Way back on Halloween 2017 a group of the living met some trick or treating ghosts. You don’t have to go back and read it, just know they’ve been hanging out every Halloween since then.

“Is anyone there?” Aiden called down the alley.

“I don’t hear anything,” Jacob said. “Maybe they’re not here this year.”

“They’ll be here. They’re here every year. Hello!” Olivia called.

Silence.

“It’s them!” a voice came from the darkness. “I told you they’d be here this year! They’re here every year!” Stewart stepped into the streetlight in the simple costume of a sheet ghost. He pulled up the sheet revealing his rosy cheeks. “Hey guys! Eddie owes me a dollar – he said you weren’t coming this year.”

“Well, I figured you guys were getting too old for trick or treating,” Eddie came into the light in his old-fashioned red velvet cowboy costume complete with Lone Ranger eye mask.

Aiden, Jacob, and Olivia exchanged looks. “Well,” Olivia said, “It might be our last. We are getting a little older… But we looked forward to the chance to see you guys again…. Where’s Anthony?”

“I’m here,” Anthony said, stepping forward with his mohawk and gold chains. “Good to see you, Olivia! How are you guys doing?”

“We’re good,” Aiden said.

“Hey, don’t leave without us!” Duane yelled as he and a girl ran into the light. Duane had his Dr. Zaius Planet of the Apes plastic mask on and the girl with him had black and red checkered outfit with black and red tights and one red and one blue pigtail.

“Hey Duane!” Jacob said. Who’s Harley Quinn?

Harley Quinn shied back a bit.

“It’s okay, they’re the good living!” Duane said.

“I’m… I’m Ava,” she said sheepishly.

Olivia stepped forward, “Hi Ava, I’m Olivia. This is Jacob and Aiden. You’re new around here?”

Ava nodded. “I died this year. April,” she said. “I’ve always had really bad asthma and then Covid…”

“I’m so sorry,” Olivia said.

“I really wanted to be Harley Quinn this year,” Ava said.

“And so you are!” Olivia smiled. Ava smiled, too.

“What’s your costumes?” Stewart asked. “Olivia, you look like a doctor!”

“I am!” she said holding the ends of her stethoscope.

“Are you a doctor, too, Aiden?” Duane asked.

“Nurse,” he said pointing to his scrubs.

“I don’t the bottle costume, Jacob,” Anthony said.

“I’m a bottle of hand sanitizer!”

Stewart, Eddie, Duane, and Anthony stared confused. Ava, however broke into loud giggles.

“Hand sanitizer! Ha!” The other ghosts looked at her. “It’s a Covid joke,” she explained. “Is it going to be a weird Halloween because of the ‘rona?” she asked.

Olivia nodded, “It’s going to be strange. There’s a bunch of contact-less candy hand-outs, and a lot of parents decided not to let their kids out at all.”

“Understandable,” Ava said.

“You know what this means?” Anthony asked.

“Yeah,” Duane said pulling his Dr. Zaius mask down over his face, “It’s our year!”

“Let’s go!” Eddie drew his cap-gun pistols. “Hee ha!”

—

The kids were about to head up a driveway when they heard “Fire in the hole!” from the end of the driveway. A woman pulled a lever and a catapult hurled a bunch of Snickers and Milky Way all the way down the driveway. “Andy, there’s a bunch of them in this group – fire the backup trebuchet!”

“On it, Anne!” and Andy pulled a lever and an elaborate arm started swinging around and hurled Almond Joys and Reeses.

Stewart held out his sheet to block a bunch of candy. Anthony was glad no one noticed a snickers went right through him. Ava giggled as she scrambled for candy.

—

A few houses down they looked up at a porch and started up the walkway to the porch when a stop sign popped up in front of them. “Huh?” Eddie said before a whirring noise drew their attention to a pulley system rigged between the light post at the end of the walkway and the kitchen window at the porch. An orange and black lit ghost carrying a small basket traveled with a whirr from the kitchen window over the lawn and came to a stop at the light pole.

“Oh! Your costumes are so cute!” The woman in the window called down to them. “I love the hand sanitizer!”

“Thank you, Ma’am!” Jacob said as he and the others split the candy in the basket.

“Thank you!” they all said to the woman. As they started to walk away they heard the whirr of the zip line ghost traveling back up the wire.

—

The front of the Peterson house at the end of the street was completely obscured by an enormous couch with a huge fifteen foot skeleton perched on it and graves scattered across the lawn. One arm of the skeleton was replaced by a big PVC pipe that extended way out over the walkway.

