The next day I got up early, you know, like around ten, and went over to Calista’s. I was tired, but excited. It was gonna be simple. Go out to Gilbert. Put up some flyers and wait for a phone call. Then we’d bring home the bacon. Figuratively speaking, but I also hoped literally.

  I knocked on the door. “Hey, it’s me. Time to get ready for work.”

  “Who?” a gruff voice called back from inside.

  At first, I wasn’t sure who it was, but then the door opened. Calista was standing there in some loose jeans, a loose button-up, work boots, her hair tucked into a black trucker cap that said, “You should see my other hat,” some Unabomber shades, and a little fake mustache. It was perfect.

  “Hey, good lookin’,” she said with a deep, gravelly voice. Well, as deep and gravelly as she could get it.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “I think I have the wrong trailer. Is Calista in?”

  “You looking to date my daughter?” she asked, raising her voice.

  “No sir, just givin’ her a lift to work.”

  She spit at my feet and gave me a real hard look, right into the windows of my soul, and said, “Just how long you plan on keepin’ this up?”

  “As long as it takes,” I said back, matching the intensity in her gaze.

  “You two done flirting?” Orson asked, floating up behind me.

  I don’t want to admit it, but I started blushing. Calista just smiled, then looked at Orson and, with that same gruff voice and serious tone, said, “And what if I am? You got a cute friend, and I’m a lonely fella.”

  “I’ll fly in front of the car,” Orson said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t think I can listen to this all day.”

  Calista and I laughed it off, and my face cooled down. Well, as much as the day would let it. It may have been ten in the morning, but it was already ninety-five degrees.

  We hopped in the old Geo and made our way to Gilbert. The drive was warm, but quick. Having Calista next to me made me nervous. I kept on reminding myself that romance was off the table, and before I knew it, we were pulling into the nicest neighborhood I’d ever been in. Two-story homes on lots big enough to hold four normal houses.

  Of course, normal for me is different than normal for you. When I say a normal house, I’m talking two, maybe three beds and sixteen hundred square feet.

  Max.

  Me and Calista hopped out and sized up the house.

  I asked, “Got your flyers?”

  She held up the small stack I’d given her in the car. “Yup, right here.”

  “Hey,” I said. She looked at me. “The voice.”

  She nodded. “Right,” she replied with a smile and a deep man-voice.

  As we approached the house in question, a man in a robe, who looked like a priest of some kind, came running out. He hopped in a black town car, then sped off. He didn’t say anything to anyone, but the look on his face said, Oh shit! I didn’t actually think life after death was a thing! What have I done with my time on this Earth? I thought that was odd, of course, because Orson was floating right there beside me, so it couldn’t have been him in there causing a commotion.

  The door was open. Loud, angry sounds could be heard. They sounded like they were coming from somewhere very deep and very far, but the house was right there in front of us. And, even though it was getting close to eleven-thirty, the inside of the house looked much darker than it should have. My heart brain was racing with too many thoughts and feelings for me to count. Not that I’m in the habit of counting.

  “This isn’t good,” Orson said.

  “No shit,” Calista replied.

  “What should we do? Go home?” I asked.

  “Let’s go inside, before the neighbors start popping out to see what all the commotion is about,” Calista suggested. “We don’t get paid if we don’t do the job, right?”

  Orson agreed, and I followed the two inside.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  On the way in, the neighbors had already started taking notice. Well, at least a couple of troubled, rebellious youths.

  It was odd seeing young people in all black, heavy-metal attire in a neighborhood like that. I brushed it off because, well, youths. Still, I didn’t much care for the way they were looking at me.

  To be clear, I very much did NOT want to do this job. Does that make me a bad medium? Sure. Does it make me a bad person? Maybe a little. But I feel like it was a pretty normal reaction to a holy man running scared. If a man of God—or Morma in this instance—has no power, then what chance did we have?

  Here’s the creepy part. The angry sounds, the distant wailing? All of it stopped the moment we stepped in, and the house was much darker than it appeared from outside.

  “It’s quiet,” Calista said.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah.”

  The door slammed shut, and ominous laughter floated through the house like a voice would a big, empty cave. It was straight out of a horror movie. It literally got all my body hair standing up on end.

  We stood in the foyer, waiting for something terrible. We went into the kitchen/living room area.

  “Hello?” Calista asked. “Anyone still alive?”

  “There was a whole family here, I swear,” Orson said.

  The living room had a nice, vaulted ceiling and felt the safest given the openness of the space. You stood in a sort of triangle, facing each other, and tried to form a plan.

  “Okay, so we should try and find the family first, right?” I asked.

