Ghost of a Chance
Jenny Myers did not believe in ghosts. She was certain there were no ghosts in her closet, or under her bed; and she firmly believed, maintained, and frequently stated that the cemetery across the alley from her home was the quietest, most peaceful place in town. Nor did she make exceptions for the witching hour of midnight; anniversaries of murders or other tragic deaths; nor full moons; nor even Hallowe'en. There simply were no ghosts in her world. No ghostly bumps in the night disturbed her sleep. No chains were dragged up and down her attic stairs. No moans, no groans, no floating orbs, no headless horsemen. Nothing. Jenny Myers simply, completely, absolutely, did not believe in ghosts.
Until the day she fell in love...with a ghost.
Until the day she fell in love...with a ghost.
Chapter One
Jenny was a first-year, physics graduate student, and finding more money was always something she was interested in doing. There were times when she thought money hated her; it seemed to stay as far from her as paper bills and silver coins could possibly do. Any money she did acquire quickly disappeared; vanishing on groceries, rent, utilities, and her ever-increasing tuition, books, and other grad school supplies. Every class had its associated list of necessities, and she was required to purchase all of them, without any help from anyone. She was alone in the world. If she didn't handle things, they didn't get done. Whatever needed taken care of in her life, she did it. And because Jenny was smart, motivated, and efficient, she was a finisher of tasks, and her life was on the track she had selected.
Needing a steadier income, Jenny searched Craigslist, the want-ads of the twenty-first century. Most of the jobs fit neither her needs, her talents, or her time, and she clicked though them quickly Then she stopped.
This is...interesting, she thought. She read the listing again, and studied it through. It looked a little odd, but the pay was excellent for the time required. She read it again, her index finger pausing at each word. She just didn't want to land is something she didn't want to do, and she was well aware that sometimes creeps and worse-than-creeps listed on free websites. In her experience, 'free' was the price-point most creeps sought out.
Okay, she thought. It's worth a call, at least.
So with one finger poised over her phones' disconnect button, she called the number listed and asked for more information.
She listened to the secretary describe what the position entailed. She pushed a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ear and chewed a bit on her pencil's eraser. She glanced at the wicker basket perched on top of her small refrigerator and noticed the growing stack of bills. “Can I set up an interview?”
“Why don't you drop off a resume? Mr. Rothrock sets up the interviews, and he'll get back to you if he's interested.”
“Okay,” Jenny pushed the phone's disconnect and carefully placed it on the coffee-table, using it as a paperweight on a stack of resumes and applications. Nothing else looked more promising, and no one was paying for the time she was spending looking for work.
A week later, she found herself sitting bolt-upright in a hard-backed chair, the wood pressing into her back The chair and desk were old, and in stark contrast to the electronic equipment piled on every flat surface. She squirmed a little, and pushed her hair back. Interviews were not her favorite event.
Andy Rothrock looked up from her resume. “Ms Myers, I think you're ideal. If I offer you the position, how soon could you start?”
“Are you sure?” Jenny asked. She had entered the interview with more uneasiness than usual, and after answering all the questions, was sure she was anything but ideal. In fact, she was sure she was the exact opposite and was looking forward to escaping Rothrock's office.
“Positive. I think you're exactly what we're looking for. Your face, your figure, your voice. You're attractive, but not excessively so. You project intelligence, without coming across as arrogant. So, what's your answer? Do we have a deal, or not?”
Jenny felt her face begin to burn, but pushed it down, trying to think past the summation of her physical appearance. She had known that would be a factor; after all, the work was in front of cameras. It's logical, she thought, and shoved the embarrassment away.
Unless a person is joining the military, employment is a two-way street. I can always quit if it gets too weird, she decided. Out loud, she said, “Yes. And I can start anytime, I guess. When do you need me?”
“How about today?”
And just like that, Jenny became the designated skeptic on a low-budget, public-access, Internet-enabled, investigation program called Paranormal Destinations. Her salary was two hundred dollars a week.
