The ocean is a silent beast. On the horizon, a severe storm brews—at any moment in the eerie quiet, a wave could reach out and grab me.

Standing on Boston's Seaport pier, dark clouds loom overhead. Sailboats are bobbing like tethered apples in the bay, their masts disappearing under a veil of white mist. Undoubtedly, shit's about to get real. Pulling out my phone, I speed dial my employer's hotline, 88 GHOST INC. After a minute of theatrical music, a bubbly voice answers. "Chills n' Thrills Ghost Tours. What's your emergency?"

"This is Elizabeth Summers. I'm requesting a cancellation for my nine p.m. Lizzie Borden tour."

"Good evening, Miss Summers. What's the location?"

"The show I'm hosting starts at Elsbeth's Tea Shop on King Street."

"Reason for the cancellation request?"

I gape at the anvil-shaped clouds towering over the horizon. "Severe weather."

I've been put on hold. A few minutes later, an efficient sounding Regional Ghost Tour Specialist comes on. "I understand your concern, Miss Summers, but per company policy we can't cancel a show once half the customers have checked in."

"What do you mean, you can't cancel tonight's ghost tour?" Incredulous, I stare at my phone. "Haven't you seen the storm front? It's ugly—Logan International's canceling flights."

"I assure you, this company prioritizes employee safety in the field. You're in good hands. Now get a hold of yourself and rendezvous with your customers." Overhead, the sky's deepened into an ultraviolet purple.

Get a hold of myself? This is end-of-days.

Safe in her New York corporate high rise, the woman's unpleasant contralto voice grates on my nerves. "Miss Summers, our employment policy is crystal clear. As tonight's official tour guide, you have fifteen minutes to be onsite before tonight's show commences." I hear an exasperated sigh as if she's weary of wrangling fleeing tour workers. "Otherwise, your noncompliance will be grounds for automatic termination."

A severe weather advisory from the National Weather Service pings my phone.

What does this woman specialize in? Bullshit?

"I need to get home —there's a violent storm approaching." I imagine my waterlogged body washed up on the quay, next to The Crab Shack.

The robotic voice turns nasty. "We're aware of the adverse weather pattern, Miss Summers. "Don't worry, we'll keep you advised of any changes in this evening's schedule." I hear staccato fingernails typing on a keyboard.

"Don't worry? My life's in danger—hello?" My phone vibrates.

BZZZZZZZZ ....14:39 —

BZZZZZZZZ ....14:38 —

BZZZZZZZZ ....14:37.....

I gasp as descending red time stamps blow up my screen. The vindictive bitch's started the termination countdown. My phone is a ticking time bomb. It's The Hunger Games and I'm Tribute. Cold and damp, every fiber of my being screams, seek shelter. Instead, I secure my phone and rush back to Elsbeth's Tea Shop.

Despite the approaching storm, this evening's ticket holders are oblivious to the danger, eagerly congregating in the retailer's orange, cinnamon-clove scented lobby. The tea shop's disorderly patrons spill out onto the narrow cobbled street, hurrying home to the warmth of their glowing hearths. I'll have to play the hand I'm dealt and corral my customers on the exposed brick walkway. I wait for the last of my thrill-seekers, studying the dainty Irish lace curtains adorning the establishment's windows. Lighting an old-fashioned metal lantern, I clasp my hands together and remain as still as a carved statue. Delicate thunder rumbles in the distance and I shiver despite my warm vintage coat.

By eight forty-five pm., I've assembled the tour and local businesses and restaurants have shuttered their doors and windows for the evening. Only my ankles are visible above a ghostly fog swirling around my feet like a billowing Angel of Death. Frowning, I check the barometric pressure on my phone. If I hurry, I can finish the ghost walk before a furious rain erupts overhead.

Scanning tonight's tour group, I count eight people, their faces a mixture of fear and anticipation. The storm's added a nice level of suspense to the haunted walk—people hate being caught in foul weather. My wrought iron lantern rhythmically squeaking, I raise its flickering light and illuminate my face. "Good Evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Elizabeth. I'll be your guide for this evening's Chills n' Thrills haunted tour." I pause, theatrically lowering my voice, "For those of you brave enough to enter the house where Lizzy Borden hacked her step-parents to death, I must warn you —there will be supernatural encounters tonight." As if on cue, a warning buoy, retrofitted to track sharks, ominously clangs in the shrouded shipping lane.

My Ghost Tour company usually sells twenty tickets a show, but due to a tempestuous month, things have been slow in the unholy fright department. Tonight's dismal attendance is disappointing in spite of the weather. I note a cigarette-wielding mother, her pig-tailed, daughter hovering at her side. The little blond girl's jutting teeth are gap-toothed. She reminds me of a forlorn Bugs Bunny, flattening his ears to arouse sympathy. I wonder if her tattooed mother will spring for a pair of braces before she reaches puberty. The mother reaches down and stubs her cigarette out with her boot heel. It's an adult tour; young children aren't allowed, but I let the girl's presence slide since my best friend, Blair, is absent tonight. Without her white magic, I'll have to deal with rowdy troublemakers myself.

