CHAPTER SIX
I woke up the next morning to loud banging on the door. It sounded like something was going to break it down.
I moaned and rolled over. It was ten a.m. I had already woken up at seven-thirty to call my boss and see if it was all right for me to work today. I had felt a lot better than yesterday, maybe not full of pep and beans, but then I let it slip that my sister was at home with the swine flu. I guess the flu paranoia had a hold over everyone because the conversation went from “Yes, come in” to “No bloody way. Stay at home until you know for sure you don’t have swine flu.”
Well, I knew I didn’t have swine flu, but I can’t say I argued at all with her logic. Though it still didn’t reflect very well on me, this was their doing. Plus, I was lazy and the thought of Alana being stuck on the phones for an extra day made me cackle inside.
“What?” I yelled at the pounding door, my morning voice cracking. “Can’t I sleep in? I’m sick. Maybe.”
“Lemme in!” Ada yelled from outside.
“Don’t come in, you sicko!” I sat up. I didn’t actually want to contract this infamous flu.
“Perry, my blog, holy shit.”
Aww crap. The night before returned to me. She was pissed off that I took her fashion bible for jealous tweens and turned it into the Ghost Whisperer. Sure, I had Jennifer Love Hewitt’s rack but not the rest of her body post–“I’m a size two” slim down. I sighed and crawled out of my warm bed, quickly slipping on my house robe.
I walked over to the door and leaned against it. I could imagine her fiery expression behind the door.
“I’m sorry, Ada. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Open the door!” She pounded on it hard and my head felt the impact.
I supposed that because I probably ruined her career and her income, I deserved the swine flu.
I opened it and took a few steps back, covering my nose and mouth with the sleeve of my robe.
She stood before me looking wane and bony. Her eyes were flashing with brilliance (or anger), giving her the appearance of a mad woman with frazzled white hair, like Doc Brown’s granddaughter.
“You are a genius!” she exclaimed.
“Come again?”
She waltzed into my room and over to the computer.
“Um, please don’t touch anything,” I pleaded.
“Oh, whatever,” she scowled and proceeded to run her hands all over my desk. I wondered if I had enough sanitizer in my drawer to eradicate her. She flipped my laptop open and immediately opened her blog post. Or should I say, my blog post.
“Look!” She pointed at the screen.
I edged closer and looked over. It looked the same as it had last night. I shrugged at her.
“Have you seen the comments?” she asked incredulously.
“Ada, I just got up.”
She shook her head at my priorities and started scrolling down the screen to the comments section. She turned to look at me, utter shock and glee (and maybe a slight hint of admiration?) in her eyes.
“Two hundred comments!”
“Huh,” I mused. “That’s good, right?”
“Good? I’ve never gotten that many before. I mean sure, lots of people look at my blog and all that shizz, but two hundred? From your post? The most I’ve ever gotten was a hundred and sixty, and that’s only because I was giving away a Chanel scarf.”
“You gave away a Chanel scarf?”
“It doesn’t matter, Perry. Focus! This is insane. And all because you made up this crazy ghost story.”
I scoffed. “Made up? I didn’t make it up. That’s what happened on Saturday night when you were busy knocking boots with The Whiz.”
Her nostrils flared. If she was standing, her hands would have gone straight to her hips.
“First of all, I did not knock boots with him, and second of all, his real name is Mario.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Mario was not much better than Whiz.
“Well,” I tried to explain, “if you had actually told me what went on that night instead of ignoring me, maybe I would know that instead of assuming the worst of you.”
“I love how naturally you assume the worst of me. Whatever, it’s irrelevant.”
“You’re irrelevant,” I countered. Poorly.
“Good one. Anyway, you’re the one who ran off alone. Talk about being irresponsible.”
“And, as you can now see, this is what I ended up doing. Exploring the lighthouse.”
“And scaring the shit out of everyone.”
“And myself. There was a lot of stuff that happened later that I can’t even begin to explain.”
“OK, so write about it. Now! Look at these comments.” She started reading from them, “‘Can’t wait to hear what happens next, I’ve got goose bumps’ and ‘This totally got me in the Halloween mood’ and ‘Where’s the rest of it? I want to know what happens, this is scaring the bejesus out of me.’ Hardly anyone has even made a peep of condolence for my swine flu.”
“Apparently they are too scared,” I offered.
Ada nodded slowly. With her eyes were returning to a non-psychotic state, I could see how sick she really was.
“Look, go back to bed. Get some rest. Work told me to stay home today so I’ll start writing the next part, OK?”
She batted her red eyes at me. “Can you go around and visit the blogs of everyone who commented...make a nice comment in their comment section, something like ‘Thanks for the blog support while Ada is sick, please come back tomorrow for the second installment’?”
“That’s like two hundred blogs!”
“It’s what you do! No one said blogging was a cake hop.”
Cake hop? She must have meant cake walk.
She got up and shuffled to the door, turning once more to look at me. “Please?”
I rolled my eyes and nodded reluctantly. What on earth had I gotten myself into?
***
As it turns out, I had gotten myself into plenty. My life turned into a blur of writing, editing, posting, visiting blogs, and answering emails.
So many people were interested in my experience, the majority of whom were emailing me solely to ask whether it was true or if it was a fake post. I had gotten so many of those inquiries that I decided to make an FAQ post on the blog where I could answer those kinds of questions.
What was really interesting, though, was how the story seemed to take on a life of its own.
The videos that I posted on the blog had to be uploaded to YouTube first before I could link them. YouTube was something of an afterthought. Little did I know that my videos, within days, had an average YouTube rating of four stars (which is pretty good), had at least sixty comments, and had thousands of viewer hits.
I have to be honest, that thrilled me to the very core. I was never popular at anything, so to see so much approval and attention paid to something that I did, which featured me (and, well, this Dex person), was an amazing feeling.
Sure, it was weird to find yourself an internet sensation—even if you couldn’t really make out that it was me in the video—but it was still flattering that so many people wanted to know what happened next, that people cared about this little experience I would have kept to myself like I had done so many times before.
In the weirdest way, I was happy that I was actually doing something with my life. Writing the blog posts, reliving the experience, crafting the video until it was on par with any ghost story, and just revving my underused creative juices in general, made me feel like I had a purpose. Sounds stupid and superfluous, I know, but I couldn’t help feeling that way.
Naturally, it was a real downer to have to go into work and face the reality of the rest of my life. I couldn’t stay home and blog forever. Eventually, the interest in my paranormal experiences would wane and the creative fever would subside and I would be back to answering phones for the rest of my life.
Answering phones and barely able to concentrate on doing so. I could only think about the blog all morning. How many people visited in the last hour? How did they find me? What did they think? How many comments were there now?
In the afternoon, my boss came out to see me. Earlier she had remarked that I looked a million times better and was glad that the rest did me some good, even though I noticed she was keeping a hypochondriac’s distance away.
Now, though, there was something else on her mind. She stopped just behind me.
“Hi,” I smiled up at her.
“I’ve got to show you something.” Frida leaned over and opened Firefox on the computer. She clacked away in the URL bar until YouTube came up. My blood ran cold. I didn’t like where this was going.