The lights in the skeleton’s eyes lit up and the mouth opened as a voice said, “Step up to the skeleton chute!”

“That’s so cool!” Anthony said, stepping up to the chute that ended in a fake hand. He put his bag up to the end of the chute and a full-size Twix slid down and dropped into his bag. “Awesome!”

“Ooh, me next!” Eddie moved in.

—

They walked up to one house that had no lights on the porch, but red dots crisscrossed the driveway.

“I don’t understand,” Steward said.

“Line up under a dot,” a voice came from up on the roof.

Jacob scrambled his bottle costume onto the driveway and managed to get a red dot into his bag when he became aware of a cacophony of buzzing before two bags of M&Ms dropped into his bag from the sky. “Whoa!” he said.

Ava followed suit as the drone that had just dropped the M&Ms hummed down to the group of four on the roof of the house where one of the operators re-loaded the candy basket as another drone dropped its cache of Laffy Taffy into Ava’s bag. She squealed as the two Taffys fell in and that drone whirred down for reloading.

It took a couple minutes, but all eight kids got their air-dropped treats and walked away laughing and talking about how Aiden’s Hershey’s missed his bag at the last moment and he scrambled to pick it up, and how Eddie’s Nerd boxes bonked off his head.

They hit a few more conventional houses but it wasn’t long before they all retreated to behind the warehouse where Anthony lit the fire and they gathered around and compared their hauls.

“How’d you do, Ava?” Olivia asked.

“Really good!” she said smiling broadly.

“Glad you came! I mean, I’m sorry you’re a ghost, but it’s nice not being the only girl.”

“I’m glad I could come,” she said.

“Were you guys serious when you said this might be your last year?” Anthony asked.

Aiden looked at Jacob and then at Olivia. He shrugged, “Not likely,” he said. “I forgot how much fun it is hanging around with you guys!”

“Good,” Eddie said, then got really serious and said, “We wouldn’t want to have to haunt you and your families.”

Jacob, Aiden, and Olivia froze.

“I’m just messing with you!” Eddie and the rest of the ghosts started laughing uproariously.

“…Should’ve seen the look on your face,” Duane wheeze-laughed.

Jacob, Aiden, and Olivia were slow to join in the laughter.

“It’s funny,” Stewart said, “Because we’re all treats and no tricks!”

This case differed from most I get called in on. 

Think of me more of like an exterminator – not that I’m exterminating ghosts, mind you – it’s just you don’t call an exterminator to take care of termites or fleas or spiders because you’ve seen one bug. No, it’s gotten to a point where your place is so infested with bugs that you need the assistance of a professional. 

Same with a paranormal investigator. The rocking chair moves on its own? So what? You hear footsteps in the empty attic? Eh. You get pushed down the stairs and thrown out of your bed? Now you’re going to call me. 

When the Richardsons called me they’d only had a few instances. Though, to be fair, they were doozies. It happened every year. On the 15^th of August, from 12:01am until 11:59pm their house was a battlezone. Plates get thrown against walls; fridge erupts violently ejecting its contents all over the kitchen; Knives get hurled towards people – and that’s just in the kitchen. No room is spared: Bobby, the little boy, has all his toys strewn everywhere; Molly, the teen girl, gets her clothes thrown out of her closet, her make-up drawn all over the walls. 

But the moment the clock strikes 12am and the calendar changes to the 16^th? Quiet. And it remains quiet for 364 days a year. But August 15^th? Pure hell. 

When they called me as August 15^th approached the case intrigued me. Poltergeist activity tends to be more continuous and usually centers around a person (most commonly a teenage girl – and Molly wisely spent the last August 15^th at her friend’s house). So, it didn’t fit a traditional poltergeist, yet a ghost rarely has the ability to do more than, well, rock a chair or make footsteps in the attic. Actually messing a place up like the Richardson’s experienced? I couldn’t find anything similar. 

I knocked on the door on the 13^th of August. 

David Richardson answered. “Hi, I’m the paranormal investigator, Eleanor Sully,” I introduced myself and held out my hand. 

“Oh, right, of course,” he said shaking my hand. “I’m David. Please come in, meet the rest of the family.”

The house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood – no gothic castle here. Two stories, though the second was added after the house was built. No dank basement. I’d already gotten some information about the family members, but putting a face to a name is always enlightening. Amanda Richardson looked anxious – who wouldn’t be knowing what was coming in a few days? Bobby was precocious and had one baby tooth hanging on right in the front of his mouth – it was kind of adorable. And Molly rolled her eyes a lot and announced this year, like last, she’d be spending at Tiffany’s. 

