Sandra Dee

Sandy was always interested in ghosts and phantoms. Since she was a small child, she carried a little tape recorder inside her dress pocket. Even days while playing outside, when mother was not looking, Sandy jumped into the edge of the woods and went on a “ghost hunt”. Of course, Sandy never saw anything except a few small animals shooting from underneath the brush of the forest floor. Yes, Sandy would scream, but not because there were any ghosts around. Not until she grew older, at least.

During high school, Sandy and her friends, Jake and Malcolm joined an online organization called the Morbid Ghost Society. Here, they learned that it was possible to contact the dead, have conversations and even travel out of body to be with them. This ignited Sandy’s passions and took her for a ride into the mysterious reality of life after death. It was here that Sandy realized that ghosts were real. It was then that Sandy started her journey into the realms of darkness.

“I want to conduct the next session, Malcolm.” Sandy insisted. She swung her golden hair in his face and turned away from him. She pouted.

Malcolm rolled his eyes like always and handed the EVP meter over to Sandy. Malcolm was kind but sometimes irritable to the point where he wanted to have all the control within the group. He was the leader of the group, recruited from the Engineering class and he was in love with Sandy, secretly of course. Sandy needed his skills to lead them into the unknown. Jake was the silent one-mechanics were his fortay. He kept the equipment running and took on all physical aspects of the job. Sandy, well, Sandy was the dreamer, the one who never gave up.

“One day, we will find the real deal” She would say.

Malcolm always shook his head before he brushed her off. “Yeah yeah, we been looking for the entire year and all we have found is a few orbs and spirals in the photos. The meter is not picking up anything substantial either. Are you sure you want to keep doing this?”

“Yes, we are part of the organization now. It is our duty to report back to the site about our findings. We are about to find something amazing, I am telling you.”

It seemed bleak and dismal for the group. Travel expenses mounted, grades dropped and Sandy’s parents started enforcing their joke of a curfew. This forced Sandy to cut her sessions short. Jake’s girlfriend, Natalie got pregnant and Jake dropped out of the group.

“So, what do we do now, genius?” Sandy asked Malcolm.

Malcolm rolled his eyes again and headed off to Engineering. Sandy stood outside the Art History Class and fumed. She wanted to find them-she wanted her ghost.

Sandy found it too. One night after she came home from curfew, Sandy was lying across her bed wrapping her microphone cord mindlessly around her finger. Her thoughts were drifting around the room, wondering what she could do to take her mind off her ever mounting curiosity of the dead. She thought about Jake and wondered if she could possibly talk him into returning to the group. She thought about the orbs and wondered if she could return to the cemetery where they were captured. Sandy stop thinking and rolled over in bed. There, hovering above her was a white filmy form. It wavered above her, sending thin white tendrils out all around its shape. The tendrils curled and then drew back into the form.

“Oh my god!” Sandy gasped.

She reached for the camera but the camera had fallen onto the carpet. She started to rise and then the spector spoke to her.

“Sandy, we are lonely.”

Sandy realized that they phantom had spoken to her but somehow her ears could not process the words.

“Sandy, come.”

Sandy smiled and realized that she was holding her own. She was not afraid just startled.

“Come where?”

The apparition wavered and the voice spoke again. Sandy realized that the voice sounded mechanical, digital and broken. She realized the voice was coming from all around her. Reaching onto the floor, she felt around for the meter. When she found it and brought it close, she could hear the voice better.

“You are speaking through this, aren’t you?” Sandy held up the voice box and smiled.

“Yes, come.”

Sandy frowned “How?”

“Leave your body.”

Sandy lay back on the bed and dropped the meter. She knew how to conduct OBEs. She had worked on the experiment with her brother many years before. She was no stranger to the experience.

“Okay, I am ready.”

Sandy closed her eyes and let the realization pass over her, the heat of her body, the currents and the air. She saw the electricity, which reigns in all human bodies, pass from her toes to the top of her head. She grew warmer and then suddenly felt herself rising. The eyes of her soul opened and she saw the apparition. A wind passed through her and she turned. She saw her own body lying on the bed, with all the equipment piled on either side. Sandy felt exhilarated.

“Wow! I am free.”

As she spoke, Sandy turned back toward where the apparition floated. She was horrified. The apparition was no longer white and shimmering. The thing before her was dark, and its booming voice laughed.

“Thank you, my dear.”

