Taylor had no idea why Colby was nearly falling over in shock. She couldn’t see anything in the kitchen.

"Maybe I should explain?" Charlie said, his cheeks turning red.

"Yeah, that wouldn’t be bad, yeah," Colby replied sarcastically and then noticed Taylor’s confused face. "Tay, you don’t see him?" He pointed at the other ghost in the apartment.

"Who exactly?"

"Don’t tell her about me," Charlie interjected.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. You don’t get a say in this. I tell my girl what I want." The frat boy looked back at her and took a deep breath. "The guy in the photos. His name is Charlie. And I think his ghost is sitting on your stove right now."

Taylor blinked twice. "Excuse me. What."

"He was just about to explain himself, but the stalker still hasn’t started," Colby said with a passive-aggressive smile. "Why. Why do I always get the weird creeps stalking me?"

"I-I’m not a stalker. I promise. Okay, maybe you could call it that... but I see myself more as your personal guardian angel, you know?" Charlie seemed very desperate.

Now Colby laughed. "Guardian angel. In case you haven’t noticed, guardian angel. I’m dead."

"Guardian angel? Seriously? Okay, that's enough. This is too stupid for me." Taylor sat back down on the floor and picked up another photo album. "Let me know when you’re done with your conversation and then just fill me in. I’ll keep looking for clues about your disappearance. Pretend I’m not here."

The frat boy crossed his arms and stared expectantly at the other ghost. "Well?"

"W-where do I start—"

"At the beginning," Colby interrupted. "Get on with it."

"C-could we talk without her?" Charlie practically spat out the word "her."

"Nope," Colby replied calmly but firmly. "Anything you have to say to me, you can say to Taylor, kid." Taylor glanced up briefly, smiled, and then continued sorting through the photos.

"Alright. Um. My name is Charlie, Charlie West. I died a miserable death in 1987 and have been wandering the earth as a ghost ever since—"

"Okay, slow down. What do you mean, you died a miserable death?"

Charlie took a deep breath. "Tau Alpha Nu. I was in the fraternity. And that was probably one of the biggest mistakes ever. But hey, I didn’t have a choice, my dad was in it and insisted I join too. Like you told Taylor recently, that fraternity was evil. I don’t know what drove them to it, but one day they decided not just to mess with people outside of Tau Alpha Nu. They went after me. I woke up tied to a table. No clue, maybe it was supposed to be some disgusting initiation ritual, but they taped my mouth and nose shut when I woke up. I don’t think they really meant to kill me, after all, they violently stabbed nostrils into the tape with scissors so I could breathe. It hurt like hell because one of those assholes completely missed my nostril on the first stab. I bled like crazy. And then he botched the other hole too. Only then did he finally get it right, and I could somewhat breathe. But my nose kept bleeding... from both sides. So much that it clogged the two air holes. While they poured a bucket of worms on my stomach and laughed themselves to death, I couldn’t get any air. I tried to scream, to break free, but they held me down tighter. Some guys put worms right on my eyes. They laughed. I’ll never forget that laughter. When the worms didn’t move towards my eyes as they expected, they flipped me onto my stomach, pulled down my pants, some asshole pressed his knee into my back, and they tried... they tried—well, and then I died. They didn’t realize for a long time. I was already standing next to them as a ghost when they finally stopped laughing and noticed what the fuck they had done. Then they actually covered it up. They broke my nose afterward, to explain the blood, and then they threw me down the stairs, headfirst. Said I had fallen. It was a tragic accident. Bastards."

Colby was completely stunned. He didn’t know what to say.

"As a ghost, I often tried to, well, you know, act like a ghost," Charlie continued. "You know, haunting and scaring those bastards. Revenge, right? But it was nothing like in the movies. I couldn’t touch anything, no one could hear me, and they definitely couldn’t see me. I couldn’t do anything. So, I just wandered around campus, feeling sad. Where else was I supposed to go? Back to my father, who was the reason I died in the first place? In my early days as a ghost, I was very different from you, Colby. Like Aggie Cromwell says in Halloweentown, 'You know, Ghosts tend to be very depressed creatures, anyway.'"

"You died in the '80s, but you know Halloweentown?" the frat boy asked, not knowing what else to say.

"Of course. I had a lot of free time. And unlike you, I didn’t sleep for two whole decades. Sadly, the first movie remained the best. At least you wouldn't know about the last one."

