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“I’m really not sure about this, Stan,” Kyle warns, voice almost low enough to be considered a whisper. Stan ignores his concerns as he finishes the set-up inside the circle of candles. “Stan? Shit dies for a reason. It’s never been a good idea to take things into our own hands.”
“Normally, I’d never say this, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think Kyle might have a point,” Cartman says, standing on the other side of the room. In his hands is a weird frog plush that looks nothing like its intended animal, and he clings to it like it’s gonna run away. Stan wouldn’t blame the thing. “Besides, what if it doesn’t work? What if it’s like that weird movie? Y’know: Pet Cemetery?”
“Yeah, or what if we set your house on fire with all the candles?” Kyle reasons unhelpfully.
“Oh, and you’re one to talk about fire hazards from candles?” Cartman sends him an unimpressed look and receives an incredulous scowl in return. “You celebrate Hanukkah, fuckin’ jew.”
“I’m literally on your side, dude,” Kyle whisper-shouts and points at Cartman sternly. Stan carefully arranges the orange fabric so that there is a clear enough opening in the center for the ashes. “And that is not the same thing. We keep them in a menorah, not set them in a circle for demonic ritual! This has gotta be against all of our religions in some kind of way.”
“I’m agnostic, so technically no,” Stan mutters, pouring the gray powder from the urn onto the smooth pavement of the basement floor. He’s careful to make one pile so he doesn’t have to touch the ashes, worried it might affect the ritual. “Alright, everyone stay out of the circle. Kyle, go turn off the light. Let’s get started.”
The room fills with darkness save for their phones’ flashlights, and the other two hesitantly walk over to Stan, who directs them to sit in a triangle formation.
In the center of them is a circle formed by 17 candles to represent what would be his current age. In the center of the circle is Kenny’s old orange parka, arranged in a way that his pile of ashes can sit inside of it. Surrounding the parka are all of the things Kenny enjoyed: A pack of cigarettes and a cheap bottle of tequila brought by Stan, a Playboy magazine and a half-eaten bucket of KFC from Cartman, and a Nascar magazine from Kyle.
In front of Stan is a Ouija board, just outside the circle. In his lap is a book of Latin phrases and spells lent to him by Henrietta, the goth kid who told him all of this information. She had informed him that their phones may interfere with the connection, so he told them to power down their phones.
“Why did we have to do this in the basement?” Cartman asks impatiently, interrupting the few seconds of silence. He tries to put on a brave face, but the way his hands shake around their grip on his stuffed animal doesn’t go unnoticed by the other two. “This is literally the way every stupid white people horror movie starts.”
“By trying to communicate with their dead childhood best friend?”
“No, by getting involved in shit that they don’t actually believe in,” Cartman snaps at Kyle. “And then they get the shit beaten out of them and they’re dragged down to Hell.”
“Hey, that was literally my-”
“Can you two shut up for a minute? I’m trying to focus.” Stan holds up his hand in a fist, and when the two stop arguing, he pulls a matchbox out of his jacket pocket. After a couple of strikes, a flame erupts. Kyle and Stan smile a bit at the flinch from Cartman.
“Shut up, both of you.”
Stan shakes his head, recentering himself and his focus. He holds his hand over the flame and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath before opening his eyes and lighting the candle directly in front of him. When the wick catches the flame, he waves it out and places it to his left. He brushes his hands off using his pants and gestures for them all to join hands.
After a few minutes of threatening Carman into it, the three have linked hands and therefore, according to Henrietta, linked their energies.
Another quick breath, and then Stan is reading.
“Oh, Satan,” Stan begins, a little louder than even he expected. “We call upon thee to connect us to the living dead. Can thou hear me?”
…
“I don’t think-”
As soon as Cartman opens his mouth, four of the candles around the candle Stan just lit erupt with a flame. The brunette screams, and Stan shushes him and shoots a pointed look at Kyle, who snorts at Cartman’s response.
“Now that I know you’re here,” Stan begins again, closing his eyes and encouraging the others to do the same, “we would like to speak with our friend--Kenneth McCormick.”
He opens his eyes again. The flames flicker angrily.
“Does it want a sacrifice or something? What the hell is going on?” Cartman whispers angrily. “I say we sacrifice Kahl.”
“What the fuck? Cartman!” Kyle exclaims.
