Dead Men Scare Me Stupid Read Free Page A

house. But then my brain stopped.”
    “I think I owe
both of you men an apology. A sincere apology. One that comes from the heart.”
    “Nah,” said Fred,
“you don’t owe us nothin’. It was our own fault for hiring such a cheap
detective.”
    “Sure,” agreed
Ed. “$78.50 for a detective? He’s got to stink, right? We deserved everything
we got.”
    “It’s nice of you
to look at it that way.”
    “Oh, we’re nice
ghosts,” said Ed
    “Very nice,”
agreed Fred.
    They beamed at me.
There was an awkward silence. It’s hard to know what to say in social
situations like this – when you’re entertaining people you’ve recently gotten
brutally killed. The etiquette books don’t say anything about it. I know. I
checked. Finally I said, just to be saying something: “So… er…how have you
been? How has death been treating you so far?”
    “Being dead’s all
right,” said Fred. “You get into movies free. So you save money that way. And
ice skating rinks. Us dead guys can skate all we want for nothing.”
    “Sure,” agreed
Ed. “Being dead’s a goldmine. Savings everywhere you look. No clothes to buy,
no haircuts. No expenses at all. And you have fewer worries, too. For instance,
you don’t have to worry about your health anymore, or your weight or your sex
appeal, because you don’t have any of those things.”
    “Sounds great.”
    “It is.”
    “The other
clients you got killed say ‘hi’, by the way,” said Fred.
    “Oh, good.”
    The two ghosts
seemed friendly enough, but I still couldn’t help feeling nervous. They were
too transparent, for one thing. I don’t like it when I can watch TV through
people. Admittedly, it makes scary movies that much scarier, but it makes all
the other shows scary too. And that’s no good. Make yourself solid if you want
to talk to me. That’s the way I look at it. That’s what I always say. But Ed
and Fred couldn’t make themselves completely solid. It had something to do with
ectoplasm, they told me. That was their answer to just about everything -
ectoplasm. I never could find that word in the dictionary. I don’t know if they
made it up or what. Maybe it’s in the dictionary, but it’s invisible, I dunno.
Anyway, I couldn’t find it.
    “Well, it sure
was swell seeing you fellas again,” I said, finishing my sandwich. “Oh, geez,
is that the time?”
    “You should look
at your watch when you say that,” said Fred, “not at us.”
    I looked at my
watch and started to say it again.
    “Besides,” said
Ed, “we’re not going anyplace.”
    “You’re not?”
    “Heck, no. We’re
sticking with you.”
    “We came here to
help you, pal,” explained Fred.
    “Help me do
what?”
    “Everything. Your
life’s a mess. You’re the most unsuccessful man in town.”
    “That study was
flawed,” I pointed out.
    “But we’re going
to fix up everything swell for you. Ain’t we, Ed?”
    “I’ll say we
are.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    They weren’t ready
for that question. They had to think for a minute.
    “We’re trying to
win our wings,” said Fred, finally.
    “I didn’t know
ghosts had wings.”
    “Well, we have to
win ‘em.”
    “Plus we’re
trying to win a bar bet,” added Ed.
    “And we like your
face,” said Fred. “Is that enough reasons?”
    “One more.”
    They both thought
some more. Finally Ed said: “And you need to do 5000 good deeds to get into
Heaven, and we’ve only done 4000.”
    “4,999” said
Fred, correcting him.
    “What he said,”
agreed Ed.
    “Yeah, well, the
thing is, I don’t need any help.”
    “You let us be
the judge of that,” said Ed.
    “You’re not
thinking straight right now,” said Fred. “On account of you needing our help so
much. Isn’t that right, Ed?”
    “Yeah, he’s gone
daffy from needing us.”
    “No, seriously,
guys, I appreciate your wanting to help me, but I will appreciate it even more
when you go away.”
    “Not us,” said
Ed.
    “We’re staying,”
said