"Sleep?!"

"Yes, hold on. I’ll get to that." Charlie looked over at Taylor again. "I’d really prefer if she weren’t here."

"Tough luck," Colby retorted.

"Fine. But I warned you. So, I was there on campus. Eventually, you came along. I always kept an eye on who joined Tau Alpha Nu. I mean, of course, I watched my killers. Even if I couldn’t do much against them. Just one look at you was enough for me to think you’d be more of a bully than one of the bullied. I mean, look at you. But my impression was dead wrong. Luckily."

"So you were creeping around campus, secretly watching me?" Colby asked, his voice shaking with anger and discomfort. He couldn't hide how terribly creepy he found that.

"Yes," Charlie answered shortly. Quick like ripping off a Band-Aid. "I wanted to know if you’d become one of those assholes. But the more I watched you, the more I realized you were different. You had your flaws, but at your core, you weren’t a bad person. You protected your friends, even when it got you into trouble."

Colby remembered the many times he stood up against the nasty pranks and bullying within the fraternity. He had often gotten into trouble for standing up to the older members. At least, until he kicked them all out himself.

"You, Colby, were what Tau Alpha Nu could have been from the start. A big brother you could trust. Someone you could count on. Someone you could have a hell of a lot of fun with. Someone you could look up to. The longer I followed you, the happier I became. And I mean, that was tough. But your easy-going and positive attitude made it possible. And then I realized I did have ghost powers. Because of you."

"Me?"

"I’ve been a ghost for nearly 40 years now. I’ve learned a lot. Also from other ghosts."

"There are other ghosts?" Taylor looked up briefly, eager to hear everything from her Ghost Boy later.

"Oh, absolutely. Did you really think we were the only ones? No, most just hide. Even from other ghosts. Like I did, which is why you couldn't see me. It's one of my powers. I can make myself completely invisible, even to other ghosts."

"What else can you do?"

"I can turn invisible, and I can touch things. Oh, and I can move through walls and stuff. Like any normal ghost that isn't completely depressed. Some can jump into objects, but I can't. But what I did somehow manage, and I didn't know this before Harper's Polaroid, is that I am apparently visible in photos."

"That's it?"

"No. I'm trying to explain. Colby, you can basically do everything. You're like a god. Didn't you ever find it strange how ridiculously powerful you are?"

Colby scratched his head. "Well, now that you mention it…"

"It's the nature of ghosts. That's the crux of it." Charlie raised four fingers. "Self-worth. Positivity. Happiness. And Strength. These four words perfectly describe you, right? Well, those four things determine if a ghost has special powers. Or not. The higher the self-worth, the more positive and happier a ghost is, the more powerful they are. Do you get it? Strength doesn't necessarily mean physical strength, although you meet that criterion too; I think it’s more about determination. I had absolutely no powers before I met you. You made me happy. And then I had them. Just because I was a spectator of your life."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"So, in a completely weird way, that makes sense? I mean, yeah, I love myself," Colby grinned. "And yeah, I like being happy. Who doesn't?"

"See! That's exactly what I mean. I wouldn't be surprised if that comment alone unlocked some new random ghost power in you. Can we continue now?"

"Yeah, sorry. It's just a lot to take in."

"I get that. But it’s important. So, I followed you around like a little puppy. But before you think anything weird, I never followed you to the bathroom or anything. Or when you wanted to cut loose."

"You mean when I was fucking?" Colby asked bluntly, earning a skeptical look from Taylor, who had now moved on to a box of newspaper clippings.

"Yes," Charlie replied prudishly. "I respected your privacy, let's put it that way. But you have to understand, I wanted you in my life. Or rather, my afterlife. You were the reason I could touch things again. You were the reason I realized life didn't have to be all bad. Please don't see me as a stalker. You have that bi—" Charlie stopped. "You have your Taylor. I had no one. Every ghost I met was unpleasant company. I was completely alone. And you had no idea I was there. People in this decade might call that delulu, very funny word by the way, but damn, I was delulu. Fully in my delulu frenzy, I started pretending I was alive and part of your friend group. I talked to you and imagined how you'd respond. In my mind, you always said exactly what I needed to hear. Whenever you took photos, I just stood there with you. I just wanted a friend. And with you, I was happy. And with your crew."

