Chapter 1

Caroline awoke. She’d had a dream ... one of the weird kind. The details were already fading, but the image of a figure, shrouded in a dark cloak, was still there. The weird part was that that image had turned to something like tendrils of smoke, reaching toward her. She remembered being afraid.

A voice suddenly said, “Next!” and her eyes snapped open in confusion. It was as if an old movie projector had suddenly been turned on, and the reel on it came to life.

It wasn’t dark in her room.

It was very noisy in her room!

In fact ... she wasn’t even in her room!

“Next!” came a strident voice from in front of her.

A sort of mist all around Caroline seemed to clear and she looked around to find herself in a line of people. There were other lines of people to her left and right. Ahead of her was a counter, behind which sat a little man with reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

The person behind her shoved her forward.

“Come on,” he complained. “We ain’t got all day.”

“Yes we do,” said the woman behind him. “We have all of eternity.”

“I don’t understand,” said Caroline.

“NEXT!” yelled the little man, impatiently.

Caroline stepped forward. It was habit, actually. It’s just what you do when you’re in line. The little man peered at her.

“What’ll it be?” he asked, lifting an old-fashioned quill pen and dipping it in a small pot of ink nearby. His hand brought it to hover over a long sheet of what looked like parchment.

“I don’t understand,” said Caroline.

“You have to choose,” said the man. “Ghost? Goblin? Beastie? Witch? What do you want to be?”

Caroline blinked, trying to bring some kind of meaning to this ... dream?

“Where am I?” she asked.

The little man stared at her and then went still.

“Crap, not another one,” he said under his breath. Looking at her he said, “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll call somebody to explain.”

“Explain what?” moaned Caroline. “I don’t understand what’s going on!”

Instead of saying more, the little man held up a finger in the universal “just wait” gesture. Then he picked up the heavy-looking handset of an antique rotary phone and dialed zero.

“We got another one,” he said into the microphone. “I wasn’t watching the line so I don’t know if she popped into existence or not. But she don’t know why she’s here.” He listened for a few seconds and said, “Okay.”

He hung up and looked at Caroline.

“Stand over there. Somebody is coming to get you.”

“I don’t want somebody to get me,” said Caroline. “I want to go home! Where is this place?”

But the little man simply looked past her and called out, “Next!”

Caroline had progressed from confused and annoyed to frightened by the time a man approached her, cutting through the crowd of people in line as if some invisible force field surrounded him, repelling whatever it encountered. People griped and yelled at him, but he seemed to take no notice. He approached Caroline and stood in front of her. He stood very close, invading her personal space. It occurred to her that whatever had repelled all those other people wasn’t affecting her. He was gorgeous ... which to her annoyance... was affecting her.

“I’m Chad,” said a golden, liquid voice. “Come with me and I’ll explain everything.”

“Okay,” she sighed. Chad’s voice made her feel better, which was crazy, because he was a complete stranger. His voice was so soothing. He was so tall. He was so handsome!

She didn’t remember following him anywhere, but suddenly she was sitting on a settee. Chad was sitting next to her, half turned toward her.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“Where do you think you should be?” he asked, instead of answering her question.

“In bed,” she said. “I was in bed, at home. I had a dream.”

“I suspected as much,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s going on? Where am I? Why am I here? How did I get here?”

“You were hacked,” said Chad. He held up a finger to forestall her anticipated outburst. “I’ll explain. Are you hungry?”

“Hungry?” The question astonished her. Here she was, awakened from a bad dream, somehow transported to some unknown place, like an airport terminal with lines of people and a funny little man demanding she choose something and another man who was gorgeous, a perfect stranger who she somehow trusted.

That was it. She was still dreaming! That had to be it.

“You’re not dreaming,” said Chad, as if he could read her mind.

Caroline’s stomach growled. She was further astonished to find she was absolutely famished!

“I must be dreaming,” she said.

“Let me get you a snack and I’ll explain,” suggested Chad.

“Okay,” said Caroline.

After all, what else could she do?

Caroline stuffed a fourth chocolate-covered strawberry in her mouth. The “snack” Chad had brought her would have covered her dining room table. What confused her was that, somehow, he “went” to get it and “returned” with all that food in the space what seemed like just a few seconds. And, somehow, she went from sitting on a soft settee to an un-cushioned oak chair at a beautiful round oak table ... without moving a muscle.

She’d been too ravenous, upon seeing the food, to think of anything else but eating. Now, though, she was finally satisfied. It was odd, because she knew she’d eaten enough to fill two grown men, but felt only comfortably full.

Chad had sat placidly, watching her eat. He had munched on a blueberry muffin while she ate. Just one muffin. His blue eyes had felt sensual upon her.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded, but followed that with, “I don’t understand any of this.”

