It was on a late afternoon in the Spring when a pretty, 20-year-old blonde girl strode across the campus of the small community college. By her stride and the pouty expression on her face, it was clear she was not happy. She bounded up the steps of the science building, opened the door with her electronic card-key and entered the building. From some distance away, a young man a year or so older followed her.

The young woman entered one of the labs of the building, turned on the lights and walked over to the cabinets. She tossed her purse onto the counter, unlocked one of the cabinets and took out a collection of test tubes, small vials and a beaker. She opened the vials and mixed their contents in the test tubes, then poured the mixture into the beaker. She picked up the beaker and held it before her eyes, examining the mixture carefully. Slowly, a broad grin began to spread across her face, and a strange gleam appeared in her eyes. Then, taking a deep breath, she swallowed the concoction in two quick swallows. She smiled again as she looked at the empty beaker, then carried it over to the sink where she rinsed it out.

Moments later, the door to the lab opened and the young man who had been following the young woman entered the lab.

"Look Jenny, I'm not saying we should abandon the project," the young man said, almost pleading. "I just think we should wait, that's all."

"Wait? Wait for what?" Jenny retorted, spinning around to face the young man. "The formula has been ready for weeks now; I've told you that before!"

"I know, but there's no telling how it will affect a human system. There may be side-effects that we can't even imagine. I think we should do further tests."

"Huh!" Jenny snorted. "You don't fool me, Ted! You just want to use the formula on yourself! You want to be 'The Invisible Man!'"

"Jenny, that's not true."

"It IS true. And anyway, it doesn't matter; you're too late."

"What-what do you mean?"

Jenny smiled. "Just watch." She said, taking a few steps back.

Beads of sweat began to appear on Ted's forehead. Oh, no. he thought. She couldn't have. She wouldn't. She wouldn't do that...

But she did.

She had taken the formula, just as Ted had feared she would. Because right then and there, before Ted's very startled eyes, Jenny began to disappear. Ted's eyes opened wider and wider as he watched Jenny gradually fade away. At first she appeared to be very pale, but then Ted realized that it was the light from the other side of the room shining through her increasingly transparent face. She then seemed to slowly dissipate into the air, like a fine mist or fog.

"Oh my god!" Ted said. "You--you did it! You took the formula!"

"That's right!" Jenny said, laughing at the shocked look on Ted's face. "I took it just before you came in. So you see, you're too late! It's all gone now! And pretty soon, I'LL be gone too!"

"Oh, no...! Oh, no...!!"

Ted stared wide-eyed as he looked Jenny all up and down. Like her face, her legs were rapidly vanishing from sight as well; in moments, they appeared to be completely gone, and her short skirt seemed to hover over her shoes. Ted glanced up at the end of Jenny's sleeves and saw that her hands had vanished as well.

Jenny had noticed the disappearance of her hands at the same time that Ted did. She held them up before her eyes and rubbed them together, marveling at their transparency, and at how her sleeves seemed to be nothing but empty tubes. She quickly reached into her purse and pulled out a small mirror. She held the mirror up before her, and gasped in delight at her fading reflection. As she watched herself disappear, her eyes gleamed, and she leaned her head back and laughed long and loudly in delight.

Ted watched in mute amazement as the last remaining visible traces of Jenny's laughing face dissolved into thin air. She now appeared to be completely gone, her clothing empty, yet her laughter continued to echo eerily through the room.

"It works!!" she cried, laughing and jumping up and down. "It works! I'm invisible! I'm the invisible girl!" She put the mirror down and hugged herself with her empty sleeves.

"Oh my god!" Ted said, taking a step back. "Oh my god!!!"

"What's the matter, Ted?" Jenny's voice giggled. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"Jenny! This isn't funny! This is serious!"

"Oh, I don't know.." said Jenny, approaching him. It was creepy to see Jenny's empty clothes float towards him that way, to see her empty shoes walk across the floor by themselves beneath her floating skirt. "I think this is going to be a lot of fun...for me, that is! Oh yes, I'm going to have a lot of fun!" She laughed again. "Of course, the fun's only just beginning."

"What do you—" Ted began to say, then his words trailed off as he watched the empty sleeves of Jenny's blouse reach up to the collar. His mouth dropped open as the buttons of the blouse began to undo themselves. He then realized what Jenny had in mind, and he lunged for her, trying to stop her.

"Jenny, no!" he cried, reaching for her.

