Sunday, April 19, 2009

Ghost Story III

This is part 3 of a Ghost Story. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 here. Part 4 is here. Part 5. Part 6.
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Ice from the girls' lemonade came in the way of Harry's straw and made a louder slurping sound than he had intended. He quickly pulled the straw from his mouth and looked frantically at the other parked car, some hundred feet away on the soccer field.


Night-time spotlights were on, so the girls would totally be able to make him out if they only turned to look. Luckily, it seemed they were ... occupied. Something about it pissed him off. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and started tapping away furiously.

"Emma, u thr?"

There was a shuffle of heads in the other car. Then ... nothing. Harry tried to crouch down so the girls wouldn't see him, but it was a pretty hopeless case. No way the Toyota's front panel would hide his arching back.

"Wtf. What do u want?"

Harry pulled his head up again. Damn that spotlight. Who the hell put spotlights up in make-out zones, anyway? "Wasn't this way when I was a kid," he muttered. He fiddled over the text-message options on his phone, and replied:

"We had a deal. I can msg u anytime!"

"Wthn reason! Give it up, dude," replied Emma.

"So u figure it out yet?"

"What?"

"Are you a lesbian?" typed Harry, frantically.

"Eww! Leave me alone!"

Harry wiped the sweat off his brow. Why did it have to be so difficult? "Just ..."

"What? Can we do this l8r?"

"Just felt like - maybe you two were getting along ... well."

He noticed some movement in the car ahead, then a pale orb rose from behind the headrest. He ducked down again, fearfully.

"Are you watching me? Are you watching me you dirty old -"

Now there was noise. He could see the car swaying left and right up there. Signs of a struggle. The phone rang.

"We had a deal! You tell me as soon as you find out you're a lesbian!" shouted Harry, frantically.

"Dad, that's you, isn't it, over there in that car? Fuck! Fucking hell! You followed us? What the hell?"

"The deal was, I give you room to figure things out for yourself! You were supposed to call me as soon as you hit second base!"

"So you followed us?" came the teenage vomit.

Harry was about to scream back into his phone, when there was a knock on his door. He stopped short, and then lowered his door window. God, it wasn't the police, thank God.

"Yeah, what do you want, kid?" said Harry to the little boy standing next to his car.

"Emma told me to come record some EVPs with her tonight," said Bobby. "Over here, in this field. But she hasn't arrived yet. Do you know Emma, mister?"

"What?" said Harry, exasperated. He turned back to his cellphone. "You brought a little kid along for the ride too? What the hell is wrong with you, Emma?"

There was a short silence on the other end. When Emma's reply came, it was as though her throat was suddenly being choked by a psychopath. He peered over the hood of the car, a concerned parent. "Y-you," she stammered her pale orb of a head bobbing up and down, "you said he wasn't real. I believed you! I thought you said --"

Harry turned his head slowly to look outside the window. Bobby was looking casually around the field. It seemed like he missed everything else. As though he didn't even see the other car parked beyond.

"Mister? Do you think we could get some good EVPs in a place like this?" asked Bobby, leaning into the window, and the glass began to cloud up with a frozen mist in the pasty summer night.

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