Ghosts With a Side of Coffee

Ghosts with a Side of
Coffee

By Lara Elizabeth Rosetta Krueger

Click clack. Naomi tapped her fingers on her
steering wheel. She kept looking around for
something. She wasn't quite sure what it was. It's
just that every sound made her jump and it felt like
the air was telling her something was off. Naomi
was going to her early morning shift at her job at a
coffee shop. Her boss was very particular when it
came to time. When she took the job she expected
a nice working environment. It was just a local
coffee shop, not like Starbucks, right? But no,
everyone talked in one word sentences and only
put up a nice facade for customers. She sighed
and kept driving.

Her road to work had an unsteady path through
the mountains and this did not help her jitters. She
was just at the end of it when a thick, silvery mist
settled on the road. She blinked and glanced
around. The weather forecast didn't predict this.
She kept driving warily. Then she spotted a purple
wisp of something in her rearview mirror. It floated
around for a few seconds and dove right into her
car.

She craned her neck to see it again, but
then suddenly her car was jerking left and
right all on its own! It spun around then
crashed backwards into a rocky cliffside. Her
head slammed forward as the airbags
exploded around her. She let out a groan that

sounded like a leaky tire as she struggled to get
her focus back. He head tilted as she heard the
faint sound of something heavy hitting the ground.

A sense of dread fell over her as it got closer.
Soon all she could hear in her head was the
beating of one thought: RUN. She scrambled to
open the car door. RUN. Her feet stuttered on the
poorly kept road towards the woods. RUN. She fell
and crawled the last few steps. RUN. She pulled
herself behind a shelter of bushes and rocks. The
pounding in her head subsided. And so the steps.

Whatever it was, it was here now. She risked
looking over her barrier and saw a giant ghostly
ram. It was a deep unearthly purple with swirls
traced all over it and it's eyes were bright,
sunshine yellow with no pupils. It sniffed at the
jeep and blinked in confusion. It flipped it over
with its thick horns and surveyed the area and
clicked its hooves. Naomi ducked down, the
pounding in her head back. The ram snorted and
pounded it's large hooves back to wherever it
came back. Slowly, the fog lifted, leaving Naomi
back in the dark. She took in a deep, shuddering
breath and her breathing gradually went back to
normal.

She tentatively walked toward the car and saw
that the car was trashed. She moaned. She was
still about ten miles from work. And what was that
thing? And what happened to the car.? She
realized she would have to walk. Her boss would
be furious that she would be late. It gave her a
guilty pleasure to make him so mad. He deserved
it, anyway. She called him (after she dug her
cracked phone out of her back pocket), but it went
on message so she told that she'd be late.

Naomi sat down on the side of the road and
contemplated what happened. At least she knew
what she was so nervous about. Weird
evolutionary instinct to know when ghosts were
going to pick on her. She put her head in her
hands and reviewed her options. She could go to
work and face her screaming boss and
emotionless co-workers, she could head to the
police station to tell them about the ram and watch
them create a new inside joke about the crazy ram
girl, or…

… she could go to the supernatural investigation
office. The latter seemed like the best choice. They
dealt with this stuff all the time, right? At least if
the town gossip proved right. And besides, it was
closest. It lingered on the edge of town, probably
so that normal people couldn't accidentally
wander into it. She checked the GPS on her
phone. Only a three mile walk. Or run. ¨Ah,¨
muttered Naomi, ¨so this is where my cross
country expertise comes in handy. ¨ She stretched,
put her hair in a ponytail, and set off on a jog.

In about half an hour, she arrived at a two-story
house. It had dull wooden walls and one big glass
window in the front. Its second floor was shaped
like a triangle and had one small window that was
covered with curtains from the outside. Naomi
walked up to it and peered into the big window
and saw one big room with eight pieces of
furniture. She could there were eight because they
all had sticky notes on them, with numbers 1-8,
some in neat handwriting, some in crazy scribbles.

One(1) long purple velvet couch, one(2)
ornately carved table, one(3) marbled counter,
three(4,5,6) chairs, and two(7,8) sad looking office
desks. The floor was misshapen wooden slabs
with a colorful carpet under the table. There
seemed to be no stairs up to the second floor.
Throughout the room, she could see at least
fifteen coffee-makers and a bunch of coffee cups
on one desk. That desk also had several potted
plants and trophies, but she couldn't see what
they were for. The other desk was neat with pens
and markers in metal cups and a placemat that
had a bunch of constellations on it.

