Five figures of varying levels of transparency sat around a table. The dancing light of dozens of candles bathed the room in an eerie glow.

“I say, Anthony,” said the man in a 19^th century black Royal Navy vice admiral dress jacket with gold buttons and epaulets, “How did you ever get those candles lit?”

“I might have had some help from the living, Sir William.”

“Carl?”

“Yes, it was Carl.”

“He seems like a nice lad to put up with us.”

“We’re ghosts,” hissed a woman with a dramatic black bob and dangerously sharp cheekbones who was just a torso in a white lace dress hovering above a chair. “What’s he going to do?”

“Indeed we are, Ms. Stuart,” Sir William acknowledged. “I suppose if he wanted us out he could, I don’t know, do something with holy water or sage or some such thing. I hear that works…”

“It works really well,” said a diminutive blonde woman far too skinny to be healthy with sunken darting blue eyes. “This place on Wilshire me and my boyfriend were crashing at was totally haunted. Sage. Burning sage. Works. Just don’t, you know, catch the sofa on fire…”

The man sitting next to her in a tailored business suit looked askance at the young woman. “You caught the sofa on fire, Stacy?”

“Oh, yes. Well, not intentionally. Not that time at least…” she stared off as if she could see the flames.

“Huh,” he said, then turned to Anthony, “Anthony, are we going to do this? I’ve got a business meeting in half an hour…”

“Seriously, Dave? What kind of business are you doing?” Anthony asked, rubbing at a stain on his Pixies Doolittle tour shirt.

“Well, it’s not my meeting. But I’m haunting a board of director’s meeting of my old company. I figure I should keep up on what’s going on.”

“In case you happen to rise from the ashes?” said the torso woman.

Dave gave her a sour look, then said facetiously “Yes, Annabel, because I’m planning on coming back to life. Geez, can’t a ghost have a fricken hobby? I mean Anthony here has his totally healthy fixation on this… Jemma–“

“Jessica,” Anthony corrected.

“Jessica,” Dave acknowledged, “who may or may not be alive and may or may not have a thing for our boy.”

“She does. Well, did…. I’m worried about her, that’s all,” Anthony said.

“Well, I for one say this beats our usual support group,” said Sir William.

“Thank you, Sir William. Should we get this show on the road then?” Anthony asked.

“Lets,” hissed Annabel.

“Alright, let’s take each other’s hands and concentrate.” They took each other’s hands and closed their eyes. The room sat in silence for long moments before Anthony broke the silence. “Oh, spirits of the living, we the dead seek to communicate with you!”

A light breeze started to swirl in the room which grew into a wind coursing around the table. Stacy was the only ghost with her eyes open and she stared open mouthed at the wind which seemed to take on faces then fade out.

“Come forth, living, and speak with us! Present yourself!”

“Hey Anthony,” Carl opened the door to the candle lit room, bathing the room in garish white florescent light. “Just wanted to check on you guys. Everything cool?”

“Yes, Carl, everything was fine…” Anthony said annoyed.

“Cool, cool, cool,” Carl said. “Y’all need anything, I’ll be downstairs.”

“Thank you, Carl, we appreciate it,” Sir William said.

“No worries, Navy dude. Peace out,” and he closed the door.

“Well,” Annabel raised a delicately drawn eyebrow, “We did ask for the living to present themselves…”

“Totally,” Stacy nodded.

“That wasn’t what… Ugh,” Anthony growled in frustration.

“Anthony,” Dave said setting his hands on the table, “You haven’t been dead that long. Nothing just comes to us on this plane. You have to ask for what you want. You can’t be passive about this. Put your mind to it! Take what you want! Give voice to it. Close the deal!”

“Yeah,” Stacy said dreamily, “why don’t you just, you know, ask for Janelle to show up.”

“Jessica,” Anthony corrected. He started nodding, “Okay, okay, I can do that… Okay, let’s hold hands again.” They did. “Oh, spirits of the living,” Anthony intoned again, “Hear us, the dead, as we request one of the living to speak with us. Jessica Arnold, come forth and speak with us!”

The same wind started again whipping around the table in wisps. Stacy tried to catch one in her mouth, but it darted away.

“Spirits of the living, we know you hear us. We demand you appear. We seek Jessica Arnold to speak to us!”

The wind whipped more fiercely causing the candles outside the circle to dance more furiously. A vibration started and the candles began to rattle. The table itself started vibrating and seemed to jerk and jump under their hands.

“Spirits of the living! We make this plea for Jessica Arnold. We won’t be denied!”

The table bucked violently under them as the wind roared. Suddenly, the wind exploded out of the circle and swirled around the room whooshing the candles out all at once. The vibration and table jumping stopped and the room fell into quiet heavy darkness.

