As a proud follower of Christ, I’ve always had an interest in how Christians approach the supernatural. It’s funny to see Christian folk that don’t believe in ghost or spirits, because dealing with ghosts and spirits is part and parcel with being a Christian (heck, one of our major tentpoles is literally called “The Holy Ghost”, which directly implies the existence of UN-holy ghosts). And the Christians that do believe in ghosts write them all off as demonic or the product of “witchcraft.” I once asked myself if the world of the supernatural was a bit more nuanced than that. This was also around the time when ghost stories were all the rage in cinema, with movies like The Sixth Sense and The Others dominating the box office. I also wondered how African-Americans would approach dealing with ghosts (and not in a comedic sense). All of these factors combined to germinate a story idea that I had to explore. Here is what I came up with.
after writing the treatment, I kind of lost interest in further developing the story, mainly because I’m not comfortable writing these types of story and it would wind up being a lot more work than I wanted to delve into at the time. HOWEVER, you can do something with this treatment if you’re one of my subscribers. Check it out.
Synopsis
A young man named Ant moves into a new house, helped by Preach, his best friend, who also is an ordained minister. Preach is one of the “hip” ministers, who is usually seen in a cheesy religious t-shirt (i.e. “CRACK open a bible”, or “tune in to WWJD!”). Preach constantly implores the agnostic Ant to turn his life to Christ, but Ant pays the talk no mind, often giving excuses for not visiting church with Preach.
The two set foot into the house, and Preach feels a strange chill. They continue moving in, and Ant is alone in the basement, when he comes across a leftover box of stuff from the previous house’s owners. At that moment, a beautiful young lady appears at the basement entrance. She introduces herself as Nancy, and she says she used to live in the house, but she went away for a while, and was surprised to return and find herself evicted. Ant jokes about her name, and Nancy laughingly replies “what? A Black woman can’t be called Nancy?” Ant is smitten by her, and offers to let her stay at the guest room of the house until she finishes school and can find a place of her own. All of the stuff in the box is hers, and Ant helps her move it all into her room…well, actually he does all the moving, she just tells him where to put everything. They spend time together and get to know each other, and eventually the two fall in love. Ant brags constantly to Preach about Nancy, even how he cooks for her (she doesn’t eat anything, though. they just talk over dinner). He does complain that she never goes out with him (she’s a stay-at-home type), and she doesn’t eat much of what he cooks (“I guess she doesn’t like my cooking”). Ant still loves her, though. She’s vibrant, charismatic, and a hopeless romantic. She has a great family she talks about all the time, especially her little sister, whom she loves very much. He has a number of things she always wanted to tell this sister, but she never got the chance to. Preach has yet to meet Nancy, for she is never around hen he comes by to visit Ant. Ant assumes she is out at school, or running errands, but Preach gets suspicious. Then one day, as Preach is researching for a sermon he is preparing, he has an epiphany, and calls Ant for an urgent meeting.
At the meeting Preach says this: “I’ve always believed that God has a specific plan for every person he creates – a mission that each person must fulfil before God calls them back home. Some have larger roles than others, but every role, every mission is important. I only takes one small snowflake to start an avalanche. I believe that sometimes a life is taken before that soul can complete its mission and fulfill the will of God, and that soul then needs help from the living to finish its task and finally be called home. It’s just a theory I have, I haven’t had enough time to do much research in the matter.”
Ant is puzzled. “And you’re telling me this because…”
“I think your friend Nancy might be one of these souls.”
Ant is flabbergasted. “What? Are you saying she’s some sort of ghost? That’s nonsense. I can see her, hear her, touch her!”
“But no one else can, Ant! People around here are starting to think you’re losing your mind. This woman I never seen outside the house, and aside from you, no one has seen her in the house. Don’t you find that a little strange?”
“Since when did you believe in ghosts?”
“Ant,” Preach says, “I’m a man of God. The supernatural is my trade.”