To her surprise, Jenny was happy in her moonlighting. She worked late every Thursday, and every-other Friday. It was not difficult, and her skeptical demeanor on the program actually caused some of her professors at the Pennsylvania University of the Alleghenies to take her more seriously. The show even brought her a small bit of fame, at least in her small, college-oriented town of Amosville. After the show aired, each broadcast was archived online, along with out-takes, unused clips, and other extra features. As a result, Jenny received a few strange emails from time to time, and she had found screen-captures of herself on other websites, but had not seen anything she worried about. She considered those minor annoyances to be the price of fame, and the extra money to put toward her studies outweighed the annoyances. Justso long as nothing gets creepy, she thought to herself, tapping a finger on her mouse. As her school semester approached its break, she still found things acceptable. And the two hundred dollars a week helped out.
Late Friday evening, as Jenny toweled her hair dry, her telephone rang. Hurrying to answer the phone, she glanced quickly at the clock above her small kitchen table. It was already past ten o'clock at night; she had to get to work, and she was not expecting a call from anyone. Before she picked up the receiver, she glanced at the caller ID and groaned.
She switched from a groan to her telephone voice, and tossed her towel on the back of the kitchen chair. “Hello, Mike.” Mike was Mike Robbins, the producer of Paranormal Destinations, and therefore Jenny's immediate supervisor.
“Hello, Jenn? Yeah, this is Mike. Hey, I'm on my way to tonight's site. We have a change of plans and I wanted to run things by you quick.”
“Is something wrong with the segment?” Jenny was scheduled to be at an abandoned, haunted quarry at about eleven o'clock. There was a local legend that years before, a murdered girl had been buried there. However, the careless killer buried her in a shallow grave...when she was not quite dead. Laboriously, she dug herself out, only to die a few yards from the grave-site, where miners found her battered body. Since then, teenagers and swimmers had reported seeing her ghostly form crawling out of various holes and caves around the old quarry. Jenny had already completed her research proving the only bodies ever removed from the quarry hole had been those of two swimmers killed in an accident. No other bodies, male or female, nearly dead or not.
“No, that's not it. But Darrin isn't going to be there.”
“Oh. Where is he?” Darrin was her foil, the show's designated believer. He simply believed everything. Jenny thought he probably still believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, although he would explain them as aliens, spirits, and energies from alternative universes. If a toddler reported seeing Bigfoot in his oatmeal, Darrin would be there to cast a footprint in the bowl. Jenny hoped much of Darrin's routine was an act, and she had to admit that he was convincing. After all, maybe the Tooth Fairy was an alien conducting tests on human molars. Maybe.
Like rolling pin flattening Jenny's question before him, Mike continued. “Anyway, that makes me think that tonight would be the night to go another way, a little bit. You know, shake things up. Unexpected. A twist, like that one director; what's his name? Night Shamy-something. Anyway, our buzz has sort of dipped, and we want to keep the viewers guessing a bit. You know what I mean, right?”
“Oh?” Jenny decided to keep the conversation going without contributing anything. She didn't care much for Mike. He thought their little local Internet show was destined to wind up on a major cable network, and to turn them all, or least himself, into major players in the reality show world. Jenny figured they had an audience of about a thousand people on any given night. Their program was broadcast live, which gave it a certain urgency, but she knew there just weren't that many people watching public-access late at night. Their website did show a lot of hits and traffic, but Teddi Reese, the show's tech manager, had told her that most of them were the same people over and over. The lunatic fringe, the crazies, the true-believers; they were heavily invested in the show. But there just weren't many of them. Mike's dream was an illusion.
“Don't answer without thinking about this for a minute, okay? Promise? You have to hear me out.”
Jenny remembered the last time Mike had said something like that to her, had been when he asked her for a date. On that occasion, she had listened as requested and heard him out. She thought about the idea of going out with him for a full sixty-one seconds before answering no.
“Okay. But I'm not promising anything. I think I know where you're headed.”
“Really? Thanks, Jenn. Hey, you're the best, do you know that? Wow, I sure do. And don't think I don't appreciate it. Now think about this. Consider. You're our skeptic, right? You and Darrin always have that good-natured, Scarecrow and Mrs. King thing going. Remember that show? That was a great one. People love that stuff. But think about this: What if, tonight, you became a believer? What about that?”
“No.”
“Jenn, I told you to think about it for a minute!”
“Well, sorry, I don't have to, Mike. I only do the show for extra money. I'm not risking my future reputation for it.”