Before Sandy could respond, the dark thing shot downward and into her form. In moments, her own body was animated, while she floated above it, pressed against the ceiling of her own room. Her body rose from the bed and looked up.

“See ya later, Sandy!”

She watched herself leave. She screamed.

2

In the realm of the dead, it wasn’t cold and it wasn’t hot. I was nothing. Sandy had no form, but Sandy was there. The very idea that she no longer existed was horrifying to her. She had no arms, no legs and no face. Sandy was dead, as far as she knew.

Sandy screamed again, but she could only feel the breeze grow hard.

“How?”

As soon as they thought the word, the EVP meter responded with static. She looked down, distracted by the sound of the meter and the reaction of the EMF. The numbers raced higher then back down dramatically.

“I cannot even touch my equipment. I am trapped.”

Sandy heard the digital voice of the EVP meter as it crackled out the word “trapped”. She realized that she was manipulating the equipment. She was a ghost now. She now knew what it was like and how horribly frustrating it was to be locked outside a human form. Her thoughts raced.

“Help!”

The meter crackled again and then suddenly went dead. It was harder than she thought to make the words. It was very hard. Sandy screamed again, so silent and so horrible. When she screamed, she heard the screamed crackling weakly into the EVP.  Sandy quieted. She tried a sentence, but nothing. She tried many different words and nothing. After several attempts she stopped and then she screamed obscenities, or at least something in the wind, around a consciousness, that remembered being a girl named Sandy, screamed “bloody hell”.

The EVP screeched a very loud “Bloody hell” and then went silent.

If ghosts were ever tired, then this was Sandy’s excuse. She wafted down and settled among the lamps on the table. Her entity stared through the lava lamp and over to the EVP meter.

“Someone please find me.”

As Sandy settled behind the lava lamp, she noticed two shimmering lights settle on the other side. Then a third one wavered around her as well. Sandy suddenly felt warmth and love, but she couldn’t understand why.

“I am sorry, dear. I am sorry that you are dead.” The sweet voice chimed in the air.

Sandy heard the voice as some consciousness much like her own. The emotions and the air was charmed and warmed by something.

“You are here with us now. We will teach you.”

Sandy realized that she was surrounded by the dead. Other little lights fell from the ceiling and hovered around the room. Blue lights, green lights and even little pink ones.

“So, what color am I?” she spoke, only as a ghost can speak.

The other lights shimmered and she heard millions of conscious creatures laughing.

Midnight

“Look Sandy, I have tried to call you a dozen times and you won’t answer your damn phone. I need the equipment. I have this thing and I need to use the microphone and the meter. Please call me back before morning, please!”

“Sandy, come on, it’s half past midnight. I need that meter by 3 a.m. I have a major lead on a place out in Forest Hill. Just call me, okay.”

“Look, I am coming over. I have a key and I will be quiet. I will just come in and get the stuff. I guess you are sleeping, so I won’t wake you. I just got to get this footage. This may be the thing we are looking for, you know. Just, don’t worry about it, get your sleep and I will take care of it. Be there in a minute.”

Malcolm slipped through the back door and up the stairs. He didn’t even knock on Sandy’s bedroom door before entering. He expected to see Sandy thrown across the bed, but she was awake. She sat at her dressing table, massaging her face.

“Hey, why didn’t you answer the phone?”

Sandy kept kneading her cheeks and smiling like an idiot. Malcolm opened the his black case and place the meter inside. He looked over at Sandy.

“Did you hear me? Why are you still up? Are you going with me?”

Sandy said nothing.

Malcolm walked over and bent down to look in Sandy’s face. He waved one hand in front of her.

“Hey! Are you in there?”

Sandy looked at Malcolm and smiled. “Sandy is not here. I am Bezel.”

Malcolm frowned. “Really Sandy? Real funny, are you mad at me or something?”

Sandy just stared at him and smiled again. She was creeping him out and he just didn’t feel like dealing with it anymore. He walked back to the bed and continued gathering the equipment.

“Look, I am going out to Forest Hill. A bunch of people said there is a real strong ghost out there. Apparently, he was killed in some sort of attack. I am not sure really. I just want to get some readings and maybe a few voices.”

Sandy, or the thing that used to be Sandy laughed. I was a laugh that sent shivers down his spine

.

“This entity you seek is a murderer. He is very interesting indeed.”

Malcolm stopped packing and looked back at Sandy. “Wow! You already know about the place?”

“Why yes, I congregate there from time to time.”

Malcolm frowned, and just as he started to turn back to the meter, he heard a crackling noise.

