

"Now tell me, why do you want to know about ghosts?" Munin asked after we sat down. I explained to him what my Uncle had told me. He nodded solemnly as I told the tale, never once interrupting. After I was finished, he said, "That was just a neat story to scare kids, boy. Nothin' like the real thing."

"What are Ghosts really, then?" I asked.

Munin grinned. "Ghosts are what happens when someone like you or me dies in a really painful way," he began, earning a wince from me at the mention of death. "When that happens, a guy can't move on so he gets mad at the world and lonely... tries to make more people like him."

"How do they do that?" I asked, swallowing hard.

"They try to make a messier, nastier death than their own," he said, matter-of-factly.

I groaned, feeling sick to my stomach. Munin reacted quickly and carried me to his tiny bathroom before I could throw up. Once I had gotten a hold of myself, I apologized, smelling my own bile in the air as Munin stood awkwardly outside the bathroom door.

"Don't worry about it kid... seen my fair share of it already," he said.

A short while after he let me out and I went home, though from then on I made regular visits to Munin's house. The man was very forgetful, even asking my name again a few times as I got to know him, but he always seemed to cheer up when I was around. It felt like I was doing some good, even if my motives were less than selfless. At first, Munin seemed like he didn't know much about ghosts, but he began to remember more and more with each visit. I eventually learned that he used to hunt ghosts for a living.

"How do you hunt a ghost?" I asked, amazed.

"It ain't easy kid," he said. "Normal weapons don't work right, you gotta use electricity - that's the only way to hurt them."

As the days wore on, I would learn so much about Munin's past. He had made a business out of ghost hunting, once upon a time. He and his friends would all go hunting ghosts together, both to earn a living and to prove their bravery. He told me many a tale of ghosts he'd hunt, never skipping on the detail; luckily, my stomach got used to the gory details quickly.

I wanted to learn so much more about it. I thought it was amazing what he had done, and I asked him why he'd ever stop, but he always went quiet and refuse to answer.

Until one day, he did.

"We were all on vacation in Europe," he said, solemnly. "All of us were sent out there, but we were together so we didn't mind... fog all around us, should have known something was up but we were careless. There we were, just sitting in a circle in the mud, playing poker in the rain. Money wasn't much use to us at the time, so we figured why not. Then we hear the first thud."

There was a long pause before he continued. "Benny peaked his head over the embankment to see what was happening, and the thing tore a hole straight through is head, just carved a quarter of his skull clean off - right through the helmet. We knew what was out there then... we could hear it screaming and whizzing past, but we couldn't see the damn thing, with the fog so thick... Tom was next. He tried running and the thing tore straight through his throat. He died choking on his own blood in the mud. Then we panicked. It was just me and Jamie, and Jamie tried to go over the embankment, yelling at the sonsofbitches the whole time. You would think it was noble if not for him getting his chest ripped to shreds a second later and falling over dead next to me. The look on his face was what got me. He didn't look scared or hurt, he just looked confused... like, he couldn't even fathom how it could've gone so wrong, so quick. Never even crossed his mind bein' a hero could end like that... all that confidence for what... yeah, yeah that's what got me...." He trailed off, and I felt my stomach twisting despite my acclimation to his stories. I wasn't prepared for the look of genuine pain on his face.

After a long silence, I spoke up. "How did you make it out of there?" I asked.

It took him a while to answer. "I didn't," he said, eyes fogged over. I didn't understand what he meant... not at the time. I thanked him for telling me his story, and let myself out, leaving him alone in his kitchen, staring at the tiled floor.

I went to bed that night with a lot on my mind, trying to make sense of what seemed like inconsistencies in his latest story. It hadn't been like the rest, that's for sure, but just what made it different I couldn't tell. The next day at school, I overheard something that made my heart drop during lunch.

"You hear about the ghost in Minne Park?" One of my classmates whispered to another across the table. I felt my pulse pick up at that.

"Yeah, the one that only comes out when it's super foggy?" the other replied.

"Yeah, they say she used to be a teacher here, but died tragically. Now she haunts the park, looking for children." Another added in.

Panic set in. I don't know how I made it through the rest of the day before getting home. The next thing I remember clearly was getting kicked out for another date night.

