Before Lincoln appeared two slightly transparent, slightly pale-looking youths. One was tall and gangly, wearing a backwards baseball cap and what appeared to be a basketball jersey that was several sizes too large. The other was short and stocky, with little tufts of what could be considered a beard emerging from his chin. Although Lincoln had never actually seen them before, he knew straight away what they had to be.
“Why, you’re nothing but a pair of teenagers!”
“Hey, back off man!” the taller one made a rude gesture. “We’re not teenagers. We’re hundreds of years old!”
“Yeah,” the shorter one nodded. “We’re probably older than you, old man!”
“I seriously doubt that,” Lincoln snorted. “I’m a 19th Century man myself, and I don’t think those fashions were around before my time.”
“Hey man, just because we’re dead doesn’t mean we don’t keep up with fashion,” the taller one showed off his jersey proudly.
“You tell him Gary!” the shorter one motioned for a high five.
“Dude, what did I tell you? No real names during a haunting!”
“Oh, sorry bro.”
“Dude, don’t say bro! You’re gonna ruin our street cred here. You can’t be a scary spook spectacular with names like Gary and Doug, and you can’t be an abominable apparition if you use words like ‘bro’!”
“Pardon me,” Lincoln interrupted. “But surely if you want street cred, you’d be better off finding it in a street. Not the middle of an icy wasteland.”
“I think he’s got us there, bro,” said the fatter one.
“Shut up! No way has he got us! Who does he think he is, all up on getting street cred anyway? Mr. 19th Century over here, with your long coat and your tall hat. What do you know about anything? How dare you try to nark our haunting jam? Well you’re gonna regret messing with us!”
“Ooh, is it time for our number?”
“Yeah man, just like we rehearsed it.”
The two ghosts performed some fake-looking karate moves for Lincoln’s bemusement.
“I am…Spectre Overlord!”
“And I am…the Grim Darkness.”
“The ghastly sensations, sweeping the nations!”
“Known and feared by mortal men as…”
The ghosts finished back to back, lips pouting, arms crossed in a manner that would possible be referred to as ‘streetwise’.
“The Terror Twins!”
They held the pose for a while, clearly waiting for Lincoln’s approval.
“Well…” he tried to think of a tactful way to reveal his thoughts. “It’s not the worst performance I’ve ever seen. I mean, I once had the displeasure of watching Edward Bates cut a rug at my cabinet’s Christmas social. However, I’m afraid I couldn’t recommend it to my friends. The choreography was uninspired, the names feel like you’re trying too hard, you’re not even twins so your gimmick makes no sense, and while I liked the rhyming of sensations and nations, I struggle to believe it given that you’ve limited yourselves to spooking penguins in the middle of nowhere.”
The Terror Twins looked abashed.
“No offense, but he makes some good points Gary…I mean Spectre Overlord, ” said the Grim Darkness, who Abe assumed was really named Doug.
“Aww,” said Gary sadly. “I guess you got a point, man. But it’s really hard to get a good place to haunt these days. All the good spots are taken. Even most of the bad spots!”
“Yeah, all we get is the lame spots, like here,” Doug looked around. “But it’s this or nothing, you know?”
“Then perhaps it’s time to pack in this haunting nonsense, boys,” Lincoln tried to pat their shoulders in a friendly way, his hands passing right through. “Maybe try something more useful, like lumberjacking, or high wire vaulting,” he continued, a little embarrassed at his faux pas.
“But tall bearded dude, we’re ghosts!” Gary argued. “We can’t jack lumber, or vault wires. All we know how to do is scare.”
“Yeah, and if we don’t scare, we’ll never pass over to the other side. Everyone knows a ghost needs to make one successful haunting before they can pass on,” Doug handily provided some exposition for Lincoln.
“That’s as may be, my young ghoulies,” said Abe, in an attempt to sound hip, “But is scaring local penguins really the right way to go about it?”
“What are we supposed to do, hatty man?” Doug asked. “We never get any good places to haunt. We gotta work with what we’ve got.”
“Yeah, all we need is one house, just the chance to occupy one house,” Gary kicked at some ice, a move made even more pathetic by the fact his foot went straight through it and almost caused him to fall over. “Then we’d really be able to show our stuff.”
“Wait just a minute,” a look of brilliance came over Lincoln’s face. “Are you telling me that if you had a house to haunt, you could stop bothering these beautiful birds and pass on to your final reward?”
“You’re on our frequency, dude,” they nodded.
Abe gave a great big smile. “Then I think I can help you out.”
Oh man! I wonder what Lincoln’s going to do. More importantly, I wonder what happened to my sandwich. It was here a minute ago. I think I’m the victim of sandwich theft. Make sure you lock yours in a Tupperware box.
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