Romantic Getaway With a Freaking-Out Spouse

She really wanted to see a ghost…ecstatically excited. She heard this place had plenty, and a spooky atmosphere. She’d have to pinch herself, ready to cheer…elated. She’d spend a romantic weekend there with a freaking-out spouse. He’s a scaredy-cat! He rarely finds anything funny! He stutters. He’s bony. Of course she fibbed to him. A mansion on the cliffs, buried behind briars and thorns. You could hear the roar of the tide, far below, over the rocks. Bitter thunder and lightning— oh Angela’s freaking stunned. Couldn’t ask for a nicer day - husband’s a shivering bag of bones. The thick, heavy door, with unrelenting ‘turn on back,’ opens nonetheless. Angela prods and pulls her Jack, into the lair, as the door closes and bolts. He’s crying like a baby, inside. The romantic getaway’s bleek and dark, except for candelabra here and there, in this statistically bad idea. Angela just knows she’ll get a look-see at the afterlife - a welcoming sight. Jack be nimble…Jack be quick…Jack wants to jump over the candlestick and hit the bricks. Without a boo, she tries to resurrect a ghost or two. “C’mon out! I’m raring to see you. Don’t play hide’n seek. Show yourself.” She’s so giddy with no care about her scared to death spouse. Angela laughs as wisps of smoke take form, as snowy cotton shifts, as the familiar “oohs” and “boos” uplift. Terrified Jack’s in no laughing mood. He hides himself in the corners of the room. Suddenly it gets very cold, and a very bold ghost has a hold on a candelabra, shines over the face of Jack, “Don’t you worry, son, this will make you crack a smile,” surprisingly reassuring. The ghost grins, as he spins touché over to Angela, “Is this all you were hoping for?” He bellows with his mighty flue, turns gray-green, skeletal too, eyes out of sockets. Flames of the candelabra catch her curls and girly-mustache too. From the corner, a full-throttle laughter emerges from Jack as Angela is laid out on her back. The specter adds a pillow and a gravestone to the act. The ghost ribs Jack, “I rather like your bones, son. Let’s see you rattle and roll.” Welcomed out the door, Jack leaves without a wife. 10/13/2021 Chantelle Cooke’s Ghost Lace Contest