"Oh no you don't!" Jenny laughed, as she dodged away from him. "I've waited a long time for this, and you’re not going to stop me!" The empty clothes dashed to the other side of the lab table, opposite of Ted, and the buttons of the blouse rapidly unbuttoned themselves. Ted was momentarily stunned as he watched the blouse open up to reveal...nothing. Nothing at all; it appeared to be completely empty, except for a brassiere that floated inside, yet still seemed to be filled with something of considerable dimensions. The blouse quickly pulled itself away, crumpled itself up in mid-air for a moment, then tossed itself aside.

Jenny enjoyed the effect that her sudden disappearance had had on Ted, so she decided to tease him with it and play it for all it was worth.

"Ha-ha! Now you see her, now you don't!" she laughed as she undid her bra and tossed it to him.

Ted caught the bra, stared stupidly at it for a moment or two, then tossed it aside. He made another move to stop Jenny, but again she dodged away from him. Soon Ted was chasing Jenny in circles around the table, trying to catch her and prevent her from disrobing further. But she continued to elude him, taunting him and removing clothing all the while.

"You'll have to move faster than that if you want to catch me!" she giggled, kicking her shoes off. "Once I get the last of these clothes off, you'll NEVER catch me! And then the fun will REALLY begin!"

Now Jenny appeared to be nothing more than an empty miniskirt floating around the room by itself. Ted continued to chase the miniskirt around the table, but the zipper at the back of the skirt unzipped itself, and the skirt pulled itself down and away from empty space. In its place remained a floating pair of panties. "Woo-hoo! You'd better hurry, I'm almost gone!" she laughed.

Ted made a last-ditch effort to catch Jenny and lunged for the panties. But he wasn't fast enough; just as he reached for them, they curled away and tossed themselves aside.

"Awwww, too late, too late!" Jenny’s voice taunted from the air.

Ted picked himself up off the floor and looked around the empty lab. "Jenny?" he said. "Where are you?"

"She was here a moment ago." Jenny's voice giggled from...somewhere to his right. "You just missed her!"

"Come on, stop fooling around!" Ted said, beginning to get annoyed. "This is serious! Now where are you?" He continued to look all around the empty lab, as if trying to find some visual clue as to Jenny's whereabouts.

"Oh, I might be anywhere!" Jenny's voice said, now from somewhere to Ted's left. "The Invisible Girl can be anywhere she wants to be, and no one will ever know!" She giggled again, then said, much softer: "Ooooh, this's just gonna be SO much fun!"

Ted stopped cold. Uh oh, he thought. He recognized that tone of voice; it was the same tone that Jenny, the "class clown," always got into her voice whenever she was in the mood for playing pranks on someone. Instinctively, Ted got the bad feeling that he would now become the victim of one of Jenny’s pranks.

"Jenny?" Ted said quietly. "What--what are ya gonna do?" his eyes narrowed.

But instead of answering, Jenny simply said, "I know I should be soooo ashamed of myself for what I'm thinking right now! But this is just too good an opportunity to pass up!" Her voice now sounded like it was right beside Ted.

The sweat now flowed freely down Ted's forehead. He glanced nervously to his left and right, expecting something, but he didn't quite know what.

"Woooo-hooo!" Jenny called out from (it seemed) right in front of him. "Better look fast, Ted!"

Suddenly, Ted's cap was pulled up off his head and danced around in mid-air in front of his face. He reached to grab it, but each time he did, it flew away from his hands, accompanied by Jenny’s disembodied giggles. Finally, the cap deposited itself back on top of his head, then pulled itself down over his eyes.

Then, as Ted adjusted his cap, his shirt was suddenly pulled out of his pants. "Surprise!" Jenny said, laughing. "You weren't expecting that, were you? Or this!" Suddenly Ted's undershorts were yanked up tight, giving him a 'wedgie.'

"Ow!" Ted cried, trying to tuck in his shirt, re-adjust his underwear and maintain his dignity all at the same time. "Stop that, will ya!"

"Oh, this is just so cool! I can do anything I want to you, and you can't stop me because you can't see me!" Jenny giggled.

"Jenny, will you please knock it off! HEY!!"

Just then, Ted's belt unbuckled itself, and his pants were yanked down around his ankles.

"Oh my!" Jenny's voice laughed. "You've got nice legs, Ted; anybody ever tell you that?"

"Jenny, will you cut it out? This isn't funny!" said Ted (by now really annoyed), reaching down to pull his pants back up.

"But Ted, we're having so much fun!"

"Well, it's not funny. Besides, it's not fair, you taking advantage this way."

"Oh, come on… Lighten up. If it were the other way around and you were the one who was invisible, you'd be doing the same kind of things and you know it. You'd be groping girls left and right, sneaking into the girls' locker room and all kinds of stuff."

Ted's mouth dropped open. "I would not!" he said indignantly.

