Fall into Danger with Ghosts by Alicia Dean

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year. I love the weather (although here in Oklahoma it looks like it might be 80 degrees on Halloween…ugh!), I love the holiday, I love spooky stuff and the changing foliage. I also love the idea of ghosts, whether it be movies, stories, or actual sightings. Years back, I took a ghost tour in Tulsa, and wow…it was creepy. And awesome.

I’ve never seen a ghost, but I’ve known of a few incidents where I truly believe there was evidence of a ghostly spirit. One in particular sticks in my mind. First of all, let me clarify. My mother is extremely practical and skeptical. Never would she believe in anything otherworldly. When my dad passed away in ’94, my sister lived in Florida at the time. She came to Oklahoma to stay with Mom for a while, just to be with family. The first night, she slept in the bed with Mom. The next day, Sheri said, “Mom, did you feel the bed shaking last night?” Mom said, “Yes, you felt it? It has happened every night since your dad passed away. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want people to think I’m crazy.” I truly believe that was some kind of signal from my dad, letting Mom know he was with her.

One of my favorite ghost movies is Ghost with Patrick Swayze, but I also enjoy the light hearted ones. Have you seen these?

Over Her Dead Body is about a man whose fiancée dies on the day of their wedding. He starts seeing a psychic, and falls for her. His fiancée begins haunting the psychic and sabotaging their relationship. It’s a very cute, sweet, movie.

 I loved, loved, loved this movie. It was funny, sweet, sad, and totally unexpected. I never dreamed Ricky Gervais could play the part of a romantic lead, and while he has a pretty rough beginning, he totally turns things around.

Ghost Town is about a dentist who has a near death experience and comes out of it with the ability to see and talk to ghosts. He’s a crabby, rude loner, and when the ghosts overwhelm him with their presence and their requests, he is none too pleased. Greg Kinnear plays the main ghost, and I adore him. His role in this movie is wonderful. Téa Leoni plays his widow, and Ricky Gervais’ romantic lead.

As much as I’ve always been fascinated with ghosts, I’d never written a ghost story, until now. My latest release is a short story with The Wild Rose Press that is part of a Halloween anthology: Haunting in the Garden.

Blurb:

A year after her husband’s death, Emily Tillman is ready to start dating again, and hopefully, find what she’s always wanted—marriage and children. But the man who broke her heart five years ago is back. And he’s anything but the marrying kind. 

Confirmed bachelor Reese Caster is perfectly content with his life—and he’s finally over Emily, the one woman who almost made him commit. Now, his world is rocked when her dead husband shows up, demanding that Reese pursue Emily to keep her out of the clutches of her latest suitor—a jerk who is only after her money. 

Being around Emily again has made Reese reconsider his bachelor life style. But now that the threat of the other man is gone, the pesky ghost wants Reese to break things off. Can he and Emily find the love they were denied, or will the ghost of her dead husband destroy their chances? 

So...what about you? Do you believe in ghosts? What are some of your favorite ghost movies or books?

The Jersey Devil lives ... honest! By Leah St. James

Okay, okay, I’ll admit it. I’m afraid of things that go bump in the night.

There. I said it. I’m no Ghost Buster.

I think this first manifested (hahahaha…sorry, couldn’t help it) when I was a Girl Scout and went on overnight camping trips. Like most groups of kids who go camping, we told scary stories. And in New Jersey, there is no more famous scary story than that of the infamous Jersey Devil. Here's one of my, uh, favorite stories of a couple who encountered the grotesque creature of the night.

Two lovers are driving down a lonely road in the Jersey Pine Barrens. It’s after midnight, and clouds obscure the moon—it’s the dark of the dead. Suddenly the car engine sputters, then dies. The man pulls onto the shoulder, gets out and begins to walk for help. The woman stays behind and waits, shivering in the cold and gloom. After a few minutes she hears a scratching on the hood of the car. Panicked, she hunkers down and hopes for her boyfriend’s return, but he never reappears. The police find the car in the morning, with the boyfriend hanging from a tree branch directly over the car, upside down, his fingers just reaching the hood of the car. The Jersey Devil has struck again.