“Shut up! Shut up!” Stan whispers when he sees the flames move more rapidly. The pages of the magazines begin to lift just slightly, and energy can be felt coursing through the air. “Kenny?”
Suddenly, all the candles ignite with flames of their own, earning another humorously high-pitched scream from Cartman, who also flies backward. After a few minutes of shock, Kyle and Stan burst out laughing, much to Cartman’s embarrassment and frustration.
“Oh, shuddup! You guys flinched, too!” He shouted, scowling at each of them individually.
“At least we didn’t scream like a little girl!” Kyle said while still doubling over in laughter. “And that’s offensive to the little girl.”
“Okay, okay. Everyone-” Stan cut himself with a laugh when the scene replayed in his head “everyone shut the hell up! I need to focus.”
Cartman humphed, and Kyle just giggled again before quieting down.
“Kenny? If you can hear me, what do we need to do to bring into the living realm?” Stan says to the air. He wasn’t sure where to look, so he opted to stare at the ashes, which felt weird. He tried to imagine he was talking to Kenny’s corpse, but that only felt worse. “Do you…do you need a…uh, sacrifice?”
Kyle shoots him a wide-eyed glance, and Stan just presses his lips into a thin line and shrugs.
“Oh, shit! Look at the board!”
At Cartman’s words, the two look at the Ouija board. Sure enough, the planchette glides across the smooth wood, stopping periodically at letters.
“L-I-T-E,” Stan reads aloud, watching closely as it stops for a minute, indicating a space. “T-H-E. Light the…C-I-G? Light the cig? Like- Oh! Light a cigarette!” The heart-shaped piece of wood moved to the “yes” on the board.
“Oh, Hell no! I’m not staying here! I’m out, man,” Cartman tries to get up, but the planchette is thrown toward him, hitting him square in the forehead. He screams and swats at the air, earning more amused laughter from Stan and Kyle, though the latter is also shaking from fear. “FINE! Goddamnit.”
Kyle cautiously picks up the box of cigarettes, holding it precariously with his thumb and his index fingers. The fire flickers and Stan likes to imagine it’s Kenny laughing at Kyle’s antics. It goes unnoticed, however, by the ginger, who takes out a cigarette and gestures for a match from Stan.
“So, you light the orange end, right?” Kyle asks, holding the flame to the stick while glancing questioningly at Stan. The raven-haired boy shook his head and pressed his lips together again disappointedly. “Look, I haven’t smoked since fourth grade, okay? I actually care about my lungs and my future.”
“Boo. Boo, Kyle. Boo,” Cartman says, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Boo, Kyle Broflovski.”
Kyle makes an ugly face at him but doesn’t say anything. He lights the cigarette and waves out the match. He holds it above the circle to place it down in place of the box of cigarettes, but he gasps as it’s taken from his hands by an invisible force. He yanks his hand back and holds it to his chest as if he had just been burned.
“It was…so cold. I think- I think our hands touched.”
“That’s so cool,” Stan whispers, looking at the floating cigarette with awe in his eyes. He doesn’t even spare a glance at Cartman, who he’s pretty sure is petrified in terror. Regardless, everyone's attention is on the object in the air.
It stills for a moment, and Stan swears he can see a teenage Kenny taking a drag; the scrawny figure outlined by the light of the candles could just be a trick of his own brain, kinda like when he thinks he can see the other side of the moon, but he almost thinks he could feel Kenny’s skin if he really tried. He doesn't, but he has to sit in his hand.
A cloud of smoke is blown from a non-existent source, but instead of rising and evaporating into the air, it falls and swirls around the parka, which is picked up and left to levitate. Another wave of smoke adds to the air, helping fill out the sleeves and the torso. The jacket zips itself up, and the hood fills with a cloud of smoke, which thins out until it’s dissipated where the legs should be.
The vague shape of Kenny's face is formed by the cloud, and he takes another drag from the cigarette, blowing it into the air, but it once again just adds to his form.
“Sup,” he says, his voice echoing after the simple word.
“Fuck- no, hell no. I’m out. I’m leaving. You guys are your own,” Cartman shouts, scrambling up and grabbing Clyde Frog as he runs to the door. “I’m not dying today, assholes.”
Kenny’s smoky hand makes a gesture and the door locks. Cartman jiggles the doorknob with no success. “Damn It! Let me leave, you freak.”