I ran over to Munin's house, as I so often did. I remember pounding on his back door and shouting for a bit before running around front and saw his car was still in the driveway. I tried ringing the doorbell for a while, to no avail. By then it was getting dark and panic was taking over. I couldn't bear to think what would happen if that ghost ran unchecked. I ran around back again, and this time I noticed the garage door open slightly.

I peeked inside to see that it was filled to the brim with boxes full of wires and circuit boards. The walls were lined with dozens of dusty, half-finished projects. I looked around desperately, shouting Munin's name until I tripped over what looked like the grip of a bike handle attached to a pipe. I shouted as I fell, and screamed as sparks flew from the end of the stick as it hit the concrete. After a second I snatched the stick up. It had a button that ran the length of its grip, and at the far end of the pipe two wires fixed with electrical tape stuck out. I gave the grip a squeeze, pressing the button down. Bright light arced between the wires at the tip. Holding my new weapon, I left the garage in a hurry. If Munin wasn't here to do it, I would have to. I was the only other person I knew of that knew how.

I ran into the park, even as the evening fog began to rise. I ran for hours, searching desperately for either Munin, or the ghost. The moon rose, not-quite-full in the sky. More than once I sank up to my knee in ice cold water, having slipped into one of the many marshes. At some point I heard my parents calling for me, frightened for me, but I knew I had something more important to take care of before I could return, and I deliberately walked further from them. I scrambled across the walking paths, ignoring them completely to further avoid anyone searching for me, and getting myself more and more lost in the woods.

Eventually, I crossed a line of brush and saw what I had come for. I quickly ducked behind the bushes hoping it hadn't seen me, carefully peeking out this time. Out in the fog, I could see a white figure floating above the ground a good two or three feet. Dark streaks of what I assumed to be blood ran down from where its arms should have been, and I quickly surmised it had bled out from losing them in some sort of accident.

Adrenaline pumping in my system, and fighting against the fear, I squatted there frozen for what felt like an eternity. Finally, screwing my eyes shut, I came to the decision that someone was going to die if I didn't end this now. I charged out of cover, an iron grip clamping down on the trigger of my weapon, sending a trail of sparks through the fog. I opened my eyes to see where I was going, my vision blurred from the stress.

The ghost slowly came into focus as I rushed it down, and I could imagine in that moment what macabre visage might be waiting for me. I kicked a chair out of my way, weapon lashing out, spearing the thing as hard as I could. The apparition convulsed and gurgled for a moment before swinging back towards me, knocking me down. I stared up, horrified as my vision began to clear and I saw the ghost for what it actually was.

The steaks of blood I thought I had seen turned out to be a familiar pair of worn leather suspenders worn by the body hanging from a nearby tree with a rope tightly pulled around its neck. Munin dangled lifelessly as the smell of burnt cloth and feces began to fill my senses. His eyes were open, but glazed over. It seemed like he was looking down on me with a confused expression, only a spot of dried blood caked down to his chin betrayed his true state.

The next thing I remember, I was sitting in the back of an ambulance, my mother holding a blanket around my sides. I stared, lifelessly, as the coroner wheeled a black, human shaped bag onto the bed of his truck. I could vaguely hear the sounds of my mother and a policemen speaking, but the words were all jumbled and confused.

All I could make out was bits and pieces of a conversation between two of the EMTs. As they packed up their equipment, the pulsing lights of the ambulance bathing them in red, they spoke of Munin. I could only make out a few phrases, but to this day I still remember each one with clarity: "Purple Heart... Shell Shock... History of Alzheimer... Next of Kin..." and, "Refused to take medication."

The next few months are equally vague in my memory. I've been told that I went to Munin's funeral, and was one of only about a dozen attendees. I know that I didn't have to go to school for a while. I remember going to court a few times for some kind of a hearing. I remember there being a falling out between my Dad and his brother for a long time, too.

The one thing I keep coming back to is the look of disappointment on Munin's face when I found him. As if, at the end of it all, despite knowing what he was doing, he still couldn't have known what it would be like.

After all these years, I still try to visit Munin every once in a while. The cemetery the state buried him in is only about a half hour away from where I live not, so I try to go out there at least once a month; though I'm the one telling the stories now. I talk to his tiny gravestone and try to keep him up to speed on what's going on in my life, who I'm dating, what stories I'm covering for my job with the local paper, anything that comes to mind. Its a bit funny, after all these years I'm still going back to talk to ghosts, even though I know no one is listening now.