I always thought the first time I had a girl in my bedroom would be a magical experience. This wasn’t exactly what I meant.

I looked around my room. I had the navy blue and grey bed bath and beyond comforter set that seemingly every boy my age had. Unlike theirs, mine lay in a tangled mess on my bed. My floor was covered in half worn clothes and candy wrappers that had fallen out of the pockets, as well as a silver trashcan that was slowly overflowing.

At least my prized command center, which sat on the other side from my bed, had remained for the most part junk free. As a teenage boy, I had to count that as a win.

I took a deep breath. For the first time, I noticed a lingering aroma of smelly teenage feet that I had apparently grown nose blind to. Mom always said if you don’t keep your room clean you’ll be embarrassed when a girl comes over. They don’t like dirty smelly bedrooms.

Damnit, I hate it when she’s right. I reached down and picked up some of the old clothes on my floor and promptly disposed of them into the adjacent laundry basket. I did my best to catch a glance of her without making it awkward.

She sat on my bed, an attire of flared bell-bottom jeans that was complete with a pink polo that covered her slim frame. Her long brown hair cascaded in soft waves as she tilted her head to watch as I cleaned. If it weren’t for the faint glow that seemed to emanate from her, I would have sworn she was a living, breathing girl. Even now, my mind struggled to grasp the reality of her presence.

It was hard to tell for sure, but she had to either be from my time, or, judging strictly by the bell-bottom jeans, from sometime in the 1970s.

Above her was some Green day, Shinedown, and Pink Floyd posters. The Pink Floyd poster featured the backside of six naked women, who sat facing away with their backs covered in artwork from different albums. I hoped she didn't take offense to that.

I surveyed the rest of my surroundings as I tried to process the situation I found myself in. That didn’t help. This was one fucked up situation. I mean, there was a literal, beautiful-but-dead teenager sitting on my bed. Had she been alive, most teenage boys would have found this moment to be a dream come true.

Wait, maybe that’s it. It’s not real, it’s just a dream! Maybe I hit my head on the concrete harder than I thought. There was a lot of blood. Perhaps I’m peacefully sleeping away in some hospital. Oh man, what if I’m a vegetable now?

My panic halted as she rose and began to walk, or rather, glide toward me, her legs not quite moving in sync with her motion. That confirmed one thing about the girl. She wasn’t a real, living human. I must be dreaming.

As she approached, the hair on my neck stood up. The air around me chilled, like stepping into a cold spot in a warm room.

She reached for my wrist. Instead of the cold touch I expected, her hand was warm and comforting, like sunlight on a summer day.

“Hello,” I managed to say.

She didn’t respond. Instead, she gripped my wrist tighter and pulled me toward what looked like my bed.

“Oh, no thanks,” I tried to pull back. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Really though, I’m flattered. I have a girlfriend. She lives in Canada.”

I’m not sure why I lied. I certainly did not have a girlfriend. I’ve never even been to Canada. That was such an unnecessary detail. Man, I'm so awkward around girls.

As she pulled harder, I felt that strange connection reform deep inside my gut. It was faint at first, but undeniable. This might be what Alex mentioned about them communicating. I listened, letting the feeling wash over me.

She wasn’t trying to sleep with me. That was a relief.

Instead, she was trying to show me something. I wasn’t sure exactly what. I hesitantly gave in and walked with her to my bed, which we promptly continued past until we reached the window that overlooked the driveway. I felt my cheeks turn red from embarrassment.

She pointed out into the darkness, toward the area where I had first seen her.

“Hold on, You want us to head back to that house? Are you sure?”

She stared at me, unmoved. Regardless of her lack of words, I knew that’s what she wanted.

I had a flashback to the look on that man's eyes as he closed the blinds. I shivered thinking about what he might do if he saw me again. I had no intention of returning anytime soon. In fact, I was already considering a new route home, but she didn’t need to know that.

“I can’t. My mom grounded me,” I lied. I hoped she’d believe it.

The response was immediate—a sharp pain in my gut, as if I’d been punched. I hunched over as I tried to hush the screams.

Why didn’t Alex start with the fact they can do this? That would have been useful information! I reached my hand in the air trying to signal my white flag.

I yelped, as I struggled to regain my breath, “Please stop, I’ll help! But I have to wait until everyone falls asleep.”

The pain in my gut slowly released. Seconds later, it was like it was never there.

She backed up and returned to sit on the bed. The room became uncomfortably silent as I waited for her to leave. She stayed seated.

“So are you going to just sit there and watch me till we go?” I asked, already knowing no response was going to come. It was going to take me some time to get used to someone keeping an eye on me like I’m some kid in detention.

I heard a knock at the door. Shit, she must have heard me yelling.

“Hunny, are you alright? I heard a scream. Is it ok if I come in?” She didn’t wait for an answer.

“Mom, you can’t just barge in here!”