Jenny paused a moment. "No... No, I suppose you wouldn't, come to think of it." she said, thoughtfully. "More’s the pity." She paused again. "But then if you wouldn't, you're a fool!" she laughed. "And anyway, you're not invisible, I am. So I'm the one who gets to have fun with it!" She giggled again as she gave him a quick pinch on the butt.

"Ow!" Ted yelped. "That hurt! Look Jenny, I don't like this!"

"Too bad. Anyway, there's not much you can do about it now. I'm invisible and you aren't. So there."

"Jenny--!"

"Well look, I'm going to go out and have some more fun with this. I'll see you later." Jenny's voice seemed to move away from him.

"Jenny--!!" he cried, taking a few steps forward.

"Catch you later! 'Bye now!" Jenny's voice called from the lab door as it opened and closed by itself.

Ted ran to the door and opened it, looking to his left and right.

"Jenny?" he called down the empty hallway. "Jenny?" At the far end of the hallway, Ted caught a glimpse of the exit door opening and closing by itself.

Dejectedly, Ted closed the door and looked back at the beaker and vials that Jenny had left on the table. He walked over and picked up the vials and held them up to his eyes.

All of it, he thought. She took all of it, every damned drop. He shook his head in disgust. That crazy girl, he thought. That crazy, foolish girl…there’s no telling what kind of trouble she’s liable to get into…

********************

Shortly after Jenny’s sudden disappearance, some very strange things began to happen around the campus. Hats were suddenly pulled off of people’s heads and tossed into bushes. Books were pulled from hands and thrown on the ground. Papers were pulled from hands and scattered to the winds. Drinks were poured over people’s heads. In the cafeteria, packets of catsup suddenly flew up from tables and squooshed their contents into very surprised faces. And few people were suddenly pushed into mud puddles. As seemingly random and unconnected as all these events were, however, the one common thread which ran through nearly all of them was that they were often accompanied by the eerie sound of a young woman laughing.

Before long, the campus police began to take note of these strange incidents. But when eyewitnesses started claiming that they had been caused by some strange unseen spirit or ghost, the cops simply chalked it up to some elaborate student hoax. They dutifully logged reports of the incidents, but refused to take the matter all that seriously.

****************

Some hours after these strange events at the college, some equally strange occurrences began to take place at a nearby shopping mall. By now it was early evening, and a mall security guard was the first to notice one of these strange occurrences: one of the doors to the street outside seemed to open and close by itself. Hmm, that's odd, the guard thought as he walked over to examine the door. Must be a busted spring or something in it; I'll have to tell facilities about that so they can get that fixed...

Shortly after the guard had noticed the broken door, a clerk in one of the larger department stores noticed something equally odd. The clerk worked at the accessories counter, which sold hats, scarves, gloves and the like. Out of the clerk's eye, she thought she saw a brief flutter in the scarves hanging from their rack, as though they were blown by a sudden breeze. The clerk looked around to see if there was some source of a draft, but she didn't see anything to account for it.

When she looked back, she saw one of the scarves suddenly float up off of the rack and hover in mid-air. The scarf then proceeded to unfold itself and assume a shape very similar to that of a young woman's neck and shoulders. The clerk watched all this with increasingly-widened eyes and a slackening jaw that seemed intent on making contact with the floor.

The curiously-shaped scarf floated over to the hat rack, where a broad-brimmed hat floated off of the rack and stopped, hovering in space just above the scarf. A pair of sunglasses next floated up from the counter, to the void just below the hat, and then stopped. To the clerk, it was almost looked as though these articles were worn by a woman...yet there was no woman there.

A pair of long leather gloves next floated up from the counter and began to fill themselves out, assuming the shape of a person's hands, as though they were actually being worn by someone. Yet there were no hands or arms that the clerk could see. The ghostly ensemble of accessories then floated over to a mirror, where they struck several poses. It seemed as though the clothes were admiring themselves from several different angles.

By now, all the blood had drained from the clerk's face and her eyes had glazed over in shock. Her jaw bobbed up and down, as though trying to utter a sound of some sort, but no sound would come.

The articles of clothing floated back to where the clerk watched in stunned silence, then stopped immediately before her.

"Excuse me," a ghostly voice said from somewhere, while a gloved finger pointed to the brim of the hat. "Could you tell me how much is this hat? There's no price tag."

That was all that the clerk needed. Her eyes rolled up and she passed out onto the floor.

The articles of clothing floated back to their proper places on the rack and counter, and the same ghostly voice said, to no one in particular: "Sheesh! You just can't get good service anymore!"

