Short Stack

Spookaholic

My name is Eve, and I'm a spookaholic.

Everyone remembers their first spook. Maybe you made the power go out or put your hand on someone's shoulder or knocked on some kid's window in the middle of the night.

I blew out some candles.

I didn't mean to spook anyone. I just saw that the birthday boy's candles were dangerously close to falling onto the tablecloth. If I hadn't done something, who knows where the fire could have spread? 

It doesn't matter why I did it. When I blew out those candles, I spooked the kid.

You all know how spooking feels. Between the warmth in your chest and the heavy feeling of solidity that spreads throughout your body, spooking makes you feel alive again. Back then, I'd do anything to forget my charred clothes and the smell of smoke that clung to me like a lonely child, so it was only a matter of time until I searched for my next spook.

Sometime between the first time I spooked a cat and the day I made the portrait of an old woman's husband wink at her while she was with her lover, I started hanging around with a couple other ghosts. We called ourselves the Boo Crew. Pete coughed up a storm whenever he spoke. Jake reeked as if he had bathed in booze.

And then there was Nancy. Despite the shards of glass that stuck out of her face, it was still very kissable. You can only imagine how happy I was to still be with her even after death. Or not. A lot of you folks knew her, too.

The Boo Crew and I spooked anybody we could find. We didn't care who or what they were as long as they had a pulse.

At least, we didn't care until we spooked poor Mr. Jenkins.

Mr. Jenkins was the neighborhood kook. When he wasn't trying to convince his lawn gnomes that aliens exist, he was writing love letters to Elizabeth Bennet. You get the picture. He was nuts, but not in a hide-your-kids kind of way so much as a senile grandpa kind of way.

Anyway, the Boo Crew and I decided to do a whole bunch of spooks on Mr. Jenkins. It didn't take him long to start screaming once he saw my ash-coated face in the mirror, and I suspect the way Jake's alcohol-laced breath ruffled the few remaining hairs on his head didn't help the old man stay calm. Mr. Jenkins bolted out of the bathroom as soon as Pete coughed blood in his face.

One look at Nancy was all it took for Mr. Jenkins to be spooked to death.

The Boo Crew drifted apart after that. How could we not? As exhilarating as spooking was, we had killed someone. And we couldn't resist spooking while we were together. Sooner or later, Jake would start slurring his words or Pete's hair would fall out by the fistful, and we'd all feel compelled to spook one more time. 

Out of all of us, Nancy was the most determined to stop spooking. In the Boo Crew's last weeks, she'd avoid the rest of us while we spooked until we'd find her trembling as blood ran down her face. I told myself I could stay strong, just like her.

Back then, I was wrong.

I stayed spook-free for a couple weeks, but I eventually found myself in a graveyard looking for someone, anyone to spook so that I could stop smelling my burnt hair.

Soon enough, I found someone.

I almost didn't recognize her thanks to the skin grafts, but my sister looked okay. Sad, but okay considering she was putting flowers on my grave.

I smashed the vase. My sister came to put flowers on my grave, and I smashed the damn vase.

The worst part of it is that I probably would have kept spooking people if all she had done was scream. But she didn't. Once the initial shock wore off, my sister tried to talk to me. "Eve, are you there?"

I tried to tell her I was, but she didn't hear me. I don't know why I thought she would considering I had never spoken to any of the living without spooking them, but I guess I had to try. I hope she at least felt me hugging her.

After that spook, I went back to Mr. Jenkins's house. Nobody was around besides his lawn gnomes, but I locked myself in his closet anyway. I was alone and couldn't spook anyone for ages.

That's when the heat came. Not the warmth of a good spook or the coziness of the jackets around me, but the heat of the fire. And the smell of the smoke. Oh God, the smoke. I was choking again, except it wasn't over in a matter of minutes. It lasted hours. Or days. Maybe a few weeks. I don't know. It's hard to keep track of time when your death is flashing before your eyes. All I know I wished I could erase myself from existence until Nancy found me.

She looked like hell. Most car accident victims do once they're close to ascending. The sliced-up faces, the glass piercing their skin, and the limbs bent in ways that would make a contortionist cringe. But that didn't matter because Nancy will always look like heaven to me.

I'll spare you the mushy details of what we said to each other. All you need to know is that she's the one who brought me and Jake and Pete and a bunch of other ghosts to Spookaholics Anonymous. Now that she's ascended, it's up to me to make sure we all stay on track. As long as you don't mind the fact I smell like a house fire, I think we'll do just fine.  

Word Count: 966

I wrote this years ago to practice writing in first person. I still strongly prefer sticking to third person, but it was nice to experiment with something a little different. For a while, I even toyed with the idea of turning this into a longer story. Maybe I will someday, but for now I've laid these ghosts to rest.