The windows rattled from the screams of wind that blustered outside the large picturesque windows. Inside there was a chill that could make anyone wary of their surroundings. Alone in the high ceiling library, sat a young college girl. She was too preoccupied with her studies, to notice the pearly old man gliding towards her or his companion lurking four stacks away. The man looked over to his companion with a silent chuckle and a joyful roll of his eyes. He silently cleared his throat, "Ahem, excuse me, Miss…" his body now visible but still transparent.
The girl looked up a bit glassy-eyed at first quickly cleared and she screamed with pair of lungs that would make an opera singer green, "AAAAHHHHHHH!" She scrambled out of her armchair she had been occupying till late this evening, knocking her papers to the ground in the process. The girl bolted from the library, tripping over her feet as she ram. Leaving her papers scattered about the far back table.
"What did I say?" the elderly man asked innocently with a glimmer of mirth in his eyes of his young companion who had moved to lean against a bookshelf and witnessed his exchange with the young college girl.
"You know it wasn't what you said, you hare-brained-ninny, it was you in general," She said wistfully, "You've been gone for what three decades now, yet you still ask that same retched question every time one of these students decides to work late and you decided to introduce yourself." She looked down at the papers scattered about the floor and read the only legible : Layla, hum, so that was the girl's name.
"Well, you'd think they would stop screaming after the first decade!" He guffawed while she scowled, "Come now, Daphne. You have to admit, though, it's funny every time!" he grinned
"Were you always this funny when you were alive or is it something they gave you to liven you?" She sneered, turning and glided down towards the philosophy area leaving a frigid breeze in her wake.
"Sheesh, I was only kidding…" he sighed and turned to patrol the zoology section when creekk went the doors to the library opened slowly. Three heads poked in; one was the girl that had just fled running and screaming from here. The others were two boys, a short lanky one and a tan one.
"I swear it was right there," she said pointing a shaking hand towards the table with her belongings littered around the floor.
"Wow," the shorter of the two boys, she found said, "A ghost did all this?" He gesturered towards the papers that still lay scattered about on the floor.
"Ahhh… no, I was kinda in a hurry," she murmured shuffling her feet.
"What do you think, Helia?" He asked the other boy, who had wondered over towards the disaster that were her school books.
"Hmmm….," He said, as he begun to wave a funny looking box and a rather large red light bulb that flickered every time emanating an ear piercing chirp, "Something was definitely here, alright. It left a high E.M.F. level reading."
"A WHAT?" Layla Shrieked, looking between the two boys then shouted hysterically, "You're both nuts!"
"You're the one who came charging down the hall almost plowing us down. Shrieking worse than any banshee about ghost, right, Roy?" Helia said, without taking his eye from his EMF detector.
The shorter boy nodded vigorously, "yeah, though I thought she was running from some axe welding maniac!" He said goofily.
During their conversation Daphne had come to floated beside Helia, as he continued to scan the table, careful to avoid his little devise, it went Back and forth in a repetition-like style. Daphne had to duck to narrowly avoid having his out stretched hand, not once, not twice but thrice before becoming very annoyed with the constant dodging. She took a step back but the device seemed to have registered her change of direction, because Helia stepped towards her. Still sweeping his arm back and forth .
"Nabu, do you mind…," She said ducking under Helia's arm, "they're…" duck, "getting on …," duck, "my Nerves!" She shouted just as Helia's arm came back and stopped in the center of ghoulish chest, "NOW," She screamed in outrage, as the devise chirped rapidly in his hand.
"HA HA HA, you sure about that," he guffawed at the sight of Helia's arm sticking out of her bosom. She shot him a murderous glare, "Alright, no need to shout."
"It doesn't matter they can't hear us, while we exist in this plane and they in another." She growled, "So MOVE IT, GOUL!"
"Alright, alright, but we're doing this together. So wait till I'm in position." He glided around Roy and Layla. Nabu placed himself between them and the exist.
He gave Daphne a wink and solidified behind the two unsuspecting students, "Helia, you might want to move your hand, right, Daphne," He said as all three jumped turning to gawked at the sight of Nabu's sudden appearance at the door.
Layla took that as her cue to make her grand appearance, "Quite, right, Nabu." She said solidifying in front of Helia with his arm still protruding from her chest.
Roy and Layla looked from Daphne with Helia's hand inside her chest to Nabu behind them and let rip an ear piercing, blood curdling murderous scream, "AAAAHHH!" they made for the door. But Nabu floated between them and blocked their way. They grabbed one another and vaulted over the checkout counter.
Nabu looked back over towards Daphne and Helia stood. They were in the same position as to which they were since Daphne's appearance, though now Helia wasn't looking atDaphne but at the counter his accomplices were now cowering behind. All Helia could do was shake his head at the two.
Helia looked back at Nabu and Daphne, suddenly his face bloomed, a fierce scarlet and retched his forgotten hand from her now corporal body with a gruff "pardon, ma'am…"
Nabu was shocked at the young man's lack of reaction, "Well, what in God's blue blood is wrong with you, boy!?" Angered that his best prank hadn't even jostled Helia's demeanor a bit, he inquired, "everyone does what those two," he jabbed his finger at the counter, " did they do two to three things:
Scream!
Run!
Hide!
Your friends did them all." He said flames flickering in his eyes, "Well, heck most would've fainted dead at having found their hand inside the chest cavity of the corporal form of a ghost. But you! You apologize to said ghost as if you just knocked her off balance or even ran into her instead!"
"Ran through her," Helia corrected,Daphne chuckled at Nabu's mulish expression.
"They at least don't need an emergency cat scan!" Nabu continued as if Helia hadn't interrupted, "You, on the other hand, may be in need of a couple of them."
Daphne rolled her eyes, "You're the one who needs your head examined!"
"Its fine, Daphne, he's just mad he didn't get me to scream," Helia said, trying to place his hand on her shoulder but it just passed right through.
"Why aren't you scared?" She asked just realizing that Helia wasn't behaving normally but never taking her eyes off of Nabu.
"Awe…, well, you see…" He shuffled his feet, "Working on getting a degree in demonology…" He coughed as the two ghosts turned and stared at him as if he had grown a second head, and sprouted scales upon his limbs, "along with one in parapsychology…"
"OH, great he really is nuts!" Nabu groaned.
"Can I ask the two of you guys something? Before you leave that is." Helia wanted to know as Nabu and Daphne started to fade.
"Sure, what?" They agreed.
"How is it possible to for the two of you to appear so solid? Why now? Why today?" He shot off without preamble.
"Because today of all days, is when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest." Nabu told him.
"When we are able to harvest enough… I guess you can call it magic for us to appear in this realm..."Daphne explained her voice barely there.
"But why!?" He shouted.
"Cause," they said, "today is the all Hallows Eve." Their voices, a soft caress, were now gone.
"Happy Halloween." He said to thin air.
After that stormy Halloween, all three of them, Helia, Roy and Helia made a point to come back to the Library, every Halloween just to see their two ghostly friends. But as time rolled on Nabu and Daphne said their finial good-byes and never appeared before them again. Helia got his degrees and graduated with honors, and he even manages his own paranormal P.I. Company with Roy, and Helia heading up the consultant meetings for cases. Halloween they light two candles to help Daphne and Nabu find their way.
So, remember that on Halloween anything can happen!
