When last we left our intrepid ghost fighters, they’d managed to irritate their resident specter. Now, they’re going to make it really angry…

“I’m going to make a quesadilla,” I said walking to the kitchen, iPhone flashlight illuminating my path.

“I’m good” came Jessie’s voice in the darkness.

“Cool,” I said as I opened the dark fridge for the cheese. The light from the cooking flame under the cast iron skillet caused little shadows to dance eerily on the walls. Still, I wasn’t as nervous as before. Sure, I was still acting as bait, but at least I had a task to accomplish – and there would be a tasty quesadilla to toast our victory over the specter.

Tortilla down on the melted butter, shredded cheese on top and the second tortilla on.

The door to the garage opened slowly, the hinges creaking a warning.

I swallowed hard as I flipped the tortilla with the spatula.

The temperature in the kitchen plummeted. I hoped Jessie had gotten into position.

The kitchen filled with a deafening howl that made my blood run cold and forget the entire plan. I spun in time to see a white shape streak from the garage into the kitchen and straight for me. I didn’t have time to think. I did have time to scream – which I did – and grabbed the cast iron skillet to defend myself.

Unfortunately, I neglected to use an oven mitt when I grabbed the bare iron handle and the pan came up, the quesadilla fell to the floor, the pitch of my scream turned from terror to searing pain as I let go of the hot pan. It arced through the air as the ghost shot towards me and the two collided, the pan ringing with contact and ricocheting off into the darkness. The white streak veered off and seemed to stagger and fall into the counter by the fridge.

“Jessie!” I yelled, instinctively running my hand under the cold water in the sink.

The door to the back patio flew inwards as Jesse rushed in, “JT, you okay?”

“No!” I said, one hand under the water, the other reaching for anything on the counter as the ghoul’s two red eyes resolved within the white shape and turned towards me. My hand grasped something and I threw it at the figure. “Suck garlic, ghost!”

“That’s vampires!” Jesse yelled, moving around the kitchen table.

The garlic sailed right through the white mist and bounced onto the counter behind it. The red eyes looked down at where the garlic passed through it, then tilted at me like it was saying, “Really?” before the red eyes narrowed and it started towards me with my hand still in the sink.

It didn’t see Jesse round on it and throw two handfuls of roofing nails at it. The nails that struck it impacted like they hit something solid and the ghost shrieked a high pitch wail of pain and then seemed to melt into the floor and disappear.

The only sound was water in the sink.

“You okay?” Jessie crossed to me.

“I burned my hand,” I said experimentally flexing it under the water.

“Is it bad?”

“Not too bad,” I said.

“Okay,” he said going to the fridge and taking out a bag of frozen peas which he wrapped in a kitchen towel. “Hold onto this.”

I shut the water off and took hold of the peas in my burned hand. The coolness felt better than the water, but it still hurt.

“A little better, JT?”

I nodded.

“Okay, I don’t think we have much time…”

“You don’t think we got it?”

“No, I think we really pissed it off. Let’s set up for the coup de grace.”

“The cootie gah?”

“Coup de grace – it means the finishing stroke.” He looked at my hand holding the peas. “I think we’re going to have to reverse our roles, but that should be okay. I think it’s super mad at me right now.”

…

Jesse sat on the couch in the family room playing “Call of Duty Mobile” on his phone as I stuffed myself in the awkward space under the stairs next to the love seat. My leg cramped from waiting, and I rubbed my calf to get blood back into it, but that was the most movement I would spare. My hand still throbbed, but it definitely felt better after we put aloe on it and wrapped it up.

I shivered and realized the room just cooled unnaturally quickly. I wanted to say something to Jessie, but he tapped his right foot twice indicating he felt it too. I flexed my legs to make sure I could move when I needed to, because Jessie warned the ghost might be fast. I mean, if it was only moderately angry when it came at me in the kitchen and now it’s righteously angry?

The rocking chair in the corner by the fireplace started to rock on its own. That was the only clue we had before the ghost erupted from the dark fireplace. I saw the red eyes first, flaring like hot embers. The white misty shape appeared even more defined and I could see whispy arms and hands tipped with claws extended as it shot towards my brother.

Two feet away it crumpled hard against an invisible wall.

“JT! Now, close it!”

My legs sprung and I launched from my hiding place, my hand already upturning the cylinder of salt. The white crystals fell to the floor in a stream overlapping a semi-circle. I hurriedly traced the other side of the circle with the salt. As the stream crossed the other side of the semicircle a barely audible click came from the circle.

The ghost mist whirled and launched towards me, slamming against the invisible barrier that extended upwards from the now-closed circle inches from my face. I fell backwards from the sudden shock.

“We got it!” Jessie cheered.

The ghost spun and rammed every angle of the five foot diameter cell it found itself in. It twisted its mist like a tornado, spinning upwards testing the cylindrical barrier all the way up to the roof.  It settled back down to the floor and stalked back and forth turning the red eyes on Jessie and then me. Sure, it looked like we had the thing trapped, but it emanated a pure hatred.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Tell us who you are and why you’re bothering us,” Jessie demanded.

