camping trip

“Guys, Guys!” shouts a short man with ear gauges bigger than his actual ears as he burst into the house shared by him, myself, and a tall blonde with a nose that resembled Toucan Sam's, and a roommate that we rarely saw, due to his hectic work schedule and all around unlikable demeanor.

“We're going camping, there's supposed to be one of the biggest meteor showers in years tomorrow night and we're going!”he continued, his eyes gleaming with the excitement of a child told that he was going to get to live in Disneyland.

“Jordan,” the taller one, Eric, said in a haughty tone. “we all have jobs, we can't just take off, plus...”

He was cut off by Jordan saying “Don't worry, I've cleared it with all of your bosses, you're in the clear. Now hurry up, we have a whole lot to do!” With that he charged up the stairs toward his room, tripping on a rock that he left near the right side wall of the hallway but by no means out of the way. He says it serves as surprisingly effective security measure against potential visitors.

I looked at Eric, and we both laughed at what we were sure was either a joke or a drug fueled delusion that would end soon enough. But before we could even say anything, Jordan came rushing back down the stairs with a half zipped duffel bag over one shoulder and a 12-gauge shotgun over the other.

From what I could see, the bag contained a dress shirt, snow pants, and one flip-flop. The rest consisted of a zip-lock bag full of what looked like an assortment of pills and shotgun shells. He had been planning this one and it was not going to end well. Nothing ever does when Jordan plans things. Case in point, once he planned a surprise barbeque for everyone in the house except for what's his name...Kevin? Sure, anyway, everything's going great until Jordan, in an attempt to impress us, showed us how he could blow fire using Everclear.

He actually got a pretty good fireball the first time, but then he got cocky and swallowed a shot before blowing his next fireball. The fumes from that awful, awful drink ignited in his mouth and almost burned his throat all the way down to his stomach. The only thing that stopped it was that he had been practicing with corn starch earlier that day, and enough of it was inhaled to create what doctors officially called “some kind of alcoholic acidic corn bread” (I should probably mention the doctors in our city aren't very good, so for all we know Jordan may have died and is just a ghost). My point being that anything Jordan puts his mind to ends up destroyed.

Before I could object, he threw the bag at me and said “Throw these supplies in the van and hop in, we need a few things.”

“Hold on a minute,” I said, finally, “not only am I positive you didn't clear this with our bosses, but if we were to go camping, don't you think I should pack my own stuff up while you go get whatever crazy-ass thing you were off to get?”

“Already handled,” he said, shoving another duffel bag at me. I opened it and saw that he had packed everything I would need for a camping trip very neatly.

“This would explain why I haven't been able to find this shirt, these pants, my boots, and my cell phone for the past month...” I said.

I guess I should clarify for those who don't already know. Living with men, you just end up accepting things for what they are. No point in fighting about it, because it doesn't change anything. So I zipped the bag back up, looked at Eric, who was doing the same to his bag, and we piled into the big old hippie/rapist van that Jordan called his “backup plan,” to be used in case we ever throw him out on his ass.

As Jordan jammed a screwdriver into the part of the van where a key would normally go and turned it as you would a key, the van roared to life and with it, Jordan's stupidly loud sound system momentary deafened us with bass that would probably be considered dangerous to health. Although considering the fact that Jordan held the proud title of being the first known case of someone creating“alcoholic acidic cornbread”, this was probably pretty low on his list of health worries.

“God damn, turn that down!” Eric whined, and Jordan turned the dial on his stereo down

“Sorry man.” he said, putting the van into reverse. “First stop, grocery store.” He continued, lighting up a cigarette.

As cliche as Jordan's van was, it was still pretty cool. The back seats had been replaced with a sofa that surrounded the perimeter of the van, stopping at the door. His sub woofers were hidden under the driver and passenger side seat, and instead of windows in the back, he had blue rope lights on the ceiling and under the sofa, creating a glow that just begged for the excessive consumption of illicit substances. Even if it also did, as Eric had pointed out, add quite a bit to the date-rape ambiance one hopes to avoid when inside a van.

One of the sofa chairs opened up to reveal a cooler, and under the rest of the sofa was a sort of storage space for our bags. in the middle, there was a collapsible table anchored to floor. Things like this are also why Jordan has to use a screwdriver in his ignition. Can't say he doesn't prioritize. Well...ok you can and be very accurate in doing so, but he spends his money on cool stuff.

Eric and I felt the van come to a stop at what we could only hope was the grocery store and not a crack den. I mean we could have looked out the front windows but that seemed like it could be bad as well. Ignorance is bliss with Jordan.

