Some ideas get brainstormed with Fern and I, and sometimes she throws out some ideas which I might seem like I dismiss a little too quickly. But they register, and I roll the idea around until I come up with something. This is a case in point – she suggested the impetus for this story a few weeks ago and it’s taken some time to come to fruition, but the story came around and here it is! Here’s putting the “oo” in “Boo”!

I thought we really had a thing going. He was so sweet over the phone, and he sent me the nicest text messages throughout the day – I mean, not, like, so many that it was creepy or clingy? There’s a fine line there, and Eliot (even his name was cute!) stayed clear of it.

We met online, of course – that’s how everyone meets now, right? I responded to his ad and we messaged on the site for a few days before we transitioned to email, then texting. He never pushed it, which I appreciated because I’d had some serious creeps try to ratchet things up too fast. All, “hey, let’s talk on the phone!” or “What do you mean you don’t want to meet immediately after we exchanged our first messages? I’m a nice guy!”

“A nice guy.”

But not Eliot. He never said he was a nice guy because it was like he wanted to prove he was a nice guy, you know? But I wanted to hear his voice, so we started talking over the phone. And he emailed me a picture and he had this dopey grin that just melted my heart and eyes that just, well, let’s say our conversations didn’t stay PG-13 for long.

What?! I’m a grown ass woman! If I want to talk dirty to a guy I met online I’m entitled to that! Don’t judge me. I mean, you didn’t hear Eliot’s sexy voice. He had this accent I couldn’t place. It was foreign, but I couldn’t tell if it was English, or Australian, or Irish… I’m bad with accents, okay? But, my god, it was hawt.

And so, we agreed to meet.

Okay, in fairness, I pushed for the meet. Hard.

“Look, Gina, I’m all for meeting face to face but I know you’ve been hurt before and I don’t want to rush you into anything.”

And I’m like, “No, I’m totally ready for this. We totally have to meet because you’re driving me crazy and I really want to…” Okay, well, you get the point.

So, we agreed to meet. Over the phone we settled on the time and place. Eight PM. The Starbucks on Cleveland. I sent him an email reminder – which he confirmed. The day of our texts were full of things like, “Can’t wait to see you tonight at 8 at Starbucks on Cleveland,” to which he responded, “I can’t wait either.”

So, when I was at the Starbucks on Cleveland at 8pm and he wasn’t, I got really worried. I texted him. No response. I called him – straight to voicemail. I texted and called him every five minutes for the next hour. Nothing.

The MFer ghosted me.

No messages, no email responses, no nothing. Radio f’ing silence.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt for a day or two – maybe his distant grandmother in London or Sydney or, Dublin got sick and he rushed to her cottage where there’s no internet or cell service or… stupid right?

But that evaporated and I got angry. I sent him selfies flipping him off. I left long voicemails that were really just long strings of profanity strung together.

And of course, I poured through his emails and texts looking for the clues that he was gonna ghost me, right? Because there had to be a clue. I didn’t find any, but I did find he referenced his work – InterCorp.

The next day I called and got the receptionist. “Hi, may I speak to Eliot Day?”

“I’m sorry, who?” he responded.

“Eliot Day? I believe he works there.”

“Well…” the guy started, “He did…”

OMG, is this guy going to tell me Eliot was fired and lied about even working there??

“But he died a few years ago. What is this in regards to? I could put you through to his former manager…”

I hung up.

He died? What the hell?

I went to Google and I found a news article I came across when I googled him previously – don’t judge, you know you do the same damn thing to a guy you’re interested in! It was about a car accident that killed an Eliot Day three years ago, but I brushed that off as some other Eliot Day because my Eliot Day was super hawt and most certainly not dead.

Except… apparently… he was.

But…

I mean…

Move on, Gina, right? So, you were ghosted by a ghost. That’s a fun story to tell on reddit, but beyond that everyone’s gonna think you’re nuts, right?

I was in bed the other night and I had just turned off the light and settled in when I heard a voice in the darkness. “Gina? Don’t be scared.”

I shrieked, turned on the light, and grabbed for the baseball bat by my bed. “I don’t know how you got in here you pervert, but I’m gonna bash your nuts in!” I yelled, bat cocked at the empty room.

“Gina,” the voice came again. I recognized the way it said my name.

“Eliot?”

“It’s me, Gina,” and a figure materialized or is it apparated? Or is that some Harry Potter crap? Okay, materialized. I recognized the dopey grin and the eyes…

“What the hell, Eliot?! You couldn’t tell me you were all,” I gestured to him, “Dead?”