“No.” Kenny smiles. Well, Stan assumes it’s a smile. It's hard to tell when it’s being perceived through a gray blob. Cartman makes an offended face but sits down across the basement floor far away from the candle circle hugging his frog stuffed animal.
It’s kinda cute, but mainly fucking hilarious.
“Whatever floats your boat, man,” Kenny shrugs, turning back to Stan and Kyle. “So, how you guys been?”
He uses his telekinesis powers to lift the Playboy magazine and flip through the pages. He whistles when he gets to a particular girl, and smirks appreciatively. After a few minutes, he glances at Stan expectantly.1
“Oh, uh, right,” Stan jumps, remembering he was asked a question. He fully had hope of this plan working, but he wasn't expecting a physical form to be present. “Well, I’ve been…fine, I guess. What about- what about you, Kyle?”
“What? Oh, y’know, I- I had a test today, so that kinda sucks,” Kyle says, his voice shaking and varying in pitch. “I’m also talking to, uh, a, um- a dead person. So, there’s that. No offense, I think.”
“None taken, none taken,” Kenny chuckles. The flames of the candles dance with his laughter, just like Stan imagined. “Cartman?”
“I can’t hear you!” he shouts, covering his head with his arms.
“H-How have you been?” Stan asks, cringing at his stutter. Even he can’t help but be scared of the being in front of him. “What’s the afterlife like?”
“A lot more chill than you would expect, actually,” Kenny says, slouching slightly as he inhales more of the nicotine and adds it to his figure. “Sure, Hell’s filled with a lot of fire and lava, but once you’re dead, the heat doesn’t quite affect you as much anymore.”
“That would make sense.” Stan nods, side-eyeing Kyle, who was also looking at him. The room falls silent, which causes Stan’s anxiety to heighten. He didn’t think of what to talk about when he actually got to see Kenny, hoping the thrill of seeing him would kickstart some kind of conversation.
He was wrong. Currently, it feels like an awkward family reunion where relatives you haven’t seen since you were four expect you to remember them. Exception: Stan is now that annoying relative.
“So,” Kenny begins, drawing out the vowel slightly and clicking his tongue. It was a weird sight considering he was barely human-looking. “Why am I here?”
“What do you mean?” Stan asks dumbly. He’s begun fidgeting with his hands at this point, rubbing his knuckles together and catching individual fingers occasionally.
“Well, you summoned me,” Kenny says, tucking a misty hand in his pocket. “It’s also been- what? Eight years? Maybe nine. I’ve lost count. Why all of a sudden?”
Kyle looks at him expectantly as well, and Stan has never felt more on the spot than he does now. He looks down at the floor shamefully, trying to piece together a proper explanation that doesn’t make him sound pathetic and lonely.
“Um, well. Ever since you died and we went into middle school, our friend group really drifted apart,” Stan says, flicking his eyes guiltily at Kyle for only a second. “Well, I should really phrase it better. It became just me and Kyle. Once you were gone, Cartman was never around anymore-”
“Ey! Don’t blame that on me!” the boy suddenly jumped up, his fear practically vanishing. “I left because everytime I sat at your table, you told me to go away. If I didn’t, you just ignored me.”
“Yeah, because you’re a fuckin’ asshole,” Kyle chimes in before Stan, crossing his arms and leaning back. “We only stayed friends because you are a manipulative psychopath, and you had them wrapped around your finger. And I’m only here tonight now because Stan lied to me!”
Stan sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose as Cartman and Kyle’s bickering dissolves into something incomprehensible. If he cared enough, he could follow the argument and maybe even break it up, but he just didn’t have it in him.
“I don’t know about you, but I feel right at home,” Kenny says, lowering himself down to Stan’s level. “It’s just like I remember it: Kyle and Cartman arguing over something dumb, and you being utterly tired of it all.”
“Yeah, but you were there. You were in the equation,” Stan says, gesturing vaguely to the scene behind the ghost(?). “Now, they never talk and when they do, I just have to wait the argue out. I feel like it’s so much more depressing now.”
“Even if everyone was just as unhappy as they are now?”
“But we weren’t! At least, I wasn’t.” Stan holds a hand to his chest, earning what he can make out as a skeptical look from the vague picture of smoke filling the hood. “I was happy when we were all together. We filled roles. Kyle had his anger issues, yet was also the mom of the group.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he asks, holding Cartman by the shirt with his hand pulled back in preparation to punch the other.
