The Ghost In Apartment 13 Continued
"Of all the hare-brained schemes I've heard in my life..." Eleanor called out, as she started down the stairs. "I cannot believe you dragged us out here to the middle of nowhere, just to..."
"Shhhh!" Both Katherine and Victoria shushed her simultaneously.
Eleanor paused on the stairs, halfway to the first floor. "What is going on?"
"Come down here, but be very quiet." Katherine said, in a hushed tone.
Sensing their agitation, Eleanor quietly finished her descent. She stepped over to take a seat next to her two buddies.
Eleanor leaned close to them and whispered, "What is going on with you two?"
Katherine kept her gaze steadily toward the tiny kitchen space. "The ghost is here."
Eleanor opened her mouth to refute this, when Victoria cut her off with a sudden and sharp "Shhh!"
"If you keep really quiet," Katherine explained. "And I mean listening to your heartbeat quiet, you'll be able to hear it moving around in there."
"We heard it stepping in through the front door." Victoria excitedly added. "As if the ghost was coming home from work or something. I think it knows we're here, too. Just like Kathy said, it stopped to stare at us for a really long time, before it went off into the kitchen."
"Well, I don't hear anything." Eleanor frowned.
"That's because you're not really listening." Katherine nearly glared at her.
"I think it's a man." Victoria stated. "It does sound like a man, just like Kathy said it would. It stomps around and it bangs into things. It feels just like a man."
"Why can't I sense anything?" Eleanor complained.
"I already told you why, it's because you're not trying hard enough." Katherine turned to address her. "I think I can smell him now, too. He stinks. Maybe he works as a janitor or a garbage man, or something like that. He doesn't smell at all like the other times. But then again, I was already upstairs waiting for him on my other visits. It was much later than it is now."
"We should tell the ghost to go upstairs and take a shower." Victoria joked.
"Listen!" Katherine whispered.
Sure enough, soft footsteps were heard moving about on the kitchen tile. Katherine half turned toward the kitchen, while staying seated on the carpet.
"Hello, ghost." Her voice was direct, but friendly. "I'd like to introduce you to my two friends. This is Eleanor and this is Victoria."
Eleanor thought the introduction to an invisible entity was weird, not to mention foolish.
Victoria held up her hand, smiled cutely and waved. Merrily, she said, "Hi!"
The ghost in the kitchen stood silent.
"He's watching us." Katherine informed the others. "I just know he is."
"Maybe he thinks that we're ghosts." Victoria suggested.
"What?" Eleanor asked. "What sort of nonsense is that?"
"You know, maybe wherever the ghost is, he's real." Victoria elaborated. "Maybe we've gone into his dimension, like in an episode of the Twilight Zone or something. Maybe in his eyes, he's real and we're the ghosts."
"Oh, please." Eleanor protested. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!"
"I know what he did to me felt real enough." Katherine whispered.
Behind the three, the steps started up again. They seemed to make their way around the three women, as if in caution. A moment later, the steps started trotting up the stairs. It sounded as if two heavy, plodding feet were stomping their way up.
"I know why the ghost is so loud when it's going up the stairs." Katherine realized. "When I had the carpeting put in, I put extra padding on each floor, but not on the steps. The sound isn't being muffled as much and so it's louder."
"Are you trying to tell me that the ghost has the weight of an actual human being?" Eleanor asked in disbelief. "Please tell me you're kidding?"
"Well, its tongue sure felt like a human tongue!" Katherine snapped back. "I can't explain everything! It didn't need to open the front door to get in here, but now that it's inside the apartment, it sounds just like a normal person going about their business."
"It's on familiar ground." Victoria suggested. "Now that the ghost is back where it spent most of its time in its former life, it's drawing power and strength from the environment around it."
"Since when did you become such an expert on the paranormal?" Eleanor asked.
"Hey, I watch that Ghost Bustin' show sometimes. And I've read quite a few books on the supernatural, thank you very much. Maybe I don't spend my entire day preening and brushing my hair like you do."