“I’m sorry, Gina, I… I didn’t know how to tell you…”

“But, you’re a ghost! How could you email and text and talk…”

“I admit I’ve gotten pretty good at manipulating electronic devices over the years.”

“I’ll say,” I said. “But why’d you agree to meet if you knew you couldn’t?”

“Because… I didn’t want to let you down.”

“Well, you did.”

“Well, I did.”

“Big time.”

“Yes, big time.”

We stood there staring at each other. Finally, I said, “So… now what?”

“We could keep talking. I really like you, Gina…”

“But you’re dead. You’re a ghost. What kind of relationship can I have with a ghost?”

“I thought we really connected.”

“We did. But, I mean, what if I want, you know, more than just talking,” I realized that sounded bad and quickly added, “I mean, hanging out or something.”

“I don’t have to be this visible ghost,” he disappeared and his voice came velvety behind my right ear. “I can just be near you.” Part of me wanted to call him a perv ghost, but if I’m honest, I got chills – and not the scary kind. The weak-in-the-knees kind.

“Is…” I stammered, “Is that… all you can do?”

The voice came into my other ear now, just as velvety, just as softly, “Why don’t you put down that bat and I’ll show you.”

I put the bat down. I got into bed. I’m not telling you anymore. Okay, okay, we’re still, uh, seeing each other or whatever. It’s fun. It’s no pressure. It’s fantastic. Yeah, sure, it’s a little weird, but it’s also hella hawt.

Don’t judge me!

The power outages here have made posting challenging. So, I apologize for being a little backlogged. Here’s what can happen when the lights go out.

The worst night in my life was the night after I bought this house.

I was warned it was haunted, but I don’t believe in ghosts, right? And when I looked at the house in the daylight with the real estate agent things were fine. It was a beautiful house built in 1901. The previous owner took meticulous care of the place and did an extensive renovation where he replaced existing windows with larger ones and added additional windows and skylights, all while still keeping to the aesthetic of the house.

I noticed the industrial diesel generator on a pad in the corner of the yard and asked Patty, my agent about it. “Does this place lose power a lot? How could he justify that beast of a generator?”

“I was told that his mother lived here for some time and her health conditions required continuous power and that any interruption would mean debilitation or death.”

Inspectors pored over the place looking for faults and came away empty. The guy who inspected the foundation said he hadn’t seen a place so solidly built. “Great bones!” he said.

Just before I signed the papers, the seller’s agent said, “I do have one disclosure we haven’t mentioned.”

I laughed, “I’ve had people going over this place from the attic to the basement and everything in between. Sewer, electrical, water, foundation – I know more about this house than I did my last one. What disclosure could you possibly have?”

“Well, pursuant to California law, I am obligated to tell you this place is haunted.”

“Haunted?” I said incredulously. “The state of California is into ghosts now?”

“Not really,” she explained. “It’s not a question of whether they believe ghosts exist or not, but case law has held that unidentified disturbances generally classified as ‘hauntings’ are disruptive enough that regardless of whether you believe in a haunting or ghosts, such a thing must be legally disclosed.”

I was speechless.

Taking my silence for understanding, she said, “Sign here to acknowledge that you’ve been duly informed that this house is haunted.”

“Oh yeah,” I said chuckling, “Let’s get these papers signed so I can take possession – possession? Get it – of my haunted house!”

Escrow closed and I moved in and that day was wonderful. I went upstairs, showered, got dressed for bed, climbed into my fresh sheets, and turned my nightstand light off.

All hell broke loose.

I saw the red eyes at the foot of my bed first. Then I felt the hands on my throat. I fought the grip with one hand and reached for the lamp with my left. As soon as I barely touched the lamp the hands around my throat released and a force hurtled me bodily from the bed. I landed in a heap and unseen hands immediately grabbed and punched me and I could feel them clawing up my body to my throat again. I scrambled for the staircase where a shove knocked my feet out from under me and I fell hard on the stairs, smacking my head into a banister while rolling down stair after stair. At the foot of the stairs I tried to stand, but I had broken my ankle in the fall. I could feel blood on my face from a gash. I didn’t feel hands and took that as a mercy until I heard footsteps start down the stairs after me.

I lost my mind with terror and dragged myself towards the front door as best I could. The steps kept coming down in an unhurried way that scared me even more. It was a predator toying with its injured prey. I reached the door, stretched up to unlock the deadbolt and unlock the knob. I threw open the door and started belly crawling out yelling, “Help! Someone help– “ I didn’t finish the sentence before powerful hands grabbed my ankles and pulled me back into the darkness, slamming the door behind me. Mercifully, I lost consciousness pretty quickly after that.