“Jenn, this show is going to make your future. It's going to be your future, my future, everybody who is involved. Come on! When this thing hits, you won't need to worry about slaving away in some laboratory, or wherever it is that you do what you're going to do.”
“Mike, no. I don't believe in the paranormal. You know that. I'm not going to lie about it.”
“Don't think of it as lying, Jenn; think of it as acting.”
“It's lying, and it's stupid. I do it my way or not all. And you and Troy can be all alone tonight.”
Jenny heard the depth of the silence on Mike's end of the phone. Troy Hammersmith was the host of the Paranormal Destinations. Jenny considered Troy to be an all right person. She admitted to herself that she found him attractive. He was a trim, young graduate student with an earnest face and eyes that projected from the television with intensity. In each episode they had made; and there were twelve of them; he acted the same part. He listened intently to Jenny's scientific, rational explanations, and then to Darrin's wilder guesses and surmises. He finally turned to the camera, and projected his intense eyes straight through the lens, into the viewer's home. He explained that after all, the world was a big place, and mankind could not be sure it had all the answers about anything, let alone the phenomenon they investigated. “Who can say, for sure?” He would ask the question and allow it to hang in the air while the screen faded to black. Mike thought it was wonderful and deep; Jenn thought it reminded her of a Scooby-doo wrap-up. Although, she admitted to herself, Troy was no Shaggy.
“Mike? Did you hang up, or what?”
“No, I'm here. Just thinking. You know, processing what you've said. That's all. Listen, then. Whatever you're comfortable with. I sure don't want you to be uncomfortable, Jenn. So if you're uncomfortable, that's fine. No changes. But I want you to know, there will come a day when you'll look back on this with a lot of regret. Opportunity knocks, but not every day. And that, Jenn, will be a very uncomfortable sort of day. For you. The day opportunity knocked, and you didn't invite it in. Think about it.”
“I'll take that chance. I'll see you at eleven.” Her voice was clipped and abrupt; she rubbed her eyes. Mike gave her Slurpee-sized headaches.
“Right. At eleven. And Jenn?”
“What?”
“I heard what you said, and I totally respect you, but listen. Think about it, okay? No, don't interrupt me. Just think about it. Let me know when you get there. I'll see you there, sweetheart. Goodbye!”
“Mike, don't call me...” She was speaking into a dead line. Jenny sighed. Her shoulders lifted as she breathed in, and let the air out. There was no sense in getting upset. Breath in, breath out. Let it go. She followed her own advice. She could take Mike as a co-worker, but he was like a force of nature; he simply wouldn't give up. She was surprised he had not asked her out again, but harassment laws had a way of keeping the air clear. She picked up her dropped towel and tossed it toward her hamper. Everything in her apartment was in tossing distance, although she frequently missed. She missed again.
“Sweetheart,” she said to herself. “The nerve of that guy.” She picked up the towel and whipped it into the hamper.
Needing a steadier income, Jenny searched Craigslist, the want-ads of the twenty-first century. Most of the jobs fit neither her needs, her talents, or her time, and she clicked though them quickly Then she stopped.
This is...interesting, she thought. She read the listing again, and studied it through. It looked a little odd, but the pay was excellent for the time required. She read it again, her index finger pausing at each word. She just didn't want to land is something she didn't want to do, and she was well aware that sometimes creeps and worse-than-creeps listed on free websites. In her experience, 'free' was the price-point most creeps sought out.
Okay, she thought. It's worth a call, at least.
So with one finger poised over her phones' disconnect button, she called the number listed and asked for more information.
She listened to the secretary describe what the position entailed. She pushed a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ear and chewed a bit on her pencil's eraser. She glanced at the wicker basket perched on top of her small refrigerator and noticed the growing stack of bills. “Can I set up an interview?”
“Why don't you drop off a resume? Mr. Rothrock sets up the interviews, and he'll get back to you if he's interested.”
“Okay,” Jenny pushed the phone's disconnect and carefully placed it on the coffee-table, using it as a paperweight on a stack of resumes and applications. Nothing else looked more promising, and no one was paying for the time she was spending looking for work.
A week later, she found herself sitting bolt-upright in a hard-backed chair, the wood pressing into her back The chair and desk were old, and in stark contrast to the electronic equipment piled on every flat surface. She squirmed a little, and pushed her hair back. Interviews were not her favorite event.
