Chapter Twelve

EDITED BAYBE :-P

Chapter Twelve

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I ask Emery in the middle of homeroom. I sat in my usual seat in the back of the room and Emery sits right next to me. Of course he was trying to strike up a conversation with me.

He smirks at me. “Because you’re fun to bother. And also I want to ask you something.” He says leaning closer.

“Well go on.” I told him. He looks down at his hands and then looks back up at me. He looks almost nervous. Imagine that.

“There’s a bonfire at Placid Beach Sunday to kick off Thanksgiving break, and I was wondering if you wanted to come.” He asks. Why did this guy want me so bad?

“Why would I go to the beach in the middle of winter?” I ask him. He smiles.

“No one is forcing you to get in the water. Just dress warm.” He answers.

“No.” I tell him. He frowns at my answer. What did he except? Haven’t I given him the impression that I didn’t want to be friends?

“Why? Why do you hate me so much that you can’t just show up at one social event with me?” He asks sadly. I pang of guilt shot through me. Why did I feel guilty? This is Emery.

“I don’t hate you. I just really really really really dislike you.” His frown deepens for a second and then he smiles widely.

“Then why don’t you let me prove to you that I’m a good guy. Just come to this party with me and I promise you’ll have a different opinion of me by the end of the night.” He tells me. I thought about it. I never really figured out why I didn’t like Emery. There was just something in my gut that told me he was trouble. But other than that, there was no other reason to not like him.

He was not mean to me like I though he was going to be. Actually, he was nothing but nice to me. He was nice, friendly, easy to get along with, and even though I hate to admit it, he’s attractive.

When I think about these things, it makes me look like a big bitch. I sigh heavily. “Why do you keep trying even though I’ve been nothing but mean to you?” I ask. He smiles wider.

“You’re just worth the chase.” He simply says. That makes me feel even more guilty. I mean what do I got to lose? It’s only one party. Just a few hours of putting up with drunk, hormonal teenagers won’t kill me.

I shrug my shoulders. “Sure, I’ll go.” I say smiling a little. Little did I know that that night would change my life forever and not for the better.

***

I was sitting in the library in free period going through my tips on ghost stuff when Ms. Lane approached me. She had a warm smile on her face.

“Hey Athena! Are you feeling better?” She asks with a kind voice.

“Yeah, I no longer have the urge to beat up your furniture.” I told her while smiling. There was something about her that made everything better. Her aurora seemed to radiate through the room filling me with happiness.

She chuckles. “Well that’s great! So I don’t have to hide my expensive vases. What you got there?” She asks pointing to my notes.

I blush for some unknown reason. “Um…they’re notes for a project on…um…stuff.” I tell her. Wow was I bad at lying. I need to practice more.

She takes a glance at what’s written on the page. Her smile vanishes and her eyes flash with something. Maybe anger? But before I could examine more, her face goes back into a smile.

“That’s great! I love seeing kids actually do their homework. Do you need any help?” She asks sweetly. But something told me it was forced.

“Thanks but no thanks. I’m waiting for my partner, Jesse, to come help me with it.” I tell her. Not completely lying.

“Well if you need anything, you know where to find me.” She says with a smile before walking away. I look back at my notes and examine them one more time. Hoping there was something that we forgotten.

“Hey.” Jesse says as he sat next to me on the couch. “Hi.” I reply back without looking up from the notes.

“Have you realized yet that we haven’t seen a ghost since Monday?” Jesse asks out of the blue. I look up from my notes and stare at him. I haven’t thought about it. I haven’t felt depression since Monday.

“I haven’t noticed. But isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t that mean that they’re finally laying off?” I ask. This was good right? No more creepy ghost and horrible depression.

Jesse just shakes his head and looks down at the ground. “I really don’t know Athena. It just seems really strange and wrong to me. Hasn’t seeing ghost been a part of our lives for years? Than all of a sudden they’re not here. I just think it’s weird.” He tells me. Well when you put it that way it does sound strange.

“Let’s try not to over think it Jesse. Maybe it’s a sign that it’s almost over. We could finally live normal lives.” I tell him excitedly. What if I was right? What if this was over?

But we would find out in the near future that I was dead wrong.

He looks up at me. His face was full of worry and fear.

He sighs and looks back down. “You could be right but I don’t think we should let are guard down. It’s too much of I risk if you’re wrong.” I nod in agreement; we can’t take chances like this.

He smiles a little. "Do you want to come over after school? I have something really cool to show you." he asks. We I have nothing really planned since I had no friends. But I didn’t tell Jesse that.