The next morning my neighbor found me bloody, severely beaten, and unconscious on my front porch. I had no recollection of how I got there. I remembered getting pulled back inside, so the fact that I ended up outside but just on the porch led me to assume that when whatever it was finished having its fun with me it set me out there like a used, discarded dish towel.

The toll at the hospital beggared the imagination: severe concussion, contusions, deep bruising over 90% of my body. Broken ankle, sprained wrist, fractured arm, a dislocated shoulder, and a collapsed lung.

The police were called in. A sweet detective asked me gently about whether this was a case of domestic violence and that I could open up to her. When I told her that I was beaten as soon as I turned my lights off, the police searched the house and found no sign of forced entry. The front door was actually locked with my house keys still inside. No fingerprints, nothing stolen…

I wasn’t healthy enough to discharge for another two weeks. During that time an old man came to visit. He brought flowers and a bottle of whiskey, bless his heart. “Do I know you?”

He shook his head. “You don’t. But I feel this is at least partly my fault. I’m the previous owner of your house.

“I told my agent that I had to warn you about the Darkness, but she insisted that the ‘haunted house’ clause would be enough. I knew she was wrong in my heart… I’m so terribly sorry.”

“You said ‘The Darkness’?”

“It’s an evil that possesses that house,” he started and I could see the color drain out of his face. “I learned the hard way, like you. Why do you think I opened up all those windows and skylights and that generator? I always wanted there to be light in that house no. matter. What.” He punctuated the last three words with jabs of his finger.”

“The generator wasn’t for your mother?”

“My… No, my mother died years before I bought that place. She never set foot in it. It was to keep The Darkness at bay. You lose power for a heartbeat and that sucker kicks on – the batteries in the basement cover the seconds between losing power and the generator coming online. As long as you leave a light on in every room, you’ll never lose light. But,” he held up a finger, “If you turn the lights off…” he waggled the finger, “There’s nothing to stop it from coming at you.”

“Yeah, I found that out.”

“Me too!” he said. “Broke my hip the first night and choked me out. I couldn’t believe I survived.”

“But you stayed? Why not move?”

“Same reason you aren’t going to move. First, you just bought the place and you’re so invested you can’t exactly buy another place or afford to sell it. And second, you feel a sort of… responsibility. I know I did – I couldn’t just turn that, that, thing over to someone else.”

“Except you did.”

He hung his head. “I did. I guess I thought enough precautions…”

“So what do I do now?”

“Leave the lights on.”

And I did. I left a light on in every room always. I was meticulous about maintaining the generator. I installed solar panels and upgraded the old batteries in the basement to Tesla Powercells. That house would stay lit like a Christmas tree even after the apocalypse hit.

Or, so I thought.

The rain started and floods were predicted, but I’ve seen the maps, I’m not in a floodplain. And then the basement started taking on water and newscasters were talking about this being a “Once in a millennia” kind of storm and said things like “defying recorded history.” But this place isn’t in a flood area, so I didn’t evacuate. Hell, I’m the only one in ten square miles with electricity!

But I woke from a dead sleep an hour ago to a huge roar. The levee on the east side of town collapsed. I watched from the upstairs window as a huge wall of water swamped the generator. But the batteries should still hold. I went downstairs to check on them… and that’s when I noticed the water pouring in and rising fast. I retreated upstairs and I’m writing this as the lights are flickering. I just heard what sounded like laughter. What’s that? Oh my god, it sounds like growling. The lights just flickered. The water must be reaching the Powercells.

The lights just went out.

Pray for m­–

This is a picture of where we camped last night. When people asked where we were going, I would say, “The middle of nowhere,” and I think this illustrates that pretty well. Also, I really wanted to go up that trail there in the distance, but time and ground clearance prevented me. Next time, and there will be a next time…

A trail of dust marked the passage of the pumpkin orange Jeep Gladiator truck along the desolate trail. The driver crested a rise and stopped as he and his passenger sat gob smacked at the view. Ahead the Joshua trees on the southern flanks of the unremarkable Magruder Mountain gave way to a massive alluvial fan that spread out into the Mojave desert. In the front seats the driver and the woman next to him consulted a topo map and pointed to where the trail cut across the gentle slope.

