Suddenly, to my open-mouthed astonishment, from the very bowels of the very empty house, a troupe of people appeared. They were very visible, quite solid-looking. They arranged themselves in comfortable positions around the room.

"This is everyone, Lira. I trust they have questions for you, and vice-versa."

A young man, about seventeen years of age, approached me. He had short, chocolate-brown hair spiked up all over his head, to match his dark eyes and cut body structure. A short, wispy beard grew from his chin.

He pulled up a chair and straddled it, letting his arms drape across the backrest.

"Wow. It's really you! Reese Night…Lydia showed us a lot of your work. We really enjoyed it. You apparently took what you knew about Beetlejuice as far as you could, given what little insight was provided by Mr. Burton. But I suggest your meeting Beetlejuice before assuming that the more 'docile' version of him you created could ever really exist. By the way, I'm Trunks, Chris Trunks. Nice to meet you."

I could only sit, my eyes wide and staring at what I saw behind his back. A mirror hung on the wall across the room. I could clearly see in it Lydia, reclining on her chair, and me, sitting tensely in my chair. But what I could not see was the knot of people I knew were standing all around us; much less Chris' back, of which I knew should have been visible.

He grinned. "Never seen a ghost before, have you? Funny, you seemed to have us down to a 't' in your story 'Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep'."

He inspected my face and turned around to see what I was staring at. Turning back, he chuckled and tried to hide his laughter.

"Oh yeah. I see now. Can't you talk?" he inquired, coming back to my silence.

"Y-yeah. Initial shock got to me," I claimed, hardly daring to believe that I was not on an LSD trip, I was in fact talking to a "dearly departed".

"Well, it can happen. Not that it ever happened to Lydia." Chris smirked in her direction. Lydia however only looked away innocently, humming a tune to herself.

Another person came up to me. His ear-length, wiry dirty-blonde hair fell over his eyes as he stared right into my pupils.

"So. It's you, is it? Many congratulations on your skills. We all here enjoy your fantasies as we pass the time."

Something bothered me about him. He felt different; not as securely attached to his sanity than the others. But who was I to talk?

"Thank you," I managed, finally breaking his iron stare.

He drifted away, leaving room for the others to regale me with their favorite stories of mine, ideas for new stories of mine, and fanfiction of fanfiction of mine. Finally, Lydia told them that I might want to ask a few questions of my own for research's sake.

I began with the only words that would come out of my mouth.

"How did you all get here?"

Chris was still by my side. "Well," he began. "This place is kind of cursed for the living who don't know about the real afterlife. Marie and her husband Bill…" He motioned to a heavy-set couple sitting in a wicker loveseat. "They died in a car crash. Hit a tree right near the driveway. Tore the oak to pieces, but it did worse to their car…and them.

"Dale and Dan over there…" He gestured to a pair of adolescent twins near the door. "They fell down a mine shaft a few dozen yards away from the front door. I'm sure they'd get mad at me if I told you any more about their deaths, so…"

But he was interrupted, because as soon as the boys heard their names, they instantly figured out what was going on and rushed over, clambering over Chris and me to get as close to me as possible to explain their story. One planed himself on Chris' shoulders, the other on one of my knees.

One began rambling off at an extraordinary rate. "See, it was like this. Dan said we should go exploring that day, so a'course I said yeah, cause we go everywhere together-…"

"And I said what's that over there?" Dan shot in. "So we went over and we saw a huge hole that went on fereverandeverandever and I said that it went to China and Dale bet me it didn't, so-…"

"I told him to throw a rock in and count how long it took for it to hit the bottom 'cause everyone knows it takes twelve seconds for a rock to get to China. So he did and we counted and it only took five seconds so I laughed at him-…"

"And then I told him to shut up, and then he pushed me, and I tripped and grabbed his shirt and we both started falling down the hole, and everything was black and I didn't scream at all! And we fell and fell and finally I hit the bottom and my neck did something funny and that was it! I remember waking up outside the front door of Lydia's house and that's how it happened!" Dan finished.

"Nuh-uh, Dan! You bought the farm first! I was still alive afterwards!" Dale spat at him, correcting his story. Turning back to me, he started grinning all over and went on. "So Dan went and started pushing up daisies, and I was still there, all alone in the dark. My leg was broked, my arm was twisted a funny way but didn't hurt, and something really hard was poking out of my neck. So I sat there for a long, long time, until it got dark. Then my eyes started to get dark, and then I died."" He grinned immensely at this prospect, and I was feeling sick to my stomach.

Chris smiled. "Okay, guys, get down before she throws up." He looked up at me. "Everyone has their own war story."

Suddenly, I realized I had broken out in a cold sweat. He noticed.

"Oh jeez, are you alright? Maybe we should get the trash can…oh!" He realized what I was thinking and chuckled. "No wonder you're so nervous!"

"I fail to see the humor," I stated, holding my stomach and looking warily around for signs of imminent death.

"You don't have to worry about dying here. You've seen us; that's enough. Besides, you've actually thought deep into the movie's philosophy. You're in the clear."

I sighed, relaxing a little.

"Except for that giant, swinging blade of doom behind you!" someone yelled. I dove to the floor, cowering and crying a little. Manic laughter followed, along with Lydia's chastising.

"Briana! I've told you before not to do that! Can't you ever realize that when people come here, they're on edge? Your sneaking around, creaking doors and making my books ooze blood hasn't gone unnoticed today, young lady!"

Chris took my hand and lifted me to my feet. "That's just Briana. She's what we'd call the resident poltergeist."

He noticed my tears, still lingering on my cheeks. I was whimpering a bit, thoroughly scared half to death.

"Aw, don't be scared. Trust me, none of us is going to put this curse on you this early in your life," he reassured me, wiping my face off with the back of his palm.

"Aw, did the wittle bone-bag get fwightened? Is she afwaid she's gonna die?"

The youthful voice was right underneath me. I looked down with a grimace.

A small girl with frizzy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and blue eyes looked up at me. She had on a triumphant smirk and she actually levitated to look me straight in the eye.

Chris gave he a reproachful look.

"Briana here was one of the first of us. Beetlejuice apparently taught her some of his less dangerous talents."

"Yeah! BJ taught me almost everything he knows! And someday he's gonna come back and he's gonna teach me the rest and let me come with him on his jobs!" she claimed.

I looked suspiciously at her. "And how did you die?" I asked.

At this, her face fell and she shot me a lowering look. Drifting forward, she passed through me and went out of the room.

"What did I say? I thought out loud. Chris gave me a solemn countenance.

"Briana…had a really bad one. She doesn't like to talk about it and prefers if we don't either."

"Oh…I see."