Let’s close this one out! Grab a blanket, because it’s chilly!

“Okay, slow down, Ritche,” Jules said. “What do you mean he’s here?”

I was pacing the restaurant. “He was in the bathroom! Behind me, looking at me in the mirror… then, gone. Then the lights went out and this wave of cold water hit me…” I realized I was babbling, but my adrenaline was really flowing.

Dale had broken away from the hockey game now. “Whoa, Ritchie, wave of water?”

“It was lake water!” I said.

“Ritche… you’re dry,” Dale pointed out.

“That’s because it was… I don’t know… ghost water!”

Dale and Jules exchanged looks. “Ghost water?” Dale said incredulously.

“Let’s get you back to the house, Ritchie,” Jules said soothingly.

“You don’t believe me?”

“I do, Ritchie. I really do! But what can we do about it now? With the whole lake water thing it sounds like he’s telling you you’re on the right track going to the lake. We’ll go back out there tomorrow, okay?”

She made sense. I said my goodbyes to Dale as well as Alan and Terry and Jules drove us down the dark icy roads to her house. The drive served to remind me how tired I was, and my head barely hit the pillow in the guest room before I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

So, I was plenty rested when my eyes snapped open at dawn. I dressed – as warmly as I could – and quietly made my way out the front door and into my rental car without waking Jules. Twenty minutes later I was parked on the side of the road and starting out onto the ice.

The morning was cold, and the chill winter fog clung to the ground obscuring my view even to other side of the lake. The occasional car on the road behind me was the only sound in the wan morning light as I stepped onto the ice.

When I visited the day before with Dale and Jules the circumstances just didn’t feel right – I fell through the ice in the morning. This felt more right. As I took steps further onto the ice, I looked down at the frost covered ice. Though intellectually I knew the ice was thick and secure, the similarity of the time and weather made my feet feel instinctually unsure about their footing. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

The ground fog seemed to circle around me and cut off even the occasional passing car behind me. I stared ahead into the whiteness of the fog when it seemed to coalesce into a figure. He stepped forward. He wore the same snow pants and jacket I wore that day, though I could see the frost and ice on the fabric. He stared silently at me with those same black, dead eyes.

Finally I spoke. “I’m here,” I said. “You wanted me here, and now I’m here. How do I get rid of you?”

My ghost stared at me.

My fear was replaced with anger. “You haunt me, ruin my dates…” I was yelling now. “I’m here! That’s what you wanted wasn’t it? I’m here!”

My ghost stared at me.

“What do you want?! Leave! Me! Alone!”

My ghost stared at me. I panted a little from yelling, my breathing the only sound.

Without warning a crack like a rifle report echoed across the ice. I barely had time to look at my feet to see the crack widen beneath my feet when the ice below me gave way and I fell through into the freezing water.

When you fall into freezing water, the first thing that happens is the shock drives your breath out in an involuntary gasp. I stared up at the hole in the ice I fell through and marveled for a moment how thick the ice was, realizing this shouldn’t have just happened – this wasn’t the fragile ice I broke through as a kid. No, this is the standard mid-winter thickness.

And yet, here I was, sinking into the darkness.

Looking ahead of me, I could see Him in the water with me, just above me. His black eyes staring at me, his dead blue lips curling into what looked like a semblance of a smile. He reached his arm out towards me.

This is how I was going to die for good – the same way I was supposed to die twenty-five years ago. Surprisingly, I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t angry or afraid. This felt like how it was supposed to end. I reached out my arm towards his. I strained to touch him, to reunite and die in peace with my ghost.

Then a hand shot down and gripped mine. This was not the lifeless fingers of my ghost, this hand held mine and pulled hard, yanking me towards the surface. I stared as my ghost drifted down, down, down into the icy darkness while I sped back up to the surface. The last thing I saw before I broke the surface was my ghost stretching his arms out in submission, one hand curled into a wave goodbye.

My head broke the surface and I gasped for breath.

