So, these things tend to go around on Facebook a lot, but it happened to match up with the prompt we have in the Elementals group, now, so I decided to use it as a prompt.
I have to add, now, that I have no disrespect for Miley Cyrus or any other real person mentioned in this writing. It’s purely fictional and satirical and meant for amusement purposes only.
Far away, in an unimaginable parallel dimension in which I would be remotely curious about Miley Cyrus in any way, shape, or form…
I was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to talk about my stellar success with my new novel, ninth in the ever-acclaimed series about a young half-elf working in a tavern named Betti with a no-nonsense attitude and passable magical skillset. I’d showed up wearing, not designer clothing, but my pajamas. I went to all of my novel-related events in such attire because I’d always assumed it couldn’t possibly be inappropriate, as that’s what I’d been wearing when I wrote the books, anyway. Miley Cyrus was also to be a guest on the show and we sat on the couch together, acting like we knew one another and cared about each others’ mutual existences as we laughed amiably at Jimmy Fallon’s terrible jokes and tried not to laugh hysterically about the fact he reminds everyone on the planet of a neckless turkey.
During some sort of playful banter I didn’t really care enough about to pay much attention to, Miley Cyrus dared me to meet her for a haunted-house-with-an-abandoned-mineshaft-attached pajama party for Halloween. Somewhat startled that such a specific type of party existed, I agreed. I was on tv, after all, and it wouldn’t do to appear to be a giant grouch and she would likely forget all about it by the time dawn happened, anyway.
The rest of the Jimmy Fallon experience went well. I played a silly game that didn’t make much sense to anyone, laughed, talked about my book a little, and then went home to write my tenth book in yet another pair of pajamas. I didn’t think about the promise to Miley Cyrus and was, to be quite honest, revving up for NaNoWriMo on October 30th when my agent, Angus, called to ask me about whether I was still planning on going.
“It’s still a pajama party, correct?” I asked, really wishing it was an awful costume party I could excuse myself from simply because my husbeast hated it when we didn’t do couples costumes. Last year’s had been characters from my book and, this year, we were pesudo-planning going as a fork and spoon with outrageous hair arrangements used to depict the eating utensil. I was to be the spoon, if anyone would wonder. Changing those plans last-minute to accommodate a media nightmare would make me even grumpier.
“Yep!” said Angus, adding “Perhaps Husbeast will not want to go to such a party, if there will be undue loud noise. Perhaps you can tell him about this party and he can torture one of the cats with hair gel to be his costume companion for the evening, instead?” Unsure of whether I should be smiling at his genius or furious with his suggestion of discomfort to my multifarious felines, I told him that he had an excellent head on his shoulders and to text me the details.
Upon receiving the address for this shindig, I was immediately relieved to learn that it was within driving range. Since my flight from San Antonio to Bastrop to escape my mother’s endless nagging about producing grandchildren for her to coddle, I was not accustomed to far travel for any reason and getting a flight on short notice would be a nightmare. The event was in some abandoned haunted house with an abandoned mine shaft, as promised, but it was in the Texas hill country, only about a two hour drive from my current location. Thus armed, I approached Husbeast about the party. To be sure, he was devastated, but it isn’t as if we’d gone anywhere on Halloweens previous and we’d watched almost every B horror film in existence in previous years, he agreed I should go to this party and packed me a rather large bag of nothing but Almond Joys for the trip.
The drive was uneventful, even with all of the crazy hills to get lost in and I made it to the party in record time, wearing my very favorite pajamas. Star Wars pants and a Star Trek themed t-shirt. I am, and ever shall be, a rebellious nerd, after all.
The house itself was unremarkable, of the typical German immigrant make for older houses in this area. I’d brought my laptop, just in case I happened to encounter any ghosts of decent age and could get some good information from them for use in memoirs or historical fiction. There were vehicles, most of them limos or excruciatingly expensive, parked all over the place, haphazardly in the lawn as there wasn’t a designated parking area built in. I parked my small, functional Kia in an unassuming space, slung my bag over my shoulder, and walked into the building.
It must have been incredibly sound proof, because the blast of riotous pop music as I opened the door was sweltering and I devoutly wished I had brought some ear plugs along. Husbeast was right about loud noises, for the most part. There were celebrities strewn about the place, discussing who they were wearing. Designer pajamas. Who’d ever heard of such an outrageous thing? At any rate, I managed to slip past them and go upstairs to encounter some ghosts. That could be interesting.
When I reached the second story landing and the rows of closed doors, I noticed it was delightfully people-free and began trying doors. I opened the first on the left from the stairway and encountered a plain-looking bedroom with a colorful, hand-made quilt as a bedspread. I sat on the bed to admire it more closely when the temperature in the room went down a few degrees. I saw out of the corner of my eye, the specter of a young girl, perhaps nine or ten years old, wearing clothing I suppose my mother must have worn in her childhood during the 60’s and early 70’s. I waved at her and she came to sit next to me on the bed, looking clearly sad.
“What’s wrong, little ghost?” I asked, genuinely curious at her sulking appearance.
She sighed a little sigh, though the air didn’t move, and looked up at me with large, sweet eyes. “Well, we are all hiding in the abandoned mine shaft to get away from the silly party downstairs. Well, everyone except me. I’m staying right here because Halloween is our holiday and we should celebrate it, too. I keep looking for opportunities to go scare people, but they don’t seem to be able to hear me. I mean, a ghost’s best friend is stealth, but not to the point that no one can hear you yell ‘Boo!’, you know?”
I nodded, solemnly, realizing it was a sad state of affairs to be in. If you’re a ghost and all you’ve got is scaring people, it’s somewhat cruel to have it taken away from you. My brain ticked a little and I came up with a plan, “Okay. What we will do is this: I’ll go downstairs, and lure some unsuspecting model up here or something to look at the historical wonders and you can pop up behind them and scare them. Rinse and repeat until they’ve cottoned on to the plan. Yeah?”
She beamed and grinned at me. “You got it. I’ll lurk and wait. If it’s successful the first time or two, I’ll find the others and we can keep doing it!”
Though I wasn’t too pleased at the prospect of initiating a conversation with anyone downstairs, I was bolstered by her obvious excitement and left to hurry downstairs to hunt down an easy target. As I came down the stairs, though, Miley was lying in wait.
“Well! Where have you been, writer lady?” she demanded loudly, though I couldn’t tell if the volume was a result of necessity with the music or just her personality.
“Oh…” I pushed my glasses up on my nose as a stalling tactic, “I was just exploring upstairs, trying to get my bearings and all of that.” I smiled, showing my anxiety and hoped it showed.
“Oh! Well, it’s good you came down, then, because we are going to have the main event soon! Come into the main room with me!” The unusually chipper woman grabbed a hold of my wrist and dragged me into the main room, where a stage was set up. She let me go when we reached the gaggle of people and headed toward the stage to begin some kind of performance, singing I presume. As the noise level in the room increased by several degrees of magnitude, I backed away from the main crowd of people, toward the left side of the room, and tried to get some air. As the performance continued, I tried desperately hard not to look too bored, but I eventually spaced out and stopped paying attention. The next thing I knew, there was a loud crash behind me and I turned to see Miley on a huge wrecking ball coming right at me.
The next thing I knew, I was back up in the bedroom with the ghost girl. She looked mournfully at me and said, “I guess models and such really hate to be pulled away from their parties if they kill you for trying.”
Rabid Writes 