"Yeah sure. What is it?" I ask. But before he could respond, an annoying voice interrupts him.

"Hey Jes Jes! How are you baby?" A tall brunette girl asks in an annoying high pitched voice. God she was so annoying I haven’t even met her before. But then I realize that she called him Jes Jes. I almost laughed at how pathetic that name was.

"I'm fine Monica." Jesse says in annoyance caused by the girl. I don't blame him.

"Jesse Bear come sit with us! Please? We miss you." A small blond girl from beside him says. These girls were pathetic to the fullest extent

"Yeah Jesse Bear. Go sit with them I can finish the project from here." I say trying to control my laughter but I was failing miserably. Jesse turns to glare at me but I just smile sweetly.

"Thank you for the offer but I'm going to hang out my good friend Athena." Jesse says. He puts an arm around my shoulder pulling me closer.

"No that's okay. Hang out with your little friends." I tell him, I really wanted to say hang out with your little sluts.

"OH EM GI! Why would you won't to hang out with the freak Athena? I hear if you stand to close she'll rip out your soul!" The blond says. I couldn't hold in my laughter any longer. I double over and fall to the floor laughing like an idiot.

When I have myself under control I get up and sit back on the couch. I look over to Jesse to see he's trying to control his laughter to. The girls just glare at me.

"Yeah Jesse, I don't wanna have to take your soul from you." I tell Jesse. He starts to laugh really hard. Almost repeating what I did earlier but he made it look cool.

"No thanks girls but Athena and I really have homework to do, so maybe next time." Jesse tells them and then waves them off.

“You and Athena are actually friends?” Monica asks with hate stained in her words and written all over her face.

“Yeah, him and I are like tots BFFs, Duh! Where have you been?” I tell her. She just turns to glare at me some more.

“Sweety, if you keep doing that then your face is going to stay like that. And it’s not exactly the most attractive thing.” I say sarcastically. She sneers at me and makes a frustrated growl thing. That wasn’t too attractive either. She glares at me one more time and her and blondie left us alone.

"Now why would you do that Jesse Bear? You’re chasing away all your friends." I ask him. He just glares at me.

"Please don't call me Jesse Bear, I hate that name." He replies. He looks at me with a sad puppy dog face. It just makes me laugh harder.

“Okay, I promise Jes Jes. I don’t want to make poor Jesse angry.” I pinch his cheek making it red. He slaps my hand away and smiles.

“See this is why you have no friends.” Jesse says. I laugh again, it was an inside joke.

“Hey, don’t make me mad! I don’t want to have to take your soul.” He laughs again, yet another inside joke. I wish that we could stay like this forever. Just two friends who have been to hell and back, laughing like they’ve known each other forever.

***

“So how did you get home yesterday? Did you even get your car back?” I ask Jesse. We took my car since I didn’t want anyone to steal my stuff, but Jesse was driving.

“I walked to my house and my mom dropped me off at the school to get my car. She wasn’t too happy that I left my car at school.” He answers. I felt guilty that he had to get in trouble because of me.

“I’m sorry.” I say. I didn’t know what else to say. He looks at me and laughs.

“Why are you sorry?” He asks amused. I really don’t have an answer for that. So I just shrug.

“So how long was the walk home?” I also felt guilty about him walking home. What if he had to walk like two miles or something? I’ve would of felt really bad.

“Not that far. I live a few houses down from Kyle.” Oh. So he lives really close to me since Kyle lived practically next door.

Before we could continue the conversation we pulled up to a house about the size of mine.

“We’re here.” Jesse says as he got out of the car. Before I could open the door he opens it for me.

“What a gentleman.” I say sarcastically. He smirks at my comment.

“Whatever, just come on.” He says back. I follow him into the door. Nice house but mine it definitely better I thought to myself.

“Jesse?” A small girlie voice said. A little girl about the age of six walked into the room. She was really cute and tiny. She had long blonde hair that was in pig tails and she was dressed in all pink. I guess she really likes the color pink.

“Hey Milly!” Jesse says excitedly as he picked up the little girl.

“Who’s this Jesse?” The girl asks sternly. I almost laugh, she was too cute.

“Milly this is my friend Athena. She’s pretty cool I guess. Athena this is my little sister Milly.” Jesse introduces us.

“Hi Milly.” I say to the little girl. Milly narrows her eyes and examined me. After what had felt like five minutes, Milly sighs.

“I like her! She has really long hair. I want my hair like that! Why can’t my hair be like that? I hate having yellow hair!” Milly questions. She was really cute when she was ranting.

