u/SunHeadPrime

"I'm telling you, my new place is super haunted."

Geri, my reluctant farmer's market buddy, took a sip of her iced coffee and tipped her oval-lensed sunglasses down to give me 'the look.' Years of friendship had forged the stare—our non-verbal way of calling bullshit on each other in a friendly, non-confrontational way. Last week, when Geri was certain her hot neighbor was stealing her packages to break the ice, I gave her the same stare.

Today was my turn.

"I swear," I said with a laugh. "It's weird."

"You always say you're in a haunted house. Like, every place you've ever stayed for over two days. Remember when you said that AirB&B in Phoenix was haunted and it turned out only to be raccoons in the attic?"

"Valid," I said, stopping at a cheesemonger to size up some Brie. "Maybe I am primed for it, but I'm telling you, this new place is haunted. Like, Poltergeist-level haunted."

"Clowns under the bed and skeletons in the pool? That's what you're saying?"

I put down the Brie, picked up a hunk of Camembert, and shrugged. "Well, not that dramatic…."

Geri pounced. "So it's your typical clowns in bed and skeletons in the closet," she deadpanned. "Assuming, of course, Late Night Luke has stopped by," she added, lowering her sunglasses and giving me a wink.

"Luke and I have finally fully separated. He has not been near the bed nor the closet."

"And yet the rumors persist," she said, nodding at the elephant ear stand. "Want one? My treat?"

Cinnamon and sugar on a dinner plate-sized hunk of fried dough sounded amazing, but I let my better angels win out. "I'm here to help eat clean. New place, new me."

"Your loss," she said, walking over and placing an order for one. The fried dough and cinnamon sugar hung around me like a delicious storm cloud. I kicked myself for letting my stupid brain demand that I make better choices.

Wanting to move the conversation away from delicious carnival food, I shifted back to the house. "So, while I may not have trees assaulting me or anything, I swear there's something up with this new place."

"How so?"

"Doors open by themselves. Windows open and shut all the time. Floorboards creak. My things get moved around. All the classics."

The elephant-ear man handed Geri her prize. She thanked him and held it up to her head for comparison. It was larger. She rolled it and took a bite, a smear of cinnamon sugar butter dripping onto her shirt. "Shit," she said, wiping it off.

"Karma," I joked. "Tell me how horrible it tastes."

"It's so gross," she said, playing along. "Tastes like dirt, cigarette butts, and poor decisions. A real late-night Luke kinda snack."

I cackled. "Then I will for sure pass."

"That's what you always say and then," she sang, finishing with a note holding crescendo of, "The… Dirt…bag…re…turns!"

A passerby clapped, and Geri bowed. I shook my head. "Not anymore. It's clean eating and clean dating. No elephant ears. No Lukes."

"Proud of you, seriously," she said, holding up the elephant ear. "I have the willpower of a five-year-old. It's hard to change. Same goes for ditching Luke. You deserve better."

"Thanks."

"No problem," she said, taking another bite. "That said, and not to rain on your haunted house parade, but all that ghost activity sounds like normal things. The house is old, and you're forgetful. Big leap to ghosts, Livvy."

"I know, I know, but I swear. The vibe is off. I even smudged the house with sage, but the aura is still weird."

"Probably because your place now reeks like sage," she said, stopping at the last stall. "Well, we've reached the end of the market. What's your clean livin' haul so far?"

I examined the contents of my bag and frowned. "Five carrots, a head of lettuce, and some goat cheese."

"Jesus, that's it? We've been here for an hour."

"I've gotta be less choosy."

"With veggies and…."

"Ah," I said, cutting her off before the joke. "No. Just, no."

"You wanna be less choosy? Start by picking up some of these grapes, huh? Taste like cotton candy," the man at the stall behind us said in a voice so gravely it'd grade railroad tracks. "Or some cherries. Got some hummus, too. I'll let it go for less so I don't have to haul it back."

"Cherries sound good," I said, reaching for my wallet.

"Also, your floorboards are creaking because of a loose subfloor. That or the weather changing. Contraction and expansion, things of that nature. Brother is a carpenter, if you need someone to fix them."

"Um, thanks, but I'm renting. I will take the cherries, though."

"Lemme wrap 'em up for you."

Geri leaned in close, imitating the man's voice. "Lemme see your floorboards, honey. I got somethin' that'll fix 'em."

We both started giggling when a bear-shaped shadow fell across us. We turned and were greeted by a young man holding a large Mylar balloon of a besuited bear holding a sign that read "Bear-y Nice!" The bear was smiling with glowing apple cheeks.

The man himself was also "Bear-y nice." Tall and narrow, he had a baby face with a smile that showed off the smallest dimples in his cheeks. His eyes were the palest blue I'd ever seen outside a picture of the surface of Neptune.

"Sorry if the balloon frightened you. Realized the shadow probably looked insane after I walked up."

"Did you need to see the cherries or….?"

"Oh, no. Thanks. I'm actually a vendor here. I have to go to another event and haven't had any luck selling this guy. Would you like it?"

My eyes flicked to Geri and back to him. "Ugh, I don't really need a balloon at the moment."

"Oh, no, no," he said, laughing. "I want to give it to you. As a gift. Didn't think a pretty woman like you would mind taking Teddy home with you."

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. "Well, if he needs a place to stay, I may have a spare room he can use."

The man laughed. "Thank you. I'm David, by the way. He's Theodore."

I took his outstretched hand and shook it. "I'm Liv, this is Geri."

"Theodore is super formal, no?"

"Look at his suit! He's a classy guy. Here, let me tie a weight to this," he said, pulling a flat white plastic circle from his pocket and knotting the string to it. He handed it to me, and it was heavier than I had imagined.

"Wow, some heft," I said, internally rolling my eyes at my dumb comment.

"So he won't go anywhere. I'd love to stay and chat, but I have about fifteen ten-year-olds waiting for me at the park," he said, catching himself. "For a party, just for the record."

I chuckled. "I assumed."

"Busy, the balloon racket?" Geri pried.

"Growing, or I guess, inflating might be a better word for it." I laughed and gave balloon boy a second glance. Not too shabby. "I'm getting into kids' birthday parties now," David said. "Kids love balloons. Have meetings all day, actually. But I'm around the market most weekends. Just look for the guy with the balloons."

"How do you know I'm not friendly with several balloon guys?"

"I'm willing to take the risk," he said before bidding us goodbye and taking off.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Geri elbowed my ribs. "Dude, what the heck? How did you not get any contact information?"

"He wasn't hitting on me," I said, the truth ricocheting off Geri's shocked face and hitting my own. "Oh my God, he was. How am I this oblivious?"

"Maybe the farmer's market is haunted, too?"

I rolled my eyes at her, and she laughed. "Well, at least we now have two reasons to come here next weekend, right?"

"Right."

"You still down for dinner tonight? Stick around afterward, and we'll wait for something spooky to happen."

"Tell you what, if something weird happens, I'll buy the next round of farmer's market rabbit food."

"Deal."

"Girls," the gravelly voiced seller said, "if you're not buying anything else, do you mind scooting aside and movin' that balloon? People come to ogle my cherries, not yours, huh? 'Perciate it."

Later, when I got home, I placed the Theodore in my living room window. Maybe any potential robbers would think twice if they knew I had a dapper bear guarding my place. Granted, there wasn't much to my place - a mostly empty shotgun-style house with two bedrooms, one bath, and a galley kitchen - but it was what I needed. I worked from home, and this afforded me a designated workspace separate from my home area. Once I was off the clock, the office stayed dark.

The neighborhood was a little chaotic, but the place was evolving, and I had friendly neighbors. We kept watch on one another. I was fine keeping my screen door open during the day, despite the area’s grim reputation.

There was a charm to the neighborhood. It just required you to look with the right kinda eyes. Was that belief based more on vibes than anything tangible? Of course. But my glass was always half-full, and I trusted that in a year this would be the hot place. I was riding on top of a wave that had yet to break.

Geri came over at around four, and we popped a bottle of wine and gossiped about nonsense as I cooked dinner. Naturally, the conversation switched to the ghostly encounters I'd had here. Geri, as before, remained resolute that it was bunk.

"What has been the scariest thing that's happened so far?"

"Hmm," I said, slicing carrots. "Windows opening and closing by themselves. When one suddenly slams, yeesh. I've heard footsteps in the hall and the attic, too."

"Pretty tame by haunting standards."

"Oh, and I swear I've heard mumbling in the crawlspace. Scared the shit out of me so bad, I worked in the library instead."

"Okay, the crawlspace thing is weird. Why didn't you lead with that? The others, though, all have explanations. This place is older, and the windows sometimes can't stay up. Gravels McGee at the market told us why floorboards creak. The attic is probably rats."

"Don't say that. I don't want to think rats are living with me."

"You'd rather it be ghosts?"

"Ghosts don't poop everywhere and carry diseases."

SLAM!

We both nearly reached orbit. A window in the back of the house had perfect timing. We both headed back there, me still clutching the knife and Geri her wine glass. When I got to the bedroom, I found my bedroom window closed tight.

I pointed the knife at my window. "Odd timing, no?"

She nodded. "Okay, that's weird. I'll grant you that."

"Nobody was back here. How did that happen?"

"Strong wind?"

I gave her the look.

Down the hallway, something clacked down on the hardwood as it moved closer to the bedroom. We both popped our heads out of the doorframe and captured Theodore the bear floating toward us. His unmoving, grinning face inspired a relentless anxiety in me that no person should feel from a novelty balloon.

It hovered at the end of the hallway, bobbing in an unseen wind. Occasionally, the helium and breeze would lift the weight, causing the hard plastic disc to spin and shake until it clacked back against the ground. In the quiet house, the tapping was as loud as a glacier cracking up.

"It's following us," I whispered.

"Maybe it's just a really strong cross breeze?"

"Not everything is the wind, Geri."

"Not everything is ghosts, Liv."

Theodore drifted forward, the weighted disc dragging across the wood. It'd move a few inches, stop, and hover before continuing its creeping advance toward the back of the house. We both inched back. I pointed the knife at Theodore's head. "Toldja! Poltergeist shit!"

SLAM! My front door crashed shut. Nothing had pushed it closed. No person or breeze. It did it all by itself. The door hit the frame so hard that I was afraid it had damaged it.

The boom made us both yelp and scramble into the bedroom. I let the bedroom door copy its front-of-house brethren and slammed it behind us. I leaned against it, catching my breath. "There was nothing there to slam that door. No breeze either," I said, my voice softening. "It's freakin' ghosts, Geri."

She opened her mouth to speak, but shut it before the first word tumbled out of her throat. From the crawlspace, something scraped along the underside of the floor. I didn't want to believe it - and did my damnedest to pretend I hadn't. But when there was another loud kick, it forced our hand.

Geri leaned close to me and whispered, "Is someone under there?"

"If someone is under the house," I said, my voice rising. "I have a knife and knowledge of all major arteries in the human body."

Nothing else stirred. After a minute of held breaths, we released them. Geri nodded. "Look, all this is weird, but to play devil's advocate here, these are also all…."

A low moan came up through the floorboards.

That was enough to remove all doubt. I ripped open the door so hard, I was afraid I'd hulk it off the hinges. Theodore had made it to my bedroom and was blocking our way out. I screamed, flung my hand against the mylar obstacle, sending it bouncing down the rest of the hall, the weight skidding along the floor as it tumbled away.

We bolted out the front door, sprawling into the front yard, taking refuge on the street-facing side of the large oak in my yard. The sun's rays were hot on our necks, and the humidity was stifling, but it was better than being entombed in a haunted house.

Geri and I were intertwined behind the tree. We caught our breath and strategized what to do next. We both spoke at each other, a mile a minute, but in opposite directions. I wanted to leave. She wanted to get a look under the house.

"What? Why?"

"Video of a ghost? That's how you go viral."

"Who gives a shit about that!"

"Might help solve this problem if someone local reaches out. Like, I dunno, a Ghostbuster or a priest or something?"

Before a counter-attack was mounted, Geri bolted. Not wanting to leave my friend to fend for herself, I reluctantly followed behind. As I rounded the house, I spotted Geri standing outside the crawl space. The small wooden-and-wire frame was removed and lay against a nearby bush.

"This isn't the work of a ghost," Geri said, hitting record on her phone and kneeling near the opening. I wanted her to be safe, but once Geri gets something in her mind, she's harder to shake than a boomer's belief in the American dream. She extended her phone out, her hand stopping just short of being under the house, and moved it around.

"If you're down here, just know that…ah!" she yelped, yanking back her hand and kicking away from the opening.

"What?"

"There's a dude under there," she said, pulling up the freshly recorded video. Sure enough, under where had been standing, we just make out the well-worn soles of old shoes.

"We gotta call the…."

"Liv?"

Geri and I turned toward the voice. Emerging from the other side of the tree, with the late afternoon sun's rays illuminating him as if the Lord himself had delivered him, was balloon boy David. He smiled when we locked eyes, but it was quickly replaced with a concerned furrow when he saw us huddled near the crawlspace.

