The Ghost Boobs

The Ghost Boobs

A romantic thriller by Mat Clarkson

Angela had never been very good at making friends. Now that she had moved to a new town and knew barely anyone, she would have to dig deep and find the courage to be social. This gloomy town would be best enjoyed with at least one companion, she thought. One day in class, she got talking to a cute guy sitting in the row in front of her. His name was Daniel and had strong looking forearms that drove everybody wild. They got to talking and left class together, and after a lull in the conversation, each asked the other at once: “Want to grab a coffee?” They chuckled and agreed to meet each other the next day.

That evening Angela asked her housemate Sarah about local coffee places. Sarah reeled off about five places with boring sounding names; Angela had no time for useless information as she was busy scanning Wikipedia pages with genius precision, taking in information from all realms of human wisdom.

“... And then there’s the Coven, it’s pretty close to campus,” said Sarah. 

“Ha! Coven? Like, witches? I wish people would abandon these silly superstitions!” announced Angela. “It’s 2017 for goodness’ sake!”

“Well it’s only called that because it is near the old nun’s home that is abandoned now. I think its real name is coffee beans or coffee balls or something like that,” said Sarah meekly.

Angela thought to herself and decided to go there with Daniel the next day, and, owing to the fact it was close to campus, she would have extra energy to edit the Finnegans Wake plot section on Wikipedia.

The next day she and Daniel made their way to the Coffee Cauldron, a block away from their class and next to an imposing gothic building with boarded up windows on all three stories.

“This looks like the place,” said Angela.

“Oh yeah! I think I’ve been here before,” said Daniel. “It feels like I’m getting déjà vu, do you ever get that?”

“Déjà vu is a sign you’re not being mentally stimulated enough, Daniel. You should do some long division or something.”

“Ha! Yeah check out this long division.”

Angela laughed, “Oh Daniel, you do good jokes and are so funny and cool.”

“Thank you Angela,” said Daniel.

The two entered the Coffee Cauldron and each enjoyed a ‘witches’ brew’, a house special. They sat and talked for a long time about their lives and future dreams. Daniel had a similar background to Angela, both coming from across the country to this small town to study, the major difference being that Daniel was a typical frat-boy type that Angela did not usually go for. Angela was wearing sheer stockings that she had hoped Daniel would notice. As they talked, she slipped off her shoe and gently brushed Daniel’s muscular yet supple leg with the side of her foot. Angela was not usually prone to this kind of behaviour, but there was something in the air, something about the smell of the bubbling coffee, something about Daniel that made Angela feel as free as a bird.

“That coffee has me all pepped up!” said Daniel.

“Yeah, it really had some power to it didn’t it,” replied Angela.

As Angela spoke she looked over to the barista who had made their coffees. The barista was a woman that Angela thought looked around eighty years old. She only took notice because she was wearing a hood that Angela thought looked odd for a person her age. As they left, Angela and Daniel thanked her and she lowered her head in a friendly yet solemn nod, never making eye contact.

As the two walked from the shop, Daniel shuddered as if struck by a cold wind.

“What’s wrong?” asked Angela.

“It’s that building,” said Daniel. “It looks so familiar, it gives me the creeps, brah.”

“Oh don’t be silly, Daniel It’s just an old building!” said Angela, looking around. “Hey, I know something fun we can do.”

Angela took hold of Daniel’s super cool and muscly forearm and yanked him towards a half pried off board on one of the windows.

“Oh no, Angela please don’t, I’m scared,” cried Daniel.

“Shhh! It’s ok, we’ll just have a look around,” whispered Angela. She quietly took off the plywood board and coaxed Daniel through the darkened entrance. She placed the board back over the hole, so it was very dark inside. Angela was not scared of any superstitious nonsense, and she would prove how much of a grown-up she was to Daniel, who was using his phone screen as a flashlight in the gloom.

“Let’s go down there!” said Angela, pointing to an arch-shaped doorway in the far corner of the room. There was an old stone staircase that led down into an even darker level. She gripped Daniel’s arm and moved forward.

“Oh god, this is so freaking bad Angela. I think I’m getting déjà vu again, I think we should get out,” Daniel murmured.

“Come on, I want to show you there is nothing to be scared of” Angela replied, leading him into the doorway.

Halfway down the staircase, the door swung shut and Daniel let out a yelp. “Oh god, what was that?”

“It was the wind or something, keep walking and it’ll be fine,” said Angela reassuringly.

They made it to the bottom of the stairs and peered around the stone room with their phone flashlights. A windless chill swept over the room and they both felt it.

“I feel funny,” said Daniel. “Oh, oh what is that? My chest! What’s happening?”

“Let me see!” Angela said, looking with her light at Daniel’s letterman jacket.

“Oh my god.”

Daniel now had two large lumps on his chest under his jacket. They were being forced out by something.

“They are not mine, I mean I can barely feel them there,” said Daniel.

“They look like... boobs,” said Angela, inspecting the shape.

“Boobs?” asked Daniel.

“Boobies,” replied Angela. “You got tittied.”

“I got boobed!” yelled Daniel.

“You got tittered,” replied Angela.

“I got knockered up,” whispered Daniel, looking down.

“You got ta-taad,” consoled Angela.

“I got tay-tayed,” sighed Daniel, beginning to accept it.

“You got tay-tayyyed!” cried Angela.

“Yes!” a voice rose abruptly from the top of the stairs, “He has been tay-tayed!”

“Oh my god, who is that?” yelped Angela and Daniel at once.

They pointed their lights towards the doorway, and at the top of the stairs was the old woman from the coffee shop. “It is I!” she called down with a cackle. “You have trespassed on sacred ground, so I have cursed you with ghost boobs! This basement used to be a witches’ coven back in the 1800s, and the nuns’ convent was built on top! But it was cursed from the beginning! I curse anybody who entered this basement as I wish! And I have given you the ghost ta-tas!”

“So, you’re a witch?” asked Angela.

“Yes,” spoke the woman with a gravelly chuckle. “Oh! My eyes! My eyes!” she suddenly screeched, “I could not let anyone know that I was a witch otherwise I would be killed by a curse!”

The old woman began turning into smoke and steam while shooting sparks from her eyes. Angela was not paying attention though; she was tenderly inspecting Daniel’s new sweater puppies over his shirt. She growled softly and looked up at him with a deep longing in her eyes.

“Oh damn! I messed it up!” cried the old woman with her last breath, before she disintegrated into smoke and dust.

Angela and Daniel walked up the stairs and climbed back out the window. Daniel’s boobs disappeared and never returned. A few months later they were walking hand-in-hand by the coffee shop, and it had been boarded up and sold. They heard later that the owner just disappeared one day and was never seen again.

“I am sad that those big and nice ghost boobs have gone,” said Angela.

Daniel agreed, “I kind of got used to them, they were cool and good.”.

This article first appeared in Issue 5, 2017.
Posted 12:56pm Sunday 26th March 2017 by Mat Clarkson.