by Brian Corley
complicated.”
He cocked his jaw and wandered off to go look at something else now that he felt cut out of the process. DeeDee consulted with them for about twenty minutes more, tweaking some things from the original design to what they would want now that money wasn’t an obstacle. She went outside and conferred with Jeremy while we waited inside the garage. I looked around the room awkwardly while George and Ramona whispered excitedly to each other. At least I had a badass 1967 Camaro to look at while we were there. I could just smell the old vinyl and fuel in the garage—except that I couldn’t, obviously, because I couldn’t smell anything. If you haven’t smelled an old car kept in good condition, you should. Not right now though, stay with me for this.
After a few minutes, DeeDee returned to open the door and close it tightly behind her as though she didn’t want us to see out the other side. I got a familiar vibe of the big reveal from the many home-improvement shows I’d seen, and I started to get excited.
“George and Ramona, are you ready to see your new house?” DeeDee said on cue.
Damn, that was faster than I expected.
She opened the door and invited them into their new backyard for a big reveal. Ramona’s hands went to cover her face in joy, and George doubled over in excitement. I floated up past them to see—a small wood-slatted bungalow painted a bright yellow with lighter purple and white accents along the trim. I looked behind me and no longer saw the garage, but a tasteful little pond to complete the backyard. That must have been Jeremy’s contribution.
I couldn’t even see Judy and Glenn’s house anymore—it was as if it was gone completely. It was like a house-flipping show in reverse—from the huge, cool, modern house, back to the small, old house—and in about the same amount of time. We hadn’t even been there an hour. DeeDee motioned to take them on tour, and I decided to check in with Max back at the van.
I floated up and over the house and accidentally ended up inside the second floor of Judy and Glenn’s house. Hmm, that was unexpected. I was in a huge bedroom that I would assume was their master bedroom, but we all know what assuming does—saves time.
Quinton sat reading a book in a fuzzy red upholstered chair with his feet propped up on a matching ottoman. Gentle plumes of smoke rose from a bundle of incense in the middle of the room.
I floated out to the other side of the house and down into the driver’s seat of the van that was idling out front. Max was watching a video on his phone about various strategies in Frebopple.
Sheesh, Max is competitive.
“Hi Jonah,” Max said, his eyes still glued to the screen of his phone.
“How’d you know I was here?” I asked, crackling over the speakers.
“The A/C isn’t so great while idling, and you’re like, the best air-conditioning.”
“That’s cool.”
“Heh,” he replied. “Hold on.”
He was getting a call. Nic’s smiling face popped up on his screen. I don’t think I’d ever seen her smile that way, like an actual person … with human emotions.
Did she always have dimples?
Max put her on speaker.
“Hi Nic,” he said.
“Hey Maxim,” she replied.
“I’m kinda busy. What’s up?”
“Just checking on you.”
“Aww, thanks. That’s nice.”
“Max, I’m worried about you. He was your best friend.”
Max looked like he was about to take the call off speaker for a second.
“Thanks, Nic, but you don’t have to worry about me. We were so close—it feels like he’s still here … like he never left.”
“See? That’s what I’m worried about. You act like he’s still around. Christ, Max, you even bought his house. It’s OK to grieve. It’s OK to let him—”
“Gotta go.”
“Max—”
“Nicole, it’s diarrhea. I have to go!”
“Oh jeez, sorry, bye.”
We sat for a few moments without saying a word.
“So, it’s like magic, right?” I said. “It gets you out of everything—”
“Everything, Jonah, everything. So, how are things going with the hippies?”
Crisis averted. We almost shared feelings.
“Good, I think we’re about done. I don’t think there’ll be any more problems for Judy and Glenn.”
“Nice,” he said, “can I text Zoe and have her wrap things up?”
“Yep. Y’all heading over to the diner after this?”
He typed a message to Zoe. “No, I think everyone
has plans.”
“You have plans? What are you doing?” I asked.
“Yes, Jonah, I have plans. I am a very interesting and eligible young man,” he said, trying to locate me, then gave up. “I have a date.”
“A date? It’s past ten. You don’t have dates past ten—you have a hookup. Who is it? Do I know her? Bring up her profile. Let me see!”
“Jonah,” Max deadpanned, “I am a gentleman—and a gentleman never tells!”
“OK,” I replied. “I’ll remember this. It would be a real shame if she came over one night and was—say—afraid of ghosts!”
He rolled his eyes. “She’s not afraid of ghosts, Jonah.”
“Not—yet. Heh, heh, heh.” I gave him my best ominous laugh as he resumed his video. “Alright, I need to finish up here. Guess I’ll see you back at the house at a reasonable hour since you’re such a gentleman.”
“Indeed you shall,” Max replied without looking up. “I look forward to your presence at such time, good sir.”
