13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days
Chad vs. The Genie
Chad was a surfer bro. He’d been spending a lot of time going in and out of antique shops, looking for ways to make his bachelor pad look more unique than the other surfer bros.
He stood outside a store called Arabian Nights that he could swear wasn’t there the day before. But he loved the movie Aladdin when he was a kid and figured maybe he could find something nostalgic.
He sifted through magic carpets, trinkets, and baskets with cobras inside, until he found the perfect object. A dusty lamp in the back of the store. He rubbed it with the front of his NorthFace fleece. As he hoped, a genie appeared.
“Who has dared to disturb my eternal slumber?” asked the genie.
“It is I, Chad,” Chad said. “Welcome to 2016.
“I have not been summoned for over a millennium,” the genie said. “The last time I was awoken I ushered in 100 years of darkness.”
“I must have missed that in history class,” Chad said.
The genie slumped its shoulders.
“Look pal,” it said. “I’m just trying to appear all powerful. Could you cut an old mystical being a break and play along here?”
“No worries,” Chad said.
“Behold my power,” the genie said. It whistled between two fingers, bringing a magic carpet to life. Then the genie and Chad took a ride above the river that seemed a little too much like the romantic magic carpet ride in Aladdin.
“Impressed are you?” the genie asked.
“Yes of course,” Chad said. “Now, I believe I should be getting some wishes.”
“Indeed,” the genie bellowed. “Now that you have observed my powers, I shall grant you wishes three.”
“OK cool,” Chad said. “Sweet. But, just so I know before I proceed… You’re not one of those ‘Be Careful What You Wish for Genies’ that is going to give me a horribly misconstrued version of whatever I ask for, even though you know what I meant the whole time?”
The genie smiled sheepishly.
“And you’re not some sort of disgraced minor demigod pretending to be a genie in the hopes of unleashing hell on earth?”
The genie continued to smile sheepishly and said nothing.
“So you’re just a regular genie?” Chad asked. “Like in Aladdin?”
“Yes,” the genie said. “Precisely like Aladdin.”
“Word,” Chad said.
“I follow the same rules as the genie in the Disney film you loved as a child,” the genie said. “I cannot bring anyone back from the dead. I cannot make anyone fall in love. I cannot kill anyone. And no wishing for more wishes. Understood?”
“Right on,” Chad said.
“So what will it be?” the genie asked. “Phenomenal wealth? Everlasting health? A really big-”
“Ok, so the one thing I’ve always wanted since I was a teenager,” Chad said, “was one last date with my high school girlfriend Suzanne. We kind of left things on a bad note on account that she hooked up with my boy Deano at the prom and then I got really mad at her and didn’t talk to her for a couple of years. Then she died of an undetected heart condition when she went away to college. Kind of ironic, right?”
The genie stared back at Chad in disbelief.
“Did you not hear anything I said?” the genie asked. “Those are literally the first two rules. I thought you said you had seen Aladdin.”
“Oh I’ve seen Aladdin like 100 times,” Chad said. “I’ve thought about this since I was a kid.”
“So you understand why I cannot grant-”
“Geno,” Chad said. “My first wish is that you didn’t have those stupid rules.”
A lightning bolt echoed in the distance.
“What?” the genie said. “No!”
“Nothing in your rules about wishing away the rules,” Chad said.
The genie put on a comically tiny pair of glasses and pulled a cartoonishly long scroll from the front pocket of his Harem pants. He read the list of rules over and nodded. Then it pointed a finger at the sky. Again lightning crashed.
“It is done,” the genie said.
“My second wish,” Chad said. “Bring Suzanne back from the dead and make her fall in love with me.”
A chill filled the air and the leaves began to swirl. The earth cracked open and his long dead highschool girlfriend Suzanne crawled out, wearing a Puka shell necklace and looking just as beautiful as she had on prom night.
“Hi Chad,” she said. “You look dope.”
Chad winked at the genie. The genie then put together an elaborate picnic for them. They drank wine while the sun set and danced under the stars. She said she was sorry about kissing Deano at the prom, she was just mad at Chad for flirting with Emily Jones. Chad said sorry about that, even though he didn’t remember doing it because he drank like an entire bottle of Jagermeister with Spuds in the bathroom. At the end of the night she asked if she could go back to his place. Chad turned her down. He said it was good to see her, but didn’t think the time was right for them to get back together.
The genie again looked at him dumbfounded.
“But,” the genie sputtered. “You made me bring her back from the dead.”
“Just wasn’t feeling it,” Chad said. “Good to see her though. I needed that.”
“Do you realize what an undead high school girlfriend can do to the very fabric of existence?” the genie asked.
“It’s called closure,” Chad said. “It’s a real thing. Look it up.”
The genie sighed.
“You have one more wish.”
“I wish for two more wishes,” Chad said.
“Absolutely not,” the genie said.
“Need I refer you to wish numero uno?” Chad asked.
The genie waved its hand.
“Fine,” it said. “Done. You have one extra wish.”
“Ok sweet. I want you to replace my right arm with a metal robot arm so powerful it can defeat God,” Chad said. “If it ever comes to that.”
The genie again looked at him like he was crazy.
“Dude’s gotta be prepared for the apocalypse, right?” Chad said.
The genie pointed a finger at the sky once more. A lightning bolt crashed in the distance again.
Chad looked down and his right arm had been replaced with a badass metal robot arm.
“Hell yeah,” he said.
“One more,” the genie said. “And no funny business this time.”
“I wish for your freedom,” Chad said.
“Excuse me?”
“I told you,” he said. “I’ve watched Aladdin 100 times. I know how this ends. Genie, you’re free.”
The genie looked like it might cry.
“For 10,000 years I have been waiting for a human to say those words.” A lightning bolt struck in the distance. Darkness suddenly fell over the sky. “For a foolish, foolish human to say those words.”
The genie swelled to 10 times its original size. Its eyes glowed a fiery red.
“You were right the first time Chad,” the genie said. “I am one of those be careful-what-you-wish for genies and I foresaw this the moment you said you loved the movie Aladdin. You desired a free genie? Well I shall show you what a free genie can do when unleashed upon this world. Now all of humanity shall suffer for your folly.”
It sent a bolt of lightning at Chad, who went tumbling backward into a rock wall. He doesn’t remember anything after that. It was sort of like prom night.
It’s now 20 years in the future. The genie has declared itself God and plunged the earth into a century of darkness. It has enslaved mankind and demands hourly blood sacrifices. There is also never anything good on TVs and it made surfing illegal.
Chad sits polishing his metal arm in an undisclosed bunker deep under the earth. There’s a knock at the bunker door. Three resistance fighters walk in.
“I’ve been expecting you dudes,” Chad said.
“Are you Chad, who the prophecy foretold?” one resistance fighter asked.
“I am the same,” Chad said, in his aging surfer dude accent.
“We need your help,” another freedom fighter said.
Chad looked down at his robot arm and smiled. Powerful enough to destroy God.
“Checkmate, old friend,” he whispered. “Never underestimate a surfer bro.”
Previously on 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days:
The only rule of 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days is that the story must be posted the same night I started it.
Day 1 The Ghost’s Girlfriend
Day 2 The Girl with the Puka Shell Necklace
Day 3 The Time I Went to the Old Church Later Than I Should Have
Day 4 Ride Scare
Day 5 Miranda, Who Appears as a Portent of Death
Day 6 A Halloween Carol
Day 7 El Mariachi de los Muertos
Day 8 Death on Demand
Day 9 The Ballad of the Cursed Mudville Maroons
Day 10 Officer Mac’s Last Day