"You guys okay?"

"David, wha- how are you here?"

"I was party planning with a family down the street, and we just finished up. What are the odds?" He said before shifting his gaze to Geri. "Why are you looking under the house?"

"There's a dude down there!"

"Alive?" he mouthed.

"He was moaning, so yes," I said.

"I don't want to know why he was moaning," David joked. "Want me to yell at him to get out?"

"Sure."

He walked over, kneeled, and with a voice deeper than I imagined he was capable of, yelled, "Hey! You need to get the hell out right now! You hear me?"

The man shuffled and said something back, but with his mush-mouth style and being covered by a house, it was impossible to hear what he was saying. David yelled again, a little louder and with a little more bass. Geri sauntered up next to me, nodded at David, and smiled. Blood rushed to my cheeks.

"Is Trash Panda Terry under there?" came a shaky voice from next door. I rounded the house to find my ancient neighbor, Mary Elizabeth, standing in her night robe at the edge of my yard.

"Is who…what…?"

She marched over with the same speed as Theodore, her small footsteps kicking up dirt clouds as she shuffled. "Is that him? Guy under the house?"

"There's a guy, but I don't know if he's…what did you call him?"

"Trash Panda Terry," she said, as if I was crazy for not knowing that this random man had a name like a second-rate Saturday morning cartoon character. "My grandkids named him that after they caught him pawing through our trash cans last year. It's kinda stuck."

"Oh," I said.

My shock at the unfortunate name must've jarred some response from Mary Elizabeth. "Trash Panda Terry is better than what people around here used to call him."

"What did…."

"They called him that effin' bum Terry."

I reluctantly nodded in agreement. "Okay, Trash Panda Terry is nicer."

"He's harmless, mostly, but he's touched in the head. I'll…." She whisked past me and turned the corner of the house. She tapped David on the shoulder and told him to move. If David was confused before, the addition of a bathrobe-clad old lady only added to the madness.

David leaned into me and whispered, "Some neighborhood you live in. Colorful characters."

I smiled, my cheeks flushing red. "Wait until you meet Midnight Mel, the night stalker."

"Wait, really?"

Before I responded, Mary Elizabeth stomped her foot. "Terry! Terry! This is Mary Elizabeth! What are you doing down there?"

"Mary?" the voice said, a flicker of recognition in the tone.

"Mary Elizabeth, yes. You have got to get out from under this poor girl's house."

"I thought I left something down here," he said, twisting his body around so he'd face the opening.

"Well, you haven't. Now, come on, get. You're scaring these three young kids."

David's face screwed up in confusion before he quickly added, "I'm not scared."

"If you don't want to spend the night in jail, get movin'. Shelter is two streets over."

"Sorry, Mary," he said, inch-worming his body back toward the light. "I must've left it somewhere else."

"You've given this man quite a fright," she reiterated. Geri and I smiled and suppressed giggles. David, confused, just shook his head. "Come on now."

After waiting an extraordinary amount of time, Trash Panda Terry crawled out. Covered in dirt and old spiderwebs, he glanced up at Mary and grinned. Half his teeth had "gone fishin'," but his demeanor was innocent. "Sorry," he said, standing and brushing himself off. "I thought I left something under there."

"You probably left it at the shelter," Mary Elizabeth said, her tone softening. "Go on back there and leave these people alone, okay?"

"Sorry," he mumbled. He put his head down, wandered down the street, and started hoofin' it to points unknown.

Mary Elizabeth turned to us. "Sorry he spooked you. He looks worse than he is. Guessing the landlord didn't tell you about that?" I shook my head. Mary Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. "Worthless, greedy SOB. Never does right by his tenants."

Ignoring Mary's warning of future strife with my landlord, a larger question was gnawing at me. "What would Terry leave under my house?"

"His marbles," Mary said. "He shouldn't come back tonight, but if he does, call the police. They'll bring him in."

David's phone alarm went off. "Hell, I've gotta go. Another meeting a few streets over. It was nice seeing you again, though under the weirdest possible circumstances imaginable."

With the subtlety of a rock to the face, Geri elbowed me and nodded at her phone. I got the message. "Maybe we should exchange numbers, in case Terry comes back and I need someone as scared as I was to help me."

Mary Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Just call the police."

He chuckled. "She's right, but we should anyway. Maybe you'll know someone else in this neighborhood looking for balloons for their kid's birthday party. Maybe show them Theodore to wow them all. What kid wouldn't want a bear dressed like a butler?"

"Dress for the job you want," I said, taking his phone and putting in my number.

"Thanks. Good to see you all. Mary Elizabeth, you have a good one."

"Uh-huh," she said.

David took a few steps, pointed at Mary, twirled his finger near his temple, and then headed up the road for his car. As soon as he was out of earshot, Mary Elizabeth turned to Geri and me. "What was that nonsense about balloons?"

"Oh, he sells balloons," Geri said.

"For kids’ parties," I added.

Mary laughed. "Kids? In this neighborhood? Lemme ask you, have you ever seen any kids on the streets around here?"

Now that she mentioned it, I couldn't recall a time when a gang of rag-a-muffins was hanging out around here. That didn't mean there weren’t any kids nearby, though. "No, but there has to be."

"Not many. My grandkids always complain that there isn't anyone their age around here to hang out with. Bored with Grammy, the little lovely twerps."

"Maybe it's a newer family that moved in? I've noticed a lot of new people lately."

"I keep an eye on the neighborhood like a hawk, and I haven't noticed," she said, cleaning her filthy glasses. Hard to imagine how she saw anything.

"I don't think he was lying," Geri said.

She shrugged. "Maybe, but I swear he passed by this house a few times before he came over."

"He was probably just nervous," Geri said. "He likes Liv and is probably afraid to come over and talk to her."

"Geri," I said, shocked.

She laughed. "It's true."

"Maybe or maybe not," Mary Elizabeth said. "Men lie. That's been my experience."

"If I'm in trouble, I'll holler for you," I said. "And thanks for helping with Trash Panda Terry. That was scary."

"Fear keeps you sharp, but I'm glad I can help." She turned to leave, but I just had to ask about the haunting stuff. Her wrinkles suggested she'd lived in this area since before they paved the streets. If anyone would know about it, she might.

"Mary, before you go, have…well…have you ever heard about this house being haunted?"

She paused, her face twitching, before giving me a rather pedestrian "Yes." I waited for her to elaborate, but she just nodded at us and began her long, shuffling stroll back to her place. She cut a path in my dirt of a front lawn like a snail leaves a trail in its wake.

Geri snickered, and I called out, "Mary, what kind of stuff happens here?"

The old woman paused and turned. "Things way spookier than a man under your house," she said, before continuing her trek home. I wanted to follow up, but I wasn't so sure Mary Elizabeth would yield any new insights. I let her go on her way, satisfied that another person had confirmed what I'd been saying.

I turned to Geri and shook my head, "I told you I wasn't crazy. This place is haunted."

"Wanna stay over at my apartment until you find a better situation?"

"There isn't a better situation. Maybe I can, I dunno, reason with the ghost? Tell them we can share the space or something."

"How?"

"There's gotta be a YouTube video on it. Let's go have a glass of wine, get informed, and talk to ghosts."

Geri downed the wine she still had clutched in her hands and smiled. "Just the Saturday night I envisioned for myself."

Hours of YouTube videos and many glasses of wine later, we were sitting around, laughing at old stories. Theodore had remained in the back of the house for the rest of the evening. Trash Panda Terry never came back around. The ghosts and I were at some sort of unspoken détente. Considering how it started, this evening had gone well.

"I think Ugly Hair Jeff at work is hitting on me," I said.

"Holy shit," Geri said.

"Is it that hard to believe?"

"No, look what I saw in the background of that video I took earlier," she said, handing over her phone. "Behind Trash whatever's shoes. I might owe you an apology, girl, because doesn't that kinda look like…."

A face. For only a few frames, there was something in the darkness. I zoomed in as close as the camera would allow and found two vacant, ethereal eyeholes staring out at me. A chill waltzed up my spine, spinning on each vertebra and sending the cold to my entire body. There it was. The phantom window closer. The floor squeaker. The attic runner.

"Holy…."

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

We both yelped, and I dropped Geri's phone. I tossed it over to her, and she joined me on the couch. Our eyes were trained on the front door. A figure moved by the window, and I clutched my armrest.

"I found it! I found it!" It was Trash Panda Terry, back for an unexpected and unwanted return engagement. "It was at the shelter!"

Mary Elizabeth's words coming back to us, and the recognition of our local homeless guy, brought our personal DEFCON levels down a notch. "Terry! Go away! It's too late!"

"Go to the shelter!" Geri added.

"Okay! Can you tell the lady who lives under your house that I found what I was looking for? She's been worried about me!"

Geri shot me a glance and nodded at her phone. "This is like Poltergeist," she whispered.

"I will, Terry. Go now, okay?"

"Thank you!" He walked off the porch, tripped on the last step, and ran forward to keep his balance. As quickly as he arrived, he was gone. Geri and I looked at one another and broke out into peals of laughter. It wasn't funny per se, but once you get going….

My phone buzzed. We screamed, laughed, and doubled over. Once we found our bearings, I checked to see what had set it off. It was a text from David. "Kinda late, no?"

"Maybe not for what he has in mind," Geri said with a wink.

"It says, nice to see you today. Sorry there was a guy under your house…not something I usually say to women. He's funny, no?"

"He's got charm. What are you gonna say back?"

I started typing and speaking at the same time. "It was a pleasant surprise to see you, too! Thanks for helping with Trash Panda Terry. Sorry my neighbor was being weird."

"Ooh, good call bringing in Mary Elizabeth."

I quickly typed and said, "You're never going to believe it, but he came back! He said he found what he was looking for."

"Oh, little bit of…." She stopped speaking. Theodore had emerged from the hallway, floating toward us, his little weighted disc skipping along the ground as it approached.

I stood and backed away from the balloon. It passed me and hovered near my bookshelf. Geri stood and crossed to me. We held each other in silence, staring at a mylar bear in a suit, and were positively horrified at the absurdity.

"Maybe I should ask David to…."

A heavy bookend from the shelf back flipped off the ledge and landed on the balloon's weighted disc with a crack. That was enough to get Geri and me sprinting toward my bedroom. As we did, the balloon turned and followed.

We got into the room and slammed the door behind us. From under it, the shadow of the balloon darkened the entry as it reached us. The broken weight slid under the door like a tentacle searching for prey. We backed away. I turned my wild eyes on Geri. "What the fuck?!"

SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!

Every window in my house went down in quick succession. I jumped. Snapping around in time to witness my window lock itself. I tried to speak, but my head was dizzy, and the words were lost in the fog. Disconnected, as if my brain had taken a break and was floating through the ether somewhere more fun.

My phone buzzed again. David. "I'm around to help if Geri isn't. She still with you?"

My fingers flew across the screen. "Something weird is…" An invisible hand swatted my arm and made my phone tumble to the floor. It landed screen-first and shattered. My arm stung like a hornet had zeroed in on me. A red welt rose in the outline of a hand.

"It touched me. Holy shit, it touched me," I said, tears streaming from my eyes. I fell to the ground, brought my knees to my chest, and sobbed. Geri joined me, rubbing my back and telling me we were gonna be okay. I didn't believe her.

The lights in the room started flickering in short bursts. Rapidly at first, slowed again before ramping right up. The TV in the living room turned on, and the volume went all the way up. Radios flipped on, filling the space with noise. Geri ran over and unplugged anything that was squawking.

As the house hit a fever pitch of noise, it all shut off. Quiet rushed in and settled around us. Shrouded in darkness, I slowly made my way to the nightstand and tried the lamp. Nothing. The power was out out.

I scrambled back over to Geri. My hands were shaking like a purse dog. We huddled together on the floor and didn't speak a word. I was afraid that if I spoke, it'd let whatever was living inside these walls find us. Hell, it already knew we were in here - the goddamn balloon had corralled us into this spot.

After a beat, Geri leaned close to my ear and whispered, "I'm going to call the cops."

"And tell them what? Ghosts have trapped us in the house? They'll probably ship us to an asylum and stare at us like bugs under glass."

"I don't know what else to do," she said, her words sharper than intended. I didn't blame her. Our nerves were ground beef raw. Enterprising butchers could sell them.

"Is someone else in here?"

"Slide my phone under the crack. Might get a glimpse down the hall."

I took her phone and army-crawled to the door. Each inch closer made my body want to shut down. Sweat instantly soaked the back of my shirt. My heartbeat was so loud, it sounded like it was lodged behind my ears. I was trembling like a fawn, but I kept moving.

I didn't need to get right next to the door to know Theodore was still haunting the other side of it. The weight disc was still on our side of the divide. As I approached, it flopped onto its cracked side. I swallowed bile and inched as close to the door as I was comfortable being, extended my arm, and slid the phone under the crack.

