“Jim!” the wiry man in his seventies wearing a gray suit and neatly trimmed gray hair under a fedora yelled to the nattily dressed man a little shorter and rounder, but about the same age in a black business suit with a cleanly shaven head. Floating in from different directions, both converged on the driveway leading towards the curved concrete and glass building, past the silver sign declaring “WSB Television & Radio Group. “Are you going to be participating in the drawing tonight?”
“Evening, Marty! Nah, last time that Russian grandmother clocked me with her handbag.” He made an effort to stretch his neck, “my neck hurt for weeks. Way I look at it, my grandkids are on their own!”
“I’m with you, Jim. I thought you were nuts last time, but I get it. What’s it up to this time?”
“Five hundred forty-seven million dollars!”
Jim whistled appreciatively. “That’s a lotta cheddar.”
“Sure is. But I’ll tell you what: I think we’ll have the best show!”
“That’s the truth! The living has their MMA, but that’s nothing like lottery drawings!”
“Mmm hmm!”
Both passed effortlessly through the wall and into the building and into utter bedlam.
Inside the studio, a man in a tuxedo stood quietly on a colorful set with bright monitors showing the “Mega Millions” logo. He held a microphone as he stood in front of two spherical hoppers filled with individually numbered balls.
“How’s that, Ed? Levels okay?” the man said into the microphone. “One, two, three…” He listened to the response from the control room through his earpiece, “Okay, great. Could we get the thermostat up a little? It’s always too cold in here when we do the drawing!”
In front of him, three different camera operators swiveled their oversize cameras as the director keyed each operator to zoom and pan to check their motion before they went live. Off set a few more people stood, but the only real chaos in the room was a nervous buzz in the control room – there was always a little nervous buzz, but most of the people involved were veterans and had helped produce the drawing for years.
That’s what the living saw.
Thousands of ghosts stood shoulder to shoulder crowded around the hoppers. Against the walls, dozens of ghosts floated near the ceiling, observing the mass of ghosts below. Jim and Marty floated up in the northern-most corner of the studio regarding the madness below and in front of them.
“This is gonna be something!” Marty elbowed Jim.
“You know it is!”
“Makes me claustrophobic just looking at ‘em all!”
“Mmm hmm.”
Surveying the mass below, most appeared older – maybe late forties to elderly. Some held notecards with numbers scrawled on them, others lips moved as they silently recited the numbers they wanted. Marty noticed a few younger ghosts cracking their knuckles and bouncing up and down in anticipation. “Uh oh, that’s going to be trouble!”
“Don’t you know it – those punks are just here for the fight.”
“Shame,” Marty shook his head. “Well, I guess it’s lucky no one can die twice!” both roared in laughter.
Jim broke off the laughter, “Shh! Shh, Marty! They’re about to start.”
An announcement over the PA in the studio boomed, “Places people, we’re live in five, four, three,” the voice cut off as the director just off camera pointed to the man on the tuxedo as the red light light up on the camera in the center of the stage as dramatic music swelled and the tuxedoed man held a bright white smile.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve got a great drawing for you tonight! Five hundred forty-seven million dollars! Let’s get those balls moving!” The hoppers came to life and the balls swirled around wildly inside the transparent globes.
“Oh, Lord, they’re going crazy!” Jim said as the thousands of ghosts pushed in tighter and tighter, the mass of bodies nearly vibrating with anticipation. The mass, relatively quiet until now, began to rise to a din as the closely packed ghosts started cursing at each other and groaning with the strain of the bodies pressing in.
“I’m so glad we’re up here!” Marty shouted over the roar of ghosts as he shook his head.
Neither could hear the Mr. Tuxedo anymore, only the writhing mass, but suddenly he gestured and turned to the hopper.
That was the signal – the draw had begun.
Chaos erupted among the ghosts.
