The Christmas Party

“We’re back, baby!” I said merrily as I fixed my sunglasses looking in the mirror. “Aaaaoooooooooooooo!”

“Well, well,” Jake mocked me as he patted me on the shoulder, “looks like someone’s excited about tonight!” 

“Well, weren’t you the one who asked when we would do this again, Mr. Jake?”

We both burst out laughing.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re not having fun without me, are you?” Spike interrupted as he joined us laughing along with us.

“So, where are we going today?” Jake asked.

“It’s a-”

“Let me guess, it’s another surprise, isn't it, Lowell?”

“Ding, ding, ding! You guessed it right, Spike!”

“You know what happened last time we went to that surprise Halloween party.” Spike said. “The hunters were called in and we almost got killed. It was terrifying and-”

“But we had fun.”

“Yeah…”

“Hey,” Jake told Spike. “Look on the bright side. At least we got to scare the shit out of those people last time. We could do the same tonight!”

“We will show those people that we are also good, just like them,” I said with a smile. “They will accept us, Spike.”

And with a sigh and a warm chuckle from Spike, we headed out the door and out to the big party on a snowy afternoon. It was in a very nice house. Big, like a mansion. Lights bursted out of the windows and the floor shook as people jumped up and down. And then there was our issue: the gatekeeper.

I told the guys to stand behind me and let me take charge of him.

“Hello, my good sir. We are just coming in for the party,” I said as I smiled.

The gatekeeper grunted. “Name.”

“Huh?”

“Name. If I don’t have your name, then you’re not entering.”

I looked nervously at Spike and Jake who were as puzzled as I was. I had to think quickly. “Um… Benedict Timothy Cumberbatch, III. And these two are my friends Bartholomew Forrest and Engelbert Humperdinck, Jr.”

“Hmm… I don’t see you here.”

I started laughing and signaled at the guys to do the same. “Oh, so funny. Of course we’re in there. We’re the host’s friends. Right guys?”

They nodded nervously.

“We just wanna have fun, you know?”

He didn’t answer.

“Maybe they forgot to add our names. But we’re chill dudes who want to have a nice time with our friend!”

“Look, get out now, or I’ll call the cops.”

“But we’re the host’s-”

“The host has no friends, weirdo! Now, get out!”

My friends must have sensed me about to snap out in a violent rage because the next thing they did was to grab me as firmly as they could and drag me out of there as quickly as possible. Once they sat me on a bench very far from the view of the gatekeeper, I started to calm down.

“It’s not fair!” I yelled out.

“What do you-”

“That it’s not fair that they do this to us, Spike. All we want to do is fit in with them, but every time we try, something goes wrong!” I could feel myself getting extremely emotional and agitated. “Is that fair to any of y’all? That we try to be as good as we can, but then it doesn’t work out… and it’s got me thinking: are we evil?”

I looked at them with tears in my eyes.

“Oh, Lowell…” Spike said. “I-”

“Did Buck get erased from existence because he was evil, like us?” I broke down crying as Spike and Jake embraced and cried with me. “I miss him, guys. Every single day, I just wish he was here with us, but he’s gone… and heaven knows if we’ll ever see him again!”

“I don’t think we’re evil,” Jake said after we all calmed down. “It’s just that humans think we are. Society sees us as evil, and that’s what we’ll be no matter how many good deeds we do. It’s never enough. They fear us, and it’s easier for them to hate what they don’t understand. See what ignorance does?”

“So Buck…”

“They feared him, so they killed him. Easier than trying to understand him.”

We sat there in silence for a while on the cold winter afternoon.

“So, what do you guys wanna do?” Spike finally asked.

I sniffed and cleared my throat. “Well, if they’re really convinced we’re pure evil, I say we show them what true evil is! Who’s with me?”

They cheered me on and we started a plan. It was time to use our ghostly powers. And the moon was going to be on our side tonight!

“Leave me the gatekeeper to me. You guys take care of the guests. Time for Operation Haunted Mansion!”

With that, we started. The world would know about us now.

“Hey there, my dear sir,” I told the gatekeeper in a harsh tone. “Did you miss me?”

He grunted. “I told you to get lost, or I’ll call the cops!”

“And why don’t you take care of me yourself, huh? Am I too scary for you?”

I could see his face turning red as a tomato, and I am sure that I could see a bit of steam coming out of his ears.

“So you just gonna stare at me like that? You a scary kitty?”

He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve. “Alright, that’s it!” He lunged at me and grabbed me by the neck, holding up his fist ready to hit me. “You asked for this, buddy!”

I chuckled. “Amateur.”

“Huh?”

I could feel the moon’s power running through my veins. Oh, how good it felt. 

The terror on the man’s face was all I wanted to see. He let me go as I got bigger and bigger in size. Once again, the moon took over my body and mind. I wasn’t me anymore. I was something bigger, stronger, something terrifying yet fascinating. And once again, there were the helpless cries. That man’s cry may forever haunt my soul, but in my defense, he deserved it.

I don’t remember much afterwards, but I’ll try to tell you what I remember happening.

After I took care of the gatekeeper, I made my way inside and remembered seeing Jake and Spike, transformed into beasts too. We used our ghostly powers to make stuff move around the mansion. People were going crazy, and it made the frenzy even more intense within us. The helpless cries were everywhere. It almost felt like a feverish dream. Nothing felt real, but at the same time, you know everything’s real. It’s hard to describe if you’ve never experienced it.

We were having the time of our lives. It had been long ago since we’d done that… but then our problems began.

I remember hearing some sirens, but these weren't your ordinary sirens. They were the ghost-hunters’ sirens. One moment we were having fun, with people running away from us. Next, we were surrounded by those guys with their weird heavy machines.

The fear within us reached such levels that we transformed back into our more human shapes. We raised our hands in the air.

“Lowell…” Spike stuttered.

I took a deep breath. “I’m really sorry guys. I…”

“It’s okay, Lowell,” Jake whispered. “At least we got to spend our last moments together.”

“Do you think we’ll get to go where Buck is?” Spike asked.

I nodded softly with a tear in my eye. “I love you guys. Thank you for the memories.”

We hugged each other as the loud, high-pitched sound of the hunters’ machines enveloped the atmosphere. Then there was a blinding flash of light, and everything went dark.

________________

I woke up in our house. Everything was the same as we’d left it before leaving for the Christmas party.

Was this all a dream?

I called out for Jake and Spike, but there was no answer. Instead, there was a familiar voice singing Christmas carols from the kitchen.

“It can’t be…” I muttered to myself.

I walked towards the kitchen and there I saw him. He was making hot chocolate with cinnamon and whipped cream, a classic from him.

“Buck…”

He turned around and greeted me with a big, warm smile. I ran towards him and embraced him in a warm hug as I started sobbing violently.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay. I’m here, you’re here.”

“I really missed you, Buck! I thought you were gone, forever!”

Spike and Jake soon also arrived and joined the group hug.

“Buck, I really thought you were dead dead!” Spike said, half yelling and half sobbing.

“What is this place?” Jake asked once everyone calmed down.

“Seems like home to me,” Buck admitted. “Been here for years now, but there are other ghosts in the neighborhood, too. So I’ve had plenty of company all this time.”

He looked at us with a smile and said, “You guys wanna go to a Christmas party next block? I swear there are no ghost-hunters here!”

We all laughed hard and I said, “you bet we do!”