Jesse laughs. “Milly go tell mom I’m home.” Jesse says while putting her down. The little girl ran and yells across the house, “MOMMY JESSE IS HOME!”

“She’s cute.” I tell Jesse.

“Yeah, I know. But I’m cuter.” He replies. I turn to him and gave him a serious look.

“No. No you are not,” I tell him seriously. “So what is it that you want to show me?” I ask.

“Oh! Come this way.” He answers then starts to walk off towards the stairs. I follow him all the way up the stairs and to what looked like the attic.

“Now, this is a very scary but shocking and helpful—I think.” Jesse says. I nod my head. He opens the door and turns on the lights of the room.

“Follow me.” He says again. How many rooms do we have to go through? He walks to what looks like a closet and opens the door.

“Well come on.” He says to me and walks in the closet. I follow him in while he turns on the lights.

“Gah!” I yell and then hit my elbow on the door that Jesse shut after I came in. “Owie! That hurt!” I say. Jesse only laughs.

“Are you okay?” He asks with a smile.

“No I’m not okay! You have a darkroom filled with that demon thing that stalks us!” I yell back at him. It was true, the darkroom only withheld pictures of that demon. He was everywhere in the pictures. In parks, on streets, on top of buildings; basically anywhere you can think of. In all of the pictures the demon has the creepy smile thing going on and is looking straight towards the camera that took the photo.

“Where did you get these pictures?” I ask with amazement and fear.

“I took them with my film camera. He doesn’t like to show up in digital pictures, only in developed pictures.” He answers back. Why would he only show up in developed picture?

“Wait, since when did you own your own darkroom?” I ask him. Jesse just shrugs.

“I just kind of turned the closet into a darkroom. You didn’t need a lot to do so. I’ve always wanted to be a photographer since I was little.” I nod my head in understandment. I always wanted to be a fairy princess when I was little.

“So what do all these pictures prove? That this demon guy is stalking us legitly now. Like we kind of knew he was a crazy physco stalker but now we know that he is a legit crazy physco stalker?” I question him.

“Yeah I guess, but I also have something else to show you that I think is way cooler!” Jesse says with excitement.

“No way! Cooler than having thousands of pictures of our stalker? How can you possibly beat that?” I ask.

“Oh shut up smartass.” Jesse replies. I follow him out of the darkroom and into the attic. He walks towards a box and opens it. He pulls out something I would have never seen in my life.

I back up almost ten feet away from him too scared to be near it. “Jesse, I’m starting to think your idea of cool and my idea of cool have no relation what-so-ever.” I whisper-shout to him. I don’t know why I was whispering though.

“Athena, don’t be such a baby! It’s just an Ouija board. It’s not going to bite you, I pinky promise.”

“You think this is funny? Aren’t those things cursed or something like that?!” I shout. Jesse just laughs. “No Athena, they’re not cursed. Calm down, I just wanted to show you what I found in my attic. I kind of also wanted to try it out to see if we can learn anything more about us.” Jesse say.

“No way! I am not getting anywhere near that cursed piece of wood.” I tell him. He needs to get it through his head that I’m not up for this.

“Athena,” He drags out my name. “It’s not cursed; I promise you that it’s just a chunk of wood with letters and numbers on it. I’m not even sure if it works yet. Let’s just try it. Please?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“PLEASE! Im begging you, please! I bow down to you, my master. Please I will do anything! PLEASE.” In the process of him begging me he got down to his knees and started to do bowing motions. He’s really annoying.

“You are really annoying,” Me saying this causes him to do another “PLEASE!” yell. “But I’ll do it because you really are embarrassing. Now please stop.” He grabs my hand, still kneeling on the ground, and thanks me.

“Whatever just let’s get this over with.” I told him. He gets up and smiles a big wide scary grin.

“Please stop smiling like that. It’s creepy.” I sit down on the floor and he follows. He puts the Ouija board on the ground and sits the triangle thing on top of it.

“What are we going to ask it?” Jesse asks me.

“Um, I don’t know. Maybe how is your day going?” I answer back.

“How do you think their day is going? There’re dead! You don’t just have small talk with a ghost Athena.”

“Well sorry, it’s not like I talk to ghost on a daily basis. I only see them, so I’m not the best conversation starter with someone who is deceased.” I was getting frustrated with Jesse now.

“Sorry, maybe we can ask it what this demon stalker wants from us.” Jesse suggests. I thought about, it seems like a pretty good question to ask. So I nodded my head.

“Okay let’s do this,” Jesse says while putting his hand on top of the triangle thing. “So Athena put your hand on mine.” I shake my head.