Ghosts tried to climb over each other. Fists were thrown. Jim saw the Russian grandmother wildly waving her purse and clubbing ghosts around her indiscriminately and his hand reflexively rubbed the back of his neck. The punks midway back just started punching and kicking for the sake of causing mayhem. Everyone was trying to get their hands through the plastic and into the hopper to guide the numbers they wanted – they needed – for their loved ones left behind. A usually comely woman with grey-streaked blonde hair, her face contorted into a mask of determination had fought her way to the main hopper and had an arm inside, trying to corral the number 3 ball towards the chute. She pushed the ball down against the ping-ponging other balls and the gust of air that swirled the balls into a maelstrom when she saw a hand reach down over the ball and help guide the 3 ball towards the chute. Astonished by the assistance, she let her determined mask slip a bit and looked up into the blue eyes of a man not much older than she was. He took his eyes off the ball for a heart beat, long enough to throw her a smile before he turned his focus back to the ball. The woman heard a roar and looked up again to see a heavy-set man without a shirt come crashing down on her bodily, her arm painfully wrested out of the hopper, the 3 ball spinning out of control. The heavyset man grinned maniacally at the older man who was helping the now-smooshed woman as he reached an arm in to find the numbers he was looking for. The older man frowned, and then headbutted the bare-chested man in the face. Bare-chesty’s nose erupted in ectoplasm and he roared.
“Twenty!” Mr. Tuxedo announced the first number.
A thunder of groans rose from the ghosts, interspersed with a few cheers here and there. A ghost with honest-to-god boxing gloves and the scarred face an crooked nose to prove he knew how to use them was punching his way to the hopper. He feinted as the Russian grandmother swung her handbag at him and followed with a right hook that laid the Russian Grandmother out as the crowd surged over her.
“Ooh!” Jim and Marty flinched at the same time. “That’s gotta hurt,” Marty added.
The boxer reached the hopper only to receive a tap on his shouder. When he turned, a roundhouse kick from a woman who had to have been twice his age dropped him like a sack of Halloween candy. The elderly blackbelt followed her kick by jabbing her hand into the hopper, nabbing a ball and slamming it into the chute with authority.
“Twenty-two!” Mr. Tuxedo called.
The disappointed groan was louder this time, the cheers fewer. One man hurled his much-smaller wife over the crowd. She tucked at the last moment and crashed into the front of the mass like they were bowling pins. She popped up, reached a hand in and started to move the 30 ball into place, but a hand from one of the fallen would-be bowling pins managed to reach up an arm, grab the small woman’s ankle and yank her down. The 30 ball careened off the side, bouncing a different ball downwards…
“Thirty-nine!”
Groans, cheers, more bloodshed as ghosts clawed – literally – for position and to get their number balls into the chute.
“Fifty-four!”
Jim could see the action changing. Enough peoples numbers hadn’t come up that they started to fall back. Those who still had a chance, though, fought more violently. A burly man fought to get the 50 ball out of the swirling balls when a woman bit the man’s ear clean off but before ear-biter had a chance to capitalize on her canibalizing, another woman placed a hand on either side of the biter’s head and twisted, dropping the woman as her neck broke with a sickening crack causing Jim to think he might be ill.
“Sixty!” Mr. Tuxedo called.
Now things changed.
The second hopper erupted, balls flying. “And for the bonus number…”
Almost all the ghosts were out of it at this point, but for the handful of ghosts for whom this number was critical, the ferocity rose to a fever pitch, the action brutal and swift with spurts of ectoplasm accompanying screams and groans.
“Eighteen!” Mr. Tuxedo called.
No one cheered. A few scattered groans from those still able to groan and still had faculty enough to know what they were groaning about.
Jim looked at the carnage of all the ghosts lying broken and injured carpeting the studio, ghost bodies three-deep in some places. “Wow, that was…just wow.”
“Agreed,” Marty said with a shudder. “Doesn’t look like anyone won.”
“Not this time,” Jim agreed.
Marty sighed, adjusted the fedora, turned to his friend and stuck out his hand. “Well, Jim, that was fun!”
“Yes, yes it was,” Jim said, shaking the proffered hand. “A lot more fun for us then them,” he inclined his head down towards the broken, ectoplasm-streaked mass.
“No doubt, my friend. When they manage to extricate themselves there’s gonna be a hell of a lot of hangovers.”
“You got that right!” they laughed as they floated through the wall and back down the driveway.
“So, Jim, no one won…” he left the statement open as a question.
“See you next Friday?”
“It’ll be over half a billion dollars! I wouldn’t miss that chaos for… half a billion dollars!” they both laughed uproariously and floated off their separate ways.