Using deft fingers forged in the smartphone era, I propped it up on its thin edge and turned on the camera app. The screen changed, and the entire hallway down to the front door was visible. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

At first.

Subtly, the front door handle slowly twisted. Back and forth, testing the lock. There was a gentle thump at the door, like someone had tried to shoulder it open, but the door held firm. I didn't remember locking it, but I also hadn't slammed all my windows shut or turned on all my electronics. Ironically, the rules were out the closed windows.

"What's going on?" Geri whispered.

"There's something at the front door."

"A ghost, or is Terry back?"

As she asked, a featureless dark figure passed by my front window. I gasped and yanked my hand back into the safety of the room. Geri shuffled over to me. "What?"

"There's someone on the porch."

"Who?" she said, grabbing her phone back from under the crack. She slammed her knuckles into the door as she did, ripping open a cut and forcing her phone to drop face-first on the plastic disc.

Geri sucked on the wound, the blood staining her white teeth, and shook her hand to help relieve the pain. As she grabbed her phone with her free hand, a notification lit up her screen. In that small amount of light, her eyes caught something in the disc's crack.

"Liv, there's something inside this weight."

What followed wasn't me inquiring about her discovery, but something heavy tapping on my office window. While there were two doors and a hallway between us, in the muted house, these taps might as well have been a wrecking ball crashing into a car. After three small taps, the fourth had some umph. The glass cracked. But it didn't shatter and fall away. Whoever was out there was taking care not to make too much noise.

That couldn't be a ghost.

The sharp piercing from the stuck window lock sliding open squeaked from the office, but roared through the quiet house. Geri and I kicked away from the door to opposite sides of the room. The figure jimmied open the window, slowly so as not to alert anyone, and climbed through.

There were entirely too many uninvited guests in or near my house for my sanity to hold.

I glanced over to Geri, who was holding her screen up to the weight and picking at the cracked plastic with her fingers. She got hold of a large center chunk and snapped it away. It echoed in the room, but what it exposed was worth it.

Geri held it up and gasped. She got my attention and slid it along the floor. It hit my shoe, and I plucked it from the ground and held it close to my eyes. Geri held up her phone to give me enough light to understand her gasp.

A tracker. A small black square with a blinking, soft blue light. No bigger than a postage stamp. It was warm to the touch. It was active. I snapped it in half. The blue light faded.

The figure must've made their way through the window without breaking any more glass, because their footfalls squeaking on the floor in the office came as a genuine shock. Two steps. The twisting of the door handle. The creaking of the hinges. The figure had broken containment and was in the wider house. Two inches of cheap, hardboard door separated us from a ghost and an invader.

"Theodore," a familiar voice whispered. "Thanks for showing me the way."

"David," I said loudly. I didn't mean to, but my melting brain just blurted it out. All movement in the house stilled.

"Hey. Are you okay? Your last text never sent, and I was worried that guy returned."

"H-how did you get into my house?"

"The front door was open. I tried calling you from the porch. Did you not hear me?"

The knot in my chest was something sailors dream about. My breathing quickened, and I did my best to slow it down. I took a beat, breathed out, and whispered, "You're lying."

"What?"

"You're lying," I said louder. "I heard you break in."

He laughed. It wasn't a funny guffaw. It was the self-assured chortle of someone intending to do something bad with the advanced knowledge they'd get away with it. "Is Geri in there with you?"

She shuffled toward me. She tried to do it silently, but her shoe hit the door. That was enough to snap David into action. Before I blinked, he violently shoved the door open, wielding it like a weapon. It worked. The handle hit Geri in the temple. She collapsed instantly. The force knocked her out cold.

I screamed and kicked away from the door. David pushed Theodore away, his body bobbing down the hall, out of sight. The moonlight broke through the overcast clouds and glinted off the knife David clutched.

"Should've asked Trash Panda Terry to stay, huh?"

I stood and turned toward my bathroom, but he snapped out his free hand and caught my leg in his iron grip. I stumbled to the ground, landing hard on my chest and having all the wind rush out of my lungs. Rolling onto my back, I desperately tried to scoot myself along as I panicked and sucked in for air.

The edges of my eyes dimmed as David kneeled between my legs. The tip of the blade pressed against my stomach. It was cold to the touch. So was David. I swung my fist at him, but he laughed and effortlessly swatted it away. I wanted to scream - my throat ached to unleash hell - but until I caught my breath, I couldn't light the fuse.

David pinned my arms behind my head and loomed over me. "It's always quick and painless," he hissed. "I promise."

The air finally filled my lungs, and the ignition was lit. I screamed, but he stuffed his hand over my mouth. I swung my arms, hitting him in the face and shoulders, but he was so strong that I couldn't make a dent. He raised the knife, and my eyes narrowed to the gleaming point.

"You can struggle. I like a little fight."

Fat, salty tears rolled down my cheeks. I silently prayed to anyone who was listening. I tensed my body, hoping the struggle would give me time to flee. I searched for something, anything, to bash into his fucking skull. But there was nothing.

He grinned. A smile I once thought was charming now only displayed cruelty. "You were ready to jump my bones. This is the natural progression of things."

I squirmed, but he leaned his body weight on me and pinned me to the floor. My stomach dropped. This is it. This is how it ends.

Until Theodore floated back into the room.

With David's attention on unbuttoning his pants, he didn't hear the crinkling mylar balloon as it settled directly behind him. He didn't notice the string elevate from the ground and loop around his neck. His pants lowered, he stared at me and grinned. "It won't be so bad."

I bit down on his fingers, his diseased blood pooling into my mouth. He yanked his hand back and raised, knocking into Theodore as he did. I spat out the copper-tasting blood and, with vengeance pumping through my body, I yelled, "Neither will this."

The string tightened across his windpipe. His eyes bulged, and his hands went to his throat. His fingers struggled for purchase on the string, but he couldn't find any. He flung himself back, struggling with the balloon but unable to free himself.

I stood on rubbery legs and ran past them into the hallway. He shot out a foot and caught me, sending me tumbling to the ground face-first. My nose hit the wood and exploded. Blood gushed from the wound, and the pain radiated across my entire skull, but I kept moving toward the front door.

I shouldered it open and came stumbling out. Red and blue lights swirled outside, which I first attributed to head trauma. But then my eyes found the hunched outline of Mary Elizabeth standing in my driveway, directing the police to hurry.

I lurched forward, missing the top step but waving my arms enough to stay upright as my bare foot found the cool soil. The police streamed into my driveway, shouting questions at me. I just pointed and said, "He's inside." With guns drawn, they burst into the house.

Mary Elizabeth shuffled over to me, and I clung to her leg. I wept. She wrapped her shawl around my shoulders and comforted me. My mind was elsewhere, but I caught her saying that if it hadn't been for all the noise, she wouldn't have come outside and seen David walking around my house. She wouldn't have called the police.

"Theodore," I said between sobs before collapsing.

My memory is fuzzy after that. In reading the reports, the cops burst into the house and found David alive but barely. The string wrapped around his neck. He was shackled to a gurney and taken to the hospital. The detective assigned to the case told me he'd been active in a few towns in the area, same MO - trackers hidden in balloons he'd give away. He's awaiting charges.

Geri woke up and had the worst headache imaginable, but stayed by my side the entire time. When I told her the truth - not the truth I told the police, but the actual truth - she cried and told me I was so lucky to have stumbled into the nicest poltergeist in human history.

I was lucky. Everything it'd done - knocking the bookend off the shelf, turning on the TV and radios at full blast, locking the windows and doors, floating the balloon away from the front window - it had done to keep me safe. Someone beyond the veil was keeping an eye on me. Bless them.

In the scuffle, somebody had popped Theodore. His deflated remains were still outside my bedroom door when I returned. I've saved them and keep them hidden away.

The first time I reentered the house, I nearly had a panic attack. I hated that my sanctuary was tainted. It was dark and stuffy, and the evil I'd encountered lingered on the walls and in the air.

I plopped onto the couch, put my head in my hands, and sobbed. I was at my lowest. How would I ever move past this? How would I ever find normalcy again? One phrase kept pinging around my brain: You're hopeless.

But someone else had other ideas.

All the windows in my house shot open. Warm sunlight flooded the room. A breeze kicked up, cycling fresh air into the house. The aroma of the blooming trees and flowers wafted in and swirled around me. I pulled my head from my hands and broke into a big smile. The tears that fell now were joyous ones. With a hushed voice, I whispered, "Thank you."

The floorboards creaked and soft footsteps padded down the hall, opening windows and flooding my place with sunlight, and optimism and love. Hell, even if they raise the rent ten thousand bucks, I'm never leaving this place.

"I'm telling you, my new place is super haunted."

Geri, my reluctant farmer's market buddy, took a sip of her iced coffee and tipped her oval-lensed sunglasses down to give me 'the look.' Years of friendship had forged the stare—our non-verbal way of calling bullshit on each other in a friendly, non-confrontational way. Last week, when Geri was certain her hot neighbor was stealing her packages to break the ice, I gave her the same stare.

Today was my turn.

"I swear," I said with a laugh. "It's weird."

"You always say you're in a haunted house. Like, every place you've ever stayed for over two days. Remember when you said that AirB&B in Phoenix was haunted and it turned out only to be raccoons in the attic?"

"Valid," I said, stopping at a cheesemonger to size up some Brie. "Maybe I am primed for it, but I'm telling you, this new place is haunted. Like, Poltergeist-level haunted."

"Clowns under the bed and skeletons in the pool? That's what you're saying?"

I put down the Brie, picked up a hunk of Camembert, and shrugged. "Well, not that dramatic…."

Geri pounced. "So it's your typical clowns in bed and skeletons in the closet," she deadpanned. "Assuming, of course, Late Night Luke has stopped by," she added, lowering her sunglasses and giving me a wink.

"Luke and I have finally fully separated. He has not been near the bed nor the closet."

"And yet the rumors persist," she said, nodding at the elephant ear stand. "Want one? My treat?"

Cinnamon and sugar on a dinner plate-sized hunk of fried dough sounded amazing, but I let my better angels win out. "I'm here to help eat clean. New place, new me."

"Your loss," she said, walking over and placing an order for one. The fried dough and cinnamon sugar hung around me like a delicious storm cloud. I kicked myself for letting my stupid brain demand that I make better choices.

Wanting to move the conversation away from delicious carnival food, I shifted back to the house. "So, while I may not have trees assaulting me or anything, I swear there's something up with this new place."

"How so?"

"Doors open by themselves. Windows open and shut all the time. Floorboards creak. My things get moved around. All the classics."

The elephant-ear man handed Geri her prize. She thanked him and held it up to her head for comparison. It was larger. She rolled it and took a bite, a smear of cinnamon sugar butter dripping onto her shirt. "Shit," she said, wiping it off.

"Karma," I joked. "Tell me how horrible it tastes."

"It's so gross," she said, playing along. "Tastes like dirt, cigarette butts, and poor decisions. A real late-night Luke kinda snack."

I cackled. "Then I will for sure pass."

"That's what you always say and then," she sang, finishing with a note holding crescendo of, "The… Dirt…bag…re…turns!"

A passerby clapped, and Geri bowed. I shook my head. "Not anymore. It's clean eating and clean dating. No elephant ears. No Lukes."

"Proud of you, seriously," she said, holding up the elephant ear. "I have the willpower of a five-year-old. It's hard to change. Same goes for ditching Luke. You deserve better."

"Thanks."

"No problem," she said, taking another bite. "That said, and not to rain on your haunted house parade, but all that ghost activity sounds like normal things. The house is old, and you're forgetful. Big leap to ghosts, Livvy."

"I know, I know, but I swear. The vibe is off. I even smudged the house with sage, but the aura is still weird."

"Probably because your place now reeks like sage," she said, stopping at the last stall. "Well, we've reached the end of the market. What's your clean livin' haul so far?"

I examined the contents of my bag and frowned. "Five carrots, a head of lettuce, and some goat cheese."

"Jesus, that's it? We've been here for an hour."

"I've gotta be less choosy."

"With veggies and…."

"Ah," I said, cutting her off before the joke. "No. Just, no."

"You wanna be less choosy? Start by picking up some of these grapes, huh? Taste like cotton candy," the man at the stall behind us said in a voice so gravely it'd grade railroad tracks. "Or some cherries. Got some hummus, too. I'll let it go for less so I don't have to haul it back."

"Cherries sound good," I said, reaching for my wallet.

"Also, your floorboards are creaking because of a loose subfloor. That or the weather changing. Contraction and expansion, things of that nature. Brother is a carpenter, if you need someone to fix them."

"Um, thanks, but I'm renting. I will take the cherries, though."

"Lemme wrap 'em up for you."

Geri leaned in close, imitating the man's voice. "Lemme see your floorboards, honey. I got somethin' that'll fix 'em."