***************

A few minutes later, strange things began to happen in the lingerie department as well. Several customers in the area thought they heard what sounded like a female voice making delighted "Oooooh!" and "Ahhhh!" sounds. When they turned to look, they saw no one there making the sounds, yet they noticed the racks of silken garments fluttering about, as though in a strong breeze. A couple of garments seemed to momentarily halt in their fluttering movements, as though stroked and caressed by unseen hands. The patrons looked all around to find the source of the strange sights and sounds, but they saw nothing that could account for them.

Then one customer heard what she later described as sounding like a whispered female voice saying, "Ooooh, this is nice!" When the customer turned to look, she saw a sight that she would never forget. An ivory-colored silk peignoir floated up off of a hanger on the rack, hovered in mid-air for a few moments, then floated over to the full-length mirror near the changing rooms. The silken bundle then floated up a few feet in the air, then gently drifted down again, and as it did so, it seemed to assume the shape of an especially well-built young woman. Yet the peignoir was clearly empty.

The empty peignoir turned itself this way and that in front of the mirror, as if admiring itself. It seemed quite oblivious to the panicked hysteria that was by now breaking out around it among the customers, who ran from the department in shrieking terror, screaming something about ghosts haunting the store.

In moments, the department was completely empty, except for the empty peignoir…and a 15-year-old boy, who simply stood in one spot, as though rooted to the ground. Like the patrons who had recently departed the area, he too stared with widened eyes at the ghostly nightie. Apart from his unusually-widened eyes however, his face was completely devoid of expression. After standing motionless and staring for several minutes, he finally managed to utter a single word, in an accent which suggested that he had grown up in the state of California:

"COOL!!"

The empty peignoir turned and seemed to take notice of the young man. An astute observer would have caught the sound of a hushed feminine giggle, and the peignoir slowly slinked over to the boy, in as sexy a manner as anything he could have likely ever wished for in his fondest dreams. The empty nightie then snuggled up close to the boy, who was by then staring intently at its empty contours, and a ghostly, disembodied (though extremely sexy) voice said:

"Hey, big boy, like what you see?"

The youth continued to stare at the stunning curves of the nightgown and, now with a huge grin pasted across his face, silently nodded.

"Well then," the ghostly voice said, "Here, take it; it’s yours!"

In a flash, the nightie suddenly slipped itself up and away from the unseen form which had previously held it, rumpled itself in midair for a moment, and then tossed itself into the boy’s face. The same ghostly voice now laughed out loud, gradually receding into the distance, as though running away.

The boy continued to stand and stare silently at the peignoir (now lying in a heap on the floor) for several more seconds. Finally, he simply shook his head in amazement and uttered a second single word:

"AWESOME!!!"

 

---

 

Jenny continued to wander invisibly among the milling throng of the shopping mall for the remainder of the evening. This is just so cool! she kept saying to herself, over and over. I still can’t get over it! Ooooh, there’s just so much I can do, so much fun I can have with this! I’m only just beginning! And Ted wanted me to wait! Ha! If he only knew! If he only knew what this feels like!

She looked around at the people around her. Ooooh, if they only knew! she thought. If they only knew that here was an invisible girl walking around in their midst, right under their noses! An invisible girl who could do anything she wanted to them, and they couldn’t stop her! Jenny suddenly felt very privileged, as though she were somehow better than all the other people around her. The thought sent a thrill through Jenny, and she hugged herself in delight with her invisible arms.

However, as the saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun, and the saying was never more true than it had been for Jenny at just that moment. She felt as though she were just warming up with her newfound power, and had been enjoying herself so much that she had lost all track of time. Before she knew it, it was almost 9:00, closing time for the mall. When she heard the announcement over the P.A. system that the mall would be closing in a few minutes, a sudden, unpleasant realization stirred her from her reverie:

She had no way of getting back home! She didn’t have a car with her, and even if she did, she couldn’t drive it in her current condition. Not without attracting undue attention (although oddly enough, this hadn’t bothered her before.) It was too late for her to catch the last bus for the night, and it was too far to walk home. There was no one she could call to get a ride from, and even if there were, she had no change with her to even make the phone call. She was stuck here. And even if she could somehow get back to her apartment, she couldn’t get in, as she had left her keys, along with her purse and all of her other personal belongings back at the lab.

When she realized the jam that she was in, she uttered a very loud, very colorful expletive. Heads turned, looking to see the source of the colorful language, but were bewildered (and somewhat disappointed) when they were unable to find one. Ordinarily, Jenny might have enjoyed the puzzled looks on their faces; now, however, she was too preoccupied in trying to figure a way out of her current predicament. As the shoppers headed towards the exits in a steady stream, and the mall employees rolled down the security gates in front of the various shops, Jenny sat down on a bench, and tried to think.

