Movie Beetlejuice is owned by Tim Burton, Geffen Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Not me, much to my sadness.

I directly quoted the movie in this chapter. Twice. Both times as bits from The Handbook for the Recently Deceased. I admit it and I give all due credit to the writers that came up with those lines. They are not mine. Don't sue me.

I hate this chapter. Just as a warning. I didn't know how to get to this point so I just sorta threw something up there. Sorry.

The apartment looked the same. I was a little weirded out by that. I mean, it had been three years according to Juno, and yet my sofa was still here? My TV was still here? It was odd.

I wandered around the apartment for a few minutes, remembering my life there. It hadn't been all that bad. The apartment itself was pretty much a shit hole. The rooms were arranged in a straight line, one right after another. The only exception was the bathroom and the walk-in closet that the landlord tried to tell me was a second bedroom. I mean, you could in fact fit a twin bed in there, but a bedroom it surely was not.

The windows were all along one side so there was no chance of a breeze. The bathtub was constantly clogged so you basically took a bath even when you wanted to take a shower. And there was no counter space anywhere…both in the bathroom and in the kitchen. It was a hole in the wall that the landlord charged me entirely too much for.

I walked back into the bedroom and flopped down on my bed. I kicked off my shoes and started thumbing through The Handbook. There was no index, which was slightly annoying. I picked a random entry and read it.

"Geographical and temporal perimeters: Functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation."

It read like instructions for the use of some new piece of electronic equipment. Only there was no troubleshooting guide in the back. Mind you, that would be hilarious. "Your Death: An FAQ." I giggled as I flipped through again.

At the other end of the apartment, the kitchen door slammed shut and I heard voices. I jumped up off the bed and stood for a moment, staring down the hallway. It was movers. I frantically looked around the room for a place to hide before I remembered they couldn't see me. I decided to stand off to the side and observe, not ready to try out my ghostly skills just yet.

"Didn't this chick die a couple years back?"

"Yeah, but her dude kept the place after that. I bet half this shit belonged to her."

"So what's he gonna do with all this girly shit?"

"Sell it? Give it to the chick he's bangin now? How the hell should I know?"

"Hey, yeah, he's with one of those Woodland kids, ain't he? Rich little daddy's girl?"

"From what I hear, she's actually twenty years older than him, heh. He found hisself a rich keeper."

They went on like this for a while. At first I was pissed, but I got over it fairly quickly. I mean hell, I was dead. It didn't exactly matter who my ex-boyfriend was fucking now. Besides, this meant I could have the place to myself and practice making funky noises to the horror of my buildingmates.

The movers finished filling the Mayflower truck and headed off to wherever my ex was. I wandered around the empty rooms for a while, bored out of my skull. I experimented a little bit with my newly dead state: pulling the skin off my face, tying knots in my arms, that sort of thing. It amused me for a while, but then the boredom set in once again. I noticed the movers had left my model of the New York City skyline on one of the mantelpieces. That was good for a full hour of poking around at.

I had just begun banging on the hot water pipes to see if anyone was home I could scare when I heard the kitchen door again. I peered down the hallway and saw the landlord come in with a scruffy looking young man. I sat on one of the radiators while the landlord showed him the apartment.

"The house was built in 1880 so it's a little drafty. But you'll find it stays relatively warm in the winter. It's all radiator heat except in the second bedroom. That room has baseboard heaters. The kitchen has all new appliances and I just replaced the carpet last year."

The landlord, true to character, was lying his ass off. He hadn't replaced the carpet in the seven years I had lived there and the refrigerator was older than I was. And as for the heat…the boiler in the basement went out at least twice a winter and was so old that it would take weeks to get whatever part needed replacing.

"What's the rent?" the scruffball said.

"It's four-fourty a month and all you pay is electric."

"Pets?"

"No dogs. Fish you'll have to clear with me first because I pay the water bill. Everything else is ok."

"Sounds good. I'll take it."

They went into the kitchen to sign the lease. I was mildly panicked at the thought of a new tenant. That meant I had to come up with a good scare tactic and fast. I grabbed my manual and started looking for advice.

I found the "Haunting chapter" in the "Intermediate Interface" section. More damn stereo instructions. I read it through about four times before throwing the book across the room in frustration. Now, I'm not dumb. I can have a computer out of the box, set up, and surfing the internet in about ten minutes. I can piece together a TV, VCR, XBOX, PlayStation, cable box, and N64 faster and in a more logical order than your average American dad. In other words, I'm no stranger to electronics instructions. But that Handbook for the Recently Deceased? That book is bullshit.

I was actually kind of happy for a minute when he moved in. There was finally a TV to watch to help me pass my time. Mr. Scruffenstein didn't move in with a lot of stuff…he actually yanked the old couch that was hanging out on the porch for something to sit on. He brought a futon with no frame, a lamp, and an alarm clock to keep the TV company and that was about it. It seemed kind of strange until I saw the semi parked outside. Apparently he drove truck. Fine with me, although he would be gone so often it might make it hard to scare him.

I sat staring at him while he settled. I had no idea where to begin, so I decided to begin with observation. He turned on Spongebob and sat on the couch with a mirror on the cushion beside him. I was puzzled by this until I saw the little bag of white powder in his jeans pocket. I couldn't believe it…a fucking coke head living in my apartment! I watched him dump a little cocaine out on the mirror and cut it with some other white substance. He snorted it up and I shuddered. I walked away.

I wandered into the bedroom and noticed a fat wad of paper sitting on top of a bag of his clothes. I made sure he couldn't see me and picked up the papers. I saw that it was court papers relating to a court case he had been involved in. He had done a hit and run while driving his semi…and the girl involved had died. To my horror, I read my own name as the victim.

I reeled. This was the asshat who had killed me. This fucking coke head had killed me…and now he had taken my apartment. I couldn't believe it. I had to get out. Wildly, I grabbed at the handle to the front door, not caring that he'd be able to see and hear me open the door. I ran out of the house and down the porch stairs…and fell onto a huge stretch of yellow sand.