We both started giggling when a bear-shaped shadow fell across us. We turned and were greeted by a young man holding a large Mylar balloon of a besuited bear holding a sign that read "Bear-y Nice!" The bear was smiling with glowing apple cheeks.

The man himself was also "Bear-y nice." Tall and narrow, he had a baby face with a smile that showed off the smallest dimples in his cheeks. His eyes were the palest blue I'd ever seen outside a picture of the surface of Neptune.

"Sorry if the balloon frightened you. Realized the shadow probably looked insane after I walked up."

"Did you need to see the cherries or….?"

"Oh, no. Thanks. I'm actually a vendor here. I have to go to another event and haven't had any luck selling this guy. Would you like it?"

My eyes flicked to Geri and back to him. "Ugh, I don't really need a balloon at the moment."

"Oh, no, no," he said, laughing. "I want to give it to you. As a gift. Didn't think a pretty woman like you would mind taking Teddy home with you."

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. "Well, if he needs a place to stay, I may have a spare room he can use."

The man laughed. "Thank you. I'm David, by the way. He's Theodore."

I took his outstretched hand and shook it. "I'm Liv, this is Geri."

"Theodore is super formal, no?"

"Look at his suit! He's a classy guy. Here, let me tie a weight to this," he said, pulling a flat white plastic circle from his pocket and knotting the string to it. He handed it to me, and it was heavier than I had imagined.

"Wow, some heft," I said, internally rolling my eyes at my dumb comment.

"So he won't go anywhere. I'd love to stay and chat, but I have about fifteen ten-year-olds waiting for me at the park," he said, catching himself. "For a party, just for the record."

I chuckled. "I assumed."

"Busy, the balloon racket?" Geri pried.

"Growing, or I guess, inflating might be a better word for it." I laughed and gave balloon boy a second glance. Not too shabby. "I'm getting into kids' birthday parties now," David said. "Kids love balloons. Have meetings all day, actually. But I'm around the market most weekends. Just look for the guy with the balloons."

"How do you know I'm not friendly with several balloon guys?"

"I'm willing to take the risk," he said before bidding us goodbye and taking off.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Geri elbowed my ribs. "Dude, what the heck? How did you not get any contact information?"

"He wasn't hitting on me," I said, the truth ricocheting off Geri's shocked face and hitting my own. "Oh my God, he was. How am I this oblivious?"

"Maybe the farmer's market is haunted, too?"

I rolled my eyes at her, and she laughed. "Well, at least we now have two reasons to come here next weekend, right?"

"Right."

"You still down for dinner tonight? Stick around afterward, and we'll wait for something spooky to happen."

"Tell you what, if something weird happens, I'll buy the next round of farmer's market rabbit food."

"Deal."

"Girls," the gravelly voiced seller said, "if you're not buying anything else, do you mind scooting aside and movin' that balloon? People come to ogle my cherries, not yours, huh? 'Perciate it."

Later, when I got home, I placed the Theodore in my living room window. Maybe any potential robbers would think twice if they knew I had a dapper bear guarding my place. Granted, there wasn't much to my place - a mostly empty shotgun-style house with two bedrooms, one bath, and a galley kitchen - but it was what I needed. I worked from home, and this afforded me a designated workspace separate from my home area. Once I was off the clock, the office stayed dark.

The neighborhood was a little chaotic, but the place was evolving, and I had friendly neighbors. We kept watch on one another. I was fine keeping my screen door open during the day, despite the area’s grim reputation.

There was a charm to the neighborhood. It just required you to look with the right kinda eyes. Was that belief based more on vibes than anything tangible? Of course. But my glass was always half-full, and I trusted that in a year this would be the hot place. I was riding on top of a wave that had yet to break.

Geri came over at around four, and we popped a bottle of wine and gossiped about nonsense as I cooked dinner. Naturally, the conversation switched to the ghostly encounters I'd had here. Geri, as before, remained resolute that it was bunk.

"What has been the scariest thing that's happened so far?"

"Hmm," I said, slicing carrots. "Windows opening and closing by themselves. When one suddenly slams, yeesh. I've heard footsteps in the hall and the attic, too."

"Pretty tame by haunting standards."

"Oh, and I swear I've heard mumbling in the crawlspace. Scared the shit out of me so bad, I worked in the library instead."

"Okay, the crawlspace thing is weird. Why didn't you lead with that? The others, though, all have explanations. This place is older, and the windows sometimes can't stay up. Gravels McGee at the market told us why floorboards creak. The attic is probably rats."

"Don't say that. I don't want to think rats are living with me."

"You'd rather it be ghosts?"

"Ghosts don't poop everywhere and carry diseases."

SLAM!

We both nearly reached orbit. A window in the back of the house had perfect timing. We both headed back there, me still clutching the knife and Geri her wine glass. When I got to the bedroom, I found my bedroom window closed tight.

I pointed the knife at my window. "Odd timing, no?"

She nodded. "Okay, that's weird. I'll grant you that."

"Nobody was back here. How did that happen?"

"Strong wind?"

I gave her the look.

Down the hallway, something clacked down on the hardwood as it moved closer to the bedroom. We both popped our heads out of the doorframe and captured Theodore the bear floating toward us. His unmoving, grinning face inspired a relentless anxiety in me that no person should feel from a novelty balloon.

It hovered at the end of the hallway, bobbing in an unseen wind. Occasionally, the helium and breeze would lift the weight, causing the hard plastic disc to spin and shake until it clacked back against the ground. In the quiet house, the tapping was as loud as a glacier cracking up.

"It's following us," I whispered.

"Maybe it's just a really strong cross breeze?"

"Not everything is the wind, Geri."

"Not everything is ghosts, Liv."

Theodore drifted forward, the weighted disc dragging across the wood. It'd move a few inches, stop, and hover before continuing its creeping advance toward the back of the house. We both inched back. I pointed the knife at Theodore's head. "Toldja! Poltergeist shit!"

SLAM! My front door crashed shut. Nothing had pushed it closed. No person or breeze. It did it all by itself. The door hit the frame so hard that I was afraid it had damaged it.

The boom made us both yelp and scramble into the bedroom. I let the bedroom door copy its front-of-house brethren and slammed it behind us. I leaned against it, catching my breath. "There was nothing there to slam that door. No breeze either," I said, my voice softening. "It's freakin' ghosts, Geri."

She opened her mouth to speak, but shut it before the first word tumbled out of her throat. From the crawlspace, something scraped along the underside of the floor. I didn't want to believe it - and did my damnedest to pretend I hadn't. But when there was another loud kick, it forced our hand.

Geri leaned close to me and whispered, "Is someone under there?"

"If someone is under the house," I said, my voice rising. "I have a knife and knowledge of all major arteries in the human body."

Nothing else stirred. After a minute of held breaths, we released them. Geri nodded. "Look, all this is weird, but to play devil's advocate here, these are also all…."

A low moan came up through the floorboards.

That was enough to remove all doubt. I ripped open the door so hard, I was afraid I'd hulk it off the hinges. Theodore had made it to my bedroom and was blocking our way out. I screamed, flung my hand against the mylar obstacle, sending it bouncing down the rest of the hall, the weight skidding along the floor as it tumbled away.

We bolted out the front door, sprawling into the front yard, taking refuge on the street-facing side of the large oak in my yard. The sun's rays were hot on our necks, and the humidity was stifling, but it was better than being entombed in a haunted house.

Geri and I were intertwined behind the tree. We caught our breath and strategized what to do next. We both spoke at each other, a mile a minute, but in opposite directions. I wanted to leave. She wanted to get a look under the house.

"What? Why?"

"Video of a ghost? That's how you go viral."

"Who gives a shit about that!"

"Might help solve this problem if someone local reaches out. Like, I dunno, a Ghostbuster or a priest or something?"

Before a counter-attack was mounted, Geri bolted. Not wanting to leave my friend to fend for herself, I reluctantly followed behind. As I rounded the house, I spotted Geri standing outside the crawl space. The small wooden-and-wire frame was removed and lay against a nearby bush.

"This isn't the work of a ghost," Geri said, hitting record on her phone and kneeling near the opening. I wanted her to be safe, but once Geri gets something in her mind, she's harder to shake than a boomer's belief in the American dream. She extended her phone out, her hand stopping just short of being under the house, and moved it around.

"If you're down here, just know that…ah!" she yelped, yanking back her hand and kicking away from the opening.

"What?"

"There's a dude under there," she said, pulling up the freshly recorded video. Sure enough, under where had been standing, we just make out the well-worn soles of old shoes.

"We gotta call the…."

"Liv?"

Geri and I turned toward the voice. Emerging from the other side of the tree, with the late afternoon sun's rays illuminating him as if the Lord himself had delivered him, was balloon boy David. He smiled when we locked eyes, but it was quickly replaced with a concerned furrow when he saw us huddled near the crawlspace.

"You guys okay?"

"David, wha- how are you here?"

"I was party planning with a family down the street, and we just finished up. What are the odds?" He said before shifting his gaze to Geri. "Why are you looking under the house?"

"There's a dude down there!"

"Alive?" he mouthed.

"He was moaning, so yes," I said.

"I don't want to know why he was moaning," David joked. "Want me to yell at him to get out?"

"Sure."

He walked over, kneeled, and with a voice deeper than I imagined he was capable of, yelled, "Hey! You need to get the hell out right now! You hear me?"

The man shuffled and said something back, but with his mush-mouth style and being covered by a house, it was impossible to hear what he was saying. David yelled again, a little louder and with a little more bass. Geri sauntered up next to me, nodded at David, and smiled. Blood rushed to my cheeks.

"Is Trash Panda Terry under there?" came a shaky voice from next door. I rounded the house to find my ancient neighbor, Mary Elizabeth, standing in her night robe at the edge of my yard.

"Is who…what…?"

She marched over with the same speed as Theodore, her small footsteps kicking up dirt clouds as she shuffled. "Is that him? Guy under the house?"

"There's a guy, but I don't know if he's…what did you call him?"

"Trash Panda Terry," she said, as if I was crazy for not knowing that this random man had a name like a second-rate Saturday morning cartoon character. "My grandkids named him that after they caught him pawing through our trash cans last year. It's kinda stuck."

"Oh," I said.

My shock at the unfortunate name must've jarred some response from Mary Elizabeth. "Trash Panda Terry is better than what people around here used to call him."

"What did…."

"They called him that effin' bum Terry."

I reluctantly nodded in agreement. "Okay, Trash Panda Terry is nicer."

"He's harmless, mostly, but he's touched in the head. I'll…." She whisked past me and turned the corner of the house. She tapped David on the shoulder and told him to move. If David was confused before, the addition of a bathrobe-clad old lady only added to the madness.

David leaned into me and whispered, "Some neighborhood you live in. Colorful characters."

I smiled, my cheeks flushing red. "Wait until you meet Midnight Mel, the night stalker."

"Wait, really?"

Before I responded, Mary Elizabeth stomped her foot. "Terry! Terry! This is Mary Elizabeth! What are you doing down there?"

"Mary?" the voice said, a flicker of recognition in the tone.

"Mary Elizabeth, yes. You have got to get out from under this poor girl's house."

"I thought I left something down here," he said, twisting his body around so he'd face the opening.

"Well, you haven't. Now, come on, get. You're scaring these three young kids."

David's face screwed up in confusion before he quickly added, "I'm not scared."

"If you don't want to spend the night in jail, get movin'. Shelter is two streets over."

"Sorry, Mary," he said, inch-worming his body back toward the light. "I must've left it somewhere else."

"You've given this man quite a fright," she reiterated. Geri and I smiled and suppressed giggles. David, confused, just shook his head. "Come on now."

After waiting an extraordinary amount of time, Trash Panda Terry crawled out. Covered in dirt and old spiderwebs, he glanced up at Mary and grinned. Half his teeth had "gone fishin'," but his demeanor was innocent. "Sorry," he said, standing and brushing himself off. "I thought I left something under there."

"You probably left it at the shelter," Mary Elizabeth said, her tone softening. "Go on back there and leave these people alone, okay?"

"Sorry," he mumbled. He put his head down, wandered down the street, and started hoofin' it to points unknown.

Mary Elizabeth turned to us. "Sorry he spooked you. He looks worse than he is. Guessing the landlord didn't tell you about that?" I shook my head. Mary Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. "Worthless, greedy SOB. Never does right by his tenants."

Ignoring Mary's warning of future strife with my landlord, a larger question was gnawing at me. "What would Terry leave under my house?"

"His marbles," Mary said. "He shouldn't come back tonight, but if he does, call the police. They'll bring him in."

David's phone alarm went off. "Hell, I've gotta go. Another meeting a few streets over. It was nice seeing you again, though under the weirdest possible circumstances imaginable."

With the subtlety of a rock to the face, Geri elbowed me and nodded at her phone. I got the message. "Maybe we should exchange numbers, in case Terry comes back and I need someone as scared as I was to help me."

Mary Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Just call the police."

