A Halloween ghost story

Every year when the Halloween season rolls around, I think about Jimmy.

I met Jimmy late one October night just before my sixth birthday. I was in bed and was supposed to be sleeping, but actually I was hiding under the covers and shining a flashlight on a Casper the Friendly Ghost comic book.

I thought Casper was pretty cool because he was such a nice ghost. All of the other ghosts in the comics seemed to enjoy frightening people and making their hair stand up straight on end, their eyes bulge out of their sockets, and their tongues stick way out of their mouths (at least that’s the way they were drawn in the comic books). But Casper never tried to scare people. Casper always was a kind ghost.

Anyway, as I was looking at my comic book, I suddenly heard a noise in my room. It was like a soft thud and came from somewhere near my bedroom door. I held my breath. I heard it again.

Cautiously, I peered out from underneath the covers. I gasped. Standing there, to the left of my closed bedroom door, was a shadowy figure. It was tall, droopy-shouldered and was wearing a coat. Its hair was long and white. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

“Don’t be scared.” A young-sounding voice came from the shadowy figure. “I’m Jimmy. What’s your name?”

I was certain that my eyes were bulging, just like the people’s in the comic books. “S-Sally,” I managed to squeak.

Jimmy didn’t move from his spot. In fact, Jimmy didn’t move at all. “I’m a ghost,” he said. “I’ve been a ghost for 100 years.”

At that point, I was pretty sure I wet my bed. So many things were running through my mind. Was he a good ghost like Casper or one of those mean ghosts? Was my hair standing up straight on end? And what did his face look like? Was he a cute ghost or a really ugly one with huge fangs and glowing eyes? The streetlight just outside my bedroom window cast some light on him, but not enough for me to see his face.

“Wh-what are you doing here in my room?” I asked.

“Well, you were born on Halloween and you like Casper,” he said. “That makes you the perfect person for a ghost to visit.”

His voice sounded friendly enough. In fact, he sounded just like my cousin Eddie, who was one of my best buddies. Still, until I could see Jimmy’s face, I wasn’t about to trust him. For all I knew, a Wolfman-like monster was hiding underneath that coat and long white hair.

“How come you don’t move?” I asked him, though I didn’t really want him to come any closer.

“Oh, I’ll be moving in just a few seconds.”

Sure enough, he suddenly looked as if he were floating sideways – kind of like a flag in a soft breeze. I noticed that he had no feet.

“How did you get to be a ghost?” I asked.

“It happened on Halloween. I went out trick-or-treating and I got bags and bags of candy. Then I came home and sat up all night eating it, even though my parents warned me not to. The next thing I knew, I was a ghost.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. My parents frequently had warned me not to eat too much Halloween candy. I’d thought it was because I’d end up with a bellyache or maybe a toothache…not end up being a ghost. As much as I thought Casper was cool, I was in no hurry to become Casperella.

“Can I see your face?” I asked Jimmy.

“I don’t have one,” he said. “You should be getting to sleep now anyway or you won’t be able to get up for school in the morning. Oh…if you get a Hershey bar when you go out trick-or-treating, save it for me, okay? I’ve been craving one for 100 years.”

Before I could say anything else, the door to my bedroom creaked open and Jimmy was gone.

“Who on earth are you talking to?” My mother’s half-asleep voice came from my doorway.

In a frantic rush of words, I told her all about my encounter with Jimmy, the ghost.

She flipped on the bedroom light, looked around, and laughed. “Look, Sally, here’s your ghost!” She pointed to the clothes peg on the back of my bedroom door, where she’d hung my gray flannel coat and a white kerchief earlier that day.

“See? It looks like long white hair and a body with no feet!”

“But he moved!” I protested.

As if on cue, the furnace popped on, and through the grate, which was right near the door, a blast of hot air hit the clothes. They began to sway to the right.

“And I talked to him, and he talked back to me!”

“Honey, I’ll bet you were looking at your Casper comic books again and you fell asleep, or were nearly asleep, with ghosts on your mind. You were dreaming! Nothing about Jimmy was real.”

Mom’s explanation made sense…but still, I refused to believe that Jimmy didn’t exist. And when I went out trick-or-treating a few days later and got a Hershey bar, I saved it for him, just in case he came back.

And that year, I didn’t stuff myself to the usual bursting point with Halloween candy the way I’d always done in the past.

I was too scared I’d end up like Jimmy.