Free Ghost Guard by J. Joseph Wright Page B

all!”
    A collective ‘Yeah!’ Rev felt the tension. He also felt something else. That woman. She seemed to be in his mind. Confusion took over. He grew fearful, wondering if she was a spirit or some other entity. He shook away the thoughts, refocusing on Patricia with the microphone. She leaned close and spoke to a priest.
    “Please introduce yourself and tell everyone what you’re doing here.”
    The redheaded, middle-aged holy man fumbled with his reading glasses and cleared his throat.
    “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Father Alfred Dominighini, and at St. Mary’s, I teach a special brand of skill.”
    “Exorcism!” a voice called from the crowd. Others howled in approval.
    “It wasn’t too long ago when Christianity was seen as a cult, and its worshipers were targets of discrimination. That’s why we’re here tonight, because we know these types of crimes, even when committed by ghosts, can lead to much, much worse actions. Ghosts aren’t held to any type of legal standard. They don’t answer to the laws of the living. I say, let them obey the laws we set forth from now on!”
    The human mass heaved forward, and the priest passed the microphone to Abby. She stood straight, letting the anxious feeling in her gut dissolve into determined action. She cleared her throat, the pause more for emphasis tha n anything else. In her best fake southern drawl, she addressed the gathering.
    “H ey there, y’all! I’m Maggie Mae Gilbert, and I’m from the American Paranormal Research Society. As a spiritualist, I can understand being discriminated against, being made to feel like a second-class citizen. This is a serious matter. Harassment of any kind is serious. And if there’s anyone who knows about being harassed by a ghost, it’s me. Once I conjured the spirit of Elvis. Talk about harassment. The guy was all disembodied hands.”
    People looked at one another, not knowing whether to cheer, laugh, or boo.
    “I mean it,” Abby responded. “It was horrible. One of the most demeaning times of my life. So yes, ghosts can, and do, commit hate crimes against the living. The question is—what are we going to do about it?”
    “ Exorcise ‘em!”
    “Send ‘ em to where they belong!”
    “Send ‘ em to Hell for all we care!”
    “Oh boy. This crowd’s becoming unsettled, aren’t they?” Morris was getting nervous.
    “Uh…um,” Abby stammered. Faces contorted into confused expressions. Eyes narrowed. Heads tilted. Skepticism swept across the unruly group, and Abby knew she had to capture them somehow. First, though, she needed to remember what to say.
    “Abby,” Morris whispered over the radio. “Mistake. Mistake.”
    Of course , she thought. Surreptitiously, she mouthed the words, ‘thank you,’ to the camera on her wrist.
    “Let’s look at the situation in front of us and see it for what it likely is,” she scanned the faces. They didn’t look too receptive, but she had to try. “A mistake.”
    Boos and hisses. The crowd was turning fast.
    “Now, wait-wait. Just hold on a minute. Hear me out. Remember what I said about Elvis? Turns out that was just a mistake. He thought I was Priscilla. It really was quite sweet, actually. But in the end, it was a mistake. That’s when I realized—most times when someone gets scared or otherwise accosted by a ghost, it’s just a misunderstanding,” she gestured toward the priest. “Even what most would call possessions are just honest mistakes.”
    The crowd seemed to go against her even more, and Brutus, formless and invisible to all but the most supernaturally sensitive, drifted closer. Just in case.
    “No, no!” she raised her voice. “You’ve got to understand. Ghosts are discriminated against all the time. They are. Come to think about it, the cycling community has a lot in common with the spirits of the dead. Most people think you’re all simply relics of the past, when they fail to recognize you have rights just like everyone