He chuckled. "She's right, but we should anyway. Maybe you'll know someone else in this neighborhood looking for balloons for their kid's birthday party. Maybe show them Theodore to wow them all. What kid wouldn't want a bear dressed like a butler?"

"Dress for the job you want," I said, taking his phone and putting in my number.

"Thanks. Good to see you all. Mary Elizabeth, you have a good one."

"Uh-huh," she said.

David took a few steps, pointed at Mary, twirled his finger near his temple, and then headed up the road for his car. As soon as he was out of earshot, Mary Elizabeth turned to Geri and me. "What was that nonsense about balloons?"

"Oh, he sells balloons," Geri said.

"For kids’ parties," I added.

Mary laughed. "Kids? In this neighborhood? Lemme ask you, have you ever seen any kids on the streets around here?"

Now that she mentioned it, I couldn't recall a time when a gang of rag-a-muffins was hanging out around here. That didn't mean there weren’t any kids nearby, though. "No, but there has to be."

"Not many. My grandkids always complain that there isn't anyone their age around here to hang out with. Bored with Grammy, the little lovely twerps."

"Maybe it's a newer family that moved in? I've noticed a lot of new people lately."

"I keep an eye on the neighborhood like a hawk, and I haven't noticed," she said, cleaning her filthy glasses. Hard to imagine how she saw anything.

"I don't think he was lying," Geri said.

She shrugged. "Maybe, but I swear he passed by this house a few times before he came over."

"He was probably just nervous," Geri said. "He likes Liv and is probably afraid to come over and talk to her."

"Geri," I said, shocked.

She laughed. "It's true."

"Maybe or maybe not," Mary Elizabeth said. "Men lie. That's been my experience."

"If I'm in trouble, I'll holler for you," I said. "And thanks for helping with Trash Panda Terry. That was scary."

"Fear keeps you sharp, but I'm glad I can help." She turned to leave, but I just had to ask about the haunting stuff. Her wrinkles suggested she'd lived in this area since before they paved the streets. If anyone would know about it, she might.

"Mary, before you go, have…well…have you ever heard about this house being haunted?"

She paused, her face twitching, before giving me a rather pedestrian "Yes." I waited for her to elaborate, but she just nodded at us and began her long, shuffling stroll back to her place. She cut a path in my dirt of a front lawn like a snail leaves a trail in its wake.

Geri snickered, and I called out, "Mary, what kind of stuff happens here?"

The old woman paused and turned. "Things way spookier than a man under your house," she said, before continuing her trek home. I wanted to follow up, but I wasn't so sure Mary Elizabeth would yield any new insights. I let her go on her way, satisfied that another person had confirmed what I'd been saying.

I turned to Geri and shook my head, "I told you I wasn't crazy. This place is haunted."

"Wanna stay over at my apartment until you find a better situation?"

"There isn't a better situation. Maybe I can, I dunno, reason with the ghost? Tell them we can share the space or something."

"How?"

"There's gotta be a YouTube video on it. Let's go have a glass of wine, get informed, and talk to ghosts."

Geri downed the wine she still had clutched in her hands and smiled. "Just the Saturday night I envisioned for myself."

Hours of YouTube videos and many glasses of wine later, we were sitting around, laughing at old stories. Theodore had remained in the back of the house for the rest of the evening. Trash Panda Terry never came back around. The ghosts and I were at some sort of unspoken détente. Considering how it started, this evening had gone well.

"I think Ugly Hair Jeff at work is hitting on me," I said.

"Holy shit," Geri said.

"Is it that hard to believe?"

"No, look what I saw in the background of that video I took earlier," she said, handing over her phone. "Behind Trash whatever's shoes. I might owe you an apology, girl, because doesn't that kinda look like…."

A face. For only a few frames, there was something in the darkness. I zoomed in as close as the camera would allow and found two vacant, ethereal eyeholes staring out at me. A chill waltzed up my spine, spinning on each vertebra and sending the cold to my entire body. There it was. The phantom window closer. The floor squeaker. The attic runner.

"Holy…."

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

We both yelped, and I dropped Geri's phone. I tossed it over to her, and she joined me on the couch. Our eyes were trained on the front door. A figure moved by the window, and I clutched my armrest.

"I found it! I found it!" It was Trash Panda Terry, back for an unexpected and unwanted return engagement. "It was at the shelter!"

Mary Elizabeth's words coming back to us, and the recognition of our local homeless guy, brought our personal DEFCON levels down a notch. "Terry! Go away! It's too late!"

"Go to the shelter!" Geri added.

"Okay! Can you tell the lady who lives under your house that I found what I was looking for? She's been worried about me!"

Geri shot me a glance and nodded at her phone. "This is like Poltergeist," she whispered.

"I will, Terry. Go now, okay?"

"Thank you!" He walked off the porch, tripped on the last step, and ran forward to keep his balance. As quickly as he arrived, he was gone. Geri and I looked at one another and broke out into peals of laughter. It wasn't funny per se, but once you get going….

My phone buzzed. We screamed, laughed, and doubled over. Once we found our bearings, I checked to see what had set it off. It was a text from David. "Kinda late, no?"

"Maybe not for what he has in mind," Geri said with a wink.

"It says, nice to see you today. Sorry there was a guy under your house…not something I usually say to women. He's funny, no?"

"He's got charm. What are you gonna say back?"

I started typing and speaking at the same time. "It was a pleasant surprise to see you, too! Thanks for helping with Trash Panda Terry. Sorry my neighbor was being weird."

"Ooh, good call bringing in Mary Elizabeth."

I quickly typed and said, "You're never going to believe it, but he came back! He said he found what he was looking for."

"Oh, little bit of…." She stopped speaking. Theodore had emerged from the hallway, floating toward us, his little weighted disc skipping along the ground as it approached.

I stood and backed away from the balloon. It passed me and hovered near my bookshelf. Geri stood and crossed to me. We held each other in silence, staring at a mylar bear in a suit, and were positively horrified at the absurdity.

"Maybe I should ask David to…."

A heavy bookend from the shelf back flipped off the ledge and landed on the balloon's weighted disc with a crack. That was enough to get Geri and me sprinting toward my bedroom. As we did, the balloon turned and followed.

We got into the room and slammed the door behind us. From under it, the shadow of the balloon darkened the entry as it reached us. The broken weight slid under the door like a tentacle searching for prey. We backed away. I turned my wild eyes on Geri. "What the fuck?!"

SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!

Every window in my house went down in quick succession. I jumped. Snapping around in time to witness my window lock itself. I tried to speak, but my head was dizzy, and the words were lost in the fog. Disconnected, as if my brain had taken a break and was floating through the ether somewhere more fun.

My phone buzzed again. David. "I'm around to help if Geri isn't. She still with you?"

My fingers flew across the screen. "Something weird is…" An invisible hand swatted my arm and made my phone tumble to the floor. It landed screen-first and shattered. My arm stung like a hornet had zeroed in on me. A red welt rose in the outline of a hand.

"It touched me. Holy shit, it touched me," I said, tears streaming from my eyes. I fell to the ground, brought my knees to my chest, and sobbed. Geri joined me, rubbing my back and telling me we were gonna be okay. I didn't believe her.

The lights in the room started flickering in short bursts. Rapidly at first, slowed again before ramping right up. The TV in the living room turned on, and the volume went all the way up. Radios flipped on, filling the space with noise. Geri ran over and unplugged anything that was squawking.

As the house hit a fever pitch of noise, it all shut off. Quiet rushed in and settled around us. Shrouded in darkness, I slowly made my way to the nightstand and tried the lamp. Nothing. The power was out out.

I scrambled back over to Geri. My hands were shaking like a purse dog. We huddled together on the floor and didn't speak a word. I was afraid that if I spoke, it'd let whatever was living inside these walls find us. Hell, it already knew we were in here - the goddamn balloon had corralled us into this spot.

After a beat, Geri leaned close to my ear and whispered, "I'm going to call the cops."

"And tell them what? Ghosts have trapped us in the house? They'll probably ship us to an asylum and stare at us like bugs under glass."

"I don't know what else to do," she said, her words sharper than intended. I didn't blame her. Our nerves were ground beef raw. Enterprising butchers could sell them.

"Is someone else in here?"

"Slide my phone under the crack. Might get a glimpse down the hall."

I took her phone and army-crawled to the door. Each inch closer made my body want to shut down. Sweat instantly soaked the back of my shirt. My heartbeat was so loud, it sounded like it was lodged behind my ears. I was trembling like a fawn, but I kept moving.

I didn't need to get right next to the door to know Theodore was still haunting the other side of it. The weight disc was still on our side of the divide. As I approached, it flopped onto its cracked side. I swallowed bile and inched as close to the door as I was comfortable being, extended my arm, and slid the phone under the crack.

Using deft fingers forged in the smartphone era, I propped it up on its thin edge and turned on the camera app. The screen changed, and the entire hallway down to the front door was visible. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

At first.

Subtly, the front door handle slowly twisted. Back and forth, testing the lock. There was a gentle thump at the door, like someone had tried to shoulder it open, but the door held firm. I didn't remember locking it, but I also hadn't slammed all my windows shut or turned on all my electronics. Ironically, the rules were out the closed windows.

"What's going on?" Geri whispered.

"There's something at the front door."

"A ghost, or is Terry back?"

As she asked, a featureless dark figure passed by my front window. I gasped and yanked my hand back into the safety of the room. Geri shuffled over to me. "What?"

"There's someone on the porch."

"Who?" she said, grabbing her phone back from under the crack. She slammed her knuckles into the door as she did, ripping open a cut and forcing her phone to drop face-first on the plastic disc.

Geri sucked on the wound, the blood staining her white teeth, and shook her hand to help relieve the pain. As she grabbed her phone with her free hand, a notification lit up her screen. In that small amount of light, her eyes caught something in the disc's crack.

"Liv, there's something inside this weight."

What followed wasn't me inquiring about her discovery, but something heavy tapping on my office window. While there were two doors and a hallway between us, in the muted house, these taps might as well have been a wrecking ball crashing into a car. After three small taps, the fourth had some umph. The glass cracked. But it didn't shatter and fall away. Whoever was out there was taking care not to make too much noise.

That couldn't be a ghost.

The sharp piercing from the stuck window lock sliding open squeaked from the office, but roared through the quiet house. Geri and I kicked away from the door to opposite sides of the room. The figure jimmied open the window, slowly so as not to alert anyone, and climbed through.

There were entirely too many uninvited guests in or near my house for my sanity to hold.

I glanced over to Geri, who was holding her screen up to the weight and picking at the cracked plastic with her fingers. She got hold of a large center chunk and snapped it away. It echoed in the room, but what it exposed was worth it.

Geri held it up and gasped. She got my attention and slid it along the floor. It hit my shoe, and I plucked it from the ground and held it close to my eyes. Geri held up her phone to give me enough light to understand her gasp.

A tracker. A small black square with a blinking, soft blue light. No bigger than a postage stamp. It was warm to the touch. It was active. I snapped it in half. The blue light faded.

The figure must've made their way through the window without breaking any more glass, because their footfalls squeaking on the floor in the office came as a genuine shock. Two steps. The twisting of the door handle. The creaking of the hinges. The figure had broken containment and was in the wider house. Two inches of cheap, hardboard door separated us from a ghost and an invader.

"Theodore," a familiar voice whispered. "Thanks for showing me the way."

"David," I said loudly. I didn't mean to, but my melting brain just blurted it out. All movement in the house stilled.

"Hey. Are you okay? Your last text never sent, and I was worried that guy returned."

"H-how did you get into my house?"

"The front door was open. I tried calling you from the porch. Did you not hear me?"

The knot in my chest was something sailors dream about. My breathing quickened, and I did my best to slow it down. I took a beat, breathed out, and whispered, "You're lying."

"What?"

"You're lying," I said louder. "I heard you break in."

He laughed. It wasn't a funny guffaw. It was the self-assured chortle of someone intending to do something bad with the advanced knowledge they'd get away with it. "Is Geri in there with you?"

She shuffled toward me. She tried to do it silently, but her shoe hit the door. That was enough to snap David into action. Before I blinked, he violently shoved the door open, wielding it like a weapon. It worked. The handle hit Geri in the temple. She collapsed instantly. The force knocked her out cold.

I screamed and kicked away from the door. David pushed Theodore away, his body bobbing down the hall, out of sight. The moonlight broke through the overcast clouds and glinted off the knife David clutched.

"Should've asked Trash Panda Terry to stay, huh?"

I stood and turned toward my bathroom, but he snapped out his free hand and caught my leg in his iron grip. I stumbled to the ground, landing hard on my chest and having all the wind rush out of my lungs. Rolling onto my back, I desperately tried to scoot myself along as I panicked and sucked in for air.

The edges of my eyes dimmed as David kneeled between my legs. The tip of the blade pressed against my stomach. It was cold to the touch. So was David. I swung my fist at him, but he laughed and effortlessly swatted it away. I wanted to scream - my throat ached to unleash hell - but until I caught my breath, I couldn't light the fuse.