Sandy, the ghost

Malcolm picked up the meter and gasped. “Did you hear that, Sandy? It said “Help me!”

The girl at the dressing table frowned and suddenly stood.

“I heard nothing. Those things are rubblish.”

The meter crackled again and something screamed, followed by a volley of less than lady-like words.

Malcolm sat down and wiped the sweat from his brow.

“This is some serious evidence. I never knew your house was haunted. Grab the EMF and let’s get a reading. Forget about Forest Hill, we have a situation right here.”

3.

“You see, I am not Sandy. I don’t wish to pretend to be Sandy and I sure as hell have a much better plan for this body.”

Malcolm stared at Sandy while something in the EVP screamed his name. He had never been more confused in all his life. Suddenly, he realized that Jake and Sandy had set him up. They were playing some elaborate trick on him and he was falling for it. Yes, he was falling for it, hook line and sinker-at least until now.

“Okay, okay…you got me. You are not Sandy, you are some demon who stole her body and she is floating up there somewhere trying to talk to me, right?”

The thing called Sandy smiled and then laughed.

“Wow, good one. So, are we going to go check out Forest Hill?”

“Malcolm!!! Malcolm” The meter screeched

Malcolm shook the meter. “Okay, you guys can stop now. You are going to mess up the meter, playing stupid games with it.”

“Malcolm!!! Malcolm!!!”

“LOOK, stop it, you guys!”

Sandy, at the dressing table was no longer smiling. She walked over to Malcolm and sat next to him on the bed.

“You know the truth, Malcolm. You always wanted her, didn’t you?”

Malcolm frowned. “Sandy…I”

Malcolm did want Sandy, but he knew that Sandy was in love with someone else. Sandy didn’t want him. Malcolm thought for a second that maybe this was really something supernatural. He shook off the feeling and turned toward Sandy.

“Look, you can stop now. I know it’s a trick and I fell for it. I give up! You got me!”

Sandy took his face in her hands and planted a kiss on his lips. Malcolm blubbered against her mouth and pushed himself back. He fell onto the floor.

“Sandy?”

The EVP meter crackled and a voice spoke loud and clear. “Knock her out, Malcolm!”

Malcolm looked at the EVP and back to the Sandy, whom sat on the bed. She licked her lips and leaned toward Malcolm. He looked into her eyes and realized that it was not Sandy. It was something else.

“Who are you?”

The thing laughed leaning its head back. “I told you, I am Bezel. I think you are scrumptious!”

Malcolm swung the heavy camera up and into the side of Sandy’s head. The real Sandy squealed between the static of the EVP meter. The Sandy, the one that was sitting on the bed, fell over and sighed. She stopped moving, she was out cold.

The meter crackled again and Malcolm heard Sandy speak.

“Did you kill me? You weren’t supposed to kill me!”

Malcolm swallowed the lump in his throat and made his way to where the fake Sandy lay. The EVP was silent.

“Sandy! Hey!” Malcolm shook Sandy, while whispering in her ear. He hoped this had worked and also hoped that he hadn’t really hurt Sandy, but Sandy didn’t move.

Malcolm sat down beside her and put his face in his hands.

“Hey, don’t cry.”

Malcolm expected the crackle of the EVP to greet him after her words. He turned to look at the meter and it was void of frequency or sound. It was dead silent.

He felt the hand on his shoulder and he dreaded what he might see. He wiped his tears and stood.

“Don’t touch me!”

Sandy smiled and then put her hand to the knot that was forming on the side of her head.

“Wow! You really clocked me with that one.” Sandy groaned and stood as well. She wobbled a bit before Malcolm reached out and steadied her stance. He raised her face to see the damage that he had done with the camera. A single line of blood made its way down the side of her face, followed by a tear. She squinted and smiled.

Malcolm frowned and made to apologize.

“Hey, it’s okay….you saved me. “

Malcolm smiled back. “Yeah, well, I am still a little confused, but one things for sure, I think I am not going to do this stuff again for awhile. No ghosts for me! It seems kind of dangerous, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that we should go check out Forest Hill.”

Sandy laughed and put her hand on his face. The touch startled him. He instinctively drew back expecting the eyes of Bezel to stare back at him. There was only Sandy, the Sandy he knew….and loved.

“and...I never got to finish something I started, Malcolm.”

Malcolm smiled. “What’s that?”

“Just this…”

Sandy kissed him

…And all the spirits giggled. The EVP crackled with new life.