I floated out of the van, back to the house, and into a small, comfortable living room. The inside of the house was an eclectic design, along the lines of the pictures from the image search but subtly improved with DeeDee’s designer eye. The furniture was comfortable and pieced together from different eras: a comfortable leather couch, a yellow wingback chair, what looked like a stool from some far-flung, exotic locale, and a wooden straight-backed Victorian chair. DeeDee had impeccable taste and was able to combine her experience with their past to give them a better version of their home. It looked like she might have talked them into lighter walls with darker wood floors. I followed a tight hallway full of pictures from George and Ramona’s life, including their graduation, wedding, vacation photos, and one with Ann Richards in front of the state capital building. I followed voices into a cozy little kitchen to find DeeDee, Jeremy, George, and Ramona around an old wooden table. A gold record hung on the wall behind them. George saw that I noticed.
“Oh, that’s not real. I just always wanted one,” he said as he stood to welcome me. “Thank you for doing this for us—I mean, thank you, DeeDee and Jeremy—but thank you, Jonah, for putting us together and making this happen.” He gave me a big hug.
DeeDee and Jeremy stood. “Yes, thank you, Jonah. This was fun. I haven’t been able to stretch my creative muscles like this in a while,” DeeDee said with a wide smile.
Jeremy didn’t say anything—big surprise. Ramona came over to give me a big hug too.
“Well, we should really get out and try our hand at helping people move on,” Ramona said, looking over at George. “I thought we might go visit Mr. Clemmons for our first go.”
George nodded, indicating he thought that was a good idea too.
“It was so nice to meet you,” DeeDee said, hugging Ramona and shaking George’s hand. “Just let me know if you ever want to redesign. Think about some of those options we talked about earlier.”
“We will,” Ramona said, walking us out.
We stood on the porch for a bit before Jeremy turned to me and said, “So—you want to zap us back now?”
“Yep, sorry,” I replied, turning to George and Ramona. “Good to see y’all. I’ll check in tomorrow night to see how things went.”
I lightly grabbed Jeremy and DeeDee’s sleeves as we blinked back to their house.
“Well, good night,” Jeremy said, walking off toward the stairs as soon as we materialized.
DeeDee couldn’t wipe the smile off her face and turned to grab me by both arms. “Thank you, Jonah,” she said. “I really enjoyed that. I can’t believe how much fun I had, and they were so nice! Please do not hesitate to reach out if you need me to do something like that again.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “You totally hooked me up tonight. I appreciate it. Sorry Jeremy didn’t have a good time.”
She laughed and gave me a hug. “He had a fine time. That’s just Jeremy being Jeremy. He’s secretly glad he got to go—trust me.”
“Good night, DeeDee,” I said.
“Good night, Jonah.”
I blinked back home, turned on the home-improvement channel, and watched remodeling shows the rest of the night with a slightly more educated eye.
Chapter 25
Life—or afterlife, whatever—took on the shape of a new normal over the next few weeks. We had a few cases and helped a few more wayward spirits move on. Zoe and Max’s business started to take off, and I noticed the group became more focused. A few decided to upgrade their gear with various spiritual accoutrement and higher-quality frayed (this time intentionally) clothing. I listened to a few audio books and went downtown every few nights or so just to get out of the house.
Meanwhile, at home, I noticed a few upgrades around the house. Max bought a new television as well as some VR gear and a new high-performance computer that he placed on a legitimate desk in his room. By “legitimate,” I mean a desk that he went out and bought new rather than the one he’d had since Tony Gianfranco left his old one in the dorm after move-out at the end of freshman year.
Max was out more and more, always leaving notes to let me know he was gone, but not saying much about where he was or who he was with—as though that would satisfy my curiosity and not increase it by orders of magnitude.
After fading in one night to the sounds of crying, I naturally assumed it was Max’s mysterious girlfriend—I would probably cry too if I were in her shoes. I emerged from my room to discover that I was wrong and that the heaving sobs belonged to a familiar figure that sat hunched over on our living room couch.
Debra was being consoled on either side by Tammy and Lin. Zoe knelt next to Max, who was on the floor of the living room with his arms around his knees. Something was going down, and I needed to know ASAP. I floated into the kitchen where Quinton stood with the other two Psy-kicks—I really ought to know their names by now. Anyway, they were in the kitchen eating what looked like a store-bought pan of cinnamon rolls and drinking coffee.
“What’s going on?” I crackled through the radio on top of the fridge.
Quinton sat down his coffee.
“You need to hear this from her,” he said, wiping his hands on his pants and grabbing the radio off the fridge.
Whatever it was, the news was important enough for Quinton to forego the usual pleasantries of “good morning,” “what’s up,” or my personal favorite—“hey.” The group noticed Quinton’s entrance and felt the cooling that came along with my ghostly presence as I entered the room.
Debra looked up with red eyes. “Is that Jonah?” she asked.
“Yeah, Debra, it’s me,” I crackled back softly through the speaker. “Are you OK? What’s wrong?”
“Willard is back,” she said, sniffing back tears.
I went on alert and lit off through the house, checking every room once, and then again. I popped up through the roof and surveyed the front and back yards, making a quick check down the street and adjoining properties. I didn’t see him or sense his presence, so I floated back down.
“Willard isn’t here. He’s gone. I think he’s staying at another house north of here,” I said, trying to comfort her.