Try hearing that when you’re less than an hour from Jersey Devil country and all you have is a canvas tent for protection. 



Hey, I don’t care what the scientists and skeptics say. I believed then. I believe now.

Still, I enjoy scary stories, reading and writing. I enjoy that feeling of the hair lifting on the back of my neck, my skin crawling with awareness of some hidden danger…as long as I know it’s fiction.

__________________________

Here’s an excerpt from my own scary story—novella Adrienne’s Ghost. (Adrienne's Ghost will be free on Amazon on October 25, 26 and 27.)

Do you believe in ghosts? FBI Agent Jackson Yates never had . . . until now.

Paranormal psychologist Rachael Sullivan has spent her adult years searching for the knowledge of life after death.

Joined by forces beyond their control, beyond their understanding, together they seek a killer. Together they encounter . . .Adrienne’s Ghost.

Rachael set the journals on the table and sorted through the pile until she found the one that began during Adrienne's high school years, figuring it would be a good place to start. Before she could sit, the diary dropped from her hand and fell to the floor. Tsking at her clumsiness, she retrieved the book, resettled herself into the sofa's cushions, and turned back to page one. Again the book landed on the floor, but this time it somersaulted through the air, as though it had been propelled by a force.

The surface of her skin beginning to prickle, Rachael stood and scanned the room, to search for the source of an energy strong enough, other-worldly enough to have caused what she'd witnessed. But the room was empty. Or maybe it only seemed empty because she couldn't see whatever life forces might be hiding just beyond the realm of her comprehension.

Still, she felt like an idiot when she retrieved the diary from the floor, then deliberately closed it and set it on the coffee table, as if she no longer had any interest in the secrets it held. She wondered if the night of passion had scrambled her brains when she sat back to watch, her fingers crossed.

It wasn't long before her hunch paid off. The journal on top of the pile began to tremble, then buck. Fascinated, Rachael trained her eyes on the book, and as its movements became more frenzied, her heart raced to match its pace. Within a few seconds, the book had somehow shimmied itself forward so it teetered on the edge of the pile, like it needed no more than a tiny nudge to take the plunge.

Debating if she was supposed to provide that nudge, Rachael reached forward, and in that instant a shadowy image materialized inches away from the tips of her fingers. She jolted and snatched her arm back as the shadow transformed into a shape. It was a hand, only a hand, like someone was reaching through a split in some cosmic curtain that separated two dimensions. A shriek whipped up Rachael's throat, and she slapped both hands to her mouth to stuff it back down.

Scrambling backward, she found herself pressed against the couch, ready to run, when the ghostly fingers prodded the diary.

It tumbled over the table's edge, landing with a thunk, and Rachael dropped to her knees, inhaling one choppy breath after another until her lungs could take no more. She was paralyzed, mesmerized, watching the hand where it hovered over the open book, less than a foot away. The fingernails, ragged and torn, were dirty and stained with smears of what looked like blood. They waggled suddenly, and the pages of the book began to flutter, making the sound of a hundred birds in flight. The air Rachael had been holding expelled in a burst, and her lungs refilled on another giant breath. But before she could scream, the humming from the FBI's basement, that heartbeat-like pulse, saturated the air.

She didn't realize she'd scrambled to her feet and retreated until the backs of her legs hit the edge of the sofa. As her muscles gave way to fear, she sagged onto the cushions and watched as Adrienne formed in front of her eyes.

My Haunted Neighborhood



Laura Breck

I live in an older neighborhood of Saint Paul, and there’s a wonderful restaurant within walking distance that has a well-deserved reputation for being haunted.

It seems that back in the early 1900s, the owner of the house, which is now the restaurant, had a little too much fun with Molly, one of the maids. When she realized she was with child, she hung herself from a chandelier in the third floor parlor.