I watched as she looked over to the pile where my laundry used to be. I’m not sure I had ever seen such a shocked look on her face. “Wow, did you pick up your laundry? Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?”

Shit, she noticed the laundry.

I glanced over to the bed. The ghost girl was gone. When I turned back I found out where she went. She stood next to my mom. She looked her up and down, like she was the rack at a blockbuster video.

“Oh.. don’t!” I instinctively yelled out.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t worry about my laundry mom. I want to start doing it myself. You know, with college starting soon.”

I can’t believe that was the excuse that came out of my mouth.

“Oh. Well, that’s something new. I’m proud of you Joe joe. Look at you growing up before my eyes. Anyway, I won’t bug you, I just brought you up this ice pack to help stop your cheek from bruising.”

“Oh thanks mom.” I walked over to take the ice pack, and to partially push her out of my room.

I watched as she shivered, “It’s so cold in here! There is a heater in the basement if you need it.”

“Great! Thanks mom, anyways it’s getting late. I’m going to call it a night.” I said, as I pushed her out of the room.

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“Oh ok, well have a good night”

The door closed. That was close. I held the ice pack to my face. Oh man, that felt amazing!

Alright, tomorrow I’ll have to look up how to do laundry. For now, I need to know more about my predicament. I pulled out my laptop and booted up the CD. I was hoping Alex had some information on how to get some privacy.

I read through the titles of the videos he had made, hopeful to find one that fit my current situation. There was one titled “So you fucked up.” I hoped that wasn’t a foreshadowing of tonight's events. I decided it was best to watch that one when I really needed it.

Here we go, “What To Expect For Your First Time.” I chuckled. It seems this Alex kid had a similar sense of humor as I did. Perhaps we could have been friends had I met him earlier in life. I opened the video and watched as the monitor flipped to show Alex’s face.

###

Hello, Bob. I’ve decided that I need to call you something for my own sanity. When I talk to a camera lens it sort of freaks me out.

So I’m going to stick with Bob. I hope you don’t mind. Crap, what if you’re a girl. I can’t go with Bob, it’s too manly. Damn, I really liked the name Bob. Maybe I can go with something more gender-neutral like Sam.

Screw it, how about I just call you future me for now.

So future me, I’m going to guess by now you met someone new. If not, this section will help prepare you for the inevitable.

Now it sounds like I’m talking to myself in the future. Whatever, it works. Don’t judge me. Sorry, let me try this again.

We all attract ghosts, even before you had this power. Sometimes I think they are just lonely, looking for someone who can help them find their next part in the afterlife.

That’s why I think they are so excited to find you. You see them, and that gives them hope. How they know you can see them, I’m not exactly sure. Something about this new power draws ghosts in like a moth to a flame.

Unfortunately, now that you’ve lit that flame, there is no putting it out. I know it’s at least crossed your mind once so far—no, you can’t just destroy or get rid of the laptop. Trust me, I tried… multiple times. It just keeps reappearing in your room a few hours later.

Anyways, future me, you should know a few things about ghosts. I’m going to do my best to break the different spirits you might encounter into four types. You should know, these are my personal categorizations and do not reflect some established set out there.

I will say, I scoured the internet to look for established guidelines and most disagree with me. That being said, I can see ghosts and they can’t, so I’ll let you decide who’s right.

I'll make a whole video on each type, so for now, I'll keep these descriptions short.

First, I'll start with the familiar one. The Tragics are the hardest to deal with, for me personally. The little boy I mentioned in my last video is a perfect example. These are ghosts that have died from either an accident or something potentially worse and usually have some sort of disfigured look.

The next type of spirit you’ll see I call the Attached. Their name is exactly how it sounds. As far as I can tell, these ghosts have had their spirits unfortunately attached to some object. You’ll need to most likely burn whatever it is they are attached to before they can move on.

On that note, go buy yourself a lighter, you’re probably going to need it way more now than you ever expected to. Plus, they’ll make you look badass and they’re just plain fun.

Similar to the Attached, there are the Protectors. You may see them following another person around. I think they’re what people commonly call guardian angels. There isn’t much to do with them. You can’t go around burning the human they are attached to, no matter how much that person may deserve it, so it’s probably best to just leave them alone.

The last and probably scariest looking are the Vengeful Spirits. If by now you’ve seen a spirit, you’ll notice that they look like a normal human, minus the weird glow and lack of communication skills. Vengeful spirits I’ve never seen in person, but from what I read in the previous file given to me, they look like this.

Hopefully, you can see it—this is the ghost of Christmas future from that muppets Christmas special. I tried to use this new video editing software and it’s not going well. So If you can’t see it, go look it up.

Vengeful spirits seem to be attracted to those planning evil. It was described to me like a group of ants swarming on a picnic basket.