Colby thought about the photos he and Taylor had found. It was true, Charlie looked genuinely happy in every single one.

"Please don't be mad at me. But I wouldn't have had any way to talk to you anyway."

"I'm not mad... I think. I don't know yet. But when I was dead, couldn't you have? Talked to me. How cool would it have been to have a ghost buddy?"

"I planned to. Really. But..." He glanced at Taylor.

Colby had a vague idea where this was going, so he steered the conversation instead, asking, "Do you know how I died? Or what happened to me in general?" Taylor looked up, eager to see Colby's reaction to a possible answer.

Charlie ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know all the details, I'm sorry. Like I said, I respected your space, and you went into the guest room with that... girl." He said the word "girl" oddly. "I didn't follow you in there."

Colby teleported to Charlie immediately, grabbing him by the shoulders excitedly. "A girl? Do you know who she was? You were always by my side, you must have known her, right?"

Charlie's eyes grew glassy, and he shook his head. "It's my fault. I should have protected you. I—"

Colby hugged the sad ghost. "Hey. It’s all good. Remember what you just told me, okay?" he said calmly. "So don’t be sad. I don’t want my new ghost buddy losing his powers."

Charlie’s eyes widened in surprise. "Buddy?!"

"You don’t like that? I don’t know, 'my new friend' sounds so..." He thought of Taylor's words about the shoe thing. "Extravagant. Buddy? Does that work for you?"

"You’re not mad?"

"Not really, no." He laughed. "I’d just really like to finally know what the hell happened to me, if you don’t mind."

"Right. Sorry." Charlie broke away from the hug and continued. "A long time passed, and neither you nor the girl came out of the room. I thought I’d check on you. I mean, I couldn’t exactly knock. Okay, I could, but what would you have thought then? I decided to just peek in. In and out." Colby grinned at that. "So I stuck my head through the door. The girl, she was gone. No idea how she left, but it wasn’t through the door. I would have seen that. And you... you were on the floor. But not your body. I know the difference between humans and ghosts. Sorry to say, but the media was right, you didn’t leave that room alive. Your body, or rather, your corpse, was nowhere to be seen. But your ghost was on the floor. And sleeping. Not just that. Colby, you were snoring so loudly that if humans could hear you, they’d think a walrus was in that room."

"I was sleeping?"

"For 20 years, yes. I thought you’d wake up sooner. I mean, sooner than 20 years. You weren’t unconscious or anything, you were sleeping like you were sleeping off the biggest hangover of all time. And nothing could wake you. I screamed in your ear several times, no reaction. I have no idea why you were even sleeping."

"And those 20 years... where were you?" Taylor perked up at Colby's question.

"With you. I never left your side. I mean, you pulled me out of my hole. Unknowingly, yes, but you did. And then you were suddenly dead. I couldn’t leave you alone. And I wanted to be there when you woke up."

"Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying you sat there for 20 years next to me?"

"Please what?!" Taylor exclaimed, standing up. "He did what?!"

Charlie nodded. "You were snoring, and I sat there watching over you all those years. We didn’t move an inch. Even when the room, no, the whole apartment was completely renovated. You slept right through the construction noise. And then one day you woke up when she came home from work. I don’t know why she suddenly could see you, she couldn’t before."

"And why didn’t you show yourself when I finally woke up?"

Charlie gestured towards Taylor, grimacing. "Because of her. I mean, suddenly she could see you. I had no idea what she might do to you this time. Maybe I should have intervened to save you, but it seemed wiser to remain invisible for the time being."

"What?"

"Colby, what did he mean by those 20 years?" Taylor interjected.

"I don’t trust her. Not at all. I was going to step in later, when you were alone. But you didn’t really leave her side. Except with Levi and Harper, but those weren’t good opportunities to lay all the cards on the table."

"And why…"

"Why I don’t trust her? I’m going to tell you something now, and you’re going to listen carefully. Go through everything in your head that you still remember about that night. I don’t know why you don’t remember anymore. But try. Think about the girl."

"I’m sorry, but I really don’t remember anything."

"Colby, I dodged your question earlier. Whether I know her."

"So you do know her?"

"Yes. So do you."

"Who?"

Charlie looked at the third person in the room again. He took a deep breath and then exhaled. "Your girl is the girl."