In the back seat sat a ghost. Unbeknownst to the living in the car, she watched the two deliberate as to which spur off the trail ahead would offer them the best place to stay for the night. She cast her gaze out the window and over a steep rise. Tire tracks led up to the top, but tall bitterbrush and mountain mahogany between the wheel ruts spoke to how long it had been since anything with four wheels came anywhere near the top of that hill. Her eyes drifted from one Joshua tree to another, admiring their sword-like spikey leaves and even the desiccated fruits atop them that would soon fall off and release seeds. She shifted from a particularly tall tree towards a barely-there tree when she saw a man standing alone, staring out at the desert.

No, not a man… well, the ghost of a man. 

He looked about six feet tall and his khakis and maroon sweater vest seemed decidedly incongruous with the desert landscape. From his profile she could see a neatly trimmed beard and moustache on his dark face. As if reacting to her gaze, he turned towards the truck and made eye contact with her before turning his back on the car and staring back out at the desert spread out below him. 

The driver put the Jeep into drive and they started down the trail. She deliberately stayed still and passed right through the back of the Jeep as it moved across the slope, dust blooming up behind it. “I’ll catch up,” she thought, then turned to look at the man on the top of the hill. She could have apparated right next to him, but instead chose to walk up the hill carefully stepping around spikey agave plants and sagebrush.

“Hi,” she said as the stepped up next to the man. “I’m Jan.”

He turned and regarded her and said, simply, “Trey.”

“Hi Trey,” she replied. “My son and his wife just passed that way,” she pointed to the dust rising behind the Jeep.

“Um-hmm,” he said without looking.

“I love traveling with them. They go to the middle of nowhere… it’s kind of fun.”

He nodded.

“So, uh, I’m following him because, well, you know, my son… But, uh, are you haunting this hill?”

“Not particularly,” he said summarily.

“This area then?”

He shrugged. “For now.”

“For now?” She said, quizzically. “I didn’t think that was how this ghost thing worked. I mean, I can stray from my son, sure, but I usually hang around my kids. Or, well, their kids. They keep me grounded. Not literally, but I like watching them, you know?”

He didn’t move.

“So, what about this place keeps you here.”

“It’s lonesome.”

“I can see that,” she said looking out in the desert. “That seems like more a reason not to be out here by yourself. Unless, I don’t know, did you die out here?”

A thin smile creased his face. “No,” he shook his head. “I was born and raised in Brooklyn. Bed Stuy. Moved to Manhattan and ran as a bicycle messenger before I took an office job.”

“You’re a far way from Manhattan.”

“That’s the point,” he said. “I lived around so many people my entire life. The congestion, the cabs, the horns, the yells, the humanity…” he shook his head. “I’m sick of it.”

“How’d you die?”

“Heart attack. You?”

“Cancer,” she said summarily. “So you’re out here because you want to… be alone?”

He nodded slowly. “I want to be lonesome.”

“What does that mean?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. What does it mean to be lonesome? To be of humanity, but so far removed from humanity that the intrusion of it,” he nodded at the dust of the Jeep in the distance, “feels like an affront.”

“I… I’m sorry. I can go,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your loneliness.”

“No,” he said, “It’s alright. That’s part of it – I haven’t talked to another soul since I died and started wandering the country looking for emptiness. This is a nice break.”

“Okay,” she said. They both remained silent a long time, gusts of wind whipping through the canyons the only sound. “It’s beautiful here.”

He nodded.

“How long…” she started.

“I don’t know. It’s been three years.” He let out a chuckle, “I thought ghosts were attached to the living, that if I went out here then I’d, I don’t know, fade away.”

“But you haven’t.”

“I haven’t. And I don’t know what that means either.”

She let the silence fall again. The quiet murmur of a jetliner high above added to the whispering winds.

“I think I’m going to go catch up with my son,” she said finally.

“Okay, Jan,” he said and she was surprised her name registered on the man. “Enjoy,” he said and she could tell he meant it.

“Maybe I’ll see you again?”

“You will. I’ll be in the wind. I’ll be the pause in a cacophony. I’ll be the silence between breaths. I’ll be the unsaid.”

“I’ll be, uh, going,” she said. She disappeared and reappeared next to the now-parked Jeep as the couple unfolded the rooftop tent and started making dinner. She looked back towards the hill where Trey likely stood. She thought she could understand his desire to be lonesome. But she watched her son pour water into a pot of dry rice, his finger touching the surface of the grains and pouring until the water touched his knuckle like she’d shown him as a little boy.

Lonesome, she thought, is overrated.