The Ghost in Me

By Theresa Jacobs

My best friend Carly went missing, and I was frantic. When twenty-four hours later, her spirit entered my body, it devastated me. How did she die and why did no one know about it?
Unable to tell anyone Carly was dead; I went on a mission to find out what happened and learned secrets that made me question our friendship.
Can Carly’s ghost help me find out what happened to her?
What will happen to me if we don't? But what will happen to her spirit if we do?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theresa Jacobs
• Release date: Jul 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215519974

Theresa Jacobs

Theresa Jacobs believes in magic, fairies, dragons, and ghosts. Yet she trusts science and thinks that aliens know way too much. When she is not at work she spends her time, reading, writing, exercising her dog, and binge-watching TV shows, with her longtime partner and fiancé.She is also a big movie buff and a sci-fi nerd at heart.

Book preview

221

Theresa Jacobs © The Ghost In Me 2023

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.

Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination,

and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This story was inspired by Grady Hendrix. His novel My Best Friend’s Exorcism, brough me back to how much I loved the 80’s and made me think, what would happen if a teen was possessed by her best friend?

Bibliography

Novels

Cataclysm

Kept

The Used 

Handsome (Detective Gagon Book 1)

The Cleaner (Detective Gagon Book 2)

Novellas

Sudden Death

The Cimmerians

Wife N’ Death

The Zombie Effect

The Guardian

Unfamiliar Territory

Into The Salton Sea

The ghost in me

Anthologies

Shrouded Voices

Things only the darkness knows

My other friends & more stories

100-word horrors books 1, 2, 3, 4.

A world unimagined

Indie Writers Review Issue 13

Elements of horror: Vol.1 Air, Vol.2 Earth, Vol.3 Water.

The weird and what not

A discovery of writers

Depth of darkness

A is for Aliens

The Horror Zine’s Book of Ghost Stories

Flashbulb Moment

Glimmer

It Came From Darkness

Time After Time

The Horror Zine Spring Edition

After 6 O’clock Nightfall

The Horror Zines Book of Werewolf Stories

Fear the Forge

Indie Film

Death Game

Kids Books

The lonely leaf

Puddle jumping

Poetry

Spewed thoughts

Self-Help

Writing 101, how to write for yourself & share with the world. 

Yours to Write, story prompt notebook. 

This story is set in the 1980s.

Slang definitions:

Grody: unpleasant; disgusting

No Doy; no kidding, really

Wigging out: emotional, excitable

Bogus: not genuine; fake

Poser: show-off, posturer

Yo Momma: mild standardized insult

Cheeuh (pronounced CHH-UH): yes, of course

Jonesing: craving, fixation

Chill: relax, calm down

Gnarly: amazing, extraordinary

Bitchin: great, wonderful

Not Even: disappointment, disapproval

Righteous: cool, fantastic

Hella: really, very

Later: bye, (see you later)

Yeah, that’s the ticket: right, perfect

Totally: for sure, 100 percent

*Kreskin* The Amazing Kreskin was an American mentalist who became popular on television in the 1970s.

Table of Contents

1. Wigging out

2. Bogus

3. Poser

4. Yo Momma

5. CHEEUH

6. Jonesing

7. Chill

8. Gnarly

9. Bitchin

10. Not even

11. Righteous

12. Hella

13. Later

14. Yeah, that's the ticket

15. Totally

WIGGING OUT

I knew the moment my best friend died, because her spirit entered my body.

She’d been missing less than twenty-four hours when it happened.

No one believed me when I told them Carly was dead. I didn’t tell them about her ghost, of course, they simply didn’t believe she was no longer among the living. My parents assumed I was overreacting because Carly and I had never gone more than few hours without talking to each other. Plus, Carly had been a permanent fixture at our house since we were young, and with her new boyfriend, they chalked her absence up to a new boy-crush.

Her parents, who barely listened to me, presumed she’d run away because of all the problems they’d been having of late.

I personally called the cops, who in turn called Carly’s parents and believed everything they told them about her sketchy boyfriend, the drug use (if marijuana can be called a drug), plus the fact that she’d been caught shoplifting—in the liquor store of all places—on more than one occasion. They did send out a missing persons report as per the law. But no one was actively looking for her.

Not even me.

But why would I? I knew where she was— her spirit was inside me.

I did, however, want to find out why she died and why nobody but me knew about it.

Let me start from…well, not the beginning, but back before Carly was murdered.

My name is Jamie-Lynn, I’m sixteen and a half. I know it sounds childish to say and a half, but when you’re a hormonal teen, every month closer to adulthood counts. I’m average in every way possible. My hair is mousy brown; I’m five and a quarter foot tall. I get Bs in school, and in most situations I don’t talk much. I tend to internalise everything; it’s as though my tongue freezes any time I want to contribute. My parents hate that about me. Actually, I hate it about me too. I wish I could share my every inner want and need, but I just can’t seem to. I think that’s why I loved Carly so much; she could tell anyone anything (at least I thought she did then—you’ll see.)