David pinned my arms behind my head and loomed over me. "It's always quick and painless," he hissed. "I promise."

The air finally filled my lungs, and the ignition was lit. I screamed, but he stuffed his hand over my mouth. I swung my arms, hitting him in the face and shoulders, but he was so strong that I couldn't make a dent. He raised the knife, and my eyes narrowed to the gleaming point.

"You can struggle. I like a little fight."

Fat, salty tears rolled down my cheeks. I silently prayed to anyone who was listening. I tensed my body, hoping the struggle would give me time to flee. I searched for something, anything, to bash into his fucking skull. But there was nothing.

He grinned. A smile I once thought was charming now only displayed cruelty. "You were ready to jump my bones. This is the natural progression of things."

I squirmed, but he leaned his body weight on me and pinned me to the floor. My stomach dropped. This is it. This is how it ends.

Until Theodore floated back into the room.

With David's attention on unbuttoning his pants, he didn't hear the crinkling mylar balloon as it settled directly behind him. He didn't notice the string elevate from the ground and loop around his neck. His pants lowered, he stared at me and grinned. "It won't be so bad."

I bit down on his fingers, his diseased blood pooling into my mouth. He yanked his hand back and raised, knocking into Theodore as he did. I spat out the copper-tasting blood and, with vengeance pumping through my body, I yelled, "Neither will this."

The string tightened across his windpipe. His eyes bulged, and his hands went to his throat. His fingers struggled for purchase on the string, but he couldn't find any. He flung himself back, struggling with the balloon but unable to free himself.

I stood on rubbery legs and ran past them into the hallway. He shot out a foot and caught me, sending me tumbling to the ground face-first. My nose hit the wood and exploded. Blood gushed from the wound, and the pain radiated across my entire skull, but I kept moving toward the front door.

I shouldered it open and came stumbling out. Red and blue lights swirled outside, which I first attributed to head trauma. But then my eyes found the hunched outline of Mary Elizabeth standing in my driveway, directing the police to hurry.

I lurched forward, missing the top step but waving my arms enough to stay upright as my bare foot found the cool soil. The police streamed into my driveway, shouting questions at me. I just pointed and said, "He's inside." With guns drawn, they burst into the house.

Mary Elizabeth shuffled over to me, and I clung to her leg. I wept. She wrapped her shawl around my shoulders and comforted me. My mind was elsewhere, but I caught her saying that if it hadn't been for all the noise, she wouldn't have come outside and seen David walking around my house. She wouldn't have called the police.

"Theodore," I said between sobs before collapsing.

My memory is fuzzy after that. In reading the reports, the cops burst into the house and found David alive but barely. The string wrapped around his neck. He was shackled to a gurney and taken to the hospital. The detective assigned to the case told me he'd been active in a few towns in the area, same MO - trackers hidden in balloons he'd give away. He's awaiting charges.

Geri woke up and had the worst headache imaginable, but stayed by my side the entire time. When I told her the truth - not the truth I told the police, but the actual truth - she cried and told me I was so lucky to have stumbled into the nicest poltergeist in human history.

I was lucky. Everything it'd done - knocking the bookend off the shelf, turning on the TV and radios at full blast, locking the windows and doors, floating the balloon away from the front window - it had done to keep me safe. Someone beyond the veil was keeping an eye on me. Bless them.

In the scuffle, somebody had popped Theodore. His deflated remains were still outside my bedroom door when I returned. I've saved them and keep them hidden away.

The first time I reentered the house, I nearly had a panic attack. I hated that my sanctuary was tainted. It was dark and stuffy, and the evil I'd encountered lingered on the walls and in the air.

I plopped onto the couch, put my head in my hands, and sobbed. I was at my lowest. How would I ever move past this? How would I ever find normalcy again? One phrase kept pinging around my brain: You're hopeless.

But someone else had other ideas.

All the windows in my house shot open. Warm sunlight flooded the room. A breeze kicked up, cycling fresh air into the house. The aroma of the blooming trees and flowers wafted in and swirled around me. I pulled my head from my hands and broke into a big smile. The tears that fell now were joyous ones. With a hushed voice, I whispered, "Thank you."

The floorboards creaked and soft footsteps padded down the hall, opening windows and flooding my place with sunlight, and optimism and love. Hell, even if they raise the rent ten thousand bucks, I'm never leaving this place.

"I'm telling you, my new place is super haunted."

Geri, my reluctant farmer's market buddy, took a sip of her iced coffee and tipped her oval-lensed sunglasses down to give me 'the look.' Years of friendship had forged the stare—our non-verbal way of calling bullshit on each other in a friendly, non-confrontational way. Last week, when Geri was certain her hot neighbor was stealing her packages to break the ice, I gave her the same stare.

Today was my turn.

"I swear," I said with a laugh. "It's weird."

"You always say you're in a haunted house. Like, every place you've ever stayed for over two days. Remember when you said that AirB&B in Phoenix was haunted and it turned out only to be raccoons in the attic?"

"Valid," I said, stopping at a cheesemonger to size up some Brie. "Maybe I am primed for it, but I'm telling you, this new place is haunted. Like, Poltergeist-level haunted."

"Clowns under the bed and skeletons in the pool? That's what you're saying?"

I put down the Brie, picked up a hunk of Camembert, and shrugged. "Well, not that dramatic…."

Geri pounced. "So it's your typical clowns in bed and skeletons in the closet," she deadpanned. "Assuming, of course, Late Night Luke has stopped by," she added, lowering her sunglasses and giving me a wink.

"Luke and I have finally fully separated. He has not been near the bed nor the closet."

"And yet the rumors persist," she said, nodding at the elephant ear stand. "Want one? My treat?"

Cinnamon and sugar on a dinner plate-sized hunk of fried dough sounded amazing, but I let my better angels win out. "I'm here to help eat clean. New place, new me."

"Your loss," she said, walking over and placing an order for one. The fried dough and cinnamon sugar hung around me like a delicious storm cloud. I kicked myself for letting my stupid brain demand that I make better choices.

Wanting to move the conversation away from delicious carnival food, I shifted back to the house. "So, while I may not have trees assaulting me or anything, I swear there's something up with this new place."

"How so?"

"Doors open by themselves. Windows open and shut all the time. Floorboards creak. My things get moved around. All the classics."

The elephant-ear man handed Geri her prize. She thanked him and held it up to her head for comparison. It was larger. She rolled it and took a bite, a smear of cinnamon sugar butter dripping onto her shirt. "Shit," she said, wiping it off.

"Karma," I joked. "Tell me how horrible it tastes."

"It's so gross," she said, playing along. "Tastes like dirt, cigarette butts, and poor decisions. A real late-night Luke kinda snack."

I cackled. "Then I will for sure pass."

"That's what you always say and then," she sang, finishing with a note holding crescendo of, "The… Dirt…bag…re…turns!"

A passerby clapped, and Geri bowed. I shook my head. "Not anymore. It's clean eating and clean dating. No elephant ears. No Lukes."

"Proud of you, seriously," she said, holding up the elephant ear. "I have the willpower of a five-year-old. It's hard to change. Same goes for ditching Luke. You deserve better."

"Thanks."

"No problem," she said, taking another bite. "That said, and not to rain on your haunted house parade, but all that ghost activity sounds like normal things. The house is old, and you're forgetful. Big leap to ghosts, Livvy."

"I know, I know, but I swear. The vibe is off. I even smudged the house with sage, but the aura is still weird."

"Probably because your place now reeks like sage," she said, stopping at the last stall. "Well, we've reached the end of the market. What's your clean livin' haul so far?"

I examined the contents of my bag and frowned. "Five carrots, a head of lettuce, and some goat cheese."

"Jesus, that's it? We've been here for an hour."

"I've gotta be less choosy."

"With veggies and…."

"Ah," I said, cutting her off before the joke. "No. Just, no."

"You wanna be less choosy? Start by picking up some of these grapes, huh? Taste like cotton candy," the man at the stall behind us said in a voice so gravely it'd grade railroad tracks. "Or some cherries. Got some hummus, too. I'll let it go for less so I don't have to haul it back."

"Cherries sound good," I said, reaching for my wallet.

"Also, your floorboards are creaking because of a loose subfloor. That or the weather changing. Contraction and expansion, things of that nature. Brother is a carpenter, if you need someone to fix them."

"Um, thanks, but I'm renting. I will take the cherries, though."

"Lemme wrap 'em up for you."

Geri leaned in close, imitating the man's voice. "Lemme see your floorboards, honey. I got somethin' that'll fix 'em."

We both started giggling when a bear-shaped shadow fell across us. We turned and were greeted by a young man holding a large Mylar balloon of a besuited bear holding a sign that read "Bear-y Nice!" The bear was smiling with glowing apple cheeks.

The man himself was also "Bear-y nice." Tall and narrow, he had a baby face with a smile that showed off the smallest dimples in his cheeks. His eyes were the palest blue I'd ever seen outside a picture of the surface of Neptune.

"Sorry if the balloon frightened you. Realized the shadow probably looked insane after I walked up."

"Did you need to see the cherries or….?"

"Oh, no. Thanks. I'm actually a vendor here. I have to go to another event and haven't had any luck selling this guy. Would you like it?"

My eyes flicked to Geri and back to him. "Ugh, I don't really need a balloon at the moment."

"Oh, no, no," he said, laughing. "I want to give it to you. As a gift. Didn't think a pretty woman like you would mind taking Teddy home with you."

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. "Well, if he needs a place to stay, I may have a spare room he can use."

The man laughed. "Thank you. I'm David, by the way. He's Theodore."

I took his outstretched hand and shook it. "I'm Liv, this is Geri."

"Theodore is super formal, no?"

"Look at his suit! He's a classy guy. Here, let me tie a weight to this," he said, pulling a flat white plastic circle from his pocket and knotting the string to it. He handed it to me, and it was heavier than I had imagined.

"Wow, some heft," I said, internally rolling my eyes at my dumb comment.

"So he won't go anywhere. I'd love to stay and chat, but I have about fifteen ten-year-olds waiting for me at the park," he said, catching himself. "For a party, just for the record."

I chuckled. "I assumed."

"Busy, the balloon racket?" Geri pried.

"Growing, or I guess, inflating might be a better word for it." I laughed and gave balloon boy a second glance. Not too shabby. "I'm getting into kids' birthday parties now," David said. "Kids love balloons. Have meetings all day, actually. But I'm around the market most weekends. Just look for the guy with the balloons."

"How do you know I'm not friendly with several balloon guys?"

"I'm willing to take the risk," he said before bidding us goodbye and taking off.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Geri elbowed my ribs. "Dude, what the heck? How did you not get any contact information?"

"He wasn't hitting on me," I said, the truth ricocheting off Geri's shocked face and hitting my own. "Oh my God, he was. How am I this oblivious?"

"Maybe the farmer's market is haunted, too?"

I rolled my eyes at her, and she laughed. "Well, at least we now have two reasons to come here next weekend, right?"

"Right."

"You still down for dinner tonight? Stick around afterward, and we'll wait for something spooky to happen."

"Tell you what, if something weird happens, I'll buy the next round of farmer's market rabbit food."

"Deal."

"Girls," the gravelly voiced seller said, "if you're not buying anything else, do you mind scooting aside and movin' that balloon? People come to ogle my cherries, not yours, huh? 'Perciate it."

Later, when I got home, I placed the Theodore in my living room window. Maybe any potential robbers would think twice if they knew I had a dapper bear guarding my place. Granted, there wasn't much to my place - a mostly empty shotgun-style house with two bedrooms, one bath, and a galley kitchen - but it was what I needed. I worked from home, and this afforded me a designated workspace separate from my home area. Once I was off the clock, the office stayed dark.

The neighborhood was a little chaotic, but the place was evolving, and I had friendly neighbors. We kept watch on one another. I was fine keeping my screen door open during the day, despite the area’s grim reputation.

There was a charm to the neighborhood. It just required you to look with the right kinda eyes. Was that belief based more on vibes than anything tangible? Of course. But my glass was always half-full, and I trusted that in a year this would be the hot place. I was riding on top of a wave that had yet to break.

Geri came over at around four, and we popped a bottle of wine and gossiped about nonsense as I cooked dinner. Naturally, the conversation switched to the ghostly encounters I'd had here. Geri, as before, remained resolute that it was bunk.

"What has been the scariest thing that's happened so far?"

"Hmm," I said, slicing carrots. "Windows opening and closing by themselves. When one suddenly slams, yeesh. I've heard footsteps in the hall and the attic, too."

"Pretty tame by haunting standards."

"Oh, and I swear I've heard mumbling in the crawlspace. Scared the shit out of me so bad, I worked in the library instead."

"Okay, the crawlspace thing is weird. Why didn't you lead with that? The others, though, all have explanations. This place is older, and the windows sometimes can't stay up. Gravels McGee at the market told us why floorboards creak. The attic is probably rats."