On the couch was a person, sound asleep with
a fuzzy blanket on him. She shifted her gaze and
saw that on the far right wall there was another
person on a chair staring at a wall. She sighed and
rubbed her forehead. If they are as crazy as this,
then they can't believe that I am. She thought.
Naomi strode to the door and knocked. Neither
person stirred. She opened the door and a bell
that sounded like fairies screaming greeted her
ears. The sleeping person was snoring quite
loudly.

It turned out the other crazy wasn’t just staring
at the wall. She looked up and saw what they were
looking at. It was an evidence board, pictures of
odd things connected by red string. Naomi tilted
her head and started tip-toeing around all the
messes on the floor to get a closer look at it. She
almost tripped over a mean-looking cactus, and by
the time she looked up, the person was right in
front of her.

Gah!¨ Naomi exclaimed. She stumbled
backward, but didn´t fall. She wasn't going to land
on that cactus. The person was staring intently at
her with big brown eyes and a furrowed brow. Her
face looked kind of like a pug, but prettier, and
without the breathing problems. She blinked once
when Naomi backed off and quickly put out her
hand.

¨Hello!¨ She said. ¨ I'm Lily Malcolm, the best
psychic in the US. And I'm sensing you have
something to add to my evidence board. Right?¨
The woman flashed Naomi a cheesy smile. Naomi
tentatively shook Lily’s hand with two fingers. She
wasn't quite sure when the last time was that
those hands had been washed. She also wasn't
sure about Lily’s otherworldly gift. She knew that
these people investigated supernatural incidents,
but not that one of them was a supernatural
incident.

¨Come along now, to see my fantastically
puzzling board!¨ Said Lily, moving sideways in a
showman-like gesture. Naomi inched past her and
craned her neck to see the odd images. Most of
them were black and white, and most of them
could be explained. On one, Naomi saw the outline
of trees with a bright flash of light in an uneven
ring shape. Which could just be a flashlight.
Another had a glowing coppery orange snake
slithering into the woods. There were a few orange
snakes in colorado. But it was shining…

Naomi tapped her finger to that one. ¨I don't
think there are any snakes that look like that
anywhere,¨ Lily sat down on her rolling chair
criss-cross and rested her head on her knuckles. ¨
Yeah. I found that one on the internet. Most people
thought the glowing stuff was photoshop. But I
know it wasn't.¨ She tapped her finger to her head.
Naomi resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It was her
choice to be here. Any craziness that ensued was
her fault. Her eyes shifted to the newspaper clips.

One of them said, ¨Missing Persons Case! Police are
Making Slow Progress.¨ One next to it said, ¨Missing
Persons Case Concluded. They Are Back At Home
Safely.¨ In smaller print under that one, ¨But Herbert
Mayfield has No Memory of What Happened.¨ Naomi
quickly read through it. He went missing in the
woods while taking a walk. Three days later, he
came back out and had no recollection of the
incident. When Naomi looked at all the other ones,
they basically said the same.

¨So,¨ said Lily. ¨What have you got for me?¨

Naomi glanced at her. ¨What?¨

¨For my evidence board, silly!¨ She got up and
started pacing. ¨Any photos, videos, traces of
ghosty stuff. Anything, really. That's how I got
everything here. Just people taking photos.¨

Naomi shook her head. ¨No. It just attacked me.
¨

¨Wait, what?¨ Lily stopped pacing to look at her.
¨I've never seen a case of them directly taking
anyone. You mean you weren't walking with a
friend in the woods? Or hiking in the mountains?¨

¨Nope. I was just driving and... , ¨ Naomi fished
through her memories. ¨And then my car went
crazy and a giant ram came out of nowhere and I
hid behind a rock.¨ Lily frowned and narrowed her
eyes at Naomi. As quick as could be, she reached
behind her, grabbed an airhorn and blew it. Naomi
felt the deep sound in her soul. She crumpled
against a desk. Lily seemed unfazed. But she had
awoken someone. The person on the couch had
seized up and then immediately fallen off face first.
Naomi grimaced. The person groggily stood up.
They had on blue pajamas with kittens in pajamas
on it and they were about as tall as Lily.

Lily turned to Naomi, smiling.¨This is my
partner in crime, Herman Green. He's a human lie
detector.¨ Then her head snapped to the window
and she frowned. Lily grabbed Naomi and Herman
quickly and ran over to the space in the house
where there were no messes on the floor. She
flipped over the geometrically patterned rug with
her foot and let Naomi and Herman go. Naomi saw
the wooden trapdoor and she saw Lily open it and
jump through. A few seconds later her hand came
out to beckon them to come. Herman practically
fell through. Naomi carefully slid into it.