“Stay here, I'll be back with all we need.” Jordan promised somewhat ominously, and he was off before either of us could protest.

“I think it's coke this time, it has to be.” I said to Eric after a minute or two of silence. He was gazing with uncharacteristic contentment at his iPhone like it was about to tell him the secret of the universe.

“Hey! Trendy McConsumerwhore, pay attention, we've essentially been captured by a madman and told that we're going to the woods with him, doesn't this concern you in the least?” I asked. “in fact” I added, “take the essentially away from my previous statement”

“Hold on, I'm posting this to my facebook so if we do die they'll at least know where to look for our bodies.” he replied, putting his phone down. “Besides, this isn't the first time we've taken a random road trip, it's what makes us so cool, we're unpredictable.”

I was about to explain to Eric why he and I don't get along very well when, suddenly, the door slid open, and Jordan hit Eric with a bag of ice right in the chest, saving me the effort. (by explain i meant hit)

“Put that in the cooler,” he said as he started unloading a cart that looked as though it had been through a demolition derby.

His purchases started out fine, he got hot dogs, marshmallows, lunch meat, cheese, more cheese, more cheese....

“Jesus Christ Jordan, how much cheese did you get?”

“Just a pound, now shut up and get this food in there unless you want to starve.” he said, handing me yet another pack of cheese. I decided not to remind him that Eric is still slightly lactose intolerant, because, well, the swelling is pretty funny.

“Starve?” I asked, becoming more suspicious by the minute. “I though this was a one night thing, how exactly did you take care of work for us?”

“I called your bosses and said that I was your probation officer, and that you had been sentenced to a week's worth of in-patient therapy due to a recent relapse.” he said matter-of-factly, not even glancing up as he continued giving me more cheese.

“You did what?!” I screamed, throwing the cheese back at him. “How is that taking care of it? You just got me fired!”

“Well then it sounds like you work for a company that discriminates against alcoholics, and you're better off.” he replied, unperturbed, as he retrieved the hurled pack of pepperjack. Clearly, getting his two best friends fired is one thing, but God forbid we have less than a pound of cheese in the woods.

“three things: one, alcoholics aren't a race that you can discriminate against, two, I don't work there anymore thanks to your dumb ass, and three...I hate you” I said, as straight-faced as I could be while holding back the deluge of fury inside of me. I was mainly focusing on not giving into my sudden impulse to stuff Jordan like a jalapeno popper with a brick of cheddar I was still holding.

Meanwhile, Eric just loaded cheese into the cooler and said calmly, “Well, dipshit, you got us both fired, you're making this trip worth it. So return half of this cheese, because you're buying enough booze for us all to forget that we're screwed.” Typical Eric. The one time he actually has a reason to throw a fit, and he just stays perfectly calm, making me look even more like a lunatic in a rape-van pelting a scene kid with cold cuts.

“Oh please” Jordan said, almost insulted, “you can't return cheese... and look under your part of the seat.”

Doing so revealed eight bottles of European absinthe, and a gallon jug that I swear was glowing slightly, and which read “panda slayer” in sharpie.

The man may be crazy as hell, but he comes prepared.

We loaded the last of the food into the cooler, and got in. Before Jordan jammed the screwdriver into the ignition, he turned around to face the two of us, and said “In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.” “Jordan, I think you may just be a sociopath.” I said, trying to remember which King Henry play that was from. Then he stabbed his ignition and we were off.

After about an hour of bullshitting with everyone about nothing in particular I said to Jordan “So you have any idea where we're actually going? Or is this one of those “we'll know it when we see it” things?”

“Nah, I know where I'm going,” he said, drinking from a Mountain Dew bottle that I saw him replace with absinthe earlier.

Eyeing the now half-empty bottle uneasily, I suggested “Maybe you should either lay off that till we get there or tell one of us where we're going so we don't end up somewhere in Montana.” This, unfortunately, was a valid concern, because Jordan, Eric, and I had ended up in Montana on accident two more times than I'm comfortable to admit. We live nowhere near Montana, so either Jordan is horrible at reading maps, or that hellish state has some kind of gravitational pull.

“NO!” he shouted. Seemingly surprised by his own outburst, he added “It's, uh, a surprise, just relax and drink guys, I have a few joints or pills if that's your fancy instead.” He delivered this textbook-rape invitation way too fast. I would have said coke, definitely, except as far as I remember coke destroys your appetite. It doesn't make you crave a deli's worth of cheese.

Eric shot me a look of his that he usually reserves for when rent's due or I've done something else to warrant his bitchiness. The look that says we need to talk in private. Almost like a reflex, I told Jordan to turn up the music a little, which he did, effectively making it impossible to hear anything in the back of the van from the front.

