Duped

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

In his 36 years on the 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 401Ik) plans or capital gains, eyes glazed over. When he first set his 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 and her brood. And he’d spotted his dark-haired beauty at one of his favorite haunts (so to say), the Olathe Memorial Cemetery, drifting from one gravestone to the next, pausing with respect at each.

His 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 parents 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?

Fred first decided to ask around. Unsurprisingly, no one had heard of the woman. Fred felt as though he was being led on a wild goose chase, but continued anyway. Who was this woman, or rather, what was this woman? Why had she felt the need to summon him now? He had found peace shortly after his death; couldn’t it just stay that way?

The other ghosts had tried to convince him that the woman had nothing to do with it, but Fred refused to listen. Weeks of fruitless hunting crept by, without so much as a single trace of the woman – it was as if she had vanished like a wisp of smoke. It was disheartening, to say the least, and eventually Fred lost almost all enthusiasm. He spent his nights haunting the Olathe Memorial Cemetery, scaring the pants off of the emo wannabes who gathered there, but his thoughts always drifted to the woman. She was a spark that shimmered in his mind and could not be put out.

One evening, Fred’s gaze flickered. Not flickered like a lamp being turned on and off, but a supersonic vibration that lasted barely a second. The scene itself looked as though it was shaking. At first he was bewildered, but then the shaking stopped. Puzzled, he scanned the cemetery for his friends, thinking one of the other ghouls must be playing a trick. It was near Halloween after all, everyone was excited. But then it started again, and Fred realized that only one part of his vision was flickering. It was a tombstone across the cemetery. He floated towards it, unsure.

The stone belonged to a woman named Carmilla Beguile. Upon further inspection of the shaking tombstone, Fred realized that the date of her death was today. She had died exactly fifty years ago.

All at once an atrocious cackle rang through the cemetery, causing Fred to jump. The stone cracked down the middle, and spilt open to reveal the woman. His dream girl. She was here, and she was frighteningly good-looking.

Her features were dark and angular, like that of a magnificent cobra, her eyes scanned him thoughtfully.

“Hello, Fred,” She drawled, and to Fred’s surprise she did not float, but walked like a human!

“Oh, uh, hi, ma’am,” He began to sputter like an old boat, choking on his words and embarrassment. “Is there a reason you called me here?”

She beckoned him with a finger, and Fred did as he was told. He found that the woman, despite her human-like appearance, did not breathe.

The woman smirked. “I know you’ve been sorrowful over your subpar appearance, Fred. I can change that.”

Fred was intrigued. Change his bland features? How?

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“Meet me at the clock tower in Overland Park at midnight tonight. And bring a bone from your body.”

The phrase was said so nonchalantly that Fred was taken aback. “My body?! You mean my body that’s in the ground?!”

“Exactly. You can’t expect me to just surrender things to you without asking for something in return, right?”

“Well if you haven’t noticed, I’m a little transparent at the moment. I can’t pick up anything.”

“Sure you can. It’s still your body, Fred, even though you are no longer attached to it. You’ve realized by now that you can move through walls and other solid objects, yes?”

“Well… yeah…” Fred was at a loss as to where Carmilla was going with this.

She raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow at him. “Have you ever tried going underground? You can do it, and once you bring me the bone tonight I will carve you a new face. A new persona, even. Worthy of every lady’s attention, I’m sure of it.”

“I mean, sure, yeah, okay…” Fred pondered this, and wondered if his new look would impress Carmilla. If she was the one giving him a facelift, surely she would create him using attributes she personally liked best, right?

That was enough to influence his decision. “I’ll do it,” He declared.

“Excellent,” She hissed in his ear. “Don’t be late.”

The tombstone began to flicker once more, and then vanished along with Carmilla.

Fred thought hard the rest of the evening. Would he really go through with this? Did he really trust the help of a woman he didn’t even know?” The answer he eventually came to was yes. She was obviously a ghost just like everyone else, even if she wasn’t as see-through and could walk. Perhaps that’s something the older ghosts got. Perhaps it was a privilege he could earn by doing God knows what. Fred didn’t know, but he didn’t really care, either. His sole focus was on Carmilla and her promise.

Around eleven, Fred went to his stone. He did as Carmilla instructed, and chuckled to himself as he realized that he held his breath when he went underground – much like when he would jump off of the diving board at the community pool when he was alive. He moving through the coffin and reached through his own body to grasp one of the bones in his arm. To his amazement, the bone was solid and cold in his hand, and slid out completely with no effort whatsoever.

Without hesitation, Fred went to the clock tower.

When he got there, Carmilla was waiting, a grin on her face, and he was reminded of when they made eye contact in the barbeque joint. He smiled back, and held out the bone to her.

Her grin turned devious, her piercing eyes stared directly into him, holding him in place like a tack.

“You’re so innocent, I almost regret doing this.” Carmilla said, and Fred could not figure out if she was talking to him or to herself. She slithered towards him, never once breaking eye contact.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“You see, you won’t be getting the new face you desire.”

“But that’s not fair! I gave you the bone! What do you even need it for?”

“Possession.” She hissed. Without another word, Carmilla bit an end off of the bone, and Fred felt hot pain shoot across his left arm. In a panic, he tried to move it but realized quickly that the arm had been rendered useless.

“What are you doing?!”

“Claiming your life for myself.” She flicked her hair and took another bite, the bone splintering and crunching in her mouth.

“Go to hell!” Fred spat between clenched teeth. He tried to disappear beneath the clock tower floor but Carmilla abruptly pulled him back up.

“Oh, I won’t be there for much longer.” With one swift movement, Carmilla had stabbed the splintered bone through Fred’s chest, where his heart had been.

The last thing he saw was Carmilla opening her mouth to take another bite.