I wasn’t introduced to the 12-year old on sitting on the stairs. He saw that I saw him even though I was giving my full attention to my introduction to the Richardsons. Once that was complete though, I made a beeline to the stairs. 

“And what’s your name.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” he said sullenly. 

“It does to me.”

He looked hard at me for a minute as if making up his mind whether it really did (it did). “Eliot.” 

“Hi Eliot,” I said. I could feel the astonished stares from the Richardsons in the next room. “You don’t seem very happy. What’s going on with you?”

“I’m a ghost, duh!” he said. While obvious, it actually was significant that he recognized he was a ghost. 

“I see that. They don’t though, do they? Does that bother you?” 

“Not usually,” he said.

“But…” I prompted. Then it occurred to me: “Let me guess: August 15^th is your birthday, right?”

“And they don’t do a thing! When Bobby turned 8 last year they had a bouncy castle that had a ball pit!” Eliot yelled, pulling himself to standing with the banister. I heard a gasp and realized the Richardsons just saw the banister start to shake on its own. “Molly had a sleepover with all her friends – I didn’t scare any of those girls!”

“No?”

A devious smile appeared on his face, “Okay, I turned the sink on in the bathroom when that redheaded girl was in there. That was pretty funny,” he erupted into giggles.

“On the whole, that’s not too bad,” I said. “But on your birthday? You lose it?”

“I dropped hints all year. They’ve lived here for five years now and nothing.” 

“Well, us living can be a little dense about those things.”

“Yeah, no kidding!” he sneered.

“I’ll make you a deal,” I started. “If we have a party for you on your birthday you won’t make a mess?”

“That’s all I want!”

“Done,” I said. “Any requests?”

“Banana cream pie!” He said at once.

“You can’t eat it, though.” 

“Doesn’t matter!” He countered. “Balloons! Lots of them! Will they sing to me?”

“That can be arranged. Anything else?” 

“Can we watch my favorite movies?”

“I don’t see why not. What are your favorite movies?”

“Star Wars!”

I thought for a moment. “Eliot, what’s the last Star Wars movie you saw?”

“My mom took me to Jedi in the theaters!” he said as his face fell. “That was right before we all died.”

“You know, Eliot, there’s new movies…” 

“No way?!”

“Like a bunch. What do you think of a birthday movie marathon?”

“Oh my God, really?!” 

“As long as you don’t break anything, we’ve got a deal.” 

“Deal,” he said, spitting into his hand and holding it out to shake. I did likewise and tried not to close my hand too much – it’s awkward to close my hand over a ghost’s. “I’m so excited!” he said pogo-ing upstairs one step at a time. I heard the Richardsons startle and realized they’re hearing him on the stairs. 

I turned to them and clasped my hands together. “So,” I started, “We have a party to plan…”

I’ll give this to them, The Richardsons seriously got into this. 12:01 on August 15^th and Amanda had three types of popcorn ready as David hit play on “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” 

“Oh, you’re doing the revised Machete order, I see,” I commented. 

“You know your Star Wars,” he nodded appreciatively. 

“Get comfortable, Eliot! You’re in for a treat today!” I said. He was in his place of honor they’d reserved for him on the couch. 

“It’s my day!” he squealed with pure joy. 

And it went on all day: “Solo” to “Rogue One” to “A New Hope” and “Empire” before David jumped back to “Phantom Menace.” All the while Amanda kept the snacks coming. Star wars pancakes once the sun came up. And Eliot got his banana cream pie and everyone – Molly stayed home – sang him happy birthday.

I left around ten that night. 

“You’re going?” Eliot asked.

“You’re going?” Amanda asked. 

“It’s been a fun day,” I said.

“Right?!” Eliot agreed.

“But I’ve got a wild haunting consult tomorrow. Happy birthday, Eliot!” 

Eliot jumped up and hugged me. I actually felt him hug. 

I squatted down to his level, “You know, Eliot, if you see a bright light you can always cross over. Your mom and dad are probably waiting for you.” 

“It showed up around noon.”

“Oh?” 

“David said ‘Rise of Skywalker’ is as good as ‘Empire!’ It’s on next! I’ll go after that. Think mom will be mad?” 

“No, Eliot, I think she’ll be excited to hear about your last birthday party.” 