Eric slid over to me and said nervously, “Is he acting weird?”

I stared at him for a while, and said “Eric, this is the guy who spoke in nothing but dirty limericks for a week, weird is relative.”

“What's with all this cheese though?” Eric persisted, coming dangerously close to whining again. “And he quoted Shakespeare earlier? That kid has a hard time with Goosebumps books. He didn't even quote the part of that speech that everyone remembers either.”

“Look, calm down Fritzy McSpaz, sure, maybe he's snapped, but we get a few days of free booze and drugs and food before he puts that shotgun to his chin in the woods.” I said soothingly, trying to put his mind at ease, I added “plus, at least he didn't say the part about closing the wall with our English dead, he's just screwing with us.

“Wow...that was dark man.” Eric was not soothed.

“Yeah...anyway, just enjoy this, go try some of that panda slayer or something.” I said as I poured a glass of absinthe on the table in the middle of the van which was very surprisingly stable. Must have had shocks or something. Down the hatch the sickly sweet green drink went, and I handed the bottle to Eric, who reluctantly took it and drank from the bottle.

“Fine,” he said through a liquor grimace “but if I die, I'm haunting you forever.”

“You know, there's a proper way to drink that stuff,” I replied smugly.

“You mean through a Mountain Dew bottle?” he asked, gesturing towards our insane captor/roommate/driver.

“Point taken.” I said, and put my feet up on the seat, trying to figure out just how may different ways I could die on this trip. It's something I've learned calms me down when Jordan has put my life in potential danger, and this trip was ranking up there in danger. I'd seen Jordan go through crazy bouts before, sure, but something about this one was different. Eric was right, though I'd never let him know that.

Seven hundred and fifty three ways to die later the car screeched to a halt and Jordan yelled “Wake up we're here!”

Something about the van I should mention is that only the driver has an idea of what time of day it is, because the windshield and two front windows constitute the only natural light that enter the van. If you're riding in the back, you exist in a timeless, perpetual twilight state of random drug effects and trepidation, illuminated by blue rope lights and a softly glowing jug of some mixed drink Jordan apparently tested on now-deceased pandas. So we were surprised to find that the sun was already setting and that we were in the middle of a clearing in the woods.

“Now what?” Eric slurred as he fell out of the van.

“now we get drunk until the stars come out!” Jordan yelled, grabbing the jug labeled panda slayer.

“To good friends!” he said, lifting the jug, which was surprisingly still luminous outdoors.

“To good friends” I replied with one of the absinthe bottles.

“To friends that are surely to get me killed one day” Eric said, (well, sort of said, he had lost his ability to really say things about forty-five minutes ago) raising an imaginary bottle, then realizing his mistake and grabbing a real one.

We clanked our liquor / whatever was in Jordan's drink and took deep swigs, seeing who could chug the longest.

Eric fell first, with me a close second, though, to my credit, I did not literally fall like Eric did, and as we waited for Jordan to annoy us with his victory dance I noticed that he was still chugging.

“You won, Jordan, give it a rest.” I said, and he shot me a look that I've never seen on his face before. It was so angry, like an animal, a pissed off animal. And as he finished off his jug, he wiped his mouth and said to me “Sorry, tonight's not about being a pussy.”

“Screw you” I said laughingly, not wanting to let him know how freaked out I was, or my dawning suspicion that there may be more than a dash of PCP in panda slayer, and we turned to see Eric passed out where he fell.

“Lightweight” Jordan said dismissively as he stacked stones in a circle, presumably for building a fire pit, but he could have just been doing it for the hell of it. It's hard to tell with Jordan, if you haven't guessed that already.

“To be fair, I think we're the only two people on earth who can handle this much booze in our system and stay remotely functional.” I added, deciding to help him complete the circle. The task was as absorbing as any minimal task is when you discover you can still do it while really inebriated, and we were quiet for a while. There have been nights when Jordan and I were perfectly content to drunkenly play with rocks in the woods, but this time I could tell something was bothering him, making him edgy.

“How long we known each other, Victor?” he asked when we were done.

“Pffffff eight years? What year did you buy that crossbow?” I asked.

“Ten years ago.” he replied immediately. No one forgets their first crossbow.

“Right, so it's been ten, because the day you bought that crossbow you shot my tire while I drove by and that's how we met.” I replied.

“Ten years...man, that's a long time” he said, thoughtfully.

“I suppose. Why do you ask?” I asked, idly recalling the shock that is getting in a car accident thanks to a heavily pierced and tattooed madman with a surprising natural talent with ancient weaponry.

