(Christmas Edition)
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” said the spook.
“But it’s Christmas!” gasped the werewolf.
“Why does that matter?”
“Everyone should believe in ghosts at Christmas. It’s a tradition. Just think of A Christmas Carol, for instance.”
“I don’t care. I still don’t believe in them.”
“So you don’t believe in yourself?”
“Don’t be silly,” said the phantom, “a spook isn’t the same thing as a ghost. Not the same thing at all…”
“I was a ghost once,” sighed the vampire.
“What happened?” cried the ghoul.
“Well, it was like this…” began the vampire, and he proceeded to tell a garbled account of how he was once a poor traveller in an earlier century who was attacked by bandits in the forest, then his spirit rose out of his body and proceeded to haunt the bandit chieftain, making the rogue’s life a misery by possessing him and forcing him to act against his will.
The skeleton rapidly tapped an impatient foot.
“Shh!” hissed the ghoul, “you sound like a xylophone, and I am trying to listen to the vampire’s narrative.”
“Yes, but he’s drawing it out a bit, isn’t he?”
“That’s his privilege, of course.”
“How come he gets your respect and I don’t?”
“He’s a Count, but what are you? Without a shred of flesh on you, I’d say you were merely a subtraction.”
“That’s a really bad play on words,” sniffed the skeleton.
“So what? It’s a good insult…”
“Stop bickering!” growled the werewolf.
The vampire was oblivious to all this fuss. He was explaining how his ghost possessed the bandit chieftain by entering into his brain through his nose, then he would force the miscreant to dance and sing in a very silly manner and do all sorts of humiliating things. The other bandits soon abandoned their leader in dismay and went elsewhere.
“Unfortunately,” continued the vampire, his fangs gleaming in the pale moonlight, “I got trapped inside his brain. I lost my way among the tangle of synapses and couldn’t get back out!”
“That sounds scary!” remarked the phantom.
The vampire nodded and his cape swished in the night breeze. “It was absolutely terrifying, I can assure you. I rushed hither and thither, trying to escape my prison, but I was stuck for good. So, I decided to accept my fate and things got easier. I settled in and was gradually absorbed by the host body, until I became the bandit. Once this happened, I ventured forth and returned to my old ways, robbing travellers in the forest. I was satisfied. But one dark night I chanced on the wrong victim.”
“Who was it?” asked the spook.
“A werewolf! And he attacked and bit me!”
The werewolf looked sheepish. “Don’t swivel your heads at me, I had nothing to do with it, honestly.”
“No, it wasn’t you,” said the vampire.
“Maybe one of my cousins?”
“I have no idea who it was, but I only just managed to escape his teeth and claws before he devoured me, yet I was now infected, and so I turned into a werewolf myself every full moon. I guess it was fun, in a way, but finally I was tracked down by a monster hunter.”
“Did he shoot you with a silver bullet?”
The vampire nodded. “Yes, he did. But when a werewolf dies it turns into a vampire, a fact that humans keep forgetting, and I soon got revenge on him! And that’s who you see before you now: a vampire who was once a werewolf who was once a bandit chief who was once a ghost who was once a poor traveller…”
There was a long pause. The spook cleared his throat.
“So, you believe in ghosts then?”
The vampire clucked his tongue. “Of course!”
“I still don’t,” said the spook.
“You don’t believe what happens to be true?”
“No, I don’t. Why should I?”
The spook and vampire glared at each other. Before they started to bicker seriously, the phantom laughed to lighten the mood and said, “I knew a man who was the opposite of that.”
“The opposite of what?” prompted the ghoul.
The phantom adjusted his ectoplasm.
“Opposite in attitude, I mean. He had no evidence about the existence of ghosts, but he was a firm believer in them. His friends were sceptics and mocked him and so he needed to obtain proof to silence them. But in fact, he required that proof for himself even more. His name was Mr Gaston Gullible, and he did everything possible to meet a ghost. He slept in old churchyards, went for midnight walks in lonely forests, used Ouija boards in the hope of contacting the departed.”
“All without success?” asked the werewolf.
The phantom rolled his insubstantial eyes in his wispy sockets, nodded and sighed. “Nothing ever worked.”
“That’s a shame,” remarked the skeleton.
“One night, it was Christmas Eve in fact, he was sleeping in his bed when the curtains began swishing. The window wasn’t open, there was no breath of wind in his room. The rustling woke him and he sat up and blinked in the gloom and when his eyes had adjusted he saw that the curtains had bunched themselves into the shape of a person, the shape of a woman, and she raised a fabric arm and pointed directly at him.”
“What did he do?” cried the werewolf.
“He died of fright and slumped back onto the bed. Then the ghostly woman approached him and said, ‘I have waited centuries to meet the right man. You will be my husband in the next world,’ and his ghost rose from his body. She was ready to embrace him, but he shook his head and brushed past her. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but I have stopped believing in ghosts. I believed in them all my life without evidence and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I was wasting my time. I am now a sceptic, and I don’t believe in you,’ and he passed through the wall and was never seen again.”
“That story had a twist ending,” said the ghoul.
“Yes, it did,” agreed the phantom.
The spook said, “I’ve got a twist ending too.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Would you all like to see it?”
The vampire, werewolf, ghoul, phantom and skeleton exchanged glances. Then they said together, “Why not? Go ahead.”
The spook took a deep breath, extended his thin multi-jointed arms and started spinning. He spun faster and faster, became a blur, a spiral of force, a miniature tornado. Then he whirled away through the trees, laughing and crackling with blue thunderbolts.
“Merry Christmas!” he cried as he vanished.
The others shook their heads. The skeleton shook his head so vigorously that it fell off and he had to bend down to pick it up.
“I didn’t anticipate that,” admitted the phantom.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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