Excerpt: The Nun's Killing Jar

Chapter One
How do you scrape ectoplasm off your bumper? My sister and I worried about this after a trip to Northern New Mexico. Oh yeah, you think, that and how do you reset your watch after you’ve been returned to earth from the Mother Ship.
Either question is one of mystery and kookiness. And despite the fun and games of the ‘what if’ stories, it doesn’t negate the hair-raising chills that ripple up your back when you see something that is, just well, it just shouldn’t be there in the first place.
The misplaced face, hovering in corner of the hotel. The freezing pocket of air that turns your warm breath visible despite the uncharacteristic high heat on the streets of San Francisco.
No matter where I go, the ghosts seems to follow. I think there was a movie in the 60’s that had a song about that…Halley Mills and trouble seemed to follow her. And the Rosalind Russell was the head nun or something. I don’t know because I wasn’t a Catholic but most of my school chums were so they seem to all flock to those movies with nuns and such.
So despite all the history of haunted houses and valleys and stuff in my background, the last thing I would expect is for me to become in possession of the Nun’s Killing Jar. Jar, yes. Killing. Well, isn’t that what botanists used to use to snuff out their specimens before they mounted their prizes to a board with pins? I could live with that…even if the butterflies did not.
But really surprised me was that a nun, a sister, a woman who forsook marriage to ‘marry Jesus’ (or at least that’s what the Catholic kids would tell us) would even think of me. Me who forsook no man I really liked, prayed to God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost whenever I felt stuck. It wasn’t like I did it religiously, you know on schedule or anything.
But the nun’s killing jar came into my hands and no matter how I tried to get rid of it I seemed to be stuck. Was it like the old story of the monkey paw? A mystical gift that granted powerful wishes but visited horrible consequences? Or was it a prank.
When I squint at it sideways, I swear I can see a little green vapor or maybe it’s just the final experiations of a grasshopper or praying mantis coating the inside of the glass. Or that same nasty ectoplasm that stays with you. Trailing behind you like that unbeknownst toilet paper tail attached to your show. I swear today I saw a man with a toilet paper tail sticking out of his pants at the bus stop outside my building.
However, I digress. I received this killing jar from dear John, who lived in the apartment above me. I really didn’t know John and spoke to him only 4 times before he died. The fourth and last time was the night I saved his life. Okay, maybe his life didn’t stay saved but he evidently lived long enough to put me in his will.