An uneasy look flashed across his face. “It's just that...well you're my best friend, and I really need to tell someone something and I need to know if you think we're close enough for me to say this.”

“Is this about the cat skulls in the backyard?” I asked, trying to keep things light, “because I kind of always kind of figured that was you. I mean, whatever, I don't care, but can you be a bit less over the top with where you put them? The neighbors almost called the cops about the ones you hung in the tree like Christmas ornaments”

“Huh? Oh that? No, that was the result of an unfortunate run-in with a fish truck while I was on PCP.” he explained, if you could call that an explanation.

I thought about this for a second, trying to imagine just what set of circumstances would have led to any of that, but my thoughts were interrupted by Jordan looking me in the eye, something he rarely did, and saying “This is serious.”

“Jordan, in the entire time I've known you, I've never heard you say those words in that order, you have my attention.” I said, dumbfounded.

He stood up, twitched uneasily, and said “Please don't take this wrong, but I have more than enough firepower to kill you here tonight if you decide that you can't live with what I tell you. It must remain between you, me, and princess over there.” He gestured toward the passed-out Eric. “Combine that with the fact that you have no idea where you are and are currently more liquor than man, your odds of survival are low if you can't stay cool about this”

In all our time together, I never truly felt unsafe around Jordan, and even as he was threatening to hunt me like a deer in the woods, I still saw my friend in him, so I said slowly. “You have my word, Jordan, what's this all about?”

He leaned against the van, seemingly put at ease, looked up at the sky; the stars were just starting to appear ,and he closed his eyes.

“I'm not from around here, Vic.”

“Yeah, you told me that, you're from Illinois, it's nothing to be ashamed of, man.” I said, trying to break the tension I felt growing again.

He opened his eyes, looked at me, and smiled.

“I'm not from that armpit of a state either.”

“Jordan,” I said, standing up from the log I had been sitting on and walking to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “dude, what are you trying to tell me, out with it, I'm your friend, if I didn't ditch you after you tried to sell me into slavery when we went to Tijuana there's nothing you can say or do that will make me think you're anything but my criminally insane best friend who is a great human being, no matter how insane his methods of greatness may be.”

He looked at me again, and blinked twice, once horizontal, once vertical.

Startled, I stepped back, looked around, and then looked back at him.

“Am I drunk or did you just blink wrong?” I asked, trying to hide the fear in my voice.

“Both” he responded as he turned around.

“OK...now, I'm still cool with this, just...what in the hell?” I stammered, half-wishing I had had some panda slayer after all and full wishing that I had just stayed home with Kevin...ok maybe not with Kevin but I sure didn't want to be in the woods at that moment.

“I had hoped to talk more before this.” he said, as he walked a bit further out toward the woods, the moon causing only his silhouette to be visible.

I looked towards Eric, still passed out, being useless. Knew he couldn't handle his liquor, should have gotten him some wine coolers or something... my thoughts were confused, jumbled, and I knew now it wasn't just the liquor.

I looked back toward Jordan, his silhouette was started to change slightly. His clothes, which normally fit closely to his small frame, began to sag as if he was deflating, his head began to morph, getting larger on top, and his normally stately jawline disappeared behind his neck.

“Jordan, hum...I'm very very freaked out right now, if you don't mind I'm going to grab one of those joints you offered earlier from the van.”

“Go ahead, they're in the glove box.” the silhouette responded, his voice not Jordan's anymore, higher- pitched, but with a near synthesized sound. To be honest, it sounded like he was a little auto-tuned.

I fumbled to light the joint, and returned to...whatever was happening. “OK, now I think I've been very cool about this, Jordan.” I said through a hit. Exhaling, I continued. “So far today you've gotten me fired, kidnapped me, drove me out to the middle of nowhere, threatened to shoot me and now this. I have no idea what's going on but do you mind if lose it for just a few?” I asked.

“Vic, please, this isn't easy for me either,” the voice responded, still looking away from me. Another random thought flitted to the surface; those were the same words my ex-girlfriend had prefaced our breakup with. Words that always mean this is serious. But, while I was pretty sure Jordan wasn't going to break up with me but I was positive that I wanted to be the passed out one, leaving Eric to deal with this. I kicked him in the stomach to try to wake him up to no avail.

“Pardon my tone and language, but you just fucking transformed in front of me, now I may be a junior college dropout but that does not seem like normal behavior!” I half yelled.