“Hello?” came a voice from the middle of the table. “Where the hell am I?” Suddenly the white light of an iPhone lit up the table. “What the hell?!” said a woman sitting in the middle of the table. She wore a men’s gray and white flannel shirt open over a white Adidas t-shirt. The flashlight beam of her phone cut right through Stacy who giggled. The woman in the middle of the table gasped and swung her light around to Annabel, then Dave. “Oh my God,” the woman said, “You’re all ghosts!”

“Sorry, my lady, we didn’t mean to scare you,” Sir William intoned.

“Scare?” she turned the flashlight to Sir William. “This is awesome! Real ghosts!” She furrowed her brow, “Wait, how the hell did this happen? Why am I here? Where am I? Am I now a ghost?”

“Jacinda, I presume,” Dave said.

“Uh, Jessica,” the woman corrected.

“Jessica, of course,” Dave said. “Someone very special brought you here…” he waggled his eyebrows at Anthony across the table and behind Jessica.

Anthony stared open-mouthed at Jessica. Annabell pushed his arm hard which seemed to snap him out of it. “He– hello Jessica,” he said haltingly.

Jessica spun on the table. “Anthony?! Is that you?”

“It’s me, yeah,” he blushed. “You remember me?”

“Remember you? I can’t forget you!”

“That’s sweet,” Annabel said in a genuine tone that sounded out of place from her strident make up.

“Sweet? Are you kidding? He scared the hell out of me! Texting me all the time – like dozens of texts before noon!”

“I… I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Is that why you kept showing up at my work?!”

“Oh, Anthony, that’s creepy,” Dave said seriously.

“I thought it’d be romantic!” Anthony said defensively.

“I had to change my phone number,” she started enumerating on her hand. “I had to move,” she counted another finger. “I had to transfer to another division out of state,” she counted. I told my friends and family to tell him I disappeared.

“They did!” Anthony said. “I was so worried about you, Jessica. Your old roommate said you had gone camping and never came back…”

Jessica chuckled, “Yeah, she told me she said that.”

“I was searching for you in the woods! I got bit by a rabid chipmunk! That’s how I died!”

“Ooh, that’s rough,” she said.

“Terrible way to go,” Sir William nodded solemnly.

“Hey,” Jessica said, “Let’s not lose sight of the fact that he was a creepy stalker! Rabid chipmunk or no, I am still afraid to date because of his shenanigans!”

“Not a good look, Anthony,” Stacy said.

“Thank you, scary skinny girl,” Jessica nodded at Stacy. “And now he’s stalking me from the Beyond?!”

“We weren’t aware of Anthony’s disreputable actions,” Annabel agreed. “I, for one, wouldn’t have participated had I known he caused you such injury.”

“Thank you, scary… torso. Eew, what happened?”

“Run over by a trolley, dear,” Annabel said. “You would think I would have been reunited with the lower half of my body in the afterlife, but no! Mind you,” she said confidentially, “Make sure you die with all your parts intact.”

“I… I’ll try?” Jessica said.

“Jessica, I’m sorry if I scared you…”

“Why wouldn’t you take no for an answer? I said I didn’t want to see you about a hundred times!”

“I… I thought you were kidding. You know, you’d come around when you saw how devoted I was…”

“Look, Anthony, I thought you were sweet in the beginning. But you… you were just too much,” Jessica said. “If it would help you, you know, pass over or whatever,” she took in a deep breath then said formally, “I forgive you for being a creepy stalker.”

“I knew you’d see how much I care for you!”

“Jesus Christ, no! And don’t you dare haunt me!”

“We’ll make sure he behaves, Ms. Arnold,” Sir William bowed his head. “We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

“Yeah, no, this is cool,” Jessica said. “But, uh, could you put me, you know, back?”

Everyone looked at Anthony. “Uh, let’s hold hands again?” They all did. “Spirits of the Living…”

“Wow, seriously?” Jessica said.

Anthony ignored her, “Spirits of the living… uh… please take Jessica home.”

The wind whipped up furiously and Jessica – and the light from her phone – disappeared.

“Whoa, that actually worked?” Anthony said in the darkness.

“Anthony,” Sir William’s voice came, “We have a lot to work on in next week’s support group…”

If our Alice March sounds at all familiar then you’ve been reading too many of my stories – thank you for that! She made an appearance in 2018’s “Meeting Your Idols.” She’s still around…

The man stood in the cemetery. His unruly black hair blew in the frigid air of the cold Baltimore pre-dawn and his breath formed ice crystals in his neatly trimmed painter’s brush moustache. In the wan light of the streetlights his blue eyes beneath heavy brows darted nervously at every movement. Even in his heavy wool coat he shivered in the freezing pre-dawn.

“Excuse me, sir?” came a girl’s voice from behind him.

The man jumped in fright. “Good lord, girl, are you trying to frighten a man to death?!”