He grinned and ran back to the couch as I let myself out.

“Yeah, we have a ghost,” I told the woman at the bar. It was mid-day and she was the only one at the bar. Except for two guys at a booth, she was the only patron in the place.
“So, the bar is haunted?” she asked a second time.
“I mean, sure, yeah, I guess that means we’re a ‘haunted bar,’ but it’s just one ghost. I feel like you need to have a minimum number of ghosts to be ‘haunted.’ Like, at least two, right? One ghost is just… a ghost. More than two and you’re totally haunted.”
“Seems reasonable,” she said. “So, what’s it do?”
Suddenly “All Star” by Smash Mouth started playing from the jukebox. I put my hand over my face.
“Jesus Christ, who mentioned the ghost?!” Kiku, the other bartender, yelled from the far end of the bar where she was cutting limes.
“That’s me!” the woman at the bar said raising her hand. “How do you know that’s not just someone messing with you? Someone could have an abnormal affinity for the song.”
Kiku walked around the bar to the jukebox. She held up the plug-end of the cable leading to the jukebox as Steve Harwell sang about how all that glitters is gold and only shooting stars break the mold. “It’s unplugged.” She said.
“Yeah, we even removed all Smash Mouth songs from the jukebox,” I added.
The woman stared agog at the plug.
“We have to wait for the fucking song to finish,” Kiku explained.
“Yeah, that’s part of the reason we know it’s Eddie. He did like to mess with us by continually putting that song on the jukebox,” I explained.
“Well… holy shit,” she said. “A regular? Died here?”
“Regular, yes. Died here? No. Was hit by a car a few years ago. Hit and run.”
“Wow. That sucks.”
“Yeah, it was sad. But, for whatever reason, he’s still here.
“Huh,” She said. Then “I… I’ll take another G&T. What else does he do?”
“Moves all the goddamn bottles around,” Kiku said coming back behind the bar.
“She’s a little… particular about the bottle arrangement,” I gestured to the glass-shelves filled with varying bottles as I diligently set the Hendricks back in the gin section.
“Yeah, I’m OCD about that shit,” Kiku corrected. “I keep an organized bar. No thanks to Eddie.”
“You know he’s just going to play ‘All Star’ again, right?” I said to Kiku.
“Let him. This is a battle of wills.”
I rolled my eyes and passed the gin and tonic to the woman at the bar.
“Is that it?” she said taking an appreciative sip. “Plays ‘All Star’?”
“Nah,” I said. “Turns sinks on in the bathroom… he’ll slide glasses down the bar – not off the bar. He doesn’t break anything. Just, you know, slide it casually from one end to the other. Oh, he’ll put in orders for drinks during busy times – always the same, Jack and Coke, and have it sent to some random table.”
“How…?” she asked.
“Ordering computer,” I pointed down. There’s a terminal by the bussing station that the waitresses use. And, apparently Eddie does, too.
“Sounds like a fun ghost,” She smiled.
“He keeps things interesting,” I said.
“He moves the bottles knowing it pisses me off. He’s an asshole ghost!” Kiku added.
“Some of us find him more interesting than others,” I laughed. “One thing he doesn’t do, though, is take alcohol.”
“Oh? That’s a thing?”
“Yeah, bottles would go missing – not a lot, a bottle of mezcal here, a Scotch there. But enough that it screwed with our inventories. We were blaming it on Eddie. We figured he’d escalated from moving the bottles to piss of Kiku–”
“Asshole,” Kiku interjected.
“Escalated from moving bottles to, you know, taking them. Or at least disappearing them.”
“I suppose if he can summon Smash Mouth from an unplugged jukebox then anything is possible, right?” She said.
“Exactly,” I said. “Yeah, recently Eddy wanted to be clear that it wasn’t him.”
“How’d he do that?”
I grabbed the remote control from under the bar, turned on the TV on the far wall and changed the station to the feed from our CC TV system. Filling the big screen was a black and white image of a man going into the back room, looking at various bottles and walking out with a bottle of Del Maguey Mezcal Pechuga. The clip looped, showing the man coming in, looking at the various bottles and again walking out with the bottle of Mezcal. Superimposed over the black and white video was blinking red text proclaiming, “SEE? NOT ME!”
“Who’s that guy?”
“The owner’s husband. And the first one who blamed Eddie for the disappearing liquor.”
“Ha!” she laughed.
“Right?” I said. “You have to be careful when alleging spirit-on-spirit crime.”
Kiku threw a lime wedge at me.