Congratulations Manic Depressive Ghost!

You’ll awaken as you always do: covered in ghost sweat, incorporeally attempting to grab on to anything around you.

“Oh god!” you’ll scream at no one in particular.  “I’m a guh-guh-guh-guh…”  You’ll  gulp.  “GHOST!”

The house will be empty.  Your cry will echo through its hallways.  You’ll start weeping uncontrollably, shaking your head.

“No, no, no, no, no.”  It’ll begin as a mumble and rise to shout.  “NO!”

You’ll manifest briefly and hurl a lamp across the room, one of the few remaining pieces of breakable furniture in the house.  Then you’ll go back to crying.

Seconds later a film crew from Ghost Hunters will burst into the house with a bunch of tesla coils and infrared cameras and shit and start poking around for you.  They’ll start running around and shouting the names of a bunch of Victorian shitheels who used to haunt this building, looking for some old and historic ghost to pick up and show to the world through the magic of television.

They won’t be interested in little old you: a political science student who couldn’t take the pressure of impending graduation who decided to hang herself in an old haunted house in the hope that she’d start ghosting it up, effectively choosing a career path that never really ends.

Unfortunately you didn’t anticipate that the crippling mental illness that made your life a tortuous and awkward experience would follow you into the afterlife.  So instead of haunting the shit out of those faux-hawked dipshits and their fancy cameras that can’t really capture ghosts (only Sony camcorders from the early 80s can actually capture ghosts on film) you’ll just quietly fade into the building, becoming profoundly aware of everything that the house is aware of.  You’ll stay quiet as you can until you begin weeping uncontrollably, which will make the entire house shudder.

As the idiots try to figure out just what’s going their continued use of the names of the various Victorian ghosts you drove out with your constant mood swings will grate upon your mind and you’ll begin psychically crushing ghost hunters one by one in rooms when they search alone.

Thus you’ll become something of a celebrity, the forever praised house that killed those annoying assholes who occupied an entire hour each week on the Sy Fy channel, more during re-run time.

Congratulations Manic-Depressive Ghost!

Congratulations Incessantly Weeping Ghost!

The teens will stop having sex and just look at you.  The boy will be uncomfortable, but still aroused.  The mood will clearly have left the girl completely.  She’ll reach across the bed to grab her shirt and slip into it in one fluid motion.  The boy will pout in bed next to her, frowning.

“Is there something we can do to help?” she’ll ask.

You’ll shake your spectral head as you continue to sob uncontrollably.  The tears will be very, very real and very, very wet, so a puddle will be forming beneath you.

She’ll recoil a little before she asks: “Are you here to murder us or hurt us or something?”

You’ll shake your head, sending little droplets of water all around the room.  One of them will land on the girl’s skin.  She’ll taste it, then nod.  It’ll taste like ghost sadness.

The boy will sigh.  “She’d just lie if she was.”

“Nuh-uh,” the girl will say as she steps into her pants, closing the door at long last.  “Ghost code.”

You’ll point at her and nod in assent.  Ghost code does prevent you from lying about wanting to murder teens while they’re sexing on one another.  The boy will throw up his hands and carry his clothes out of the room.

“I’m going back to the Escalade,” he’ll shout behind him.

“Why are you so sad?” the girl will ask, trying to lay her hand on yours but instead passing through it, becoming coated with goo.

You’ll point to the wall and letters will appear in black water:

SEINFELD ENDED.

She’ll bite her lip and nod.

“I think I can help.”

Then she’ll leave.  But two hours later she’ll return with a tiny, cheap TV and the complete DVD box set of Seinfeld.  You’ll stop crying and clap your ghost hands in spectral joy.

THANKS! you’ll make the wall bleed.

She’ll smile.

“No problem.  Have a good eternity!”

You’ll wave goodbye to her and begin watching the Seinfeld DVDs on an endless loop until your building is demolished in thirty years to make way for some sorta future apartments that have robots or something in them.

Congratulations Incessantly Weeping Ghost!

Congratulations Fed!

You’re a young up and coming FBI agent with nothing to lose and everything to prove. Ever since your dad was killed by a ghost during your childhood during a home invasion gone wrong you’ve dedicated your career to cleaning up the streets and removing the profound threat that is specters in America.

But the fat cats who run the FBI haven’t been listening. Whenever you tell them about the dangers posed by spooks they just laugh it off and assign you to some low-level investigation of a murder that involved crossing state lines or some securities fraud that cost millions of people their jobs. But you’ve been doing so well lately that today they’re going to let you do your thing. You’re going to get a sassy, attractive female partner and you’re going to set out to the heart of the Chicago Public Library to investigate a series of mysterious events that have been troubling local authorities for months now.

People who read books about Elliot Gould or really any subject other than the White Sox have been getting beaten with bats pretty badly in the basement of the library. And while no one has died or been permanently injured covering up these incidences has become a thorn in the side of the city. So they’ll welcome you and your lady-partner with open arms, describing the kind of bat used in the incidents and the pattern of bruising, which will be consistent across all cases.

You’ll take careful notes the whole while, occasionally looking in a book about Al Capone to confirm your suspicions. Then, after a lengthy period of pen chewing and jotting things in margins you’ll get up from your desk, grab your partner and head to the library with your home-made ghost busting equipment.

It’ll mostly consist of jury rigged lasers powered by car batteries and a reinforced shoe-box covered in crucifixes, but you’re almost positive that, at least against Catholic ghosts, it should do the trick just fine. You’re also almost positive that the power pack for the laser back-pack won’t explode during use. All it did during testing was badly burn anyone who touched the un-insulated parts of it, after all.

When you arrive at the library you’ll wait patiently for the spook to appear, leaving a copy of The Untouchables VHS tape out on a table in the basement and hiding in a corner where you assume the ghost won’t notice you. After hours of patience and ignoring your partner’s sighs and her lamenting sleeping with her last partner you’ll finally be rewarded when an overweight, syphilitic ghost appears clutching a baseball bat. He’ll stare at the video cassette with rage in his eyes, completely oblivious to the tragedy inherent in the tape’s very existence.

Smiling at his foolishness you’ll step from the shadows with your laser back-pack on and point the emitter right at the ghoul.

“Mister Capone?” you’ll say. The ghost will look at you, baffled.

“Huh?” he’ll say.

“You’re under arrest!” you’ll shout, firing off a laser light show worthy of early Pink Floyd. Capone will be dazed by the lights, mostly because you’ll be shining them right in his face, and he’ll be driven back into the carefully placed shoe-box covered in crucifixes. When he touches the boxes he’ll begin to dissolve, releasing an unearthly moan that will chill you to the very bone and make your teeth hurt a little.

But it will only last a few moments. Then Capone’s form will be gone, his moaning face burned into the shoe box. Your partner will stand up, amazed at what she has witnessed, and when the two of you report back to FBI head-quarters her testimony will insure that you finally get the funding and recognition you deserve.

Things will be looking up for you, as long as you avoid sleeping with your new partner, which is probably going to be surprisingly hard.

Congratulations Fed!