“Umm,” she said, “Sorry for pointing out the obvious but, uh… you’re already dead.”

“Yes, of course I am. But you shouldn’t go around trying to scare a ghost into a second death! I hear such a thing is possible.”

“Sir, are you…”

“Hush, child, hush!” the man whispered. “Someone’s coming!” The man and the girl stayed quiet and peeked out from the wall of the cemetery. There both could see a man in several layers of heavy coats pushing a shopping cart down the sidewalk. “Oh, curses, it’s just that homeless fellow again.”

“Again?” The girl asked. “How long have you been waiting here?”

The man took an ornate silver pocket watch out of his coat pocket. “Almost two hours.”

“They haven’t showed?” the girl asked.

The man frowned. “No. Not yet. Not last year, nor the year before that… not any year since 2009.” He grumbled, turned, and walked deeper into the cemetery, taking a seat on a headstone with his back to the monument bearing his name and staring to the right of the grave marker bearing a raven and the engraved words “Original Burial Place of Edgar Allan Poe”.

“I heard they were toasting you again on your birthday,” the girl said.

“Eh,” Poe sneered. “It’s that historical society. They have someone dressed up like the toaster who comes and performs the ritual. But it’s all flash and ceremony. It lacks the gravitas, the unknown, the, the… mystery!”

“I guess so,” the girl said. “But the person who originally brought you roses and cognac… did you know them?”

Poe looked at her sidelong. “Of course not, I’d been dead for a hundred years.”

“Then how is this ceremony any different?”

Poe started to answer, stopped, then looked hard at the girl, “Who are you?”

“My name is Alice March.”

“Okay, Ms. March. Why are you here?”

“Because I figured you’d be here and I wanted to get your autograph,” she brandished a small book.

“My… autograph? This is a thing ghosts do nowadays?”

Alice shrugged. “I don’t know. When I died a few years ago it seemed like a good idea to see if I could meet some of the famous people I liked when I was alive.”

Poe eyed her suspiciously but took the book and opened it. “…Sarah Winchester… Steve Jobs… Georgia O’Keefe…”

“She was hard to find. I figured she’d be at her ranch in New Mexico – appropriately called ‘Ghost Ranch.’ But it’s a big area. So pretty, though…”

“I see…” Poe eyed her. “Not a lot of names in here. How long did you say you’ve been dead?”

“Not long. I died in 2018.”

“Where?”

“Saratoga, California.”

“You’re a long way from home, Ms. March,” Poe said. “How did you die?”

“Leukemia.”

“Leukemia?”

“Like blood cancer.”

“Sounds dreadful,” Poe said.

“It is. But it’s done. How did you die? There’s some questions about it still.”

Poe let out a long breath. “Honestly, Ms. March, I don’t know myself. The last days of my life were a blur even to me.”

Alice thought he looked sadder than when he realized the real toaster wasn’t coming this year as he stared at the patch of unmarked dirt.

“What are you staring at?” she asked.

“Oh, this is where I was originally buried.”

“Not there?” she pointed to the grave marker a few feet to the left that indicated his original burial site.

“Alas, my final resting place turned into as much of a mystery as my death. I was originally buried here,” he stood and pointed to the unmarked patch, “until some people dug me up and put me over there,” he turned and pointed to the enormous monument by the front gate. “But others didn’t want to forget my original spot, so they put that a headstone here,” he pointed to a patch of ground to the left of the headstone with the raven, “Which wasn’t right, so they moved it to where you see it now… only that’s still not right. Not that it matters, really…” He stood silently in thought.

“Georgia O’Keefe was cremated and scattered outside her ranch.”

“Was she?” Poe asked.

Alice nodded. “Her body isn’t in any specific place. But you only have to visit anywhere to feel she’s there.”

Poe nodded. “I see what you’re getting at, Ms. March. Perhaps my fixation on the toaster, on my burial sites… perhaps I’ve lost sight of where I’m really at.”

“Your influence is really enormous,” she said. “You should get out of here and go see.”

“Perhaps,” Poe said in thought. “Perhaps…” He tapped the closed autograph book then opened it. “Uh, do you have a pen?”

Alice handed him a pen.

“How do you…” she took the cap off the extra fine point Sharpie for him. “Oh! Clever!” He turned to a page and started writing a message. He finished, smiled at Alice, then finished his note with his autograph in a flourish. He put the cap back on the pen and handed it back to Alice with her autograph book.

“Thank you, Mr. Poe,” she said smiling broadly.

“Edgar, please, Ms. March.”

“Thank you, Edgar!”

“You’re quite welcome. Tell me, where are you off to now?”

“Elmira, New York. Mark Twain is buried there.”

“Ah, Mark Twain. He wasn’t too far after me. I’ve heard about him. Would you mind terribly if I tagged along?”

“Not at all!” she beamed.