Andy Rothrock looked up from her resume. “Ms Myers, I think you're ideal. If I offer you the position, how soon could you start?”
“Are you sure?” Jenny asked. She had entered the interview with more uneasiness than usual, and after answering all the questions, was sure she was anything but ideal. In fact, she was sure she was the exact opposite and was looking forward to escaping Rothrock's office.
“Positive. I think you're exactly what we're looking for. Your face, your figure, your voice. You're attractive, but not excessively so. You project intelligence, without coming across as arrogant. So, what's your answer? Do we have a deal, or not?”
Jenny felt her face begin to burn, but pushed it down, trying to think past the summation of her physical appearance. She had known that would be a factor; after all, the work was in front of cameras. It's logical, she thought, and shoved the embarrassment away.
Unless a person is joining the military, employment is a two-way street. I can always quit if it gets too weird, she decided. Out loud, she said, “Yes. And I can start anytime, I guess. When do you need me?”
“How about today?”
And just like that, Jenny became the designated skeptic on a low-budget, public-access, Internet-enabled, investigation program called Paranormal Destinations. Her salary was two hundred dollars a week.
To her surprise, Jenny was happy in her moonlighting. She worked late every Thursday, and every-other Friday. It was not difficult, and her skeptical demeanor on the program actually caused some of her professors at the Pennsylvania University of the Alleghenies to take her more seriously. The show even brought her a small bit of fame, at least in her small, college-oriented town of Amosville. After the show aired, each broadcast was archived online, along with out-takes, unused clips, and other extra features. As a result, Jenny received a few strange emails from time to time, and she had found screen-captures of herself on other websites, but had not seen anything she worried about. She considered those minor annoyances to be the price of fame, and the extra money to put toward her studies outweighed the annoyances. Justso long as nothing gets creepy, she thought to herself, tapping a finger on her mouse. As her school semester approached its break, she still found things acceptable. And the two hundred dollars a week helped out.
Late Friday evening, as Jenny toweled her hair dry, her telephone rang. Hurrying to answer the phone, she glanced quickly at the clock above her small kitchen table. It was already past ten o'clock at night; she had to get to work, and she was not expecting a call from anyone. Before she picked up the receiver, she glanced at the caller ID and groaned.
She switched from a groan to her telephone voice, and tossed her towel on the back of the kitchen chair. “Hello, Mike.” Mike was Mike Robbins, the producer of Paranormal Destinations, and therefore Jenny's immediate supervisor.
“Hello, Jenn? Yeah, this is Mike. Hey, I'm on my way to tonight's site. We have a change of plans and I wanted to run things by you quick.”
“Is something wrong with the segment?” Jenny was scheduled to be at an abandoned, haunted quarry at about eleven o'clock. There was a local legend that years before, a murdered girl had been buried there. However, the careless killer buried her in a shallow grave...when she was not quite dead. Laboriously, she dug herself out, only to die a few yards from the grave-site, where miners found her battered body. Since then, teenagers and swimmers had reported seeing her ghostly form crawling out of various holes and caves around the old quarry. Jenny had already completed her research proving the only bodies ever removed from the quarry hole had been those of two swimmers killed in an accident. No other bodies, male or female, nearly dead or not.
“No, that's not it. But Darrin isn't going to be there.”
“Oh. Where is he?” Darrin was her foil, the show's designated believer. He simply believed everything. Jenny thought he probably still believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, although he would explain them as aliens, spirits, and energies from alternative universes. If a toddler reported seeing Bigfoot in his oatmeal, Darrin would be there to cast a footprint in the bowl. Jenny hoped much of Darrin's routine was an act, and she had to admit that he was convincing. After all, maybe the Tooth Fairy was an alien conducting tests on human molars. Maybe.
Like rolling pin flattening Jenny's question before him, Mike continued. “Anyway, that makes me think that tonight would be the night to go another way, a little bit. You know, shake things up. Unexpected. A twist, like that one director; what's his name? Night Shamy-something. Anyway, our buzz has sort of dipped, and we want to keep the viewers guessing a bit. You know what I mean, right?”