Eleanor was about to lash back, when Katherine spoke up. "I'm going upstairs."
"Oh, no you're not!" Victoria, usually the skittish one, halted Katherine and greatly surprised the other two women. "You've already had your turn. In fact, you've already had a bunch of turns. I want to go up next."
Flabbergasted, Katherine merely waved at the stairs. "Be my guest. Eleanor's been kind enough to leave her sleeping bag up there for you."
Still dressed in her pink tracksuit, the voluptuous Victoria courageously stepped over to the stairs and started on her way up. The curvy redhead cast one final glance at her two comrades, at about the midway point up the stairs. After sucking up a resolute breath, she went on. Soon, only Victoria's legs were visible, and then only her pink and plaid Burberry sneakers. Finally, there was nothing of Victoria left to be seen at all.
Like a conspirator, Katherine leaned closer to Eleanor. "I didn't think she had it in her." She then giggled. "But maybe in a minute or two, she will have it in her! I'm talking about the ghost tongue, you know!"
As Katherine said this, Eleanor noted, her eyes were lingering on Eleanor's loose shirt. To be specific, Katherine's eyes were resting on her full bosom. The woman gazed at her for a handful of seconds longer than what Eleanor would consider proper. It wasn't the first time, the shapely blonde recalled, that she'd seen the leaner woman's gaze on her figure. Eleanor had always just assumed that Katherine simply hadn't been raised as a proper lady. She'd never been taught that it wasn't polite to stare at a person's body that way.
Normally, Eleanor wouldn't make such an issue of the impropriety. On this occasion, she'd been at odds with Katherine for much of that day over this whole ghost nonsense. Eleanor quickly thought up a roundabout way to strike some venom in the other woman's direction.
"Actually, I didn't expect Victoria to be so brash, either." Eleanor started; raising her arms high into the air as if she were about to yawn. At the same time, her action drew the shirt's fabric close to her prominent breasts. Automatically, Katherine's gaze focused on her bust, and Eleanor closed in to snare the other woman in her trap. "Say, Katherine, I've been meaning to ask you..."
"Yes?"
"Why are you always staring at my tits?"
Katherine looked shocked at being confronted so directly. Both her eyes and her head darted in the opposite direction. "I wasn't staring!"
"Do you see? I can be as crass as you are, when I choose to be." Eleanor verbally belittled the other woman. "And yes, you were staring at my tits. In fact, I always seem to catch you looking at them. I demand to know why you're doing it!"
For several moments, Katherine stayed quiet. With a downcast gaze, she turned back in Eleanor's direction. "I'm sorry. I'm jealous of you and your perfect body. Your figure is so much more beautiful than mine ever was. And my breasts, they can't even begin to hold a candle to yours."
Maybe it was the wine that had loosened up both her lips and Katherine's, Eleanor considered. Or maybe it was the idea of doing something provocative with the ghost upstairs. Before Eleanor could begin to articulate a reply, however, they heard Victoria's raised voice upstairs. It was loud and stern in tone, but not quite clear enough for them to be able to discern the words.
Katherine raised herself up on her knees. "Do you suppose she's all right?"
"I don't know." Eleanor replied. "But it would be just like her, don't you think, to start having a debate with somebody right off the bat, and even if that somebody is from the 'other side.' She's always contradicting what's being said, after all."
"That's not Victoria at all." Katherine refuted. "You're talking about yourself!"
"Oh, really?" Eleanor shot back. "And I suppose that you think you're Mother Teresa now, after you've the dragged the two of us down here to participate in your little sex scheme with a ghost?"
"The way I see it, nobody dragged you anywhere. You got into my car on your own two legs!"
The two women glared at one another. Had they more of an audience around them, a mockery of a catfight might have quickly ensued. As it was, neither woman felt like being overdramatic, or at least not without a crowd present. As if they were thinking with a single mind, they both turned to look up at the stairs.
"We should go up and check on her." Katherine suggested.