Beetlejuice and Lydia

I walked back home in a daze, but was instantly shook out of my daze upon seeing what sort of junk Beetlejuice was now trying to pile into our house. I walked passed a bone chair that had blinking eyes on the back of it, up the steps passed a tilted red dresser, into the house.

"Beetlejuice! What the hell is junk doing on our lawn?" I abruptly stopped in the middle of the hallway, stunned into silence from the never ending piles of fresh junk cluttering up the once abandoned rooms. There was purple drapes with a mismatching patchy quilted rug in the living room, with a rotted out looking green armchair. For some odd reason, there was a Venus Fly Trap potted in the center of the kitchen. It was like walking into a nightmare.

"Where did you go to buy this stuff?" I asked as Beetlejuice appeared behind me, pulling the dresser in on his back.

"Don't you love it?" He beamed. "I bought it down at the emporium on the other side of town. Most of this stuff wasn't going to be thrown away."

"Why didn't you let me to do the decorating?" I asked miserably, carefully walking passed the Venus Fly Trap into the back room. There was a stuffed zebra hanging on our wall. A talking stuffed zebra. Perfect. The zebra's head moved, watching me as I inspected the disaster.

"Oh hello there, young lady." The zebra talked, causing me to jump backwards. I held my eyes, getting nauseous from stress. "The name's Carl, and I will be your zebra wall ornament."

"Carl, please. Give me a minute." I said.

"Yes, certainly. I'll give you more than a minute if you ask me to." He said pleasantly, swinging his head.

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes give me more than a minute."

"What should I give you instead of a minute?"

"Shut up!" I snapped.

"What do you mean by 'shut up'? I am not a door on the ceiling, so you cannot shut me up. I am on a wall, so the correct terminology would be---"

"Be quiet!" I yelled.

"Ah, yes. Certainly. No need to be rude. I was just asking you if-"

"IF YOU DONT SHUT IT UP-" Beetlejuice put his hand over my mouth, arm around my waist as I stepped closer to Carl the Zebra.

"Woah, woah, woah. Lyds, calm down." I rolled my eyes at Beetlejuice's coaxing. "I'm so sorry Carl. She's a bit cranky lately."

"Apology accepted Sir Beetlejuice." Carl the Zebra said, finally shutting up.

"What's bothering you, Lyds?" Beetlejuice said.

"Right now, you." I walked out of his arms. "I come home and realize you've turned our house into a house of horrors! I'm not stuck in this rut because of you! If you never got me drunk, this would have never happened. I don't like you, Beetlejuice. I never did, and I never will."

The instant the words were out of my mouth, I regretted saying them. Beetlejuice's smile dripped off his face, a dark expression clouding his usual features. He set his jaw in a straight line.

"I never knew you felt that way about me." Shoulders hunched, he walked out of the room. "I'll be around if you need me."

"Beetlejuice..." I couldn't stop him. "Fine. I'll be in my body if you need me."

I was lost in the village without Beetlejuice to guide me back to Adam's model. I sighed furiously to myself, running into a cart and nearly toppling it over on the far edge of town. I leaned down to pick up the apples that had rolled out.

"I'm so sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going." I apologized to the car owner as I picked up fruit. Someone leaned down next to me, helping scoop some up.

"You really are a mess today." Judge Devora--I mean, Valence--commented as he picked up another apple. I nearly dropped my armful at his suave voice. He smirked as he offered a hand to help me up onto my feet.

"Th-thank you. Once again." I stumbled over my words once again as I sat the apples down in the cart. Leave it up to me to be falling all over myself over a gorgeous dead guy. He laughed.

"You are most certainly welcome. Do you need any help getting to wherever you need to go?" He asked, offering his arm.

"Actually, that would be nice. I'm sort of trying to get home to my body, but I don't know how exactly to get there." I said. "We came in through coffins."

"That shouldn't be too much of a problem. You know, we have a hallway that will take you back to your own door." He said.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, it's located near the information help center. Some ghosts do not come straight here, as a matter of fact, very few do. Most stay over in your world for hundreds of years. If they need help, they simply draw a door somewhere in their domain to cross into this world." Valence tried to explain. I think I remembered reading something like that a few years ago in Adam and Barbara's handbook.

"Okay then. Whatever it takes. I just want to get back to my body for a while. I'll come back when it's time." I explained. He led me through the town, back to this 'Information Help Center' he had talked about.

Once we got to my door, he unlocked his arm out of mine.

"Are you sure you will be fine from here?" He asked, his tone full of light worry.

"Yeah, I should be fine. Well, I need to get Sarah out of my body first." I had forgotten all about the possession until now.

"Sarah?" Valence asked.

"She's just this spirit Beetlejuice has looking after my body until I was ready to come back. It's no big deal, really." I tried to retract what I was saying so he'd stop looking petrified.

"Perhaps I should go in with you. Was this only Beetlejuice's idea?" He asked, jiggling the door handle until it would open.

"Well yes, at first. I mean, I did give him my permission." I was back to covering for Beetlejuice, lovely.

"Sarah? Are you in here Sarah?" Valence called warily. The house was empty. Father and Deelia were probably spending the day or week in New York City, leaving me home by myself. It wasn't so lonely when I had Adam and Barbara here. We pursued noises coming from the kitchen. My body was rustling through the fridge, my stomach hanging grotesquely out of a grey shirt that used to be took big for me. Spaghetti sauce dripped from my chin onto the linoleum floor. Gross, she probably felt my cravings. Her head snapped up at the sound of us, and she let out a snarl that slid out a piece of spaghetti. I had the urge to puke again.

"OUT," Valence demanded. "Out, you disgusting beast, before I exorcise you." Sarah gave us one lasting snarl before slipping out through my head, falling onto the floor where the girl glared up at us.

"You weren't supposed to be back until after you went into labor." Sarah snapped, fixing me with a cold look. My body dropped onto the floor behind her.

"Come on, Sarah. Time to go back to the spirit world." Valence said, offering his hand. Sarah took it, not moving her eyes off of me. "I hope to see you again soon, Lydia."

"Bye Valence." I said, kneeling down next to my body. I heard Sarah making comments about us being on a first name basis, right before I slipped back into my body. The first thing I felt was the cold wetness of spaghetti sauce caught in my hair. The second thing I noticed was how badly I smelled. The third thing I felt was a jarring kick in my stomach, and the urge to vomit.