ode to ghost hunting

by Chel Campbell

—at Gitchie Manitou

I grab my friend after he gets off late, my cartoon-red car a belching beast that lost its muffler on the interstate. All edges of its body kissed by rust, it delivers us to our haunted spot, a campsite where, some forty years ago, teens were murdered by two brothers with shotguns. Point blank. Armed with nothing but our raw nerves, a cheap recorder and plastic flashlight, we forage for broken spirits in tall stone structures. Hair-like grass and gnarled fence posts reach like grandmother fingers. The flashlights reveal velvet bovine faces, our misplaced dread reflected in calm pools of brown cow eyes. They don’t blink when a campfire cuts the horizon or when a shriek pierces ink-black sky. We run our asses off, scream-laugh terror away like only teenagers can, play emo music loud in my shit car, beat away fear of death in every shadow.

In his room, we pick ticks from our skinny jeans, sentence pests to cigarette lighter death. We smoke when the executions are finished. Oh tick, did you vow to haunt us when we un-buried your thirsty mouth? Is this how you love? Lazy burns curl. I cannot speak aloud, for maybe that is all your ghost can be—a small, unspoken promise to a god.

Photo of Chel Campbell

BIO: Chel Campbell is a writer and artist from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She has a micro zine of poetry called Lovebug out with rinky dink press. Recent artwork appears in Wild Roof Journal and Anti-Heroin Chic. Words appear and are forthcoming in matchbook, X-R-A-Y, Pithead Chapel, trampset, and more. They are the EIC of MEMEZINE (@memezinelit). Find them on Instagram @hellochel and say hi :)