“I get called ‘evil’ a lot. It’s not true. It doesn’t bother me, mind you, but it’s also just not true. I’m no Casper the Friendly Ghost by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just filling a role – ‘doing the needful,’ if you will. Hey, if I didn’t do it, it’d happen eventually and it would be a lot uglier.

“Don’t believe me?”

He slapped a wool cap over his bald pate, “Tag a long with me – I’m going to pick up a new recruit today. Yeah, a funeral home – don’t look so surprised!” He leaned in and cupped his eyes against a plate glass window, then stood and gestured. “Here, take a look. See if you can pick him out. Here’s a hint: he’s the one who doesn’t look dressed for the occasion. Ha! I didn’t notice that guy! No, the guy in the Member’s Only jacket is actually a mourner. He’s just got terrible fashion sense, he’s not dead – not yet at least.

“Yep, you got it in two. The guy dressed in hiking clothes is our guy. Ranger Rick there died some twenty years ago. He was backpacking with his bros when his appendix burst in the middle of nowhere. His friends couldn’t get help in time,” he gestured down with his thumb and blew a raspberry.

“He was out there talking to his buddies about proposing to his sweetie – he even showed them the ring.” He stood silent for a moment, contemplative. “but he died. Didn’t get to propose. So, lo these twenty years he’s been hanging around his girl. It was the ring. He was all tied up with it. When death prevented him from giving it to her on bended knee, he couldn’t pass on. So here he stayed by her. He got the old ball and chain without even having done the deed!

“Ah, Figured that part out already?” he smirked. “Yeah, that’s her in the casket. Breast cancer. I fucking hate cancer. What? Don’t look surprised! Cancer sucks for everyone involved – me included. For the living, they have to watch their loved one waste away. For me, there’s generally enough time to make peace so they tend to pass over pretty easily. Fuck cancer.

“But, yeah, that’s her in the box. The guy in the black suit is her husband – yeah, she married eventually.” He shrugged, “time waits for no ghost. People gotta live, right?

“Anyway, our boy there – his name is Devin – just lost his anchor to this world when she passed. Only child, and his parents died in a car accident years before he did. His friends still raise a glass to him, but that’s not enough to hold him. So, really, he’s got no one. That’s where I step in.” He waggled his dark eyebrows and stepped through the door.

He casually sidled up next to Devin. “I’m truly sorry for your loss, Devin.”

Devin did a double take and then said, “You can see me?”

“See you, hear you… you’re as real to me as any of these people are to each other.” Devin gaped at the stranger. “Name’s Berith,” he extended his hand for Devin to shake. Devin tentatively reached for the outstretched hand and audibly gasped when his fingers closed around something solid.

“I… can’t remember the last time I actually shook a hand,” Devin said, shaking Berith’s hand a little too enthusiastically.

“It’s okay,” Berith smiled, “I get that a lot.”

“Do you?” Devin released the hand. “You look familiar. Who are you?”

“Me?” Berith shrugged, “think of me as a sort of guide.”

“Guide?”

“Sure. Now that Sarah has passed, what’s your plan?”

“Plan?” Devin looked confused. “I didn’t have a plan…”

“That’s a problem,” Berith nodded solemnly. “See, without a plan, without a guide,” he turned gracefully and caught Devin’s elbow in the crook of his arm and started to lead him back through the door. “You’re going to fall apart – quite literally.”

“Wait!” Devin protested as the started through the door. “I haven’t said goodbye!”

“Devin,” Berith admonished, “You’ve been saying goodbye for twenty years. See, this is the problem. She’s gone. Gone! Poof!” he spread his fingers apart to emphasize his point. “I ask you again, what are you going to do?”

“I… I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Then you’re lucky I came around. I’ve got a purpose for you.”

“Really? Shouldn’t I be moving on?”