Now Colby started grinning. "Oh, come on, you can’t seriously believe that. She didn’t even know me—"

"Her apartment is the most famous crime scene of the last few decades," Charlie calmly interrupted the frat boy. "This apartment shouldn’t even be inhabitable. With a case like yours, fans or amateur detectives would show up daily and try to gain access. How could it even be possible that she never heard anything about you? She lives at the fucking crime scene." Charlie stated it as a fact.

"That’s total—"

"Your girl is the girl!" the ghost from the 80s repeated. "Taylor was it. The Living Girl made the Ghost Boy into the Ghost Boy. Believe me or not, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m right. I come from a time when many horror movies were released. There’s a principle, more like a term or a concept. The Final Girl. In almost every other horror film, there’s a character, often a white girl, who survives the killer. The Final Girl. During your nap, there was a time when there was a TV in this room. Great times. I got to see some cool movies that became cult classics. Like the horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. There’s a Final Girl there too, who escapes the killer. Mandy fucking Lane, her name, just like in the title. It turns out in the end that she, the Final Girl, is actually the killer. Colby, I don’t know how she did it. But Taylor is the Final Girl. Not like in the movies from my time. A Final Girl like Mandy Lane. And she’s your murderer. It’s her, her face is burned into my brain. I thought you’d send her packing soon. But—"

"You’re lying," Colby said coldly.

"Who says Harper really chased her all over Proxley? Hm? Were there any other witnesses? You certainly didn't see it with your own eyes; we were both with Levi. Did Harper admit it?"

"Stop," growled the frat boy, and Taylor was becoming increasingly confused. Her Ghost Boy didn't seem interested in enlightening her.

"You practically spilled your entire life story to her. Tau Alpha Nu, the thing with Levi, your hobbies, she knows your MySpace account and what your favorite movies are. That's normal for friends. But do you know even a tiny thing about her? Anything small? Besides the fact that her name is Taylor Lautner? Like, what does she do for work? What are her hobbies? Do you know anything about her at all?"

Colby stared at him angrily. Angry because he couldn't believe Charlie would say such a thing. And angry because Charlie was right. He practically knew nothing about her. "And why are you bringing this up now, if it's really true?" he countered. "You let us play detective and then randomly crawl out of your corner, all calm, explaining everything, and then drop this bombshell?"

"It was hard to find the right moment. There was no opportunity. Colby, no offense, but man up and stop thinking with your dick. It all makes sense. I didn't leave you alone with her either. Not even once. Not after what she pulled 20 years ago. I have no fucking clue how she still looks so young and hasn't aged a day, but it was her. She can be damn dangerous, who knows. And who knows what else she can do. I never planned to tell you this directly in front of her, but you didn't leave me much choice."

"You were with us the whole time? After Taylor found me?! That means even in the Ferris wheel, with Harper, everywhere?"

Taylor experienced the shock of her life. "H-He was what?! In the Ferris wheel too?!" she trembled. That was one of her favorite memories with Colby. Someone else was in that gondola?! And all this time meant he was also in her apartment. Always.

"And who knows if her mental disorder about other people is even real," Charlie continued.

Taylor began to breathe heavily and held onto Colby. His angry expression softened immediately, and he looked worriedly at his girl, who could never, ever be his murderer. Never. "What's wrong?"

"I-I ... we ... we were never alone," she had a panic attack.

"Well, isn't that convenient for her. Just mention her fears and they come rushing back. See, I'm not even sure anymore if she can't see me."

Colby fixed him with a deadly stare. "Get out."

This surprised Charlie. "Colby—"

"I said, get out!" Colby's voice turned demonic, unleashing a powerful shockwave that sent objects flying and Charlie crashing against the walls. Only Taylor remained unharmed, now sobbing and staring at the floor.

Charlie picked himself up and glared at Colby indignantly. "Twenty years. Twenty years I've looked after you, asshole. Of course I have. You're my best friend. And I won't let her keep tormenting you. Was your death not enough for this bitch, huh?! Not with me, buddy. Whatever spell she's cast on you to make you only think of her, I'll save you, Colby Vance. Even if it takes another twenty years. You might not believe the truth right now. Fine by me. But I've planted the seed of doubt in your mind. That's enough for now." He nodded, then walked through the apartment wall towards the hallway and vanished.