Carly and I met before kindergarten in the selective girl’s group, The Daisies, which comes before Brownies, and up to chain to eventually be Girl Scouts. All we did was crafts and play games. Carly was the mouthiest and loudest of the bunch. I recall at the first few gatherings, I did not like her at all. Her rambunctiousness made me nervous. Until one session when I’d been making a house of glued popsicles and a mean girl—I can’t recall her name and I never saw her again after that first year—said I was making a mess out of the glue and my house looked like a bird pooped on it. Up until that point in my young life, I’d only been around family and no one had ever been mean to me before. Naturally, I began to cry. Carly overheard the altercation and came to my rescue. She told the bully that she looked like a bird pooped out her face.

I was utterly embarrassed to be in the thick of this. The Brownie leader stepped in and removed Carly and the other girl for the remainder of that afternoon. When I was quizzed as to what happened, I went into my internal safety place and didn’t say a word. From that day on, I followed Carly around like a lost puppy. She stuck up for me as if I were a sister, and though I never did thank her for that day, she knew I loved her for it.

Entering our teen years, Carly grew bolder and mouthier, while I drew further into myself. Sometimes I wondered how she put up with me. I supposed I grounded her, otherwise her type of crazy might have been uncontrollable. She started smoking cigarettes at twelve. I tried, but they made me cough, and I didn’t like the taste. She never pressured me though. If I didn’t like something, that was my prerogative. Just as I didn’t hound her for the bad things she did. By the time we were fifteen, she had a seventeen-year-old boyfriend. He drove a beat-up Acadian and smoked weed. She started wearing dark clothing, piercing body parts, and experimenting with weird hairstyles. I wasn’t brave enough to attempt anything she was into, however, I did enjoy living vicariously through her. She’d tell me everything, even the first time she’d had sex, which both scared and intrigued me. If it was possible to have a stronger connection than one would have with a sister, we had it. Or so I thought.

Carly was my everything and she was gone.

Even though I felt her inside of me, I couldn’t fathom her not being here with me for real.

The day she entered me was like being hit by a lightning bolt. Thankfully, it was a Saturday. I had been unable to reach her since our last quick phone conversation on Friday morning before school. I knew she was skipping because she told me. I hated being at school all day without her, but I was too chicken to skip with her. By Saturday afternoon when I still hadn’t heard from her, I began to fret. I was lucky enough to have a small clunky, portable TV in my room and had turned on MTV for a distraction. She Bop by Cyndi Lauper came on. I’d gotten up to dance when it hit me.

Or should I say Carly’s ghost hit me?

My entire body stiffened, and it was painful as all get-out. My toes and fingers splayed out straight, my jaw clenched, and I rocked up on my heels. I lost my breath for a few seconds which felt endless in the moment as panic struck me to the core. The scent of her perfume, Electric Youth by Debbie Gibson, overpowered my senses, and I felt her energy, the essence of who Carly was, inside my head. When the rigidity passed, I collapsed on my bed and began to sob.

Carly? What’s happened? I questioned.

No answer was forthcoming, yet her presence weighed like concrete in my mind. Her characteristics—which I’d only ever understood from my outside perspective—vibrated in my bones, and though the experience was entirely new and strange, her energy zapped a life into me which I never possessed before.

The first night I lay awake until the wee hours of the morning trying to talk to Carly and get a response. No matter how hard I tried, nothing happened. I didn’t hear her voice in my head, and she didn’t jump forward to possess me, like you see in the movies. I even sat at the vanity mirror in my room and stared into my own eyes. She was there, I could feel her presence, but she wasn’t coming out. Or perhaps being newly dead she didn’t know how to communicate yet? Who knows the rules? Or if there were rules? Certainly not me.

I spent all day Sunday trying to convince everyone they needed to go find her. Obviously, that got me nowhere.

Unable to face school Monday, I’d feigned a period migraine, and waking today after a fitful sleep, I still wasn’t ready. Personally, I didn’t want to return to real life without Carly.

As if the thought summoned my mom, she gave a gentle rap at the door before cracking it open.

You awake, dear?

Mm, I mumbled, keeping my eyes slightly closed. Still hurts, I whispered, knowing from real migraine experience that seeing, talking, and thinking was nothing short of death.

Poor baby. I’ll bring you a fresh jug of water and the aspirin bottle. Do you want toast? Or oatmeal?

No, I want you to go to work now, I thought and said to Mom, Shh, sleep more.

Sure, I’ll call the school. Feel better, hon. She tiptoed back out of the room.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the Michael Jackson Thriller poster on the wall. What am I supposed to do, Carly?

My heart took a double thump against my chest wall. I felt it was her, telling me to get moving.

I can’t. Mom’s gotta leave first.

Whether Carly could hear my thoughts or not was another conundrum.

Who might know about this stuff? I let my mind wander to the shops downtown. We always hung out at the arcade, movie theatre, or Beatrice Burgers. There was a dumpy old bookstore which I never visited because library books are free. However, the librarians all knew me and would question why I wasn’t at school. The bookstore might have a section on ghosts and possession. I’d have to go check.

My mind reeled and I only hoped Mom wouldn’t try to talk to me again this morning.

Lying in bed, I sorted out how I’d begin my search. The first best place would be to find Carly’s boyfriend, Dylan.

The hour and a half that it took for my mother to leave felt like an eternity. The moment I heard the door shut, I jumped up, grabbed my favourite jean shorts, and a white asymmetrical shirt covered