Ghostly Solution (original short)

Yes, I still write original stuff, though this is from the past...

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"Is Mommy coming soon?" the ghost of the little girl said.

Mike sighed. We find a place where there are none… and yet here they are. A girl who had wandered away from her camp, only to be bitten by a rattler and die, long before rescue came.

"Mommy may be back, but you have to wait." He told her.

"Okay, Mister," the girl said, the clothes of the 1950s marking when she'd lived—and died. "I'll wait! Wanna play catch?"

"Later."

"Okay. Where's Mommy?"

A Memory. Thank God. The ghosts with more self-awareness could be more disturbing—and dangerous. Another reason the cities had been emptied… long before. When it was possible to go somewhere ghosts weren't.

"Well, it won't make any difference, soon," Mike said under his breath as he came to the gate. The guard waved to him. "Mandy wants to play ball again?"

"Yes, and you shouldn't do that. You know what learning their name does."

"As if we can get any more haunted," the man said, gesturing over to the horizon where Las Vegas was, the ghost lights and eerie sound of laughter and casino games carrying far further than they should.

"Even so, you know the rules."

"Yes, sir."

And with that, Mike entered the starport. Across the flat desert were the launch pits for the ships that would carry the people to the starships in orbit.

Most were empty. This was the last wave, after all. Earth would soon be empty, save for the ghosts…and those few who had remained, unable or unwilling to leave.

"So, are you ready?" The woman standing at the boarding ramp was tall, some gray running through her hair.

"More than ready. I flew over LA today."

"Why did you do that?"

"I wanted to see."

"And did you?"

"The dead, in broad daylight. Cowboys, 1950s starlets, housewives… it's no longer just the ones who died from trauma.

"I know. The last ships out of Italy sent some imagery. Evidently, the Cadaver Synod is getting very lively."

"Hah. Don't become a comedian, June."

"I won't. The joke the universe played on us was bad enough…" She shook her head. "I remember college, laughing at people who believed in ghosts. Where are they? The answer was…"

"We couldn't see them. Not beyond a few cases." He held out one hand and took a rail, leading his colleague into the ship. "Should have listened more to chemists."

"Oh?"

"Supersaturated solutions. They look like water. Normal liquid, and then you drop a seed into them and bam! Nothing but crystal. People keep dying, leaving spirits, and nobody can see them but one day…"

"The density grew, and a last person died."

"A seed crystal."

"Well, they can't follow us," June said. "And it's time for us to leave."

"Yeah. Just one thing I've been thinking about."

"What?"

"What happens when the universe gets saturated?"

June had nothing to say as they boarded the ship that would take them from the world of the dead.