As soon as Naomi was through, Lily pulled the
hatch down after covering it with the rug. The
room they were now in looked to be in some kind
of soundproof material. At least the part of it that
wasn't covered in images and newspaper
clippings. It was like Lily's evidence board
upstairs, but large scale. There was also a desk
that wrapped around a quarter of the room with
four computers. One seemed to show surveillance
from several places in the city, while another had a
google search of kittens. Lily was bouncing on a
seafoam green yoga ball and Herman was easing
himself onto a purple one.

Naomi furrowed her brow. ¨Why are we down
here?¨

¨A truck has been driving past this house every
three hours for two months,¨ said Lily, smiling
faintly. ¨Every time, he asks me to take a walk in
the woods with him. One time he asked Herman
and Herman started screaming and spraying him
with a little spray bottle and-¨

¨Not the point, Lily.¨ Herman grumbled.

¨Right!¨ said Lily. ¨The point is, he keeps being
more aggressive with his attempts, and you're too
valuable for him to see. Got it?¨

¨Kind of,¨ said Naomi. ¨But why are we here
and not on the second floor?¨

¨Oh, that's because my hamster died five years
ago and its ghost lives there and terrorizes anyone
who goes up there, ¨ explained Herman. Naomi
raised her eyebrows. He turned to Lily. ¨And also,
please tell me who this is.¨

Lily nodded.¨That's, um, no I actually never got
her name, ¨ She turned to Naomi. ¨Would you tell
us?¨

¨I’m Naomi. I had an incident with some
purple phantoms, and I would like that explained.¨

¨ Oh! Well then hello there Naomi. But first,
test her Herman.¨

¨You didn't think to do that before you let her
see everything?¨ said Herman, sounding
unimpressed. Lily stuck out her tongue at him.

¨Oh well. Doesn't matter now.¨ Then he turned
to Naomi. ¨Tell me exactly what happened.¨ Naomi
recounted all of the events that had led her here.
After she had finished, Herman nodded to Lily,
who had been writing down everything Naomi had
said. She pinned it up on the board, near the
middle. ¨Now,¨ said Herman, ¨Have you been
feeling any urges to take someone on a walk in the
woods?¨

¨No,¨ Said Naomi confidently. Herman nodded to
Lily.

¨Any hallucinations?¨

¨ I don't know if you count what happened to
me as a hallucination. But otherwise, no.¨ Another
nod

¨Do you want to move to another state for no
reason?¨

Naomi snorted. ¨Yeah, I want to move. But
I've got a reason for that.¨ He nodded again.

¨Great!¨ Exclaimed Lily, bouncing off her yoga
ball. ¨Then you're clear! So now, we can tell you
everything. For three years, people from this area
have been going missing and coming back in
around two days. Usually after going into these
woods.¨ She pointed to a map of Colorado and
used her finger to circle a green area. ¨I've
managed to find the first person to go missing.¨
She walked to another side of the room and
tapped a picture of a woman who looked like
Wonder Woman, with long black hair and a
beautiful smile. ¨This is Shelly Lopez. She first
went into the forest when-¨ Lily stopped abruptly
at crunching noises. Herman was eating Cheetos.
¨Do you mind? I'm trying to explain this.¨

¨You woke me up without giving me breakfast.
What do you expect?¨ Said Herman, shoving as
many cheetos in his mouth as he could.

¨Well, at least eat something healthy.¨ Lily put
her hands on her hips.

¨This is the healthiest thing I could find. You
should stock up better here.¨ Lily sighed and
grabbed the cheetos out of Herman's hands and
threw it in the garbage. She stuck her hand in her
jeans pockets and grabbed a yogurt and a spoon.
Naomi frowned. There wasn't nearly enough room
for that in Lily's pockets. But the impossible was
possible today.

¨Back to what I was saying, Shelly was last
seen bumping into a stranger. We don't know if it
could be spread this way, or if all of this started
with Shelly.¨

¨How many cases have there been?¨ Naomi
looked at all the photos of the people.

¨Thirty-four.¨

¨And the police haven't gotten involved?¨

¨That would be the worst thing. Can you
imagine them getting any criminal they catch to be
brainwashed as well? Then it spreading in jails,
rehab, therapy- the list could go on. And, for the
record, they did see the similarities. Once they
sent out a detective, and Herman and I had to
pretend to be Bigfoot.¨

¨It wasn't very fun. Lily made me wear a stuffy
costume in August.¨ Said Herman, dejectedly
eating his yogurt.