The previous person mentions only seeing it once, just before the Oklahoma City Bombing in the 90s. He didn’t understand it at the time and mentioned it still haunts him to know over 150 people died that day. I truly hope you never see one of them.

That’s pretty much all I have for this video. Oh one more thing, don’t piss them off. They can tell when you’re lying and trust me, they don’t appreciate it. Your best bet is to be honest with them.

That’s all for now. I hope you had luck with your first encounter.

###

I closed the video. She knew I was lying about why I didn’t want to go. Interesting. I still wish Alex would have mentioned that in his introduction video.

Either way that was a lot to unpack. I did not see the picture he mentioned, but a guy from a muppets movie can’t be all that terrifying, right?

Against my better judgment, I pulled up google and searched for Muppets, Ghost of Christmas Future. HOLY SHIT! That’s a character in a muppets movie? It looked like a weird hybrid of a stone statue and the grim reaper. Why would they put this in a children's movie?

I looked at my new companion. At least I was able to confirm this girl was not a vengeful spirit. I wonder what category she does fall into?

I took a more detailed look at her. She had no visible disfigurement, or at least none that I saw from my desk. She still might be a Tragic though.

For an Attached, Is it a requirement that she stay by the object she's attached to? I guess Alex didn’t make that clear.

She did have a small golden locket around her neck, a heart with the initials NM in the middle. I can’t rule out the object thing either, at least not without more information.

Crap, that means I can’t rule out the guardian either. This exercise wasn’t turning out to be very helpful.

I had a little bit of extra time, so I started delving into some of the written files Alex had on the different types of ghosts. It was amazing how close some of this information was to what you saw on television and movies. Unfortunately, there was no talk about if a ghost had to stay next to the item they possessed or not.

He also attached the number to reach Naomi Johnson. I assume that’s the police woman he talked about in his first video. I tore a piece of paper from my math homework and wrote the number down.

Crap, I forgot to do my homework. I’ll just copy from Murph in the morning before class. I’m sure he’ll be cool with it.

I looked at the computer clock. It was just past 11 p.m. By now my family should all be safely asleep. I shot Murph a message on AIM.

“Hey, if you see this I had something big happen tonight. I’m heading out to the old farmhouse down the street. If you can join, great. If not and you don’t hear from me tomorrow, send the cops.”

If something happened to me tonight, at least I left a trace of my whereabouts. Just to be safe, I set my away status to “Exploring near the old farmhouse.”

“Alright, I think everyone is asleep. Let’s get going…” I looked up to find my bed empty—no ghost girl in sight.

“Really, you’re just going to vanish now?” I muttered, feeling my frustration rise. I was risking my social life and possibly my actual life for this girl, and she just…

Holy crap! She was right behind me. My heart pounded as I turned. This new ability was definitely going to shorten my lifespan. Apparently they can teleport, it seems obvious now, but good to know.

“You can’t just sneak up on someone like that. Listen, if I’m going to help you, we need some boundaries. First, no sneaking up on me. And stop hurting me just because you don’t like what I say. That was not cool.”

I wasn’t sure if she understood, but yelling made me feel better.

“OK, good. Now, be quiet. I don’t want my mom to wake up. I sent my friend Murph a message. If he joins us, don’t go possessing him. Got it?”

With that settled, we snuck out of the house for the first time in my life, heading toward something that would likely change both our lives forever.

###

The old farmhouse was unnervingly eerie even when it tried its hardest to be charming. As I surveyed the house in the dead of night, it was downright terrifying.

“It looks like the lights are off. That’s good news for us. Hopefully we can get in and out before he has to get up to pee. That could happen at any moment, so be alert”, I said to my new companion.

As expected she didn’t reply. Trying to add light to the situation, I pretended to mock her voice, “Sounds good Joe, you’re so smart and cute!”

I looked over. Was that a momentary smirk I saw on her face? Maybe they do have at least a small sense of humor. This was a promising discovery, one I would need to investigate at a more appropriate time.

“HEY,” a voice yelled from behind me.

I jumped, half-expecting it to be the old man with his shotgun aimed at me. Wait a minute, I knew that voice. That wasn’t the voice of an old man at all, it was the voice of my best friend since we first sat together in Miss Lemons 3rd grade class.

I turned to confirm my suspicion. Relief washed over me as I saw Murph approach. “Hey, glad you were able to make it. Did you have any trouble?” I asked.

“Are you kidding me, have you met my family? My little brother sneaks out all the time.”

The house lights flickered on. “Shit, find somewhere to hide,” I yelled, as I jumped into the bushes.

I watched as the door swung open, exposing the old man. He had something big in his hand. Was that a gun? Shit, I can’t tell from these bushes. I tried to maneuver myself to get a better look. It was no use, it was too dark.

I watched as he walked down the porch steps and down the side of his house towards the garage. Why would he have a gun and where is he going? A sudden realization washed over me. I think it's entirely possible I wasn’t ready for my first mission.