  “Agreed,” Calista added.

  “Well, I think we should get straight to figuring out what is happening here. Clearly, it’s a poltergeist of some kind,” Orson said.

  “Clearly?” I asked.

  “He’s right,” Calista joined in. “The darkness in the day, the door, and the creepy, echoey laugh? Basic poltergeist stuff.”

  It was at that moment I saw it: hair, gently sliding down into view just on the other side of the arch leading to the family room. I should have said something then, but if I’m being one hundred percent honest, I didn’t even think anything of it at first.

  Once her entire upside-down face was visible, she stopped. She wore this horrible smile—not an I’m going to wear your skin like a suit and devour your soul type of smile. I would have been okay with that. This was a middle school kid on picture day being forced to smile when all they want is to go home and change out of the uncomfortable clothes they were forced to wear sort of smile. Like she was smiling for the first time after someone explained to her what a smile is supposed to look like. Very unsettling.

  That feeling must have read on my face, because Calista asked, “Amir, you okay?”

  “I think I found mom,” I said, but when I looked at Calista, then back at the arch, the mom had vanished.

  “Where?” Orson asked.

  “She was just there. Well, her head was. I didn’t hear her move, so where’d she go?”

  “She’s possessed. That means she can fly. She’ll be fast, and we won’t hear her coming,” Orson explained.

  “Good thing there’s only the two very obvious ways into the room,” I said, then asked, “Wait, can she go through walls?”

  “What?” Orson looked at me like I was an idiot for asking, and maybe I was. “No, the mom is still meat. Meat can’t go through walls.”

  “Okay, that’s good,” I replied.

  “Do you hear that?” Calista asked, then added, “Sounds like a man crying.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” I said.

  “Me neither,” Orson answered.

  Then there was a noise, like a new house settling. A sort of groan or cracking. It was soft. Muffled, even.

  “I hear that,” Orson said.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “I thought I was going crazy.”

  The cracking got louder, and closer. It was on my left, coming from the direction of the family room.

  “Look,” Orson pointed at the wall near the back of the house, above the flatscreen. A crack was forming. It crawled down the drywall and split the paint.

  Then came a loud crack.

  A chunk of drywall fell away, and that same unsettling smile peeked through.

  The T.V. crashed to the floor.

  She persisted, slowly forcing herself the rest of the way through.

  It made no sense.

  Once she was all the way through, she stopped, and her smile fell away.

  “What was that?” Orson asked.

  “I forgot that people can’t go through walls,” the mom’s possessed body replied. Or, I guess, the poltergeist replied.

  “Wow,” Orson said, shaking his head.

  “It’s my first possession, cut me some slack,” it said. Then it went on to explain, “I got the idea from you, you know? I was just out back, stuck haunting that stupid pool in that tiny backyard, when I saw you talking yourself out of possessing someone in the family.”

  Calista and I looked at Orson. He just shrugged. Then he looked back at the poltergeist, who continued to just sort of float there above us. It was a little awkward.

  “Well, can you stop?” Orson asked. “We’re trying to do a job here.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” the poltergeist asked. “This is my house, and I’ll get what’s owed to me.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “Did you used to live here?”

  The mom’s face looked angry and impatient. I felt like I might have touched a nerve.

  “No, I didn’t f**king live here!” it screamed.

  “So maybe leave the family alone?” Calista suggested.

  The mom’s limp body shot toward Calista until she was practically nose to nose.

  “Woman to woman,” it said, smiling in a tone usually reserved for someone up to no good, “I’ll leave once I’ve got dad’s head in my hands.” Then she floated back, slowly.

  “No can do,” I said. “We’re here to exorcise you, then milk these Mormons for as much as we can squeeze out of ’em.”

  “Over my dead body,” it said. “Which, by the way, is buried right there under that pool.”

  The three of us looked out the back door. First, I wondered why her body would be under that pool, then I thought how refreshing it would be to go for a swim. I took off my backpack and set it down. I felt like maybe a splash of salt might be enough to at least get the spirit out of the mom.

  The second I opened my bag, though, the mom was right beside me. Her cold cheek pressed against my own.

  “What’s in the bag?” it asked. I froze.

  “Help!” the voice of a young girl cried from somewhere in the house, above us. Then came the sound of footsteps running toward the stairs. It was only one set at first, then a heavier set followed.

  “Baby don’t!” a man yelled.

  “Sorry, we don’t have time to play,” the poltergeist said. Next thing I knew, I was waking up completely soaked, with a burning sensation in my nose and a painful cough.

  Now, I wasn’t there for the exorcism, but I’ll tell you what I was told.