¨Because I had to make the sounds from the
soundboard!¨ Lily retorted.

¨Well you still messed that up! You kept
clicking the quack button!¨

¨Ahem?¨ Naomi interrupted them. They both
looked back at her and stuck their tongues out at
each other. Naomi rolled her eyes. ¨So is that why
you have a surveillance camera in the police
office?

¨Yep,¨ said Lily, sitting down on her yoga ball near
the computers and grabbing a smoothie out of her
pocket. Naomi didn't question it.

¨So if the ghost things are trying to infect a lot
of people, why do the brainwashed only ask one
person? And why do people keep agreeing to take
walks in the woods?¨

¨Good questions! After investigating a whole lot, I
have all the answers. The bigger the group, the
more chance of escape. And pretty sure there's
magic to help persuade people to go on a walk.
Herman and I have stopped fifteen people from
going into the woods. It seems that once the
infected have failed, they don't try again with that
victim. We've put trackers on them for
safe-keeping.¨

¨Hold up,¨ Naomi closed her eyes. ¨How have
you stopped them from going on the walks?¨

¨Bear noises work,¨ Herman answered this time.
¨Sometimes we pretend to be park rangers. Or
police officers. Or lumberjacks. But I've never let
Lily make me Bigfoot again.¨ He glared at Lily. She
slurped her smoothie loudly in annoyance.

¨No more questions. Just fact time.¨ Lily set
down her smoothie and walked over to the board.
¨What we know about the phantoms is next to
nothing. This is the best photo we have of them, to
give you an idea.¨ She pointed to a black and white
picture of a deer walking through some trees. It
was normal except for the fact that it had swirls
that looked like frost designs on a window all over
its body.

¨We don't know where they came from, what they
really look like, how many there are, or what they
want. Probably world domination. What you have
brought us is the most promising information we
have heard yet. Which is why you need to bring us
to where it happened now.¨ Lily's voice had gotten
louder and louder. She looked desperate.

¨Okay,¨ said Naomi calmly. ¨But we need a car.
Like I said, I had to run here.¨

¨Oh, no worries. We have a car. It's just not
something we normally have people see.¨ Lily
walked over to the hatch and opened it. She
gracefully pulled herself up and beckoned for
Naomi and Herman. Naomi climbed and Herman
came right behind her. He walked over to his desk
and grabbed some rusty keys with a shooting star
keychain jingling along with them. Lily led Naomi
out front and Herman ran out a back door. They
waited for five minutes before Lily yelled,¨Need
any help?¨ Just then, a large van rumbled out from
behind the house. It was painted with brightly
colored flowers and a pegasus in the middle.

¨Nope. I got it.¨ Herman had a smudge of grease
on his forehead. Lily rolled her eyes and hopped in
the other front seat.

¨So this is why you don't let anyone see this
monstrosity,¨ said Naomi.

¨Yeah. But it's been in my family since the 70´s,
so no chance of getting rid of it.¨ Lily patted the
van lovingly. ¨You get in the back. The doors might
be a little cranky, though.¨

Naomi walked around to the back of the car and
yanked hard on the doors. They opened and with a
creak and she got in. There was one moth-eaten
chair with a raggedy seat belt hanging limply to
the side. The back was almost entirely windows. It
smelled like fruit and despair. She wondered if
there were any hippie ghosts in here.

The car started rumbling along and as soon as it
turned the bend out of the short driveway, chaos
erupted. Hundreds of purple snakes flew out of the
thick grass like little seeds bouncing as you
jumped on a trampoline. They were the same
frosty purple as the ram and Naomi felt pure panic
as one looked her right in the eye. She felt that if
she looked long enough she could see her future.
Especially when she would die. But the moment
didn’t last. Herman started screaming and the van
sped up. Naomi slid to the back of the van she felt
the wheels bumping against the ground. She
looked out the window and saw the tips of the
trees. They were not driving anymore. They were
flying.

“LILY! WHAT DID YOU!?!?!?”
“Ugh, Herman. Don’t overreact. I just added

some modifications via some ghost flowers I got
from that time I fell into a portal to another
dimension.”

“I TOLD YOU TO THROW THOSE AWAY!!!
AFTER YOU TRIED TO EAT THEM!!!”

“But they would go so good in a
saaaAAALAD,” Lily’s voice lurched as the van
sputtered and took a sudden downward dive.