Across the country, a man somehow finds out somebody has moved into his old house. He becomes worried for some reason, and debates on whether to go back.
Preach does some research, and reveals to Ant that there was a girl named Anansi Okusanya, who lived in that house years ago, but was reported missing. She lived with a man who left the state shortly after her disappearance. Ant doesn’t believe Preach, but while Nancy is away at school, he stumbles across her wallet. The name on the license: Anansi Okusanya. He then calls the school to find her, but the school says no one by that name is in their current records. Ant is brooding over the issue when Nancy comes home, and before Ant can confront her, she gives him a massage that makes him “forget” to bring the issue up. It’s the same massage she gives him every day at he same time. They end up making out.
Days later, Ant and Preach are hanging out, and Preach asks if Ant has made any progress on Nancy. Ant admits that she behaves a bit strangely, but is not ready to believe that she’s a ghost. He and Preach go back and forth over the issue, before Preach says:
“Ant, if I’m right about that woman, she has no place in this world. You need to help her. Get some information out of her, ask her what happened the day she turned up missing, or why. You need to get some clues out of her. It’s the only way she can get home.”
Ant’s reply: “Well, what if I don’t want her to go home? Ghost or no ghost, I love her, and she makes me happy. I’m not going to lose her.” in his youth, Ant treated a woman who loved him very much coldly and lost her. He thought he had fumbled away his chance at true love, and he was positive Nancy was his second chance.
“Ant, that’s not your decision to make.”
Ant eventually starts prying more into the issue. He interrogates her one day, and she breaks down, saying she doesn’t know what he is talking about. He caves in and consoles her. From then on, Nancy’s behavior becomes even more peculiar: avoiding certain rooms in the house, repeating certain actions over and over, saying certain things repeatedly. Eventually And puts the clues together, searches the house, and finds Nancy’s dead body and/or the murder weapon buried inside the house. Nancy’s peculiar behavior was basically all of the things she did the day she was murdered. (Does he force Nancy to see her own corpse? What would happen if she did?) the boyfriend returns while Nancy is out, and he and Ant engage in a life & death struggle. With some timely help from Preach, Ant is victorious, and the man is sent to jail. However, Nancy is still in the house, upset and sulking, and not speaking at all to Ant. He doesn’t understand.
“Why won’t you talk to me? I found your killer, for Pete’s sake!” she gives Ant an angry stare, storms off to her room, and slams the door.
Ant asks Preach for advice. Preach says, “You loved Nancy a lot, didn’t you? Why don’t you show your love and attend her burial.”
At the funeral, Ant meets Rena, Nancy’s little sister. She is distraught over the burial, but Ant is moved to tell her a few of the loving things Nancy said about her, and he offers to tell her more at a later date. They exchange phone numbers.
Rena visits Ant at home for the first time, and she is greatly saddened by being in that house: not only was this where her sister was murdered, but shortly before that the two sisters got into a big argument, and stopped speaking to each other. Rena blames herself for her sister’s death, but ant consoles her, using Nancy’s own words praising Rena to do so. Rena hugs Ant and thanks him, and before long the two share a kiss.
They watch a movie together in the living room, and fall asleep in each other’s arms. A phone call wakes Ant up. It’s Preach.
“Hey, Preach, what’s cookin?”
“I just heard from her.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She says she’s on her way home.”
“Good.”
“She also says thank you for everything. You did good…”
“What can I say?”
“…but you’d better treat her sister right, or she’s coming back to kick your butt.”
“Of course.”
“So will I see you Sunday?”
“…yeah, you’ll see me Sunday.”
“Good. Bring a friend, if you can.”
Ant looks at Rena, sleeping peacefully with her head rested on his chest. “I’ll see what I can do.”
This is pretty much just a rough story treatment. i know it needs a lot of work, but I didn’t have it in me to develop it further. that being said, I’m releasing this story into Creative Commons with permission for my subscribers to use (just give me a shout out, okay?). So Subscribe already! I post these unused ideas every month.