TITLE: A Night To Remember

AUTHOR: Jos Mous

Email: wotan_anubis@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: I own none of these character, I'm not making any profit out of this, blahblahblah.

RATING: PG-13

PAIRING: Oh come on, guess.

NOTE: This fic could sort of be described as my contribution to Halloween or something, but only because I got the idea today, on the night before Halloween.

'T was the night of Halloween and in the Kennedy High geography classroom three girls were gathered, bathed in the glow of a few hundred candles. They were all blonde. They were all cheerleaders. They were sitting in a circle. Sort of. Sitting in circle can be very hard when there's only three of you. In the middle of the circle, a pentagram was drawn on the floor. In the middle of the pentagram, a small tripod was making a small, yet appropriate column of smoke.

One of the cheerleaders was filing her nails.

"How much longer is this going to take?" Nicole asked boredly.

"Shush!" Mary Cherry shushed. "Ah'm about ta go inta trance."

"I thought Christians didn't believe in stuff like this," Sarah said.

The girl received two glares.

"Then again, I could be wrong," she quickly added.

Mary Cherry closed her eyes, starting rocking back and forth and made a few appropriate moaning noises.

"Is all that really necessary?" Nicole asked.

Mary Cherry couldn't hear her in her current trance-like state. Well, either that or she ignored her. Either way, she continued her ritual.

"Any luck?" Sarah asked.

Mary Cherry ignored her too.

Then, a sudden gust of wind blew through the room, dampening the candles for a moment. The smoke coming from the centre of the pentagram swirled for a moment and in it there appeared the ghastly visage of Brooke McQueen. She appeared to be quite annoyed by something and was tapping her right foot on the air.

"OK, who of you has disturbed my sort of slumber?" the ghost asked.

"It was Ah," said Mary Cherry proudly. Then, remembering that she didn't want an angry ghost coming to haunt her on a regular basis, she added. "It was us."

"Oh hey Mary Cherry," Brooke greeted. "Nicole. And new girl who I've never seen before."

"I'm Sarah," said Sarah.

"Hi Sarah," Brooke greeted. "I'm Brooke. By the looks of it my death opened up the cheerleader position you now have."

"Actually, I'm the captain of the squad right now," Nicole said.

"Well, good for you," Brooke said with little enthusiasm. "Guess that fire was good for something then. Now, why did you bring me here? I was kind of busy."

"Brookie, hun, tell us, is there an afterlife?"

Brooke looked at Mary Cherry blankly for a few moments. "Are you saying you dragged my disembodied ass all the way from the afterlife just so you could ask me if there is an afterlife?"

Mary Cherry hesitated for a moment. "Dumb question," she said.

"Oh yeah."

"What's it like?" Sarah asked.

"What's what like?" Brooke asked back.

"You know… being dead."

Brooke shrugged. "Don't know really. I'm still pretty much alive. It's just my body that kicked the bucket."

"Oh."

"So? Any other questions? Or can I go back now?"

The three cheerleaders looked at each other, each silently urging the other ones to speak up. Nicole cleared her throat.

"Are you in Heaven?" she asked.

"Define "Heaven"," Brooke said. "But in way, I suppose I am. There're no angels or clouds and so far I haven't had the chance to chat with God or anything, but… well… the people I love are here. Mainly because they died in the same fire. Oh, except Mac. We thought it best to let her go. She's reincarnated as the daughter of a millionaire in Sweden, you know. We're all very proud of her. As for me, well, I plan to go back in a century or two. Maybe longer. Depends I guess."

"On what?" Mary Cherry asked.

The image of Brooke grinned. "I don't think you want to know. Now, was that all?"

"Actually, that question about Heaven wasn't the one these two wanted to ask," Sarah said.

"Oh?"

"Actually, they wanted to know why your charred remains were found so closely to Sam's remains."

Brooke laughed. "Are you serious?"

"Well…" Nicole said. "If people found out that the most popular girl in school sought refuge and solace with the most unpopular girl of school in her dying hours… well… it could damage our rep, you know."

Now Brooke really laughed. And it was a pleasant laugh at that. Not the kind of loud rumble that evil poltergeists produce. It was a very cheerful laugh.

Which was somehow a lot more unsettling.

"Do you know why I was so ticked off when you just brought me here?" the only dead blonde cheerleader in the room asked.

"Because we disturbed you in your eternal slumber?" Mary Cherry hazarded.

"Wrong," Brooke said cheerfully. "Oh, I was disturbed all right. But I wasn't slumbering eternally. I was having sex with Sam. And now I really have to go back. She gets cranky if I leave during sex. Or at least, I think she does. I would, certainly." The ghost waved a cheery hand. "Bye gals. Have a nice life."

And with that Brooke McQueen left this mortal plain once again.

The three cheerleaders looked at each other, stunned.

"Did you girls know…" Sarah began, but quickly halted when two murderous glares were sent her way. "Guess not then."

"All right girls," Nicole said calmly. "I shall say this only once. We have not heard what we have just heard. We have not seen what we have just seen. This hasn't happened. And finally, we shall never talk about this again."

The two other cheerleaders nodded in assent.

And so, the incident was forgotten and never again talked about. That is to say, not on THIS side. On the other side, however, it was talked about quite often and the slides Sam had secretly taken were also viewed quite often. Usually, they received quite a few laughs.

And so it was that the afterlife was made just a little more bright than it already was. And it was all thanks to three blonde cheerleaders on one Halloween night.

The End