“Pull me back, Dale!” I heard Jules yell. She lay on her stomach on the ice, her torso bent over the hole in the ice. Looking past her I could see Dale laying on the ice, holding her feet and starting to pull her back and, in turn, pull me out.

I struggled against the splintering ice but managed to get some purchase with my free hand and between that and Jules and Dale, I wriggled my way onto the solid ice.

We all three lay there on the ice panting for a few moments. Then Jules reached out and started slapping my head, “You asshole! What the hell were you thinking coming out here alone? Goddamn it, Ritchie!”

“I’m sorry,” I managed through uncontrollably chattering teeth.

“Beat him up later, Jules,” Dale said. “We need to get you both off the ice and warm!”

With the temperature in single digits, he was absolutely right.

—

Dale managed to get a fire going quickly in a nearby fire pit with driftwood left over from the summer season. I sat on a stump under a moving blanket Dale had in the trunk of his car.

As we started to warm, Jules asked again more quietly and calmly, “What were you thinking?”

“I didn’t want to wake you,” I started.

Jules shook her head, “No. No, try again.”

“I… I thought I needed to be here by myself or he wouldn’t show.”

“There we go!” Jules said. “You idiot,” she said, but there was a slight smile behind her scowl.

“How did you guys…” I started. “How are you here?”

“I heard you leave, you idiot. I didn’t think you were going for donuts!”

“Thank you,” I said.

I thought back to seeing Him under the icy water and the waving as he disappeared again into the deep. “I think he’s gone,” I said.

“Yeah?” Jules asked.

“Yeah,” I said nodding.

Dale came back to the fire and threw another piece of driftwood on and handed me a bottle. I looked at the label – OPW Rye Whiskey from the Honorable Distillery in Marquette. I gave him a look that said, “it’s 9am.” He nodded to the bottle. I pulled out the cork stopper and took a big swig that burned my mouth and throat on the way down.

I looked at the label as the warmth of the whiskey started to spread through me. “Here’s to this being the only spirit I take back home with me!”

Yep, there’s going to be a part 3 coming.

“So… now what?” Dale called from the shore.

I stood shivering on the frozen lake, my hands deep in the pockets of my too-thin San Francisco jacket.

“Ritchie?” Jules called. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I managed through my chattering teeth. “Jus… just cold.” I scanned the still ice of the lake spread out in front of me. The glow of the recently set sun caused the wind-blown frost to glow orange in the waning light.

“What the hell are we doing out here?” I heard Dale ask Jules, followed by Jules hitting Dale’s shoulder.

“Ritche, hon? I don’t think he’s, uh, you’re going to show.”

I stood silent as the wind picked up and cut through my thin coat, causing me to shudder. “F…f…five m…m…m…more minutes,” I managed.

“Jesus, he’s gonna freeze to death,” Dale said to Jules. Then louder, “Ritche, Terry and Alan are meeting us at Vango’s Pizza.”

“Dale!” Jules admonished. “Give him five more minutes.”

“We’ve been out here for forty-five minutes already! I’m freezing my balls off.”

“Then go wait in the car,” she told him.

I heard him grumble, but he didn’t move.

Dale was right, though. I had been out there on the ice a long time. I hadn’t stood in that lake for twenty-five years – since the accident. I figured this was what He wanted. A reckoning where I died and he was created. But I didn’t feel him at all. I just felt cold – and not the paranormal kind of cold, the impending hypothermia kind.

As the last light faded I heard Dale huff and walk off towards the car. I was about to give up when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Are you done freezing out here?” Jules said gently.

“What happened to ‘Hell no, I’m not setting foot on that goddamn ice’?”

“Well,” she laughed, “it’s the middle of January, so I think we’re pretty safe. And you didn’t seem like you were going to come back to land my yourself. Seriously, did your feet freeze in place?”

“He’s not here,” I said.

“He’s not here right now,” she clarified. “Come on,” she turned and beckoned, “You can come back tomorrow and try again.”

Reluctantly, I turned and followed her back to the shore.