When we first moved to the neighborhood, I hadn’t heard of the ghost. I walked our dog early every morning, and often came past the restaurant. One misty morning as the dog and I strolled past, I felt a strange sensation, as if someone called to me. The dog wined and stopped walking, tugging for us to go back the other way.



Molly

I looked around but didn’t see anyone or any animal, but when I looked up at the restaurant, there was a figure in the window. Hairs rose on my arms and a sense of panic washed through me. I stared for a few moments then it faded away.

Later, speaking with a neighbor, I learned the story of Molly. Now, I avoid looking at the window when I walk by, but when our dog was still with us, once in a while she’d balk at going past the restaurant.


A few weeks ago, friends came for a pub crawl and we started at the restaurant. After a drink, we walked through the restaurant and ended up in the third floor parlor. Hairs rose on my arms, and my girlfriend started rubbing her arms. The guys just stared. There was a group of young women in the room, and one of them asked, “Do you feel her?”

I nodded. “She’s here.” The girls were trying to call Molly. They wanted to meet her. I told everyone the story of Molly, and I shared my sighting, then my girlfriend turned and headed back downstairs. “Too spooky for me!”

For me, too! I avoid places that are said to be haunted. How about you? Do you crave the excitement? Have you ever seen (or felt) a ghost?

Have a great Halloween!

Laura
~Smart Women ~Sexy Men ~Seductive Romance
LauraBreck.com
~Dancing in a Hurricane is available in digital formats at Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble and in paperback at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Createspace
~Love in the Land of Lakes is available in digital format at Smashwords, All Romance Ebooks, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, and in paperback at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Createspace

Tropical Holiday by Brenda Whiteside Chapter One

 Jump to the first story

Chapter One

She had just one wish for the holidays. Peace. Not the world kind of peace. Inner peace. Yuma needed to forget the divorce from a lifeless marriage, to find herself once again. Wow, did that sound corny. But it was the truth, damn it.

Yuma sat at the back of the tour bus and rested her forehead against the window, breathing the cool outside air seeping in around the window seal, trying to avoid the combined breath wafting from the gabby, fat couple in the seat in front of her. It was obvious they’d recently enjoyed the local specialty, salsa rich with cilantro and onions. A fish in an oxygen-deprived aquarium would have more fresh air. Thick green foliage of trees, bushes, and vines whizzed by.

Her sister, Setty, hadn’t cheered her on when she’d announced her vacation. Well-meaning-still-married Setty told her that a trip to Cancun, Mexico, solo, was crazy, yet she hadn’t tried to talk her out of her one-person holiday. In fact, Yuma thought her sister envied her a bit, taking off by herself. It was romantic. There’s romantic and there’s romance. Yuma had insisted reflection was her goal, not romance. Setty had given her that oh-sure-whatever-you-say smile. It didn’t do any good to argue with her sister who believed all the important things in life like sex, kids, mowed lawns and a well-tuned auto required a man. She didn’t need what Setty needed.

But…if a little romance came her way, a slight distraction from reflection, then that would be fine.

The bus slowed as it traveled along the main street of a small town. Franco, the tour guide, gave a running commentary on village life in a Mexican town. Picking up speed, moments later, they approached the entrance to the Mayan ruins of Tulum.

Yuma looked at the backs of the heads of her fellow tourists. And they came in twos; old couples, young couples, a gay couple, and two elderly English ladies who kept asking the guide personal questions and turning around to smile at Yuma every few miles. The empty seat beside her became a neon sign announcing this woman in her forties is alone. Well, she was just very twenty-first century traveling without a companion.

Although, it would’ve been okay to see someone else sightseeing alone, someone that would perhaps have found her interesting enough to chance a…friendship.

But there was no single, middle-aged, American professor specializing in Mayan history who would ask her to his room after the tour to share a bottle of wine; who would find her irresistible long into the night, and serve her breakfast at dawn.