“Why not?”

“Because boys have cooties.” Jesse rolls his eyes at my remark.

“Come on Athena, We’re not in third grade anymore.” I narrow my eyes at him and slap my hand on his. “Now was that so hard?” Jesse asks.

“Whatever.” I mumble.

“So close your eyes and don’t think.” He instructs me. So I did what he said.

“Now ghostie, can you please tell me what the demon stalker guy wants from me and Athena—“

“Athena and I.” I correct.

“Yes, Athena and I? And if he doesn’t have a valid reason to can you tell him to stop stalking us? Pretty please?” Jesse finishes.

“Did you really have to call the ghost ghostie? Was that really appropriate?” I question Jesse.

“Did you really have to correct my grammar while trying to talk to the dead? Was that really appropriate, miss grammar Nazi?” Jesse retorts back. Well, he sure got me there.

“The triangle thing isn’t moving.” I wined to Jesse.

“I told you it might not work anyway, but it was worth a try.” Jesse says. I shrug; at least it didn’t bite me.

I took my hand off the triangle thing and Jesse follows. “So what’s next on the show-something-that-Jesse-thinks-is-cool-but-to-Athena-it-is-creepy-as-hell list?” I ask Jesse, but before he could reply the triangle thing starts to move on the Ouija board.

It trace over the letter S,

Than O,

Next U,

L,

S,

Then it stops moving. Both of us were frozen in shock from the sudden outburst of the Ouija board.

Then I thought of something. “Well, no duh. We already know this. That creepy old lady at the library told me this already. Please tell me something I don’t know.” I say.

“Athena! Don’t piss the ghost off! It can come back and haunt you for the rest of your life.” Jesse told me.

“Jesse sweety, what do you think my life for the past ten years have consisted of? I’ve been haunted by ghost for a very long time. One more is not going to through my world off balance.” I reply.

“Did you ever think that the reason behind this is that you’ve pissed off a few ghosts in your life?” He asks.

“Jesse shut up and let’s ask it another question.” I think for a few seconds what question I want to ask. “Okay. So um… Mr. or Miss. Ghost, can you tell us how to get the demon off our backs?” I ask.

There was a pause for about a minute. I guess it wants to think out this throughout. Smart ghost. Then the triangle started to move again.

R,

U,

N,

Then it stops again. Wow, such a straight forward answer.

“Thanks, I guess?” Jesse says but it was more like a question.

“See Jesse, this why you don’t mess with Ouija boards.” I told him but he just laughs. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, it’s just a song, that’s all.” He said.

“Wow, I never thought you would be a Falling In Reverse fan.” Surprising that the golden boy like heavy metal.

The triangle started to move again before we could finish are conversation.

Wow what is it going to tell us now, SLENDER MAN IS COMING? That would be more helpful then RUN. But no this time it pointed to numbers.

1,

7,

The triangle pauses for a moment. What? Why seventeen?

The triangle starts to move again.

R,

U,

N,

3,

2,

1,

“You are my sunshine,

My only sunshine,

You make happy when skies are grey,

You’ll never know dear,

How much I love you,

So please don’t take,

My sunshine,

Away”

Those lyrics pour from my phone loud and clear. I take the cellular device from my pocket and look at the caller. The number read 666.

Out of curiosity I answer the call and place the phone to my ear.

“H-Hello?” I speak into the phone. Heavy breathing follows by a deep croaky laugh came from the other line.

“Surprise, my love.” Says the stranger on the other end.

Then the call was discontinued by the person on the other end.

“Who was it?” Jesse asks. But before I could answer him I get another call.

The caller Id read Kyle. I take a deep breath and answer the call.

“Kyle?”

“Athena where are you? And don’t you dare say you are peeing again because I check your bathroom and you were not in there.”

“You’re in my house?”

“Of course. Since when am I not in your house? Oh, something smells really bad in your room. When was the last time you cleaned it?”

“Whatever Kyle. My room is spotless.”

“No, I’m not lying. It smells like something died in here. I think it’s coming from you closet. Are you harboring dead bodies again? I told you once you kill them you have to dump them—“

“Kyle, just please shut up. Can you check my closet to see what smells so bad?” I ask.

“Uh sure but—“The phone on the other line sounded like it fell.

“Kyle? Kyle are you there?” I was worrying now. The noise on the other end sounds like feet moving and the phone being picked up.

“Yeah Athena, I’m here. But did you know that there is a bloody dead cat in your closet? Because I definitely don’t remember one being there.”

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