“Oh?” Jenny decided to keep the conversation going without contributing anything. She didn't care much for Mike. He thought their little local Internet show was destined to wind up on a major cable network, and to turn them all, or least himself, into major players in the reality show world. Jenny figured they had an audience of about a thousand people on any given night. Their program was broadcast live, which gave it a certain urgency, but she knew there just weren't that many people watching public-access late at night. Their website did show a lot of hits and traffic, but Teddi Reese, the show's tech manager, had told her that most of them were the same people over and over. The lunatic fringe, the crazies, the true-believers; they were heavily invested in the show. But there just weren't many of them. Mike's dream was an illusion.
“Don't answer without thinking about this for a minute, okay? Promise? You have to hear me out.”
Jenny remembered the last time Mike had said something like that to her, had been when he asked her for a date. On that occasion, she had listened as requested and heard him out. She thought about the idea of going out with him for a full sixty-one seconds before answering no.
“Okay. But I'm not promising anything. I think I know where you're headed.”
“Really? Thanks, Jenn. Hey, you're the best, do you know that? Wow, I sure do. And don't think I don't appreciate it. Now think about this. Consider. You're our skeptic, right? You and Darrin always have that good-natured, Scarecrow and Mrs. King thing going. Remember that show? That was a great one. People love that stuff. But think about this: What if, tonight, you became a believer? What about that?”
“No.”
“Jenn, I told you to think about it for a minute!”
“Well, sorry, I don't have to, Mike. I only do the show for extra money. I'm not risking my future reputation for it.”
“Jenn, this show is going to make your future. It's going to be your future, my future, everybody who is involved. Come on! When this thing hits, you won't need to worry about slaving away in some laboratory, or wherever it is that you do what you're going to do.”
“Mike, no. I don't believe in the paranormal. You know that. I'm not going to lie about it.”
“Don't think of it as lying, Jenn; think of it as acting.”
“It's lying, and it's stupid. I do it my way or not all. And you and Troy can be all alone tonight.”
Jenny heard the depth of the silence on Mike's end of the phone. Troy Hammersmith was the host of the Paranormal Destinations. Jenny considered Troy to be an all right person. She admitted to herself that she found him attractive. He was a trim, young graduate student with an earnest face and eyes that projected from the television with intensity. In each episode they had made; and there were twelve of them; he acted the same part. He listened intently to Jenny's scientific, rational explanations, and then to Darrin's wilder guesses and surmises. He finally turned to the camera, and projected his intense eyes straight through the lens, into the viewer's home. He explained that after all, the world was a big place, and mankind could not be sure it had all the answers about anything, let alone the phenomenon they investigated. “Who can say, for sure?” He would ask the question and allow it to hang in the air while the screen faded to black. Mike thought it was wonderful and deep; Jenn thought it reminded her of a Scooby-doo wrap-up. Although, she admitted to herself, Troy was no Shaggy.
“Mike? Did you hang up, or what?”
“No, I'm here. Just thinking. You know, processing what you've said. That's all. Listen, then. Whatever you're comfortable with. I sure don't want you to be uncomfortable, Jenn. So if you're uncomfortable, that's fine. No changes. But I want you to know, there will come a day when you'll look back on this with a lot of regret. Opportunity knocks, but not every day. And that, Jenn, will be a very uncomfortable sort of day. For you. The day opportunity knocked, and you didn't invite it in. Think about it.”
“I'll take that chance. I'll see you at eleven.” Her voice was clipped and abrupt; she rubbed her eyes. Mike gave her Slurpee-sized headaches.
“Right. At eleven. And Jenn?”
“What?”
“I heard what you said, and I totally respect you, but listen. Think about it, okay? No, don't interrupt me. Just think about it. Let me know when you get there. I'll see you there, sweetheart. Goodbye!”
“Mike, don't call me...” She was speaking into a dead line. Jenny sighed. Her shoulders lifted as she breathed in, and let the air out. There was no sense in getting upset. Breath in, breath out. Let it go. She followed her own advice. She could take Mike as a co-worker, but he was like a force of nature; he simply wouldn't give up. She was surprised he had not asked her out again, but harassment laws had a way of keeping the air clear. She picked up her dropped towel and tossed it toward her hamper. Everything in her apartment was in tossing distance, although she frequently missed. She missed again.
“Sweetheart,” she said to herself. “The nerve of that guy.” She picked up the towel and whipped it into the hamper.
Click to download "Ghost of a Chance" for free:
