Jared stood bolt upright and whirled around.  Facing him was a heavy set, one legged, translucent ghost, in a rather worn tuxedo suit at least two or three sizes too small.  "Are you the ghost of Christmas past?" he asked hesitantly.

"Why, no shon.  Can't ye tell ahm Schon Connery?" the ghost said in a lisped Scottish accent.

"Uh, I was told to expect the ghost of Haloween past.  She said you'd have one leg and be pretty fat. And you are a ghost."

"Ghost schmosht.  I'm an international schex scymbol."  The now obviously irritated ghost said in a huff.

"But you don't sound like Sean Connery.  You sound more like one of the Proclaimers with something stuck in his teeth." Jared replied.

"But look at my tuxchedo.  I'm double oh' scheven ya mincy poof!" the ghost near shouted.

"Ok! Ok." Jared said as he threw his hands in the air.  "Then what are you doing here . Mr. Connery."

"I'm here to schow you Haloween pasct."

"AH HA!" Exclaimed Jared.  "I knew you were the ghost of  Haloween past!"

"It's a damned coinchidence ya pansy!  Juscht take my hand and we'll be off!" the ghost retorted as his chubby outstretched hand reached for Jared.  Jared took the dubious ghosts hand and immediately Jared felt light headed.  And not just light headed but light torsoed, light legged, and light footed.  He felt a floating sensation and before he knew it, they were silently swooping through the air like Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder in 'Superman'.  Below him he could see little children in Halloween costumes, egged houses, and toilet papered trees.  It was Halloween all right . but where? And when?

Jared would soon find out, as they landed ungracefully in a puddle of mud in front of a  house that looked like something a bad cartoonist would draw. 

"Oh shit!" said the ghost, now notably without his fake Scottish accent.

Jared was just about to comment on how the ghost, who claimed to be Sean Connery, had lost his lisping accent all of a sudden, when an egg hit him smack in the back of his head.  He turned around, peered into the darkness, but saw nothing. 

When Jared turned back to the ghost, and found it was gone too. 

"Oh, great."  Jared muttered, "I think I saw something like this in an episode of The Outer Limits, only this is sooo much lamer!"

He walked up to the skewed door and knocked on it.  There was no answer.  There was, however, a growl from what sounded like the back of the house and the rattling of chains. Jared identified this as the point in bad horror movies where the main character cracked the door open, peeked in and said: "Hello?" only to either be captured or get his head chopped off, so he turned around and ran instead. 

"Aww, c'mon ye chicken!" a familiar voice said from the darkness, "Ye'r spoiling all the FUN!  Get in there now!"

Jared stopped and looked towards where the voice had come from.  It was obviously the Ghost from Halloweens Past, with Scottish accent again, but once again he saw only darkness.

"Look, you can forget about all this.  The deal is OFF!  Take me back!"

"Naah..." said the ghost out of the darkness, "I think not!  You are nasty boy who needs to be taught a lesson!"

"Hey, take me back home or you'll be sorry!  My father works as a lawyer for the Disney corporation, and makes his living suing people.  He even sued a dead person once, so don't think you're safe just because you're a ghost!"

The Ghost of Halloweens Past seemed to ponder this for a few seconds before he spoke again, much more cautiously this time...

“Fine, then I’ll do the whole spiel from out here, but I want you to know that you’re missing out on a lot of the visual effects by making me do this in the freakin’ driveway!  The lighting, the demons in the corner, it was going to be great, but no, these guys cheap out and hire you instead of an actor with talent…” the Ghost mumbled on to himself.

“Forget it,” Jared told the Ghost as he started to walk away.  “I don’t have time for this.  Baywatch is on in a little while and I’ve still got to find where the TV is hidden in that god-forsaken house of mine…”

The Ghost held up his hands and began to speak, but was oddly interrupted by a knock on the door.  This even made Jared stop for a minute, as they both realized that they were outside and the knocking was coming from the inside of the house.  They both shrugged and turned to answer the door.  Just as Jared reached to open the old, wooden door, the knob turned and the door flew open, nearly taking his head off.  On the other side stood a short, fat man holding an umbrella and a small bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag.  His breath stunk of booze and Mexican food, as Jared would soon learn…

“What the hell, Larry?!??!  You’re not done yet?” the man shouted over Jared’s shoulder toward the Ghost of Halloween Past.  “Shiiaat, how are we supposed to follow this schedule if you keep, ahh, I know what it is!  You just had to do the Connery thing, didn’t you???  I’ve been telling you for years that you’re not even any good at it – you sound more like Keith Richards with a speech impediment than Sean Connery!  You’re not fooling anyone!!!” the man stumbled past Jared and walked over to where the Ghost was standing.

The two stood and argued for several minutes, all the while Jared tried to collect his thought.  He honestly wished that he had more than one thought to collect, but it had already been such a bizarre night that he was pretty much at a loss for words.  Just as he was about to interrupt the two, all of the surrounding lights went dark and an extremely realistic sounding lightning bolt crashed through the sky, illuminating everything for miles around.  As if things couldn’t get any worse, a obscenely low voice bellowed through the air…

“Stop!” it shouted, creating vibrations that nearly knocked the three of them to the ground.  “What the?” Jared exclaimed.  The three stood huddled together in the center of the road, fearing whatever might come next.