“I want to go on the record saying I hate this idea,” Dave said into his headset.

“Your complaint has been noted,” Simone acknowledged, her face lit by the reflected monitor light in her little Zoom window and reflecting on her tiara. Flanking her were two flickering orange candles for extra spookiness. “Now turn off your room light.”

“Come on, Dave,” Jessica said, her pointy black witch hat extending out of her Zoom window frame. “It’s our last get together before Halloween! This will be fun!”

Dave stood up and vanished from the camera for a moment, then his square went black. A moment later his screen-lit face appeared again. “Better?”

“Much,” Andre answered.

“I just don’t like screwing with this sort of thing,” Dave explained.

“More likely than not,” Maria said from beneath the black antenna hood of her mothman onesie, “nothing is going to happen. I’ve never heard of anyone trying this, so it’s just fun.”

“I still hate this idea.”

A chorus of everyone trying to argue with Dave all at once filled the speakers.

“Hey!” Dave yelled to get everyone’s attention. “I’m still doing it, okay? Chill.”

“Before we get started,” I began, “Simone, are you okay? I saw the Manhattan was getting some serious rain.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. I’m on the fifteenth floor anyway. We lost power the other night, but otherwise it’s fine. “Maria, are you taking the kiddo trick or treating?”

Maria brightened, “Oh my god, I have the cutest bee costume for him! I know he’ll never remember his first Halloween, but I will!”

We all went to college together and after graduation we pretty much scattered to the wind geographically. Five years and one pandemic later and we’ve been trying to keep in touch Zooming together once a week as much as schedules would accommodate.

“So…” Andre asked when there was a pause in our catching up. “How do we do this? I mean for real seances you’re supposed to hold hands, right? We can’t really do that…”

“Well, I don’t think we need to hold hands,” Simone said. “If we all just focus our energies together, we should be able to see what manifests.”

“I mean no disrespect,” Maria said, “but that might have been the most hippie thing I think I’ve ever heard you say, and that’s a pretty high bar.”

Simone flashed a brilliant smile and bounced in her frame. “Thank you!”

I took a moment to appreciate that everyone – including Dave – had dimmed their lights and seemed to be in the spirit. Maybe something would happen after all?

“Okay, everyone ready?” Simone asked.

I could hear everyone taking in deep breaths and letting them out.

“Okay,” Simone closed her eyes, “Let’s all focus on being present. Close your eyes if it helps you relax.”

I’ll admit, I kept my eyes open just to see what everyone was doing. And it did look like everyone was focusing with their eyes closed. So I closed my eyes and focused just on Simone’s words.

“That’s fantastic everyone,” she said in a tone that belied her dayjob as a yoga instructor. When she spoke next, her voice sounded more serious. “Oh spirits of the night, lost souls from beyond the veil, we invite you in to join our Zoom séance and speak with us now…”

Everyone was quiet. I honestly expected some snickering or wise cracking, but the silence felt, I don’t know, intense and almost reverential.

“Spirits,” Simone intoned again, “We invite you to join us and communicate with us—”

Simone stopped talking as the telltale chime of someone joining the Zoom call echoed in the silence.

Now everyone’s eyes were open staring open-mouthed at their screens. A new person had joined our call. Their square was blank with the icon of a person in place of a picture. The name “Jennifer” appeared below the window.

“Jennifer? May we call you that?” Simone asked.

“Y…yes?” a woman’s voice responded.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to kill the vibe,” Dave started, “Jennifer, if you’re Zoom bombing this group…”

“Zoom bombing?” the voice repeated.

“Yeah, dropping in randomly into people’s Zoom calls when you may not even know them.”

“I…I was invited,” she said. “I can go, if—”

“No,” Maria physically reached towards her camera. “Please stay, Jennifer. You’re right, we invited you here…”

“Jennifer,” Simone began in a calm, patient voice, “do you know where you are?”

“Umm… on a Zoom call?”

“Yes,” Simone nodded, “But beyond the Zoom call… are you… alive?”

Silence hung heavy in the chat. Everyone stared at the screen, no one so much as moving. I swear Jessica was holding her breath.

“No,” Jenniferr said sadly. “I’m not.”

“Can you tell us about yourself?” Simone asked.

“Umm,” Jennifer began, “Well, I… oh god,” she gasped. “No! Stay away! Get away from me! Stop! You’re hurting me—” Her Zoom square disappeared.

No one spoke for a long time.

“What in the fuck just happened?” Dave asked.

We ended the call shortly after that. Even after I got off the call, the feeling of a presence was still around. I chalked it up to the weird vibes and whatever that Jennifer girl was all about. I took a hot shower and called it a night.

The next day I got a text from Andre, “Dude, you’re not going to believe this. I was in our department Zoom meeting and someone joined. IT WAS JENNIFER!!! She didn’t say anything and my boss told her to leave. She did. But WTF?!”

I texted Simone, telling her what happened to Andre. “Wow, that’s freaky!” I wrote back that I know, it was really freaky. But she wrote back saying, “That’s not the half of it! I was doing a Zoom yoga instruction with one of my clients and guess who showed up?!”

I stared agape at my phone and Simone’s message. Suddenly the chat notification sounded and I clicked back to the list of text messages and saw the new message was from “Jennifer”. I clicked on the name to see the message and it was just two words, “Help me.”