You know how some people are just assholes?

Like, take, for instance, that guy in a souped-up Ford Raptor, who tailgates you in the left lane because your Porsche 911 is a cop-magnet and you have to go the speed limit. Or the hostess who gives you a weird look when you walk into a steak restaurant and say, "table for one please," and later you can totally see her whispering things about you to her co-worker and laughing about it.

Or--my personal least favorite, for no particular reason--the kind of assholes who think they can waltz around your house just because you're dead.

I'm sitting on the top step of my staircase, elbows propped, hands on my chin, watching them go to work in the foyer below. They can't see me, of course, but they know I'm here. One of the other thousand would-be ghost hunters likely told them.

There are three of them: a fat guy, a short guy, and a tall girl. They bustle about with thermometers and EMF readers, sound sensors and--get this--salt. Yeah. They're sprinkling salt by the pile all over my Italian-maple floors, in the hopes that I... what? Step in the salt? Oh no, you got me. Now you know there's definitely a spooky ghost in this house, like it wasn't already common knowledge.

Did I mention I'm sort of famous? Yeah. I'm sort of famous.

I see my house on the news pretty often. Overhead shots from helicopters of the LaMontagne manor, beneath which text was always scrawled out in one cryptic or scary title or another; think, 'Two More Hunters Found Ghost-Touched,' or, 'Specter of Affluence Strikes again.'

That's what they call me. Specter of Bleeding Affluence. I guess my being dead and rich is all I'm remembered for. Vengeful too, I suppose, but I don't really hunt hunters out of a place of revenge.

More so... a place of joy.

I rise from the top step and stretch my arms overhead. Something pops. I feel loose and a bit giddy, because the hunters below definitely heard the pop, because they just went very, very still.

"Imported Italian Maple," I murmur. "That's going to cost you."

I step down the stairs.

The screaming starts soon enough.