"Don't say that. I don't want to think rats are living with me."

"You'd rather it be ghosts?"

"Ghosts don't poop everywhere and carry diseases."

SLAM!

We both nearly reached orbit. A window in the back of the house had perfect timing. We both headed back there, me still clutching the knife and Geri her wine glass. When I got to the bedroom, I found my bedroom window closed tight.

I pointed the knife at my window. "Odd timing, no?"

She nodded. "Okay, that's weird. I'll grant you that."

"Nobody was back here. How did that happen?"

"Strong wind?"

I gave her the look.

Down the hallway, something clacked down on the hardwood as it moved closer to the bedroom. We both popped our heads out of the doorframe and captured Theodore the bear floating toward us. His unmoving, grinning face inspired a relentless anxiety in me that no person should feel from a novelty balloon.

It hovered at the end of the hallway, bobbing in an unseen wind. Occasionally, the helium and breeze would lift the weight, causing the hard plastic disc to spin and shake until it clacked back against the ground. In the quiet house, the tapping was as loud as a glacier cracking up.

"It's following us," I whispered.

"Maybe it's just a really strong cross breeze?"

"Not everything is the wind, Geri."

"Not everything is ghosts, Liv."

Theodore drifted forward, the weighted disc dragging across the wood. It'd move a few inches, stop, and hover before continuing its creeping advance toward the back of the house. We both inched back. I pointed the knife at Theodore's head. "Toldja! Poltergeist shit!"

SLAM! My front door crashed shut. Nothing had pushed it closed. No person or breeze. It did it all by itself. The door hit the frame so hard that I was afraid it had damaged it.

The boom made us both yelp and scramble into the bedroom. I let the bedroom door copy its front-of-house brethren and slammed it behind us. I leaned against it, catching my breath. "There was nothing there to slam that door. No breeze either," I said, my voice softening. "It's freakin' ghosts, Geri."

She opened her mouth to speak, but shut it before the first word tumbled out of her throat. From the crawlspace, something scraped along the underside of the floor. I didn't want to believe it - and did my damnedest to pretend I hadn't. But when there was another loud kick, it forced our hand.

Geri leaned close to me and whispered, "Is someone under there?"

"If someone is under the house," I said, my voice rising. "I have a knife and knowledge of all major arteries in the human body."

Nothing else stirred. After a minute of held breaths, we released them. Geri nodded. "Look, all this is weird, but to play devil's advocate here, these are also all…."

A low moan came up through the floorboards.

That was enough to remove all doubt. I ripped open the door so hard, I was afraid I'd hulk it off the hinges. Theodore had made it to my bedroom and was blocking our way out. I screamed, flung my hand against the mylar obstacle, sending it bouncing down the rest of the hall, the weight skidding along the floor as it tumbled away.

We bolted out the front door, sprawling into the front yard, taking refuge on the street-facing side of the large oak in my yard. The sun's rays were hot on our necks, and the humidity was stifling, but it was better than being entombed in a haunted house.

Geri and I were intertwined behind the tree. We caught our breath and strategized what to do next. We both spoke at each other, a mile a minute, but in opposite directions. I wanted to leave. She wanted to get a look under the house.

"What? Why?"

"Video of a ghost? That's how you go viral."

"Who gives a shit about that!"

"Might help solve this problem if someone local reaches out. Like, I dunno, a Ghostbuster or a priest or something?"

Before a counter-attack was mounted, Geri bolted. Not wanting to leave my friend to fend for herself, I reluctantly followed behind. As I rounded the house, I spotted Geri standing outside the crawl space. The small wooden-and-wire frame was removed and lay against a nearby bush.

"This isn't the work of a ghost," Geri said, hitting record on her phone and kneeling near the opening. I wanted her to be safe, but once Geri gets something in her mind, she's harder to shake than a boomer's belief in the American dream. She extended her phone out, her hand stopping just short of being under the house, and moved it around.

"If you're down here, just know that…ah!" she yelped, yanking back her hand and kicking away from the opening.

"What?"

"There's a dude under there," she said, pulling up the freshly recorded video. Sure enough, under where had been standing, we just make out the well-worn soles of old shoes.

"We gotta call the…."

"Liv?"

Geri and I turned toward the voice. Emerging from the other side of the tree, with the late afternoon sun's rays illuminating him as if the Lord himself had delivered him, was balloon boy David. He smiled when we locked eyes, but it was quickly replaced with a concerned furrow when he saw us huddled near the crawlspace.

"You guys okay?"

"David, wha- how are you here?"

"I was party planning with a family down the street, and we just finished up. What are the odds?" He said before shifting his gaze to Geri. "Why are you looking under the house?"

"There's a dude down there!"

"Alive?" he mouthed.

"He was moaning, so yes," I said.

"I don't want to know why he was moaning," David joked. "Want me to yell at him to get out?"

"Sure."

He walked over, kneeled, and with a voice deeper than I imagined he was capable of, yelled, "Hey! You need to get the hell out right now! You hear me?"

The man shuffled and said something back, but with his mush-mouth style and being covered by a house, it was impossible to hear what he was saying. David yelled again, a little louder and with a little more bass. Geri sauntered up next to me, nodded at David, and smiled. Blood rushed to my cheeks.

"Is Trash Panda Terry under there?" came a shaky voice from next door. I rounded the house to find my ancient neighbor, Mary Elizabeth, standing in her night robe at the edge of my yard.

"Is who…what…?"

She marched over with the same speed as Theodore, her small footsteps kicking up dirt clouds as she shuffled. "Is that him? Guy under the house?"

"There's a guy, but I don't know if he's…what did you call him?"

"Trash Panda Terry," she said, as if I was crazy for not knowing that this random man had a name like a second-rate Saturday morning cartoon character. "My grandkids named him that after they caught him pawing through our trash cans last year. It's kinda stuck."

"Oh," I said.

My shock at the unfortunate name must've jarred some response from Mary Elizabeth. "Trash Panda Terry is better than what people around here used to call him."

"What did…."

"They called him that effin' bum Terry."

I reluctantly nodded in agreement. "Okay, Trash Panda Terry is nicer."

"He's harmless, mostly, but he's touched in the head. I'll…." She whisked past me and turned the corner of the house. She tapped David on the shoulder and told him to move. If David was confused before, the addition of a bathrobe-clad old lady only added to the madness.

David leaned into me and whispered, "Some neighborhood you live in. Colorful characters."

I smiled, my cheeks flushing red. "Wait until you meet Midnight Mel, the night stalker."

"Wait, really?"

Before I responded, Mary Elizabeth stomped her foot. "Terry! Terry! This is Mary Elizabeth! What are you doing down there?"

"Mary?" the voice said, a flicker of recognition in the tone.

"Mary Elizabeth, yes. You have got to get out from under this poor girl's house."

"I thought I left something down here," he said, twisting his body around so he'd face the opening.

"Well, you haven't. Now, come on, get. You're scaring these three young kids."

David's face screwed up in confusion before he quickly added, "I'm not scared."

"If you don't want to spend the night in jail, get movin'. Shelter is two streets over."

"Sorry, Mary," he said, inch-worming his body back toward the light. "I must've left it somewhere else."

"You've given this man quite a fright," she reiterated. Geri and I smiled and suppressed giggles. David, confused, just shook his head. "Come on now."

After waiting an extraordinary amount of time, Trash Panda Terry crawled out. Covered in dirt and old spiderwebs, he glanced up at Mary and grinned. Half his teeth had "gone fishin'," but his demeanor was innocent. "Sorry," he said, standing and brushing himself off. "I thought I left something under there."

"You probably left it at the shelter," Mary Elizabeth said, her tone softening. "Go on back there and leave these people alone, okay?"

"Sorry," he mumbled. He put his head down, wandered down the street, and started hoofin' it to points unknown.

Mary Elizabeth turned to us. "Sorry he spooked you. He looks worse than he is. Guessing the landlord didn't tell you about that?" I shook my head. Mary Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. "Worthless, greedy SOB. Never does right by his tenants."

Ignoring Mary's warning of future strife with my landlord, a larger question was gnawing at me. "What would Terry leave under my house?"

"His marbles," Mary said. "He shouldn't come back tonight, but if he does, call the police. They'll bring him in."

David's phone alarm went off. "Hell, I've gotta go. Another meeting a few streets over. It was nice seeing you again, though under the weirdest possible circumstances imaginable."

With the subtlety of a rock to the face, Geri elbowed me and nodded at her phone. I got the message. "Maybe we should exchange numbers, in case Terry comes back and I need someone as scared as I was to help me."

Mary Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Just call the police."

He chuckled. "She's right, but we should anyway. Maybe you'll know someone else in this neighborhood looking for balloons for their kid's birthday party. Maybe show them Theodore to wow them all. What kid wouldn't want a bear dressed like a butler?"

"Dress for the job you want," I said, taking his phone and putting in my number.

"Thanks. Good to see you all. Mary Elizabeth, you have a good one."

"Uh-huh," she said.

David took a few steps, pointed at Mary, twirled his finger near his temple, and then headed up the road for his car. As soon as he was out of earshot, Mary Elizabeth turned to Geri and me. "What was that nonsense about balloons?"

"Oh, he sells balloons," Geri said.

"For kids’ parties," I added.

Mary laughed. "Kids? In this neighborhood? Lemme ask you, have you ever seen any kids on the streets around here?"

Now that she mentioned it, I couldn't recall a time when a gang of rag-a-muffins was hanging out around here. That didn't mean there weren’t any kids nearby, though. "No, but there has to be."

"Not many. My grandkids always complain that there isn't anyone their age around here to hang out with. Bored with Grammy, the little lovely twerps."

"Maybe it's a newer family that moved in? I've noticed a lot of new people lately."

"I keep an eye on the neighborhood like a hawk, and I haven't noticed," she said, cleaning her filthy glasses. Hard to imagine how she saw anything.

"I don't think he was lying," Geri said.

She shrugged. "Maybe, but I swear he passed by this house a few times before he came over."

"He was probably just nervous," Geri said. "He likes Liv and is probably afraid to come over and talk to her."

"Geri," I said, shocked.

She laughed. "It's true."

"Maybe or maybe not," Mary Elizabeth said. "Men lie. That's been my experience."

"If I'm in trouble, I'll holler for you," I said. "And thanks for helping with Trash Panda Terry. That was scary."

"Fear keeps you sharp, but I'm glad I can help." She turned to leave, but I just had to ask about the haunting stuff. Her wrinkles suggested she'd lived in this area since before they paved the streets. If anyone would know about it, she might.

"Mary, before you go, have…well…have you ever heard about this house being haunted?"

She paused, her face twitching, before giving me a rather pedestrian "Yes." I waited for her to elaborate, but she just nodded at us and began her long, shuffling stroll back to her place. She cut a path in my dirt of a front lawn like a snail leaves a trail in its wake.

Geri snickered, and I called out, "Mary, what kind of stuff happens here?"

The old woman paused and turned. "Things way spookier than a man under your house," she said, before continuing her trek home. I wanted to follow up, but I wasn't so sure Mary Elizabeth would yield any new insights. I let her go on her way, satisfied that another person had confirmed what I'd been saying.

I turned to Geri and shook my head, "I told you I wasn't crazy. This place is haunted."

"Wanna stay over at my apartment until you find a better situation?"

"There isn't a better situation. Maybe I can, I dunno, reason with the ghost? Tell them we can share the space or something."

"How?"

"There's gotta be a YouTube video on it. Let's go have a glass of wine, get informed, and talk to ghosts."

Geri downed the wine she still had clutched in her hands and smiled. "Just the Saturday night I envisioned for myself."

Hours of YouTube videos and many glasses of wine later, we were sitting around, laughing at old stories. Theodore had remained in the back of the house for the rest of the evening. Trash Panda Terry never came back around. The ghosts and I were at some sort of unspoken détente. Considering how it started, this evening had gone well.

"I think Ugly Hair Jeff at work is hitting on me," I said.

"Holy shit," Geri said.

"Is it that hard to believe?"

"No, look what I saw in the background of that video I took earlier," she said, handing over her phone. "Behind Trash whatever's shoes. I might owe you an apology, girl, because doesn't that kinda look like…."

A face. For only a few frames, there was something in the darkness. I zoomed in as close as the camera would allow and found two vacant, ethereal eyeholes staring out at me. A chill waltzed up my spine, spinning on each vertebra and sending the cold to my entire body. There it was. The phantom window closer. The floor squeaker. The attic runner.

"Holy…."

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

We both yelped, and I dropped Geri's phone. I tossed it over to her, and she joined me on the couch. Our eyes were trained on the front door. A figure moved by the window, and I clutched my armrest.

"I found it! I found it!" It was Trash Panda Terry, back for an unexpected and unwanted return engagement. "It was at the shelter!"

Mary Elizabeth's words coming back to us, and the recognition of our local homeless guy, brought our personal DEFCON levels down a notch. "Terry! Go away! It's too late!"

