Jimmy was alone a lot.

Maybe a little too much.

But no one seemed to notice.

Until one day, Jimmy heard a voice.

He thought he was alone in his room when he heard, “Hi there.”

Jimmy looked up. Confused. His parents were downstairs. He went back to playing with

“Hey. Over here.”

Jimmy looked up again, “Hello?”

“Hey kid,” the man said as he started to materialize. His was rather large and jolly looking.

“Hi,” Jimmy said.

“Are those trucks?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I play?”

“Sure.”

And so the boy and the ghost played.

The ghost visited Jimmy often. A few times that week Jimmy’s mother heard voices in Jimmy’s room at night.

She told him to go to sleep, but Jimmy maintained that it was the man talking. Jimmy’s mother smiled when she left the room admiring her son’s imagination.

The ghost went where Jimmy went.

He showed up at school.

He was at the playground.

Jimmy spent all day talking to his best friend. The ghost was there when an older boy started hitting Jimmy.

He was still hitting him when he heard Jimmy talking to someone that wasn’t there.

“Do you want me to make him stop?” the ghost asked.

Jimmy cried yes and the boy stopped punching. He stopped doing everything.

The police were called to the school.

Jimmy’s parents were called.

Jimmy didn’t go to school anymore. He spent even more time in his room.

It was just him and the ghost.

“I wish I could go to the park,” Jimmy said.

“Let’s go,” the ghost said.

“I can’t,” Jimmy said, “my parents won’t let me.”

“Parents are stupid.”

“They are. All they do is yell. And mom keeps crying.”

“Do you want me to make them go away?”

“Yes.”

The ghost smiled. He put out a book of matches he’d stolen from the kitchen.

“It’s time to have some funny Jimmy.”

The fire department responded to a fire at Jimmy’s house. His parents didn’t make it out.

But, no one ever found Jimmy.