“Cartman was the insensitive asshole who had a soft side that we just rarely got to see but still existed,” Stan explained, hearing Cartman’s shout of denial. “ I broke up the fights and brought everyone back together just like I started the friend group and you…you were the perverted delinquent who was still loyal and always lightened the mood in the darkest of times. We were all important to keeping the friend group together, but then you…”
His head fell, and he felt tears prick at his waterline.
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Stan whispers bitterly, now picking angrily at the skin around his nails.
The room falls completely silent; even Cartman doesn’t mutter some smart comment. They all must’ve heard him. He quickly wipes away the tears before they call fall, and fortunately, they’re gone just as quickly as they came.
“I figured that, if we talked to you, then our friendship might return back to what it was before,” Stan says with an attempt at finality. His throat is getting sore, and he desperately wants someone else to take over. “I dunno. I know it sounds pathetic, but-”
“That is pretty pathetic, dude,” Cartman agrees, much to Kyle’s frustration. “And gay.”
He gets punched in the shoulder for that one.
Kenny sighs or exhales more smoke into the air. Can he breathe? The thought goes through Stan’s head before he can stop it. This entire thing feels like a weird, depressing fever dream.
“Well, I will preface my next statement with a warning,” Kenny says rather ominously. It catches Stan’s attention nonetheless, and the boy tilts his head curiously. “I can’t stay in the living realm forever. I’m gonna have to leave eventually.”
“But that implies that you can stay at all, assuming I’m reading your words properly,” Kyle pipes up. Stan watches Cartman roll his eyes at the duo’s exchange, but he doesn’t say anything. “Are you considering…”
“It is possible for me to stay for some time.” Kenny nods his head toward Kyle, and then he looks at Stan. “But I won’t look like this, nor will I look like I’m alive.”
“How could you stay? What do you need to do? How long can you stay?” Stan adjusts his position so that he’s on his knees, eagerly listing off questions so he can get all the information he needs to bring back his friends. “Why can’t you stay like that? I mean, I didn’t even know you could leave the circle, but what would the difference be?”
“Okay, calm down. One at a time,” Kenny chuckles, holding up his hands. “Let me explain: In the circle, I have a lot more power since I’m the closest to Hell without actually being there. That’s why I can pick up things--somewhat--and have some kind of physical form. I chose smoke since it seemed the coolest of the options provided.”
“What else could you have been?” Cartman quirks an eyebrow.
“An human-shaped amalgamation of pictures of tits, lingerie, and racecars shoved into an orange parka,” Kenny answers without hesitation, and Cartman snorts. “Yes, it would have been hilarious, but I chose this for the dramatic flare.”
“Anyways,” Kenny begins, turning back to Stan as the seriousness returns to his voice. “I can technically possess someone or something and stay that way. My soul would be attached to something, which would allow me to not fall to the floor and back to Hell.”
“You could possess me!” Stan grins, volunteering without a second thought.
“Stan, no,” Kyle scolds. “You said you can possess objects, right? Does it have to be anything in particular?”
“Anything inside the circle,” Kenny answers, gesturing to the miscellaneous items. Suddenly, Stan wishes they hadn’t chosen so many disposable items. Kenny picks at the hem of the jacket and continues, “However, I’m leaning toward using the parka.”
Kyle and Stan exchange glances. Stan gives him a hopeful smile and widened eyes, but Kyle’s eyebrows are drawn together and he bites his lip.
“Will there be any…consequences from this?” Kyle asks, and Kenny thinks for a moment.
“None that will directly harm you,” he says after a moment. “This would be the first time that I’ve done this, so I don’t know for certain what it might do to me, but it shouldn’t do anything to you.”
“Then let’s do it!” Stan exclaims, jumping to his feet. “Come on, Kenny!”
Before Kyle can stall any longer, or Cartman can object, Kenny vanishes into thin air. The smoke evaporates, and all the candles are extinguished, leaving the three of them in the dark. Footsteps are heard running over to the door, and Cartman turns on the lights to the basement, revealing the fallen parka in the middle of the circle.
“So-” Cartman opens his mouth first “-did that just happen?”
“I think it did.” Kyle backs away from the circle.
“So, we all saw that?” Stan asks, receiving slow yet confirming nods from his friends. “Okay, cool. That means that Kenny…’s ghost has possessed his old parka, and it now-”
They all shriek and cling to each other when they see the sleeve move.