“Devin, my boy, that ship sailed.” He cocked a thumb at the casket behind him, “If you didn’t get things settled when she was alive… it’s too late.”

“So… now what?”

“Now you learn how to really make the living realize how lucky they are.”

“How do I do that?”

“Glad you asked!” he snapped his fingers and suddenly they weren’t in front of a funeral house, but instead inside a modest house, lights low, teenagers gathered around a Ouija board. “Here’s a great opportunity to get started. Look at these kids. You ever play with a Ouija board?” Devin nodded. “Fun, right?” Devin nodded again. “But it’s more than harmless little fun. They’re actively opening a portal into our realm.”

“So we warn them?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Berith walked over and leaned over the kids, pushing the planchette around to form letters of his choosing.

“Do,” the kids repeated the first spelled out word. “You,” they said. “Want. To. See. A. Ghost!” they looked at each other excitedly. The one acting as their spokesperson, a boy maybe 17, said “Yes! Yes, we want to see a ghost!”

Berith straightened, turned to Devin, spread his hands theatrically and said, “It’s showtime, Devin!”

“I… I don’t know what to do…”

“Come over here, Devin.” Devin crossed to stand next to Berith. “This boy just invited you in. Touch him and will yourself inside.”

“Isn’t that… like a possession?”

“Devin, he just asked for it! You heard him!”

Devin shook his head, “I don’t know, this doesn’t seem right…”

“Right? You died before you got a chance to propose to your beloved. Was that right? You followed her around while she lived, while she fell in love, while she married… was that right? And now she’s dead and you’re still here. Is that right?”

“…no,” Devin said tentatively.

“And now you’ve got what? Nothing.” Berith said flatly. “You’ve got nothing and no one. This boy just said he wants you to show yourself. Give him a show, Devin.”

“No one,” Devin repeated. “Nothing.”

“That’s right,” Berith said. “Go ahead.”

Devin reached out a hand and touched the boy’s shoulder, closed his eyes in concentration and in a moment, he disappeared as the boy’s eyes widened unnaturally and he became board stiff. The laughing conversation around the table silenced as the boy said in a deep, gravelly voice, “I am here! You wanted me here!” the boy raised his arms slowly and then slammed them down on the table with a crash.

“Toby, is that you?” one of the girls at the table asked.

“There is no Toby,” the boy croaked.

“Toby this isn’t funny….” One of the boys said.

Toby rotated his head towards the boy then opened his mouth and projectile vomited onto the boy. Shrieks erupted around the table as panic engulfed the other participants. There were more demonstrations. Toby cursed, drooled, spit, threw up at least twice more, and finally sagged forward as Devin slid out the back of the limp boy’s body.

“How was that, Devin?”

Devin’s face expressed both exhilaration and confusion. “So easy! So… wow. But that was wrong. That seemed wrong. Is he going to be alright?”

Berith looked at the boy whose friends had already rushed to his side to revive him. “Sure, sure, he’ll be okay.” Berith snapped again, and they stood on an empty street. “The important part is do you think his friends are going to try that again?” Devin shook his head. “Damn right they’re not. Good job. That was fun, right?”

Devin looked conflicted for a moment, but just a moment. “Yeah, that was fun. It really was. Did you see the look on their faces when that bile flew?!”

“Right?! We’re just getting started! Give me a moment here and then we’ll find another group of the living to torment, err, remind of the preciousness of life!”

“Sounds great!” Devin said with visible glee.

Berith took a few steps away from Devin and said more quietly. “There, was that evil? I mean, yeah, okay, it wasn’t nice, but what in life – or death – is nice. This kid has a purpose now. Granted that purpose is to wantonly torment the living… we started slow tonight, but Devin’s a quick learner, I can see it. Oh, don’t get all high and mighty on me,” Berith gave a dismissive wave. “If I’d left him there he’d have lost his way, wandered aimlessly, forgotten. Just another wraith wandering pointlessly. He’s got a reason for being now. No, it’s not bad, it’s not evil. It’s just another way of being dead.” Berith crossed his arms and stared menacingly, “Don’t knock it ‘til you tried it.”