Well, she thought, since getting home is obviously out of the question, the only thing to do is to stay put for the time being. But where? Not on this hard bench obviously, that’s for sure. But where…? Where… She looked around the near-empty mall, and her eyes fell upon the entrance to Kressler’s department store. Suddenly, it hit her: Kressler’s had a mattress department! And they had a bed & bath section as well, with blankets, sheets, comforters, pillows, everything she would need.

She got up from the bench, and ran quickly and quietly on naked feet to the store entrance just before the security gate closed behind her. She made her way through the store, climbing the stopped escalator to the second floor, to the mattress and bed & bath departments. She waited impatiently for the security guards to leave and turn off the lights.

Finally, the last guard had left and the store lights went out, leaving just a few dim lights on; enough to see by, but not so bright as to keep a sleeper awake. Jenny began pulling blankets off of some shelves and grabbed a pillow. An observer would have witnessed the eerie sight of blankets and a pillow floating through the empty store by themselves, over to a queen-sized mattress, where they suddenly flopped down and proceeded to make a bedding of themselves.

When the task was completed, the top layer of blankets floated up part way, and a deep impression appeared in the mattress underneath, as though a person had lain down upon it. The blankets then floated gently back down again, but only part-way. There now appeared to be a large lump underneath them, as though they were wrapped around a person ready to go to sleep. Yet to the naked eye, there was no one there to be seen.

Jenny curled up snugly beneath the blankets, and began to doze off. She had had a big day already, and she was tired. She also felt very satisfied and pleased with herself. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought about all the wild and wonderful things she could now do as The Invisible Girl. Let’s see, she thought… What to do tomorrow… What to do… Better make some plans… The Chippendales are in town… Always wanted to see them…maybe I can even see them backstage…! Why not…? And the Raiders are in town, playing the Falcons… Mmm, all those hunky football players! I’ve always wanted to sneak into a men’s locker room with a lot of hunky guys around…

Jenny stretched and yawned. Hmmmm, she thought contentedly. So many things to do yet…!

As Jenny had drifted off to sleep, a service door on the same floor opened and a flashlight appeared. It was the night watchman, making his rounds. He was a rather thin, nervous-looking man, the type who seemed to be afraid of his own shadow. Nevertheless, he went about his job as though he were a highly-trained, highly experienced law-enforcement official. He walked the aisles and departments of the second floor and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was quiet, everything normal.

Until he came to the mattress department.

In the dim light, the watchman thought he saw something unusual out of the corner of his eye. He shone his flashlight in that direction and was surprised to see blankets piled on top of one of the mattresses. He walked over to the mattress and upon closer inspection, he saw that there was clearly something underneath those blankets. Something or someone. Then he noticed there was movement under the blankets; slow, rhythmic movement, like breathing…

The watchman swallowed loudly. This was the first time in the eight years he’d been working at Kressler’s that he’d encountered anything even remotely like this. He held his flashlight in one trembling hand, and reached out with the other to grab a hold of the blankets. With one quick movement, he yanked the blankets away to reveal…

Nothing. There was absolutely nothing under the blankets.

Now ordinarily, the watchman might have been relieved to find nothing there. However, the split-second after he pulled the blanket away, there came the sound of a loud, piercing shriek from the exact same spot from which he pulled the blanket.

The watchman literally jumped out of his skin, and his eyes popped out of his head. And although he couldn’t quite match the tone quality of the shriek which had so surprised him, he nonetheless did a fair imitation of it himself.

Immediately following the disembodied shriek, there came the sound of a very angry, very indignant female voice.

"What the hell are you doing, you moron?!?" the voice shouted furiously. "Give me back my blanket!"

In a flash, the blanket was yanked away from the watchman’s hand, and then it curled up around the same lumpy bumpy shape that had first attracted his attention. The watchman continued to stand and stare at the lumpy shape, in complete, mute shock. The light from his flashlight bobbed and flicked about, as his hand trembled madly.

The strange, disembodied (and still very perturbed) voice spoke again.

"And put out that light!" it said. "People are trying to sleep, you know!"

Finally, the watchman was shocked back to his senses. What the hell was this? he thought. This was… This was crazy! This was nonsense! This couldn’t be happening! No, no, working these late hours for all these years must be catching up with him, he thought. There’s got to be a simple, sensible, reasonable explanation for this. And he would find it, he told himself as he struggled to keep his hands from shaking quite so much. He would get to the bottom of this…he would…of course he would…

He reached a trembling hand out to the blanket again…