Spoopy Scary Ghosty-Goos

In which there are supernatural shenanigans

I watched the oven closely. 3rd time's the charm, they say, I couldn't fail now, not when I had come so close. The egg timer dinged. I pulled on my oven mitts, opened the door, and carefully pulled the dish out. Now I had to put it slowly on the cooling rack. Yeah, I could do this. I was almost there, almost-

BANG-BANG-BANG

And then the souffle deflated. Why.

The culprit of the banging glided through the door. And got a red-hot deflated souffle in the face. Or rather, through the face. It was a ghost. A lady ghost that didn't even notice the ruined food (and the dish, which shattered against the wall above the brand-new microwave) sailing through her head and continued on through the fridge, leaving a blob of ectoplasm on the stainless steel. 

The spirits have been restless lately, and as caretaker of this haunted castle in Ireland somewhere, it was my job to find out why. But I had more important things to do, like cleaning souffle off the wall.

DING-DING

You have got to be kidding me. Now!? He couldn't be five minutes late. When this was over, I'm going to find whoever said punctuality was a virtue and punch them.

 I threw off the oven mitts, ran up the stairs, down the hall, skidded on the carpet, and hit my face on the front door. My day was just going great. Clutching my bloody nose, I opened the door. Sean (pronounced 'Shawn', despite the fact that there isn't an 'h' anywhere in his name) ambled through the door and gave me a mild grin. "Bad day?" he asked.

"You have no idea." I lead him across the castle to the tower-ish thing I had commandeered as my bedroom while trying to keep blood from dripping onto the carpet. A tiny trail of red dots followed us across the castle. Figures.

"So, what's up?" Sean inquired as he flopped onto my sofa. It had been there since the time the place had been remodeled, which was, as far as I could tell, 10,000 years ago. I sat by his feet and dabbed at my nose.

"The ghosts are getting restless. Like, really restless. I think something's set them off." I briefly described the hijynx of the past fortnight (That's two weeks, by the way). Besides the souffle, there had been moaning, knocking, a red gooey thing with too many eyes and not enough everything else slipping down the stairs, and shadow figures, which really sucks, especially if they stand in your closet and stare at you in the middle of the night. Sean listened and nodded.

" Yep, things are pretty wacky around here. Want me to have a look?" I nodded, and my friend, the area's leading physic (to be fair, he doesn't have much competition, there are literally ten people living around here), stood up, closed his eyes, and started wandering round the room. 

Trancing, he called it, and as far as I can tell, It's pretty legit. Suddenly, he spun around and hurried through the open door, eyes still closed. Nosebleed mostly stanched, I got up and followed him.

If the spirits were taking him somewhere, they were apparently taking the scenic route. up, left, down, right, it made no sense. He only stopped once and blindly pointed at a random painting. 

 "Straighten that painting. The lady says it's not straight." I whipped out my phone and snapped a picture of it for later reference, which was half-obscured with a white mist. The Lady, I presume. 

Eventually, we wound back up in the kitchen. Right in front of the new microwave, to be exact. Sean slowly raised his arm and pointed at ... the toaster. What? What did the ghosts have against the toaster!? I was about to ask when Sean's eyes flew open. He looked around blearily.

"Oh, we're in the kitchen? Great, I was getting hungry." I glared at his back as he rooted about in my fridge.

"So what's with the ghosts and the toaster?"

"Oh, that," he pulls the sandwich ham out and shuts the door, "They're saying that it doesn't match the rest of the kitchen and they want a new one in the different color." I looked at the toaster.

"Are. You. Kidding. Me." It was a pale yellow. I had borrowed it from my sister's kitchen and never gave it back. I had never been invited over there again. "So you're saying I need to get a new toaster." Sean shrugged and tried to talk through a mouthful of ham.

"Or just repaint it. I don't think they care."

I sighed, "Alright, alright. I'll fix the bloody toaster."

Retrieving craft paint from the local hobby store (about 3 hours round trip) We meticulously repainted the toaster to the spirits' taste. It wound up matching the dark stony wall behind it. 

Sean copped out on me halfway through, "Look, this has been fun, but my mum's making steaks, so bye." It was quite annoying, but after an indeterminable amount of time, the toaster was revamped, and I straightened up, working the cramp out of my hand. 

There was a squelching noise behind me. I turned and beheld the Red Eye Goo from earlier about five inches from me. The Goo peered behind me, appraising my toasty handiwork. It seemed to approve, and oozed its way back upstairs. 

I sighed in exhausted relief and stumbled back to my bedroom. The only reason I remembered about the painting was that Lady person dragging me out of bed and across the castle a half hour later.