The ghost’s reaction surprised me. The mist coalesced into a quite distinct hand extending a middle finger.

“Suit yourself,” Jessie told it. And so we started messing with it.

We sat on opposite couches and tossed a football back and forth right through the ghost.

Jessie retrieved a battery powered work light from mom’s tools in the garage, turned it on pointing it at the wall and urged the trapped ghost, “Go towards the light!” It spun with fury.

We collected the nails from the kitchen and took turns bouncing them off the ghost. It screamed with each nail.

My quesadilla wasn’t too dirty (1 hour rule, FTW!) and I took a bite and offered it to the ghost, “Hungry ghost?” Jessie laughed at least.

“Look, just tell us who you are and why you’re bothering us and we’ll let you go,” Jessie told it again after a while.

The finger again.

We tried burning sage to really set it off, but we couldn’t find any in the kitchen. For the record, burning oregano has no effect on a trapped ghost and smells terrible.

Jessie tried reading passages from the Bible, but it didn’t react. However, when he started reading old Eminem lyrics from his phone the ghost went nuts.

Eventually we actually got bored tormenting the thing. Jessie yawned, “I’m going to bed. You can stay trapped there until the sun come streaming in this window,” he said, opening the drapes. “I’m just guessing, but I don’t think that’ll be good for you.” He turned to me, “You coming, JT?”

“Yeah, let’s go,” I said, and followed him up the stairs.

We were almost to the top when a voice floated up to us. “Fine.”

“Was that you?” Jessie asked me. I shook my head.

“It’s me, you stupid kid!” The voice came from the red eyes and the mist trapped in the circle.

Jesse sauntered past me back down the stairs. He drew up just opposite the ghost and said, “my name is Jessie. My brother’s name is Jacob. Neither of us is named ‘Stupid kid.’”

“I don’t care what your names are,” it said with vehemence. “You’re in my house and you’re annoying as hell!”

Jessie took in a breath and let it out slowly. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and said, “Show yourself.”

“Go to hell,” the ghost said.

“Funny, by my watch…”

“Jessie,” I whispered, “You don’t have a watch.”

“By my phone,” he corrected himself, “You’ve got about five hours to reconsider before those hills out there start to get pink and soon after that it’ll be you going to hell.”

The mist swirled and coalesced into the translucent bent figure of an old man with a deeply wrinkled face. “I moved into this house fifty years ago,” it said. “My wife died in this house. I died in this house. My stupid kids didn’t visit either of us. Then they up and sold this place to your mom. My house!” It bellowed. “And I’m not going to put up with two kids,” he spoke the word like a curse. “Not in my house. Not after my own kids did us so wrong.”

“Look, mister,” I said coming down the last steps. “This was your house. But it’s ours now. I don’t know your kids, but I’m sorry that they were jerks. We can’t do anything about that.”

“So?!” he yelled.

“So, do you know where our mom is tonight?”

“A bar? Trying to find you brats a new daddy?” it laughed a wheezy laugh.

“JT, get some more nails, I’m going to get that cast iron pan.” The old man’s eyes widened and he stopped laughing.

“No, jerkface,” I said. “She’s at her mom’s, our Nana’s. Our grampa died last summer and she’s scared to be alone in the dark after fifty years together. So, our mom is over there comforting her.

“We can’t do anything about your awful kids, but that’s not how our family works. We live here now. We’re not your kids. And we all need to get along.”

The old man thought for a few minutes then said, “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” Jessie said. “Just to leave us alone.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Stop messing with us. If there’s something you don’t like, come to us and we’ll see what we can do to make it better.”

Jessie came next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. “Jacob’s right. We’re all in this together here,” he said kindly. “If you want to be a jerk and make our lives miserable, we can play right back.”

The ghost harrumphed, but seemed to soften.

“You don’t terrorize us and we’ll treat you with respect,” I said. “Do we have a deal?”

The old man stood still for a long moment. Then, finally, said, “Alright… I can give it a try.”

“Thanks, Mister,” I said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jessie said as he stepped forward and deliberately scattered an arc of the salt with his foot. An audible snap crackled in the air and the old man put his hands out experimentally. When they didn’t come into contact with anything he stepped back and relaxed.

“You kids need to clean this place up before your mother comes home!” he chided.

“We will. I’ll get the magnet for the nails. JT, get the broom?”

“You got it,” I started to move.

“Hey,” the old man said.

“Yeah?” Jessie replied.

“You kids are pretty clever. And fearless.”

“No,” Jessie laughed, “We had plenty of fear.”

“Still,” the ghost said. “Thanks for making my afterlife interesting.”

“Thanks for coming around,” Jessie said.

The old man faded from view and we started cleaning up.

He’s still here. If we’re doing something he doesn’t like, he definitely lets us know – sometimes it’s a cold breeze. Occasionally it’s a stern word. But we know we deserve it. We told Mom, but to this day she doesn’t believe us, but when she comes home from work and finds we did the dishes unbidden she declares, “Thank you, ghost!” to the ceiling. I saw him behind her in the doorway to the garage smiling once after she said that.