Possibly taken aback at my mention of normal behavior in correlation with anything he did, a subject that had never been brought up in all our years of friendship for the obvious reasons, Jordan turned toward me, revealing two huge eyes that took up a majority of the real estate of the enormous forehead. His ear gauges were gone, and more remarkably, so were his ears. His skin was paler than usual, but not grey like everyone says it is for aliens, and his eyes looked normal, just huge. They were still green with pupils and white on the outside. I didn't see any lips or mouth to speak of, and his nose looked exactly like Michael Jackson's at the end of his life, no joke, to the T.

His arms were skinny and long, but very muscular, leading to hands that would have been the envy of any basketball player or guitarist, as long as he never wanted to use his hands for anything else, ever. They were at least twice the size of a normal human's, with fingers making up 70% of the size.

His torso had extended, leaving half of it uncovered by his shirt, skinny, pale, and long, just like the legs sticking out of his pants. All in all, he looked like a teenager who just hit a growth spurt and couldn't afford new clothes. You know, only horrifying.

The newly proportioned and horrifying Jordan looked at me with those huge eyes, and I heard from seemingly nowhere in particular that auto tuned voice say “Well?”, as if he wanted my opinion on a new tattoo idea or haircut. In a way, I thought that if I had somehow known Jordan was going to reveal someday that he was an alien by getting me drunk in the woods and then transforming in front of me, I would have guessed he would be just that casual about it.

I looked at him for a long time, scanning up and down, avoiding the eyes until last, and when I locked gazes with him, I could tell that he was still the insane friend that would lay his life down for me if it came to it. Although there was no way in hell I would ever let him wingman for me looking like this.

“Your big secret is that you're ugly as hell?” I said, laughing. “Hell, we always knew that.”

He moved his head in a laughing gesture, but no sound came from him.

“I apologize, Vic, I should have told you earlier,” the voice said, and I pinpointed where the sound was coming from.

“You wired your talk...thing into the van?” I asked.

“More or less,” came from the van. I guess I should be impressed that the kid who can barely change a tire managed to alien-rig his van's sub woofers, and not slightly uncomfortable that I might have been somehow sitting on his voice box on our way in, which might be gay, although I'm not sure.

“Well, while I'm fine with you being an alien and all, I'm going to ask you to transform back to human...form or something, you sound like Lil' Wayne through this thing. Also, I don't know whether to talk to you or the van.” I said, vaguely addressing a tree stationed somewhere between the van and the pale sci-fi movie prop draped in Jordan's torn tee and skinny jeans.

“In a minute,” the van said, or he did, as he walked toward me, moving very deliberately with his long legs, and reached out to touch me on the forehead with his hand.

Upon contact with his hand, I could see only what he wanted me to see. I heard his voice clearly, and it was still different than the one I had grown accustomed to, but at least it wasn't auto tune. The last thing I wanted was secrets of the universe, courtesy of T-Pain.

“I revealed myself for a reason,” I felt him say, I say felt literally, like those toothbrushes that play a song through your teeth or whatever, and say what you will about a grown man using one of those toothbrushes, but I wake up to “Don't Stop Believing” by Journey playing in my head every morning usually with a backtrack of a hangover throb creating the closest thing I ever want to get to being a stage monitor (the speakers on stage for those of you who thought I was describing a computer monitor) and you don't.

In my mind I saw a planet that looked like earth, but the continents were different. Also it had three moons.

I looked at the planet for a long time, as Jordan's voice echoed in my head.

“This is where I'm from, I won't attempt to pronounce the name, call it Serenity.”

“Like the ship in Firefly?” I asked, wondering if it would be completely inappropriate to ask if he came from the Illinois of his planet.

“Yes, just like that, now shut up.” Well, that erased all doubt. No alien pretending to be Jordan could both reference my favorite series and capture his perfect exasperation reserved for when he thinks I'm going to start rambling about how Fox wouldn't know a good series if it kicked Rupert Murdoch himself in the ass wearing boots made of deep characters and interesting storytelling and that since a show can't do it, I'd have to, but he's not listed so it's hard to

“oh my god will you shut up! I'm in your head, you know, I can hear everything you think right now, I've heard your rant about that god damn show at least eighty two times in the past twelve months. I've been counting!” he said, interrupting my thought process quite painfully. Apparently the human brain is designed to contain one sentient being at a time and having more than one is like daisy chaining power strips and plugging space heaters into every available socket. So I stopped thinking because it hurt...literally

All of a sudden the image grew too bright to see anything, it hurt my eyes even though I knew I was in the dark, I could feel heat and hear screams. I almost pulled away when everything went silent, cold, and dark.

“Humans have a lot of stuff right when it comes to space.” he began, “but what happens when a star explodes near an inhabited planet? It's hard to imagine what happens.”

“I'm going to take a wild guess and say it gets blown up as well?” I said.

