From beyond the grave, a warning: ‘Don’t go’

When he was a living, breathing creature, nobody paid much mind to Fred.

In his 36 years on planet Earth, he’d attended more than a few parties, mostly invitations from well-meaning co-workers at his accounting firm. A few flirtations here and there, sure, but once he started in on 401(k) plans or capital gains, eyes glazed over.

When he first set eyes on her at his favorite barbecue joint, all thoughts of finances were tossed aside as quickly as short ribs gnawed to the bone.

She seemed destined to appear here and there in his life: He was quite certain he’d caught a glimpse of her when he was rushing across Kansas City International Airport to pick up his sister, Jen, and her brood. And he’d spotted his dark-haired beauty at one of his favorite haunts (so to say), Olathe Memorial Cemetery, drifting from one gravestone to the next, pausing with respect at each.

His true passions in life were clearly shared by this Kansas City native, and that would be the rich history of 19th-century Kansas City, and what the city was known for now: barbecue. On this day, she was dining on a platter filled with the very finest — from short ribs to brisket, pickle nestled atop toasted bread.

She grinned up at him, sauce slightly smeared across her chin.

Oddly, she seemed to flicker in and out of his vision. She was there and then, in a blink, she was gone.

Oh, he thought in his final moments, gazing at the last bite of a brisket sandwich. What guts it would take to go say hello.

In the end — and it was — he figured it could have been his fault. Call it a passion for burnt ends and short ribs. Call it the curse of genetics. All 307 pounds of Fred felt a sharp pain in his chest, and the next thing he knew, he was floating above a crowd at his own funeral. Aside from his mother and his sister, who was chasing after her three small children, few seemed to mourn Fred.

It was mid-October, prime barbecue season, when Fred was pulled from his nirvana.

Stuck between Earth and a place he could only imagine would be bliss, he tried to fit in as a quintessential ghost on a quest to find his brown-eyed, sloppy-faced dream girl. The one he now knew was not of the old world he once plodded through.

He had a few strikes against him. First, he was a bit young to be hanging with some of the famous ghosts in Kansas City. To them he was an upstart, and there’s nothing like being snubbed by a ghost to humble a man. Or whatever he was.

Frankly, if Fred were a jack-o’-lantern, he would have been carved by a child’s hand. Standard features, pleasant but bland look (think triangle eyes, turn the triangle upside down for a nose, crooked grin).

This was new territory, and he was ready to finally give that face some character. And find his woman. But how?

The first thing he had to do was take control. It felt like learning to walk and talk all over again. At first, Fred didn’t have much control over where and when he popped up. A few times he found himself in his mother’s kitchen, as she cried and muttered to herself about what she could have done differently. He thought he caught “soccer, not band” between sniffles, and he longed to put his big arms around her to tell her she’d be OK. It worried him to see his mother sitting around in the same old tattered house dress and slippers every day.

Another time he found himself next to Jen’s middle child, Jeremy, who at 2  1/2 referred to him as Uncle Red. Fred felt a warmth where his heart had once been as he listened to Jeremy plead with his mother to go to Uncle Red’s house.

Within a week, though, Fred had mastered the art of controlling his ghostly form. He didn’t have to stay with his mom and Jen, although he did feel a tug whenever they thought of him. No one else had given him much thought at all, except for Beth, who claimed his old work cubicle. She didn’t appreciate the gravity of that; for her it just meant a better view of the clock tower in downtown Overland Park.

He found himself trying to think like his dream girl did. Where would she go, with all the time in the world to eat all the barbecue that she wanted? He found himself at all the best places — Jack Stack, Joe’s Kansas City, even way out at Guy and Mae’s, but her saucy grin and sauce-covered face didn’t greet him anywhere.

It dawned on Fred: She must be avoiding him. Who was he, anyway, to grab her attention? Especially compared to the distinguished-looking ghosts he had seen in passing. They wouldn’t deign to speak with him, so why should she?

Suddenly Fred found himself back at the Olathe Memorial Cemetery, where he had spent so many lonely afternoons. He had come there at least once a month since he was 15. His dad was buried here, and now, so was he. Fred found himself staring at his own name, his feet planted as firmly as possible over his own grave. There was a saying about a tingle in your ears or feet whenever someone walked over your grave, but of course he couldn’t remember what it was and didn’t feel any tingling anyway.

“Fred.”

He jumped at least a mile high, turning around to see who had called him.

