It was not a dark and stormy night. Dark and stormy are fairly typical of Girl Guide camps, but this one was special. It was dark, though; very dark. Holly and I were the kitchen staff at the Girl Guide District Camp of September '05. It being night and all, we were finished for the day, so we were sitting outside chatting.
Suddenly, a group of Pathfinders, who were around twelve years old, ran out of the night.
"Pamela! Holly! There's a gruesome ghost behind our cabin!" they cried. We were rightfully sceptical at first; they were, after all, twelve years old.
"A ghost? That's nice." Choosing to ignore them, we returned back to our rather geeky discussion on fantasy economics.
"But it's a ghost!" they protested.
"And... what would you like us to do about it?"
"Get rid of it!"
Have you ever exorcised a ghost? I certainly haven't. Neither had Holly. What's more, neither of us had seen many movies on the subject, what with us preferring to read and all.
I looked at Holly. She looked at me. It probably looked like we were just glancing at each other, but that glance spoke volumes. Or at least a few paragraphs.
"What should we do?" I looked.
"I don't know," Holly looked back.
"Should we go see what the fuss is about?"
"I guess."
"Do you think it's an animal?"
"Probably. But we can go 'exorcise' the ghost, scare the animal off, and tell them that it won't be a problem."
"Ok, lead us to the ghost," we told them.
They led us to their cabin, and pointed to the forest behind. It was dark and spooky, as forests are wont to be, with the fairly typical dead leaves, slimy logs, skeletal branches, skeletons, and the like. Full of confidence in our wild-animal-exorcisement skills, Holly and I headed into the depths of the forest.
"Hey! Did you hear that?" I asked.
"Hear what?"
"Something crackled! Listen!" It crackled again. Holly looked at me.
"Maybe we should look rather than talk," she looked as we started walking again. "Then we can hear where the animal is."
"Right. Good idea. So… Silly Pathfinders, eh?"
"Yeah. Thinking there's a ghost here!"
"What sort of animal do you think it is?"
"A red-robed kender-"
"What?!"
"I said, a deer."
"Oh. Sorry. It's kind of dark. It's hard to tell what you're looking."
We walked without communicating for several minutes. Suddenly, something tapped me on the shoulder.
"AAH!" I yelped.
"What happened?"
"I felt something! Probably a big bug or something, right, Holly?" I laughed nervously.
"Yeah. It's not like there's really a- AAH!"
"What?!" There was no response. "Holly? You ok?" I looked beside me.
Holly was gone
My first instinct was to panic. Luckily, we learn all sorts of things in Girl Guides, and one of them is to not panic in an emergency. So, rather than panicking, I rationally called out,
"Holly! Where are you?" Nothing. "Holly, are you ok?" Silence. "This is sort of becoming un-funny!"
"GRAARGH!" Something grabbed me by the ankle. Twisting, I glimpsed a spectral hand reaching out from beneath the bed of rotten leaves. I screamed.
"HELP! HELP! AAH! THERE'S A HAND GRABBING ME!"
"Pamela!" I looked up. Holly! Her shirt was torn, and there was a bloody scratch down one cheek, but she looked otherwise unharmed.
"Help me!" I screamed. Holly nodded.
"Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens, Attack!" she yelled. The Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens materialized and erupted from the trees, dive-bombing the hand. It let go, and I staggered away.
The hand rose. Attached to it was an arm, and to that, a body. The spectre opened its mouth and let out a piercing wail. The Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens began falling out of the sky, twitching.
"What do we do, Holly?"
"We... We need more troops. The ghost's ghastly groan is clearly immobilizing our troops."
"Who do we call on? The Yellow Jumping Rooster-Apes or the Army of Orange Octopi?"
"The Army of Orange Octopi can't be this far from water. Better make it the 'Apes."
"Right. Yellow Jumping Rooster-Apes, Attack!" I roared. The Yellow Jumping Rooster-Apes instantly sprang from the trees.
The 'Apes instantly jumped to the apparition, and began beating it with their blunt beaks. There were no casualties, including on the fearsome phantom's side, but they distracted it long enough to stop its horrendous howl. This was all that was needed. The Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens quickly returned to the air, and began to do what Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens do best.
(For those of you who are unaware, Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens may look cute, but really they will eat your soul (as in your immortal being, although they have been known to eat shoe soles as appetizers).)
The ghoul fought long and hard, but there was no way it could win. The Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens were too many. Slowly, the scary spirit became the succulent snack of the soaring soldiers.
While the Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens ate their tasty treat, Holly and I dispersed the Yellow Jumping Rooster-Apes. With a great leap, they bounded into wherever it is that those strange and wonderful beings live. That done, we stayed a moment to make sure that the ghost was well and truly exorcised, disbanded the Purple Flying Monkey-Chickens, and returned to the main area of the camp.
"Well? What happened?" the Pathfinders inquired apprehensively. Holly and I smiled cheerfully.
"It's gone. No big deal."