"Go to the shelter!" Geri added.

"Okay! Can you tell the lady who lives under your house that I found what I was looking for? She's been worried about me!"

Geri shot me a glance and nodded at her phone. "This is like Poltergeist," she whispered.

"I will, Terry. Go now, okay?"

"Thank you!" He walked off the porch, tripped on the last step, and ran forward to keep his balance. As quickly as he arrived, he was gone. Geri and I looked at one another and broke out into peals of laughter. It wasn't funny per se, but once you get going….

My phone buzzed. We screamed, laughed, and doubled over. Once we found our bearings, I checked to see what had set it off. It was a text from David. "Kinda late, no?"

"Maybe not for what he has in mind," Geri said with a wink.

"It says, nice to see you today. Sorry there was a guy under your house…not something I usually say to women. He's funny, no?"

"He's got charm. What are you gonna say back?"

I started typing and speaking at the same time. "It was a pleasant surprise to see you, too! Thanks for helping with Trash Panda Terry. Sorry my neighbor was being weird."

"Ooh, good call bringing in Mary Elizabeth."

I quickly typed and said, "You're never going to believe it, but he came back! He said he found what he was looking for."

"Oh, little bit of…." She stopped speaking. Theodore had emerged from the hallway, floating toward us, his little weighted disc skipping along the ground as it approached.

I stood and backed away from the balloon. It passed me and hovered near my bookshelf. Geri stood and crossed to me. We held each other in silence, staring at a mylar bear in a suit, and were positively horrified at the absurdity.

"Maybe I should ask David to…."

A heavy bookend from the shelf back flipped off the ledge and landed on the balloon's weighted disc with a crack. That was enough to get Geri and me sprinting toward my bedroom. As we did, the balloon turned and followed.

We got into the room and slammed the door behind us. From under it, the shadow of the balloon darkened the entry as it reached us. The broken weight slid under the door like a tentacle searching for prey. We backed away. I turned my wild eyes on Geri. "What the fuck?!"

SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!

Every window in my house went down in quick succession. I jumped. Snapping around in time to witness my window lock itself. I tried to speak, but my head was dizzy, and the words were lost in the fog. Disconnected, as if my brain had taken a break and was floating through the ether somewhere more fun.

My phone buzzed again. David. "I'm around to help if Geri isn't. She still with you?"

My fingers flew across the screen. "Something weird is…" An invisible hand swatted my arm and made my phone tumble to the floor. It landed screen-first and shattered. My arm stung like a hornet had zeroed in on me. A red welt rose in the outline of a hand.

"It touched me. Holy shit, it touched me," I said, tears streaming from my eyes. I fell to the ground, brought my knees to my chest, and sobbed. Geri joined me, rubbing my back and telling me we were gonna be okay. I didn't believe her.

The lights in the room started flickering in short bursts. Rapidly at first, slowed again before ramping right up. The TV in the living room turned on, and the volume went all the way up. Radios flipped on, filling the space with noise. Geri ran over and unplugged anything that was squawking.

As the house hit a fever pitch of noise, it all shut off. Quiet rushed in and settled around us. Shrouded in darkness, I slowly made my way to the nightstand and tried the lamp. Nothing. The power was out out.

I scrambled back over to Geri. My hands were shaking like a purse dog. We huddled together on the floor and didn't speak a word. I was afraid that if I spoke, it'd let whatever was living inside these walls find us. Hell, it already knew we were in here - the goddamn balloon had corralled us into this spot.

After a beat, Geri leaned close to my ear and whispered, "I'm going to call the cops."

"And tell them what? Ghosts have trapped us in the house? They'll probably ship us to an asylum and stare at us like bugs under glass."

"I don't know what else to do," she said, her words sharper than intended. I didn't blame her. Our nerves were ground beef raw. Enterprising butchers could sell them.

"Is someone else in here?"

"Slide my phone under the crack. Might get a glimpse down the hall."

I took her phone and army-crawled to the door. Each inch closer made my body want to shut down. Sweat instantly soaked the back of my shirt. My heartbeat was so loud, it sounded like it was lodged behind my ears. I was trembling like a fawn, but I kept moving.

I didn't need to get right next to the door to know Theodore was still haunting the other side of it. The weight disc was still on our side of the divide. As I approached, it flopped onto its cracked side. I swallowed bile and inched as close to the door as I was comfortable being, extended my arm, and slid the phone under the crack.

Using deft fingers forged in the smartphone era, I propped it up on its thin edge and turned on the camera app. The screen changed, and the entire hallway down to the front door was visible. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

At first.

Subtly, the front door handle slowly twisted. Back and forth, testing the lock. There was a gentle thump at the door, like someone had tried to shoulder it open, but the door held firm. I didn't remember locking it, but I also hadn't slammed all my windows shut or turned on all my electronics. Ironically, the rules were out the closed windows.

"What's going on?" Geri whispered.

"There's something at the front door."

"A ghost, or is Terry back?"

As she asked, a featureless dark figure passed by my front window. I gasped and yanked my hand back into the safety of the room. Geri shuffled over to me. "What?"

"There's someone on the porch."

"Who?" she said, grabbing her phone back from under the crack. She slammed her knuckles into the door as she did, ripping open a cut and forcing her phone to drop face-first on the plastic disc.

Geri sucked on the wound, the blood staining her white teeth, and shook her hand to help relieve the pain. As she grabbed her phone with her free hand, a notification lit up her screen. In that small amount of light, her eyes caught something in the disc's crack.

"Liv, there's something inside this weight."

What followed wasn't me inquiring about her discovery, but something heavy tapping on my office window. While there were two doors and a hallway between us, in the muted house, these taps might as well have been a wrecking ball crashing into a car. After three small taps, the fourth had some umph. The glass cracked. But it didn't shatter and fall away. Whoever was out there was taking care not to make too much noise.

That couldn't be a ghost.

The sharp piercing from the stuck window lock sliding open squeaked from the office, but roared through the quiet house. Geri and I kicked away from the door to opposite sides of the room. The figure jimmied open the window, slowly so as not to alert anyone, and climbed through.

There were entirely too many uninvited guests in or near my house for my sanity to hold.

I glanced over to Geri, who was holding her screen up to the weight and picking at the cracked plastic with her fingers. She got hold of a large center chunk and snapped it away. It echoed in the room, but what it exposed was worth it.

Geri held it up and gasped. She got my attention and slid it along the floor. It hit my shoe, and I plucked it from the ground and held it close to my eyes. Geri held up her phone to give me enough light to understand her gasp.

A tracker. A small black square with a blinking, soft blue light. No bigger than a postage stamp. It was warm to the touch. It was active. I snapped it in half. The blue light faded.

The figure must've made their way through the window without breaking any more glass, because their footfalls squeaking on the floor in the office came as a genuine shock. Two steps. The twisting of the door handle. The creaking of the hinges. The figure had broken containment and was in the wider house. Two inches of cheap, hardboard door separated us from a ghost and an invader.

"Theodore," a familiar voice whispered. "Thanks for showing me the way."

"David," I said loudly. I didn't mean to, but my melting brain just blurted it out. All movement in the house stilled.

"Hey. Are you okay? Your last text never sent, and I was worried that guy returned."

"H-how did you get into my house?"

"The front door was open. I tried calling you from the porch. Did you not hear me?"

The knot in my chest was something sailors dream about. My breathing quickened, and I did my best to slow it down. I took a beat, breathed out, and whispered, "You're lying."

"What?"

"You're lying," I said louder. "I heard you break in."

He laughed. It wasn't a funny guffaw. It was the self-assured chortle of someone intending to do something bad with the advanced knowledge they'd get away with it. "Is Geri in there with you?"

She shuffled toward me. She tried to do it silently, but her shoe hit the door. That was enough to snap David into action. Before I blinked, he violently shoved the door open, wielding it like a weapon. It worked. The handle hit Geri in the temple. She collapsed instantly. The force knocked her out cold.

I screamed and kicked away from the door. David pushed Theodore away, his body bobbing down the hall, out of sight. The moonlight broke through the overcast clouds and glinted off the knife David clutched.

"Should've asked Trash Panda Terry to stay, huh?"

I stood and turned toward my bathroom, but he snapped out his free hand and caught my leg in his iron grip. I stumbled to the ground, landing hard on my chest and having all the wind rush out of my lungs. Rolling onto my back, I desperately tried to scoot myself along as I panicked and sucked in for air.

The edges of my eyes dimmed as David kneeled between my legs. The tip of the blade pressed against my stomach. It was cold to the touch. So was David. I swung my fist at him, but he laughed and effortlessly swatted it away. I wanted to scream - my throat ached to unleash hell - but until I caught my breath, I couldn't light the fuse.

David pinned my arms behind my head and loomed over me. "It's always quick and painless," he hissed. "I promise."

The air finally filled my lungs, and the ignition was lit. I screamed, but he stuffed his hand over my mouth. I swung my arms, hitting him in the face and shoulders, but he was so strong that I couldn't make a dent. He raised the knife, and my eyes narrowed to the gleaming point.

"You can struggle. I like a little fight."

Fat, salty tears rolled down my cheeks. I silently prayed to anyone who was listening. I tensed my body, hoping the struggle would give me time to flee. I searched for something, anything, to bash into his fucking skull. But there was nothing.

He grinned. A smile I once thought was charming now only displayed cruelty. "You were ready to jump my bones. This is the natural progression of things."

I squirmed, but he leaned his body weight on me and pinned me to the floor. My stomach dropped. This is it. This is how it ends.

Until Theodore floated back into the room.

With David's attention on unbuttoning his pants, he didn't hear the crinkling mylar balloon as it settled directly behind him. He didn't notice the string elevate from the ground and loop around his neck. His pants lowered, he stared at me and grinned. "It won't be so bad."

I bit down on his fingers, his diseased blood pooling into my mouth. He yanked his hand back and raised, knocking into Theodore as he did. I spat out the copper-tasting blood and, with vengeance pumping through my body, I yelled, "Neither will this."

The string tightened across his windpipe. His eyes bulged, and his hands went to his throat. His fingers struggled for purchase on the string, but he couldn't find any. He flung himself back, struggling with the balloon but unable to free himself.

I stood on rubbery legs and ran past them into the hallway. He shot out a foot and caught me, sending me tumbling to the ground face-first. My nose hit the wood and exploded. Blood gushed from the wound, and the pain radiated across my entire skull, but I kept moving toward the front door.

I shouldered it open and came stumbling out. Red and blue lights swirled outside, which I first attributed to head trauma. But then my eyes found the hunched outline of Mary Elizabeth standing in my driveway, directing the police to hurry.

I lurched forward, missing the top step but waving my arms enough to stay upright as my bare foot found the cool soil. The police streamed into my driveway, shouting questions at me. I just pointed and said, "He's inside." With guns drawn, they burst into the house.

Mary Elizabeth shuffled over to me, and I clung to her leg. I wept. She wrapped her shawl around my shoulders and comforted me. My mind was elsewhere, but I caught her saying that if it hadn't been for all the noise, she wouldn't have come outside and seen David walking around my house. She wouldn't have called the police.

"Theodore," I said between sobs before collapsing.

My memory is fuzzy after that. In reading the reports, the cops burst into the house and found David alive but barely. The string wrapped around his neck. He was shackled to a gurney and taken to the hospital. The detective assigned to the case told me he'd been active in a few towns in the area, same MO - trackers hidden in balloons he'd give away. He's awaiting charges.

Geri woke up and had the worst headache imaginable, but stayed by my side the entire time. When I told her the truth - not the truth I told the police, but the actual truth - she cried and told me I was so lucky to have stumbled into the nicest poltergeist in human history.

I was lucky. Everything it'd done - knocking the bookend off the shelf, turning on the TV and radios at full blast, locking the windows and doors, floating the balloon away from the front window - it had done to keep me safe. Someone beyond the veil was keeping an eye on me. Bless them.

In the scuffle, somebody had popped Theodore. His deflated remains were still outside my bedroom door when I returned. I've saved them and keep them hidden away.

The first time I reentered the house, I nearly had a panic attack. I hated that my sanctuary was tainted. It was dark and stuffy, and the evil I'd encountered lingered on the walls and in the air.

I plopped onto the couch, put my head in my hands, and sobbed. I was at my lowest. How would I ever move past this? How would I ever find normalcy again? One phrase kept pinging around my brain: You're hopeless.

But someone else had other ideas.

All the windows in my house shot open. Warm sunlight flooded the room. A breeze kicked up, cycling fresh air into the house. The aroma of the blooming trees and flowers wafted in and swirled around me. I pulled my head from my hands and broke into a big smile. The tears that fell now were joyous ones. With a hushed voice, I whispered, "Thank you."

The floorboards creaked and soft footsteps padded down the hall, opening windows and flooding my place with sunlight, and optimism and love. Hell, even if they raise the rent ten thousand bucks, I'm never leaving this place.