She stopped crying, sniffed, and looked at the speaker where my voice was coming from. “Obviously, Jonah. I meant he’s back in our lives. He’s been coming to me the last few weeks, leaving messages that have become increasingly threatening.
“At first, I noticed the cool spots in the house and the sense that I wasn’t alone. Then the messages in the mirror when I got out of the shower: TELL HIM. That just made me paranoid. Tell who? I told Hank the next day about what Janelle from accounting has been saying about his breath to everyone whenever he left the break room—but that wasn’t it.
“I brought some friends over with a Ouija board, and that’s when we got the details of his message. I tried to ignore him, but the messages kept coming in the mirror: TELL HIM. I called my friends to come over again. We performed a ritual of cleansing, and it worked for that night. They agreed to stay over the next night, and he was back—but this time we weren’t strong enough. He took me over—possessed me—again and threatened all of us. If we didn’t pass on his message, he would do to me what he did to you, Jonah. I’m sorry. I’m so—so sorry.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He wants Max gone, out of the house—you too,” she said.
“Or what?” I asked, knowing the answer already.
“Or else he’ll do to Max what he did to you,” she replied.
“Huh,” I laughed. “Really? I guess he has a short memory. I would love to see him try something over here again.”
Debra dabbed her eyes and nose with a tissue. “He thought you might say that,” she said. “He said to tell you he would be by at midnight tonight to talk.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“No, that’s it,” she said.
“Fine,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll have an enlightening conversation here in a couple hours. What do you want to do, Max?”
“Well,” Max said as he stared at the floorboards of the living room, “I want to travel to England and catch a game at Stamford Bridge, or have lunch with Dave Chapelle, Hannibal Burress, and Jerry Seinfeld.
“That said, I would settle for a lifestyle where receiving death threats doesn’t seem to be part and parcel of my everyday routine.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, thinking through options. “I guess I could rent the place out—maybe do vacation rentals.”
“You would never get the neighbors to approve a short-term rental, and no one wants to stay this far south for events,” I said, as though we were having a normal conversation that wasn’t the result of a supernatural threat to his life.
The right corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile.
“I don’t know, Jonah. Why don’t we come up with a plan after you’ve talked to him? Quinton and Lin brought some pretty killer coffee, so I can stay up as late as we need.”
“You have my bow,” Zoe offered.
“And my ax!” Tammy added.
“Thanks,” Max and I said at the same time.
“Ha! Jinx, poke, you owe me a Coke!” Max laughed.
“Jinx! Silk! You owe me a milk!” I replied.
“I feel like we’re off topic,” Zoe said, trying to focus our attention.
“What are we supposed to do until midnight?” I asked.
Max held up his hand and offered as innocently as he could muster, “I propose a couple rounds of Frebopple.”
It was an interesting choice in moments, but I guess Max decided it was time to put all that research to good use. Frebopple received universal agreement, and the group moved into the kitchen after grabbing a few chairs from around the house so that the table could accommodate everyone. The mood lifted appreciably for the next few hours, even as Max dominated gameplay. Zoe and Lin managed to squeak out a couple wins, so I guess everyone felt like it was a fair fight.
Around a quarter till midnight, the group decided to put the game on pause and do their best to fire me up. Zoe chose a handful of songs from classic adrenaline-fueled
movies from the ’80s. “Ghostbusters” (naturally), “Over the Top,” and of course, “The Final Countdown.” Midnight came, and I psyched myself up to go outside. Max put a hand in the air, indicating that he wanted me to stop just as I was about to head out.
“Wait-wait-wait. Just wait,” he said, sniffing in a deep breath for dramatic effect. “Why be on time? It just makes it easy for him. Let’s hang out here for a few more minutes.”
That would have been a great moment to take an opportunity to teach Max how to rise above pettiness and meet a challenge head-on because it was the right thing to do … but fuck that. I liked his plan better.
“You’re right,” I said. “Willard is a dick. Let’s make
him wait.”
Max punched in House of Pain’s “Jump Around” on his phone, and the room went nuts. Everyone bounced around the kitchen and into the living room to jump on the couch, fell into chairs, and acted like idiots. Smiles were broken, beers were spilled, and a good time was had by all. Max held up his hand again after the song was over, indicating that we weren’t yet done. He punched another song into his phone as his shoulders hunched and he extended his neck with his face contorted into a menacing grimace.
A few seconds later, the opening riff of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” started pulsing through the speakers. Max thrashed his head violently as the assembled group went nuts again, playfully pushing each other around in a mock mosh pit.
I shot up above the house as the second line of the chorus hit, hyped with preternatural adrenaline, ready to take Willard head-on.
I saw him as soon as I cleared the roof. He stood on the sidewalk in front of the house, and behind him stood three men who I began to recognize as I floated down to meet the group: three of the four guys from the first Tarrytown house haunting. Willard stood with his arms crossed, wearing a dark-gray tactical rig—pockets everywhere, boots, the whole nine yards.
“Thank you for gracing us with your presence. I hope it wasn’t hard to find the place,” Willard sneered.
“Oh, no trouble, time just got away from us. We were listening to some music,” I replied in my friendliest tone. “So, I hear you have something you want to say to me.”