A man stood at the foot of Fred’s grave, his pants covered in dirt, his face eaten away, its fullness deflated and his clothes hanging on to his surprisingly slender skeletal frame. In life, Fred’s dad had been bigger than he was. His red face looked a little like Santa Claus, and his dad seemed to be perpetually mopping up the sweat from it with his white handkerchief. His dad had introduced Fred to barbecue and shown him why burnt ends made the best appetizer. Seeing him like this was a shock, but there was no mistaking his father’s voice, even if it did sound a little gravelly.

“Dad?” Fred asked nervously, his voice going up an octave and an urge to run invading every fiber of whatever being he was now.

His father didn’t reply, but Fred saw a flash of annoyance in those steel gray eyes that looked like they were about to pop out of their eye sockets.

“Don’t go,” his dad ordered, his voice sounding like it was an effort to speak, almost like he had a mouth full of dirt.

“I’ll stay right here, Dad.” Fred promised, coming a little closer.

His dad’s head shook, the bottom of his jaw threatening to fly off somewhere. Fred had misunderstood. “Dangerous.” His father’s mouth moved, forming more words that Fred couldn’t understand.

“What’s the matter, Dad? What is it that’s dangerous?”

But Fred’s dad had vanished, and Fred was left with the uneasy task of trying to figure out what his dad was if he was here, but not a ghost. And what did Fred need to worry about that his father had struggled to tell him?

“I can help you,” a thin melodic voice said.

Suddenly, where his dad had been standing was his dream girl, more lovely and warm than Fred had remembered her.

“Come with me,” she said, a gentle order. She touched his arm and Fred felt whole again, almost like he was back in his own body, but without the knee and back pain he had felt for years.

Suddenly they were off, flying miles above the clouds, until they reached Union Cemetery. Fred’s ghostly dream girl nodded at the gravestone in front of them, the name worn down and unreadable from more than a century’s rain and snow. “That’s me,” she announced simply, as if her number had been called at the deli counter.

Fred didn’t know what to say, so he kept quiet, as he had for so much of his life.

“Cholera epidemic,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” Fred said, not knowing what else he could say. Something bothered him about her statement, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

She shrugged, a what-are-you-gonna-do gesture.

“I like you, Fred.”

“I like you, too …”

“Anne.”

“Anne.” It wasn’t the name he had imagined for his barbecue-loving sweetie. He always thought she’d have a name with a little more personality. Maybe something a little quirky, like Quinn, although he realized that was too modern.

“With a little work and a little effort, you can change, Fred. See?”

He looked at her, his double chin hitting his chest as his mouth opened wide, trying to figure out what she meant. Before his eyes, Anne changed. Her pleasantly plump face narrowed, her dark curls morphed to a short blonde pixie cut, her mouth into an impish grin.

“I know you, Fred, because I used to be just like you. People didn’t see me. I wasn’t attractive. I wasn’t interesting. I couldn’t even get a husband. My family was so preoccupied with my brother, who survived, that they barely gave me a second thought once I was buried. Now I can make people notice me. You know what I’m capable of.”

At first Fred thought she was referring to how she’d stolen his heart, but then he remembered that she had been visible to him before his heart had finally given out.

“When did you die? What year?” He asked suddenly, an old history lesson coming back to him. He had always loved to hear about what Kansas City was like more than a century ago, and he had a hunch.

Anne looked at him and let her features return to the plump girl he had fallen for.

“1849,” she said.

“That’s when the epidemic happened. But this cemetery didn’t exist until later.”

She considered it, and shrugged, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Does it really matter? I brought you here because I know you, and I knew you would love this place. So what if I’m not buried here? I should have been. It’s nicer.”

She paused, trying to gauge his thoughts. “If you want another chance at life, Fred, come with me. If not, I’ll leave you here to figure things out and find someone else.”

Fred wondered what currency was used among the dead. None of his financial knowledge or his (now unnecessary) 401(k) could help him. What kind of payment would his dream girl require? For a moment, Fred shuddered as the ghastly image of his father flooded before his eyes again.

Don’t go.

Then he thought of his mother and sister, who were already thinking of him less and less. The pull he felt whenever they did think of him was weak.

Anne smiled at him, and Fred placed his hand firmly in hers.

This story was originally published October 27, 2015 at 1:37 PM with the headline "From beyond the grave, a warning: ‘Don’t go’."