I slip a gloved hand into the pocket of my high-necked Victorian coat's pocket, fingering an antique bronze bell. The tour provided their own theater props, but I found this heavier, more impressive one, as well as the vintage coat I'm wearing, in my grandmother's steamer trunk. The bell's a crucial prop, signifying a "ghostly presence" at the climax of the show. Without it, I'd feel unarmed. Channeling Patrick Stewart's dramatic stage presence, I raise my voice. "Murderous entities seeking revenge surround us this evening." Nervous fear ripples through the crowd.

Strange how people want to believe in ghosts, especially hatchet wielding fiends.

The weather holds as we cut through a narrow alley that leads to Lizzy Borden's crime scene. A couple grab each other when an owl hoots in a scritch of tree branches. Startled, several people sharply inhale. The pitch-black alley is alive with noises easily mistaken for a low-level haunting: footsteps echoing on rickety stairs, broken shutters creaking on crumbling brick walls, and overgrown branches scraping against gutters. Several skittish tour members jump as rustling newspapers tumble past their feet, the crinkling pages turning as if read by unseen hands.

Perfect, I have them exactly where I want —scared shitless.

A prickly, cold sensation makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  My breath plums out in front of my face with the rapid temperature drop. Psychic alarm bells go off in my mind.  I scan the darkness with my sixth sense.

Is something here.... besides my conjured phantasms?

Clang.........clang.......The buoy's sonorous gongs keep time with the ocean's turbulent swells.

Frowning, I usher the crowd forward as they rub their arms in the damp cold. "This way." My steps echo briskly on cobblestones as I lead my charges toward the highlight of the show; a dilapidated clapboard house and its attached overgrown graveyard. The thrill-seekers obediently follow my flickering lantern, their pale faces fluttering moth-like in the dark.

"Stay together," I warn. "Watch your step."

Restless waves lap against the pier's pilings. Their distance, distorted by refraction, create the illusion of footsteps echoing in the fog.

Slap-tap...slap-tap...slap-tap....

Bitter ozone gusts into my face and replaces the scent of fresh salt air. The pair of young lovers bump into my back when I abruptly halt.

Ping!

What fuckery is this?

I stiffen like a board. My hand dives into my coat pocket and confirm that the bell is secure. I grasp it until my knuckles are white.

Ping!

Confused, the crowd searches for the source of the disembodied ringing. They know I have the antique bell —I showed it to them at the beginning of the tour. They also know I didn't ring it. A few people laugh nervously and guess this is part of the show's theatrics.

"Is that a ghost?" The gap-toothed little girl, the one I kindly didn't eject from the tour, usurps my best line.

"No," I falter.

It's way too early to signal a ghostly presence. Per the tour's script, the bell first rings inside the axe murderer's haunted homestead. When no one's looking, I'll extinguish my lantern and pull a hidden switch. Rigged lights will flicker and then die, momentarily leaving us suspended in darkness. A guaranteed wet your pants moment for the audience.

Ping!

Hell's bells, which joker's sabotaging my tour? The phantom bell rang close enough to be suspended in my face, but I can't see the culprit.

Ping!

"Who's ringing that damned bell?" I demand.

"This show's a real dud," the ungrateful pigtailed sprite bitches. Her unzipped jacket falls open and reveals a Daddy's Lil Monster Suicide Squad t-shirt. It's not enough the villain's destroyed my fright narrative, the mini Harley Quinn goes for the jugular. "There's no such thing as ghosts —you're making this up to sell tickets."

Out the mouth of babes.

I see the girl's mother. Her purple lipsticked mouth is peeled back in an ugly Joker's grin. She's silently mocking me, the vile bitch. I grit my teeth. She must be the one with the contraband bell. I slowly exhale, remembering this low-life troll and her horrid Wednesday child are no match for a seasoned haunted tour veteran. Especially, a psychic one. "Don't let the darkness fool you. We're surrounded by ghosts. An abnormally high level of paranormal activity's been scientifically documented in this area."

"By who, Ghostbusters?" The viper strikes, clear and true. I grip the lantern handle and wish it was her throat.

The crowd laughs and I almost come to blows with The Omen child. Seizing her advantage, she goes in for the kill. "I thought the house where Lizzy Borden slaughtered her family was in Fall River?"

The surprised crowd murmurs and I worry my lower lip. We're dreadfully close to those terrifying words refund and demand.

This is my Alamo.

Since I can't throw Daddy's Lil Monster off the pier, I pull out my antique bell and vigorously ring it to drown her out.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

"Shhh.... a ghost is here." I point ominously at the graveyard behind the house.

"Are you kidding? This is an ordinary, boring old house. No one died here." Technically true, Lizzy Borden lived here for a while, but this isn't the house where she murdered her parents. At twenty dollars a ticket, people shouldn't quibble —it's close enough in my opinion.

Turning to her mother, the venomous viper loudly declares, "I don't see any ghosts. This Ghost tour sucks ass —we should have seen the Vampires & Werewolves show."

"Be quiet, Veronica, I told you the other tour was sold out."

A piercing scream slices the night and silences my tormentors.