“Shall we?” he said, bending his arm up inviting hers.

“Sounds wonderful!” she said, sliding her arm through his. They started out the front gate of the cemetery as the historical society, led by a man all in black with a wide brimmed hat started into the cemetery.

“Imposter!” Poe yelled over his shoulder as they started down West Fayette Street.

Travis picked the campsite, not me. He’d used Google Earth to find a clearing along the route we were taking the bikes and decided this was a) by the river, b) had a great view of the sky, and c) was about halfway between where we were coming from and where we were going.

Unfortunately, a) the river meant mosquitoes in the fall, b) who cares about the sky when you’re in the damn forest, and c) while it was indeed about fifty miles in with fifty miles to go, those first fifty miles were utterly unforgivingly brutal. Between the first river crossing and the crumbling shelf road, I was done twenty miles ago when we happened into what would have been a perfect site. Sure, more to cover the next day, but we wouldn’t have to fight the mosquitoes exhausted.

But Travis picked the campsite and talking Travis out of a campsite he already determined in his mind was perfect was like teaching all the damn mosquitoes how to do the cha-cha.

“This is the place?” I asked taking off my helmet and turning off the GoPro camera.

“Perfect, right?! Did you doubt me?”

I looked around sighed deeply inside, but said “Naw, Travis, this is great.”

Oh, also, the place was creepy as hell. You always felt like someone was watching you – that hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck feeling? Constantly. As I was setting up camp I’d use the blunt side of the hatchet to hammer in a tent stake, set the hatchet down, tie the tent to the stake and reach for the hatched only to find the hatchet was now ten feet away. Or the knife I set down after cutting onions with disappeared only to reappear around the fire. Nothing you could say definitively, but enough weirdness that you knew something weird was going on.

“Man, this is a great campsite, right Dave?” Travis – who apparently is completely unappetizing to mosquitoes – asked.

“Great site,” I said liberally applying DEET.

As I mentioned, we were exhausted, so it wasn’t long after chicken tacos that I told Travis I was going to bed and retired to my tent and promptly fell asleep. I awoke to the sound of something rummaging around our campsite. Not rummaging like, say, a bear or pack of marauding racoons. More like something exploring it. I reached for my .45 (yes, I carry a gun when I’m out in the middle of nowhere – don’t judge me!) and my flashlight and eased out of my tent. I turned the flashlight on and froze. My helmet had been lifted from my handlebars and was hovering four feet off the ground. As the beam of my light illuminated the levitating helmet, it flipped around to face me, and I saw the red light indicating the GoPro started recording.

“Travis!” I yelled which must have startled whatever was levitating my helmet because my helmet spun 180 degrees and shot off into the forest. “Travis! Help me, I’m chasing after my helmet!” I yelled as I tripped getting into my camp shoes before tearing off in the darkness after my helmet.

From the GoPro footage, this is what happened: the camera turns on facing me and my blinding flashlight. I yell “Travis!” and the helmet takes off into the woods, bobbing despite the GoPro’s image stabilization. I can hear something – presumably, whatever is holding it – padding though the forest at breakneck speed. You can vaguely hear me bellow to Travis about chasing my helmet as the helmet tears through a bush and swats past branches and back along a clear trail until it smacks into something hard. And drops to the ground. As the helmet hits the ground and the camera briefly cants skyward, the full moon illuminates the hard thing the helmet ghost hit – something more than seven feet tall and covered in dark fur.

But only for a second, as the helmet careens down a hill. The camera spins nauseatingly as the helmet rolls down the hill, bounces off rocks, and careens off tree trunks until it hits a rock by what sounds like the rushing river. It tilts forward and for just a moment you can see what looks like the ghostly image of a woman at the rivers edge openly weeping.

“I see it! I see it!” you can hear me yell from up on the hill and the woman fades into blackness.

You can hear Travis and me scramble down the hill and pick up the helmet and camera just as a bright light illuminates part of the forest we just came from. We look up for the source of the light and the camera traces the brightness up to an enormous black triangle-shaped craft hovering over the forest. The light turns from white to blue and you can hear a bellowing as the big hairy creature is levitated up the beam and disappears into the ship. The lights extinguish and the craft silently accelerates at unreal speed into the night sky.

Probably too freaked out to remember to turn the camera off, you can hear Travis and I trudging back to our campsite in stunned silence. I set the helmet back on my bike but apparently, I should be a cinematographer because the camera perfectly framed me and Travis in front of our tents.

“What was tha–” Travis starts, but I cut him off.

“Travis, this campsite is terrible!” I yell “This mosquito-infested, ghost-ridden, alien abducting campsite is an awful, awful place!” I yelled.

Travis stared at me, mouth agape.

“Seriously, dude,” the ghost of man wearing off road motorcycle gear glows into view between us. “This place is getting weird even for me.”