“Most of the time, but if the conditions are right, space-time rips quick enough to save the planet from the blast but leaves it in a place that...well, humans would call it hell.”

“Fire? Brimstone? Or is it like Dante's Inferno where it's all cold and satan's a dog” I asked

“Pain,” he responded,

“Pain?”

“Yes, pain, now shut up. and because quantum physics means anything can happen at any time just to screw with you , my planet is now where yours is...in another dimension.” I had tried to read “Black Holes and Baby Universes” by Stephen Hawking a few years back and immediately regretted it when he spent the first chapter essentially saying that I wasn't going to get this no matter how much he dumbed it down. And the only part I understood was how he ended up in the wheelchair so I was in no position to argue.

“Jordan, I have to say, bringing all these mind-altering substances might not have been the best idea if you wanted me to understand stuff that people who actually went to college don't understand.” I said.

“In retrospect, maybe, but I was really expecting you to run when you saw I was an alien...” he responded. “Plus, you guys thought I was acting weird before we even left. Think about how weirded out you would have been if we went on a trip and I didn't bring any drugs or alcohol at all.” He had a point. Jordan will hardly go to the corner store without at least a pre rolled joint for the road. And that's five minutes from the house.

“So your planet's in hell, and this hell planet just so happens to be right here just in a different dimension?” I asked, in order to clarify.

“Essentially” he said, as he took his hand off my head and began to return to “normal.”

“OK, that sucks, but what can I do about it? I can barely change my own oil.” Thinking, if he tries to drag me into some epic quest to save his doomed planet, I at least get to name the ship Serenity. And Kevin is coming, but only so we have some collateral to offer the evil council of aliens that for some reason doesn't want us to save the planet from hell. We could also use him to test breathable air...

“My planet's doomed, there's nothing I can do about that, but where it is...it's going to be causing some weird things to happen here on earth.”

“Weird like how?” I asked, and in a hauntingly whiny voice heard Eric say “Maybe like have your roommate die of alcohol poisoning and come back as a ghost?”

I turned to see a translucent version of Eric standing over the opaque version of Eric. Great, two Erics, and one doesn't even have to knock anymore.

“Yeah, stuff like that” Jordan said, as his face filled back out to its normal shape.

“Hm...hey Jordan, you still got that shotgun? I think I'm taking plan B.” I said.

“Sorry, no can do, you'll just end up like Little Miss Mike's Hard Lemonade over there.” Jordan said.

“Dead? Yeah I know, that's the plan.” I said, watching Eric's ghost inspect his corpse. Maybe now he will be able to see why we told him that beard was a bad idea.

“No, a ghost, you ass. And did someone kick me in the stomach? There's a big bruise there” . And now I can't even throw things at him.

I walked over to the van, grabbed a bottle of liquor and took a long drink. Looked around, repeated my previous action. Yep, this seemed to be reality, still. Wiped my mouth and said “OK, so what part do I play?”

“I've already done the paperwork and got the business licenses, as of Monday, you're a paranormal investigator.” Jordan said,

“Well shit...” I said.

“You too, ma'am” Jordan said to Eric's ghost with a wink.

“Oh you go to hell, you bastards killed me, you bastards didn't even have the decency to check to see if I was alive! I'll bet Victor went on his stupid fucking firefly rant again ant that's what killed me, you killed me Vic, this one's on you” Eric complained, taking a swing at Jordan, his fist passing through his face without restraint.

“You're the most important part of this,” Jordan said placatingly, while I sighed internally at the realization that even dying wouldn't keep Eric from bitching at/around me forever. “You have the information from the other side, you can tell us what works and what doesn't.”

“Plus,” I added helpfully,“you have no other friends and even though you're dead we're still willing to talk to you, so count your blessings and be our spirit guide, you prick.”

Jordan looked at me, smiled, and said “Glad to see you're on board.”

Eric sighed, looked at his corpse on the ground, at the van, then back at us. “I'll do it, but you bitches are being haunted the whole time.”

Jordan and I looked at each other, then at Eric, grabbed our respective bottles, and held them up in the air.

“So what's the name of our business?” I asked.

“P.I.M.P.S” Jordan said proudly.

“Eh?” I asked.

“Paranormal Investigators Making Poltergeists Suffer” he responded in a tone that suggested at least four days worth of thought went into naming it.

“god...damn...it....” I groaned, unsurprised.

“To PIMPS” I shouted, raising my bottle.
“To PIMPS” Jordan responded.

“I hate you both.” Eric said as he passed through the side of the van to go ghost sulk.