It then took an upward dive, then a downward,
and on and on. Naomi squeezed her eyes shut and
braced her hands against the back door. As she
did, something fluttered against her arm. It felt
burning hot and freezing cold, soft as a kitten’s fur
and rough as sandpaper. She jerked her arm away.
It was a fragment of a ghost, wispy and floating
around. It seemed to be looking for something,
which reminded Naomi of the little purple thing
that dove into her(former)car. Then it clicked. The
ghost that went into her car must have gotten into
its engine and made it go crazy. And that's what
this little apparition must be doing.

“Oh no you don’t, you little monster,” Naomi
muttered, clenching her jaw. She lunged for the
ghost. Evidently, it wasn’t harmless. As she came
for it, it came for her, making a little growling
sound. Her hands nicked it, but shot past her,
nipping her arm as it went. Except it didn’t feel like
a nip. It felt like a tiger’s bite plus a great white
shark’s bite plus being devoured by millions of
piranhas. She tried to scream, but sound wouldn’t
come out. Her arm shed no blood, but it had a big
black bruise, shaped like claw marks. The pain
subsided, and so did the bruise. The ghost floated
in the air, in a way that made Naomi think it was
taunting her. Come at me again, it dared.

Naomi snorted furiously and quickly took off
her hoodie. The ghost shifted into a form that
looked like jaws, with decidedly sharp teeth. She
lunged at it again, this time with her hoodie
positioned to capture teeth-ghost. It dodged, flew
around her, and yanked out her ponytail with its
large canines. Her frizzy hair flew into her face,
temporarily blinding her. She brushed it all behind
her ears and went after ghostie again. This went
on for what must have been a quite short time,
with them floating and falling as the van kept
unsteadily flying, like it was driving on an
extremely bumpy road. Eventually, the ghost tried
to get out of the van, to complete its intended
mission, and that was when Naomi jumped and
wrapped her sweatshirt’s hood around it. She took
a deep breath.

“Guys?” she called out to Lily and
Herman, who had been bantering this entire time.
They paused.

“Yeah?” said Lily.
“I caught a ghost. Where do I put it?”
Lily squealed with delight. “REALLY!?!
We’ve been trying to catch one for SO LONG.
Here!” She tossed back an eyedropper, and Naomi
inserted through the thin hoodie fabric. She saw
the ghost squeeze into it. It whirled around
frantically as it tried to find a way out.

Naomi glanced at the walls. She could see an
alarming amount of snake-shaped dents in the
back door. And more and more snake heads were
visible in the windows. They almost seemed to
smile. But it looked like they were at a
disadvantage in the air. Right on time, the van
sputtered and fell. This time, it didn’t catch itself. It
fell straight to the ground. Naomi cracked her
head on the roof of the vehicle. She groaned.

Lily looked back at her. She was taking
shuddering breaths and her big eyes were wide.

“We could make it. There’s a chance. A
small one. Just keep hop- “ she was cut off as a
ghostly ibex headbutted the van. It lurched
forward and so did they. Herman’s elbow hit the
volume knob and “I Will Survive” started playing
at an ear-blasting intensity. Naomi covered her
ears as Lily, her nose bleeding, hit a lever and the
van put on a burst of speed. It traveled uphill at a
worrying acceleration and Naomi somehow
managed to look out the windows. Just as they
reached the top of the hill, which led into a bridge,
the burst of speed gave out, and so did the bridge.
Below it were thousands of ghosts of every shape
and size, who came rushing out. The van floated
through the air, with possibly the right amount of
momentum to reach the other side.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

“I WILL SURVIVE!!!”

The van landed with a Thud on the
The van landed with a Thud on the other side.
Naomi lay on the floor, every part of her body
aching. For a moment, she thought they’d
escaped. But then the music shut off and they
came. They were darker than before, their eyes
brighter. The ghosts encompassed the entire car,
writhing and twisting. For a second, Naomi felt as
if she was in a transparent aquarium tunnel,
watching peaceful fish, with all sound muffled.

Then the second was gone and the glass
shattered.

/<>/

Click clack. Naomi tapped her fingers as she
waited for the coffee machine to finish. Around her
was in a busy coffee shop filled with people and
furniture. She was behind a marble counter trying
to figure out what was bugging her. Maybe it was
that when she came in late after she forgot to set
her alarm her boss didn't mind. Maybe it was
because her clothes were dirty and she didn't
know why. Maybe it was because something was
now buzzing around in her pocket. She quickly
shoved her hand into her pocket and took it out. It
was an eye-dropper. An eye-dropper with a little
purple wisp in it. She didn't know where this came
from. Or what it was. Or why it was here. She
frankly didn't have any answers. There was only
one thing she did know.

She was going on a walk in the woods today.