“This will sound odd to you, but this is an odd situation, so please listen and I’ll explain everything,” he said.

She nodded again. That cheesecake just over there to her right looked like it would taste divine.

“Where you are, at present, has no name that would mean anything to you,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be here.” He held up a finger to ward off her questions.

She reached for the cheesecake. If she wasn’t allowed to ask for details, at least she could enjoy something delicious.

“Most mortals - people like you - believe one of two things,” he said. “They either believe there is an afterlife, or they don’t. If they do believe there is an afterlife, most of them think there are only two realms, Heaven and Hell. All of them, as it turns out, are wrong. There is an afterlife, but it takes many, many different forms.”

“How many?” asked Caroline, her mouth full of cheesecake.

“Currently there are...” Chad paused. “The exact number isn’t important. For the sake of argument, let’s just say millions.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Caroline.

“Are you going to let me explain?” asked Chad, patiently. “I have forever, unless another one of you people shows up.”

“What do you mean, ‘you people’?” asked Caroline.

Chad sighed. Obviously she wasn’t going to just let him explain.

“Mortals,” said Chad. “You haven’t died. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Of course I haven’t died,” she said. His frown made her heart ache. Suddenly, the last thing she wanted was for Chad to be unhappy with her. “I’ll be quiet,” she promised. “Go on.”

“Under ordinary circumstances, when a mortal passes into the realm of the dead, where he or she goes depends on a number of things. One is what kind of personality he or she had while living. If she was a happy person, then she goes to a happy place. If she was a nervous person, then she goes to a nervous place. If she was a violent person, then she goes to a violent place,” he said.

Caroline suppressed her impulse to say that was ridiculous, too. Instead she reached for a chocolate cupcake, decorated with Jack-O-Lantern frosting.

“There are other criteria that determine where someone goes when they die, but that’s not important right now. There have been instances in the past where a spirit from the afterlife exchanged places with a mortal. It’s been very rare up to now, but recently we’ve had some issues with an increase in this phenomenon,” said Chad. “It’s been hypothesized that the technology of the living has begun to intrude on the realm of the dead. Someone in the spirit world has figured out how to take over the body of a mortal ... hack that mortal, if you will ... and exchange places with him.” Chad smiled gently. “Or her. In this case, you were the one who was hacked. You said you were asleep ... dreaming ... before you got here?”

“Yes!” said Caroline. “I had a bad dream and then woke up here.”

“Your dream was hacked,” said Chad. “I’m going to guess that one of your favorite holidays was ... is ... Halloween.”

Caroline blinked. He was right. She loved Halloween. She loved everything about it ... the costumes ... the trick or treating ... the themed parties ... even the weather at that time of year.

“Yes,” she said, feeling trepidation. “How did you know that?”

“Because you ended up in the Halloween part of the afterlife,” he said, simply. “Why that is important is because we theorize that the dead can only hack the living who are of a similar temperament.”

Caroline had freaked out. She knew she had. She couldn’t remember doing so, but she knew she had. Now she was on the settee again and Chad was sitting with his hand on her shoulder.

“Better now?” he asked, kindly.

She nodded.

“I must still be dreaming,” she said.

“Nope. Sorry.” He shrugged.

“You said ‘someone’ had figured out how to hack us,” said Caroline. “If that was the case, then it would have only happened once.”

“A valid point,” said Chad. “You have computer hackers in the mortal world, right?”

Caroline understood his inference immediately. Those people talked to each other, trading tips on how to manipulate the digital world like suburban housewives traded recipes.

“But why would a spirit do that? What could they possibly want? I assume money is worthless here.”

Chad’s face closed down.

“That’s something we don’t need to discuss,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Caroline fumed for a few seconds, and then realized she was wasting emotion. What she needed to figure out was what to do.

“What does all this mean?” she asked. “For me?” she added.

“Well, unfortunately, we haven’t figured out a way to track these hackings. It’s a new phenomenon. Once we figure that out we might be able to reverse the effects. Until then there’s nothing we can do other than explain things to you. You’re kind of stuck here.”

He looked uncomfortable for the first time since she’d met him.

“And ... I’m sorry to say ... until we can find some way to reverse things ... you have to choose.”

“Choose what?” she asked.

“Choose what kind of Halloween spirit you’re going to be,” he said, softly.

“What?!”

“You must choose how you’ll spend your time while you’re here.”

“I don’t understand,” she moaned.

“You can be a ghost, or a witch, a goblin or banshee ... a ghoul of some kind. The list is endless. Anything you associate with Halloween is available for you to adopt as your specialty.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Caroline, instinctively. “Those things don’t exist.”

Chapter 2 »