That night, I got drunk with an alien while a ghost complained inside a van. If I wasn't paranormal investigator material, no one was. I mean...I didn't do any real investigating but neither do the guys on TV and I had proof that not only do ghosts exist, but that they're assholes (if the one I met was anything to go off of anyway) and to top it off, my best friend was an alien. I wrote down in a small notepad I keep in my back pocket to jot ideas down on due to my tragically bad short term memory, writing “talk to Jordan about getting TV show” right below “never ever ever ever go out to the woods with Jordan again”

ok, so the notepad clearly didn't help me but one day, I was sure of this, I would need it in order to pinpoint just where my life went so wrong.

“So what's with all the cheese?” I asked, realizing that we had a pound of the stuff in the van and exactly none of it had been eaten.

“well I was kind of hoping there'd be more animals out here, I was going to try to feed them” he said

“also, watch this” Jordan said grabbing one of the packets of cheese from the van and took a slice out. “hey Erica Havig, come out here” he said, presumably to the ghost because as Eric emerged from the van saying “you're running out of ammo, Jordan, the 1994 Miss Montana? How long did it take you to come up with that..” but before he could finish, Jordan hurled a slice of cheese at his face, actually making contact and sending Eric back through the wall of the fan, making the cheese slice stick to the side where Erics face was just moments earlier.

“oh you have got to be kidding me” I said

“nope, best weapon against ghosts is milk based products” he responded before I could ask what had just happened. “any kind of milk would have worked, I just have always kind of wanted to hit Eric in the face with cheese.” he added

“first off, ghosts can officially feel pain” Eric said as he came back out of the van, “and two; are you telling me you planned on me dying the whole time?”

“truth be told you were the one I brought the shotgun for, we needed a guy on the inside, and it's not like you would have killed yourself on purpose if I'd asked, it's actually better this way because not only do I not have to explain why your corpse has a shotgun hole in it to a coroner/police officer/judge/cell mate and your spectral form doesn't have a big shotgun hole in it either” Jordan explained.

Like I said before, living with guys, you just accept things for what they are and try to have as good a time you can while the whole world goes to hell around you, literally, if I understood what had gone on that night.

“you're the worst person I know” Eric said, defeated

“no I'm not” Jordan replied smiling.

“pardon me, Xenu, let me rephrase that, you're the worst sentient life form I've ever met, heard of, or even had nightmares about. Ever since I let you move into the house my life has been like that movie Hellraiser”

“boring for the first hour and half with an unsatisfying ending with some horrifying beings intent on torturing you for eternity thrown in and an overall homoerotic feel to it?” I quipped and reached for the cheese, I didn't know if ghosts could hit people, but I was going to be ready.

“oh go fuc..”

“oh oh oh and full of ugly, bitchy women!” I added, cutting him off and making my insult even funnier.
“no, you stupid human, a living hell” he said, attempting to make me feel out of place being the only living human in sight.

“just to let you know, Casper, no matter how hard you try to fight it, you're the minority here, you're not going to get to me by reminding me that I'm human. I'm happy as hell I'm not in your position, if anything, I wouldn't call attention to who's human because being a ghost means you're never going get laid ever again. Far as I can tell you can't even touch yourself, and I don't even know if anyone else will be able to see you. You've been a ghost a whole two hours now and you've done nothing but bitch and moan. You don't even know if you can hit me in the face for calling you a little bitch like I'm about to do...bitch”

turns out that ghosts can punch you in the face, but only if provoked, Jordan explained to me as I stood up from getting punched in the face by a ghost.

“noted” I said, throwing the cheese at Eric and saying “i think you had a great sense of style when you were alive” after recovering from the Gouda barrage, he tried to punch me again but his fist passed through my face, leaving it notably colder where he had touched me.

“heh, the ghost world has loopholes that I can exploit just like the real world” I said, elated at this new knowledge.

“i'll be haunting the van until one of you two is sober enough to drive us home” Eric said, in a mournful tone that only a ghost could make. That combined with his normal whiny voice made me almost throw another piece of cheese at him, but I decided against it.

“i think you mean pouting in the van” I corrected

“and I think that every time you fall asleep for the rest of your life, I'm going to slam a door just to wake you up” he responded, back to his old self, which was nice...well relatively, the guy's annoying as all hell but he is my friend and if I hated him all the way I wouldn't live with him.

A few hours later the sun started to rise and Jordan said, “well, we'd better start heading home” just as I entered the purgatory that is being drunk and hung over at the same time.

“good idea, I feel like I want to die” I said, wincing at the sunlight as it helped push me from purgatory to the hell of being very hung over and only drunk enough to feel sick.

“shut the hell up and get in the van” Eric said from the opened door.

