the trash bag full of popcorn I was supposed to toss in the dumpster out back before Chester showed up. “Jesus!”
It flies everywhere, up and out and all over, and when I finally lean over the candy counter to see what’s happening, the bag flies right at me. “Ooomphfuzzlesnot!” I stammer, stumbling back and waving my arms and landing in a pile of crunchy popped kernels. “The hell?!?”
All goes quiet for a moment, until I stand, my black rubber usher shoes crunching every last kernel beneath my feet. Vaguely, from above, “Jingle Bells” plays softly on the overhead speakers.
I crunch and crackle slowly across the floor, approaching the concession stand with my heart hammering in my chest and my fists clenched at my sides. “H-h-hello?” I ask, stupidly, like that stupid girl in the horror movie that everyone in the audience is already yelling at, way before she dies. “I-i-is anyone there?”
Only the music replies, little bells jingling as I turn, just in time to see the plastic Christmas tree in the corner of the lobby fall over, plastic ornaments crunching beneath as they fall and crack and roll all over the tile lobby floor.
I stumble back, falling against the candy counter, hands on the smeared glass I haven’t Windexed yet when the empty packages from under the tree start flying at me, ribbons rippling in the air as I dodge red and green and gold foil packages.
“S-s-top!” I shout, waving my hands as one slams into my wrist, bouncing off harmlessly, except for the pounding in my heart. “Stop!”
I jump over and behind the counter, huddling among the stray popcorn kernels when Chester’s goggles bite into my chin. I stop, frantic, and look at them. Blinking, I slide them on, turning to face the lobby as my eyes adjust to the eerie green glow that fills their field of vision.
I scan the lobby, seeing the fallen tree, the scattered popcorn, the shattered ornaments, the blinking game of Centipede and the ghostly woman standing—
“Ahhhh!” I shout, turning away, my back to the concession counter, the soft sounds of footsteps behind me. Behind me. In the lobby.
“You should scream,” says a voice, ghostly and cold. “You should be afraid.”
I pull my knees to my chest, put my arms around my legs and hug them close, as if I curl into a ball the ghost won’t find me.
“Turn,” she says, insisting. “Turn to face me.”
Her voice is insistent, but not unkind. “N-n-no,” I mumble.
Then, silence. “Jingle Bells” turns to “White Christmas” on the cheap, tinny speakers above and the voice says, “Randy’s favorite.”
I unclench my fists, unwrap my arms and turn, kneeling behind the relative safety of the concession counter. There, in the green glow of Chester’s “Spectral Specs,” stands a woman.
She looks… ghostly. Wavering between here and there, fuzzy at the edges, not quite black and white but not quite in living color, either. More gray than anything else, but a woman just the same. Youngish. In her late twenties? Slim, with long black hair waving around her shoulders. “Who… who’s Randy?” I ask, somehow finding the courage to stand.
The ghost smiles, large mouth black and wide. “Why, your teacher, Mr. Fletcher, Haley.”
“How… how do you know my name?” My voice is cold, too, cold and distant and hollow and sounding like a scared little girl. Which I guess is appropriate since that’s. Exactly. What. I. Am.
The ghost smiles again, walking closer but, no, that’s not quite right; her feet hover just above the popcorn littered floor. Bare feet, sticking out of the bottom of a flowing white dress. Or maybe it just looks white because there’s no color to her ghostly form.
“Randy talked about you all the time, when I was alive,” she says, floating forward until she pauses, just on the other side of the counter. Her face smiles one minute, then frowns the next. “Which is why he was so hurt tonight when you betrayed him like that.”
“But… but I didn’t,” I blurt, standing taller. “It… it wasn’t me.”
Another ghostly smile. Her face, so close, looks flawless and unlined. Like a picture with no frame. “Maybe not,” she says, and each time she speaks now I feel a rush of cold air wash over me.
I fight the temptation to shiver, knowing it’s coming from her. It’s like when my aunt gets bad breath sometimes, and you don’t want to flinch right in her face. “But you let Chester in, didn’t you?” she asks, cocking her head just a little, so that her black hair flows around one shoulder on that side.
