Epilogue

     I snapped awake and the digital clock across the room read 11:34 PM. Vampirella, Natasha and Tibor were all deeply asleep still, but I had a feeling that I’d heard something. I lay there for a moment, and the sound came again, a creaking, and a rattle of some sort. It seemed to be coming from the turret. I crept out of bed and grabbed a hammer from my toolbox, then snuck up the spiral staircase to the turret quietly. There was a trap door at the top of the staircase, and I opened it just an inch and looked around. There was nothing that I could see, so I opened it fully and went out on the turret to look over the crenellations and make sure nobody was on the roof or something.

     I looked in all directions, but saw nothing but the bleak weather and dark sky above. It was very cold. I turned to go back down into the Quonset, and they were hovering above the trapdoor, staring at me balefully. 

     Sam Handwich and Brick Marrow were floating, just four inches above the trapdoor. They were slightly transparent; I could see some of the brighter stars on the horizon clearly right through Brick Marrow’s shredded yellow smoking jacket. Both of them were dressed in the clothing I’d eaten them in, and it was torn and tattered from the wolf’s teeth and claws. They themselves were intact again, but they looked very pale, -in Sam’s case a light pastel orange-, and they had dark circles under their eyes, and both of them were hung with heavy linked chains, that swung and clinked in the November wind.

     “I suppose you’re wondering why I called this meeting, woooooooooo,” intoned the ghost of Handwich.

     “No,” I said, “I’m going back to bed. Fuck off both of you.”

     “I suppose you think that was a pretty brilliant business maneuver, eating us, boooooooo,” moaned Brick Marrow, bitterly.

     “No, I regret it. I mean, I admit I came after you under false pretenses, but the main reason I regret it is that I still have indigestion.”

     “Our spirits will haunt you always…” howled Sam, “I’ve already entered it in my Weekly Planner for the next 10,000 years, oooooooh,”

     “You will never rest for our souls are unquiet, and we’re very motivated to dynamically haunt you not only in person, but also by fax and email, woooooooooooo…..” wailed Brick Marrow.

     “Seriously, I’m going back to bed,” I walked to the trapdoor and opened it. They followed me down into the house.

     “Booo, know that I was innocent of the boning of your wife for which you ate me….”

     “Ooooooooooooooooooh, repent, for I was thy employer and thou didst unnaturally consume me as well,” groaned Sam Handwich loudly, rolling his eyes and gnashing his teeth.

     “It wasn’t unnatural. Really, it wasn’t even personal. Wolves are hungry,”  I explained.

     Tibor, Natasha and Vampirella all came stumbling sleepily out into the living room.

     “Cool! Ghosts!” said Natasha.

     “Dumb looking ghosts, though,” said Tibor, doubtfully.

     “I’ll get the vacuum,” said Vampirella.

     “Noooooo!” screamed Brick and Sam together, but Vampirella had them both in the bag within moments. Sam was sucked in first. Brick tried to escape by diving into a heating vent, but it was no good. Here’s a valuable tip: ghosts are utterly vulnerable to vacuuming. When the ectoplasm hits the dust in the bag, it gets tangled up with all the dead skin cells (70 percent of household dust is powdered flesh), and can’t extricate itself. People wonder why they rarely see ghosts anymore: The reason is that modern vacuuming technology has almost totally eliminated haunts in general.

     I made some cocoa, and we all sat around drinking it for a little while, listening to the diminishing squeaks from the vacuum cleaner bag until they became inaudible. Then we went back to bed.

     I hate it when something you ate keeps you up at night.

end

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