“wait, you can open doors? Why the hell have you been passing through it the whole night?” I asked

“Vic, if you woke up, and found out you could walk through solid surfaces, would you ever bother to open a door?” he asked

“well...no, but why'd you do it now?”

“to prove that I can uphold my threat to never let you sleep again” he said with a ghostly smile

“trust me, after tonight, I don't think I can ever sleep again” I said as I entered the darkness of the van, the blue rope lights had been mercifully turned off by Jordan and as I lied down on the couch to nurse my hangover and immediately proved myself wrong by falling asleep. Thirty seconds or so later, the van door slammed shut, waking me up and I saw Eric hovering inches above me, looking right into my eyes as they opened

“hey, check it out, I can fly too” he said

normally the sight would have been enough to startle me into falling off the couch or at least a yelp but I was so exhausted all I could muster was a tired “good one...” and fell back asleep, hoping like hell that ghosts couldn't pick up sharpies.

As we arrived home, Kevin inquired as to where Eric was and where we had been. It's like he forgot our whole “if you talk to us, we will punch you” rule. I looked at Jordan and nodded.

Eric screamed “I'm right here you unobservant ass!” but Kevin made no sign that he heard a thing.

I shot a quick glance at eric who, at this point, was screaming in Kevin's ear a string of curse words, half of which I had never heard before, he met my glance and said “oh don't even start, I'll be haunting my room, new house rule, if you can't see me, you can't live here” he said in his trademark tone when he laid down new house rules to fit what he wanted. And he floated up the stairs towards his room, which was right across the hall from Jordan's, I heard the unmistakable sound of a foot smacking into that rock that was his security device and just barely made out Eric say “i don't even know how that happened...damn that thing's effective.”

I shouted up the stairs “remember, it's sulking, not haunting what you're doing” and turned back towards the very confused Kevin

“Well, Eric died because he was a pussy and couldn't hold his liquor, Jordan's an alien, we run a paranormal investigation business now and I still think you're a dick.” I explained, breaking the news as gently as possible as Jordan transformed into his alien form, “also, john has a new house rule that says if you can't see or hear him, you can't live here anymore as one of john's sheets descended the stairs. I could see his legs sticking out of the bottom so to me he just looked like an idiot, but whether it was the ghost, the alien, or just a moment of lucidity wherein he realized that he didn't have to live with us, but whatever it was it sent Kevin running from the front door yelling “just keep my shit, I don't care, don't try to contact me, don't even think about me ever again” throwing his wallet at me he said fro his drivers seat “there's three months worth of rent in there and a credit card which I promise I won't turn off until tomorrow, just please, please, have this be the last time I ever see either of you, this house, or Eric wherever he is ever again.” and turned his key to start the car but was met with a groan followed by a bunch of little clicks.

Turning towards Jordan I opened my mouth to speak but he put his hand up in a “stop” gesture

“yes I drained his battery, yes I did it with my alien powers, no I don't have a good reason for it, and no I can't undo it.” he said frankly

“ok, just wanted to be clear” I said turning back towards the still opened front door to see Eric, having removed the sheet, open Kevin's hood and jam his hands into what I assume was the battery. After about a minute, he pulled his hands out, seemingly no worse for the wear, and slammed the hood revealing a horrified Kevin staring straight ahead with his hands on ten and two. It looked like he was saying something to himself.

“Praying won't help you, Kev, I yelled from the door, I suggest a squirt gun full of milk, oh and Eric says try it now.”

complying, the car turned on and Kevin was gone

Hey! Ghost of failures present what the hell was that?” I asked , very pleased with that one, pulled out my notepad jotted “ghost of failures present” then added “use past and future wisely, they'll only pack the big punch once"

deciding the neighborhood didn't need to hear our bickering and went to close the door when Jordan stopped me and handed me a sign that said Vic, Jordan, and Eric. Paranormal Investigators. Underneath our names, in big letters read P.I.M.P.S: walk in's welcome, then in almost unreadable small text at the very bottom that said

I looked at him, shook my head and hung up our tile, shutting the door behind me.

Looking at my new co-workers, I thought to myself “I really should have finished school.” but before I could vocalize this, the phone rang.

“PIMPS, how can I help you today?” Jordan answered, impressively professional considering the name...the business...just, everything we are doing here.

“Uh huh, uh huh, flying papers? Oh flying staplers. OK, uh huh, we'll be there in an hour.”

“Got our first job” he . Announced.

With that we got in the van, including Eric, and as Jordan jammed the screwdriver into the ignition he looked at me and I heard in my head “You ready for this, Vic?”

“You know it” I responded, as the engine roared to life and we sped off to yet another adventure that would probably kill me.