I hang my head. She’s got me there. “I… I’m sorry. It was stupid…” Then I stop myself. What am I doing? Talking to a… a… ghost? But she’s here, right here, in front of me. What else should I do? Ignore her? “What… what can I do? Now, I mean, to make up for it?”
She smiles, floating through the concession stand – no, I mean, the actual concession stand counter – until we’re standing face to face. I can feel the cold wash off of her, gentler now, as if she’s not quite so angry.
Or dead.
“I’m glad you asked,” she says, cold air rushing across my face like a winter wind. “You can call your friend Chester, and have him bring my husband back here.”
“What, tonight?” I’m thinking of my Mom, and my sister, and our tree back home and my Grams’ famous oatmeal and gingerbread scones and hot chocolate while we—
“Right now,” says the ghost. “You tell Chester Emily is waiting, and if he doesn’t bring my husband, I’ll come looking for him. And I’ll throw around more than popcorn and empty present boxes this time.”
I half-snicker, thinking of what a ghost – a real ghost, this time – could do to a little punk like Chester.
“But he doesn’t believe in ghosts,” I remind her.
Emily smiles, inching away from me, ghostly pale feet hovering just above the floor. “I think he’ll believe us,” she says, smiling knowingly.
“Us?” I ask, but she ignores me, staring past the concession stand toward the sparkling fountain just beyond the theater’s glass doors.
She turns back to me, smiling. “It’s Christmas, after all, Haley. A time for reunions…”
I nod, fumbling for my cell phone. I hit Chester’s number from my “Recents” list and tell him what Emily told me. To come, fast, and bring Mr. Fletcher. Or else. Before he can con me out of it, before he can spin his web of guilt, Emily reaches over and whispers one chilly word into the phone: “Euclid.”
But her voice is different now, no longer reminiscing about happy husbands or happier holidays. I can feel the chill in my hand as her breath spills across the receiver, a ghostly sound that shuts Chester up completely. From the phone, as if he’s a thousand miles away and stuffed inside a too-small casket, I hear Chester’s voice, very small, very scared, very hopeful as he asks, “What… what did you just say?”
Just then Emily snaps the phone shut, a burst of cold making my fingers cramp up as she takes a step back, smiling to herself. I can see in that smile all the love she gave Mr. Fletcher, and all the love he gave her. I can see how you could fall in love with a smile like that, kind and warm, despite the chill flowing off of her ghostly white gown as it flutters around her thin, pale body.
I turn to her, then, goggles feeling clumsy on my face but I’m desperate to see her for as long as I can, as clearly as I can. I straighten them, pressing them to my face awkwardly. “Who’s Euclid?”
In reply, Emily raises one spectral hand and points to the theater doors. I follow her bone white finger and gasp to find another woman standing there, hands clutched to her chest.
She’s older, but not by much. She could be in her late 30s or early 40s, in the same kind of flowing white gown as Emily only wider, more matronly, befitting her age.
Emily inches close, the air between us as cold as if someone’s just opened the walk-in freezer in the stock room. “That’s Chester’s mother,” she says, shoulder to shoulder with me as we watch the older ghost wait for her son. Chester.
Her son.
“That explains a lot,?
?? I murmur to myself. Emily stands, by my side, for a moment, before drifting back through the candy counter and onto the other side. She flows across the floor, little kernels of popcorn drifting in her wake as she kind of steams toward the front entrance of the theater.
I follow her, remembering at the last minute that I can’t walk through concessions stands and sliding over it instead. My feet crunch over the popcorn, but neither ghost turns to watch me. Instead they remain, facing out toward the flickering fountain, staring at the empty parking lot as they wait for their Christmas visitors.
Only when I’m back at Emily’s side, watching the parking lot as well, do I dare to ask, “Why tonight? Why here?”
She doesn’t look at me as she replies, “I’m fixed to this place, until he stops grieving for me. And I can only materialize on the one night of the year when his grief is the strongest…”
I nod, and watch, and wait. “And will he ever stop grieving?”
Finally she turns, a wry smile on her ghostly pale face as, for once, her breath feels almost warm against my skin. “For my sake, Haley, I kind of hope not…”
* * * * *