—

Vango’s hadn’t changed at all – no, their beer selection was better now, though Dale, Terry, and Alan’s beer taste hasn’t changed since high school. They took turns giving me shit for drinking an IPA, for my useless jacket, my haircut, basically everything. But it felt good – there was part of me that really missed it and that place. Jules sat smiling and only chimed in when called upon to add her opinion.

When the Red Wings game came on and the guys’ attention was magnetically drawn to the big screen, Jules sidled up next to me. “I’m glad you came, Ritchie,” she said resting her head on my shoulder.

“Me too, Jules,” leaning my head against hers. “I just hope it wasn’t for nothing. I mean… what did I expect would happen out there?”

“’Hi Old Ritchie,’” Jules mimicked a young me, “’Thanks for coming. We need to talk about your choice of dates,’” she laughed.

“He does seem to show up at the worst times,” I said laughing along.

“Whatever will happen will happen,” Jules said. “Trust the process.”

“There’s a process?” I said straightening up and getting to my feet. “I’ve got to pee. I’ll be right back,” I said and headed for the rest room.

I finished up and was washing my hands when the water slowed down until it stopped. I looked down and saw icicles growing from the faucet as I felt the air temperature plummet. Looking into the mirror I saw my own reflection… and I saw Him standing behind me, dead black eyes staring at me. I spun to face him but there was nothing there.

I tried to slow my racing heart by telling myself I just imagined it – there was nothing there. I was clearly on edge and it was my over-hyped brain playing tricks on me.

That’s when the lights went out.

I bolted for the door just a few steps away, threw it open and immediately was hit by a wall of ice cold water rushing in that bowled be back into the bathroom and stole my breath. The wave receded, and I struggled to catch my breath and get to my feet in the darkness.

“I’m here for you,” A voice spoke quietly right next to my ear. I scrambled in terror, got to my feet and reached for the door again, yanked it open and stepped out into… the regularly lit restaurant.

I stood panting looking around, but all eyes were glued to the hockey game. Except Jules, that is, who rushed over.

“Jesus, Ritche. Are you okay? What happened?”

“He’s here,” was all I managed to say.

Health situation sorting itself out well. Just tired, so keeping tonight a little short and light.

Edgar rolled over but the banging downstairs kept any semblance of sleep annoyingly away. Then it stopped. Edgar waited for it to start again, but silence descended for five minutes and he was just about to drift into sleep when BANG BANG BANG BANG!

This was too much. Edgar leapt out of bed, stomped across the floor, out of the room and down the stairs to face whatever it was making the noise.

On the first floor he found the source of the noise: half a dozen contractors tearing out the wall between the kitchen and the family room.

“What in the hell are you doing?” he yelled. “Don’t you know someone is trying to sleep upstairs?”

The men kept working, oblivious to the outburst.

“You know they can’t hear you, right?” Izzy said quietly next to him.

“I mean… but they’re being so noisy!”

“And you know you can’t sleep, either, right?”

“Not with this racket!”

“Edgar,” she said gently, “You’ve been dead for ten years. You haven’t slept since you were alive!”

“It’s cruel that saying ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’ Turns out you can’t sleep when you’re dead!” He turned to the workers demolishing the wall, “Especially when you lot are raising such a ruckus!”

“Edgar… let’s go back upstairs,” Izzy said and tried to guide his elbow.

“Don’t they know I was up all night trying to scare the new tenants?”

“They don’t. They really don’t,” Izzy consoled as they started back up the stairs.

“No respect for a hardworking ghost these days. I tell you…”

“It’s hard being dead these days, isn’t it?”

Edgar stopped and looked at Izzy. “Can I go back to bed now?”

“Yes, Edgar. You can try,” she smiled.

“And keep the racket down!” he yelled down the stairs. “You’re loud enough to raise the dead!” The lights in the house flickered and the men stopped and looked at each other nervously.

“Oh, that’s good!”

“Thank you,” Edgar started but it ended up as a big yawn. “Good day, Izzy.”

“Good day, Edgar.”