“You will enjoy the tour, even if Mexico is unreasonably cold.” Franco laughed heartily at his play on words as the bus pulled into the parking lot. Day two in sunny Mexico remained chilly and cloudy, exactly like day one. Guaranteed warmth should’ve accompanied the high price of a holiday vacation.

Hugging her jean jacket to her, Yuma stepped off the bus and into the arms of the two English ladies, one on each side, looping their arms around hers.

“Hello, dearie. We saw you were alone and thought you should chum with us. I’m Maureen.” Maureen looked over rectangle gold-framed glasses perched on a nose not quite in the middle of her face. Bright hazel eyes smiled under fluttering white lashes. The warmth of her bony fingers penetrated the jean jacket covering Yuma’s arm. “This is my baby sister, Helen.”

Helen tugged slightly on her, forcing Yuma to shift her attention to the plumper face of the baby sister. Faded blue eyes stared up while a whiskered upper lip curled in a smile, reminding Yuma of a baby seal in a Disney movie she took her niece to see. Helen patted her arm. “We single birds have to stick together.”

The single birds followed Franco around the grounds of Tulum, learning bits of Mayan history sprinkled with tour guide humor, the best of which amused Yuma and eluded the English sisterhood. They stayed at the front of the group for Helen’s sake, partly deaf in her left ear, according to Maureen, thanks to a bloody kick to the head from a mongrel cousin when she was four.

“Have you been single long?” Baby sister Helen asked when the tour concluded for lunch. “You leave him or did he leave you for a younger woman?”

“Helen! Don’t be so nosey!”

Helen’s seal lips pouted, and her round eyes grew watery. “I was only making conversation, Miss Bossy. You came up with the younger woman scenario anyway.” She took a huge, triumphant bite out of her cheese sandwich.

“Well!” Maureen turned to Yuma. “Sorry, dearie, but…”

“No need.” Yuma waved off the explanation. “I think I wear divorced like a badge. Or maybe a scary mask.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Maureen said. “A sweet, young thing like you? There must be all sorts of opportunity for romance.”

Yuma smiled at the sweet, young thing description. “I don’t really care about romance.”

“Romance is highly overrated.” Helen nodded, mouth full of sandwich, hurt feelings apparently forgotten. “In this day and age you can get more than romance if you aren’t careful.”

Maureen clucked her tongue and gave her sister a scornful look.

Yuma knew the middle-aged redhead in the commercial loan department at work would agree with Helen. She would’ve preferred to bring back a case of pineapples from Hawaii rather than her case of herpes. But Helen needn’t worry. This Mexican vacation, solo style, was not a desperation samba. Yuma needed some time alone, that was all.

Still, it would’ve been okay if yesterday, walking the streets of old Cancun, shopping the Mercado, and eating lunch on the patio of a restaurant under cloudy skies, she’d met someone. But there was no young Don Juan plying her with tequila and seducing her into getting a tattoo on her hip while caressing her cheek and murmuring what a fascinating creature she was.

“No more romance for you, Helen?” Yuma crumpled her napkin and stuffed it into her empty paper cup. The notion of romance finding Helen seemed more remote than the idea that Helen could even know what dangers lurked in a careless flirtatious union.

“Oh, if it were true romance, I wouldn’t walk away from it.” She scrubbed mayonnaise from her whiskers. “I’ve had my share though, dearie. It’s Maureen here that’s always on the lookout for a man, the marrying kind.”

“Helen, really!” Maureen stood and carried her lunch container to the trashcan.

More composed when she returned to the table, she didn’t sit down again. “You’ll have to excuse my sister. She has no sense of propriety.” She looked down over her glasses and gave her sister an obviously long-practiced scowl, a speechless language understood between siblings.

“I think they’re loading the bus.” Yuma stood and tossed her lunch remnants into the trashcan. “Thanks for the company. Enjoy your holiday.” Walking away from the sisters, she was glad Franco had instructed everyone to return to their same seats. Chumming with Helen could be amusing, but Maureen – not so much.

Yuma was the fifth one back in her seat. The gay couple quietly bickered, sitting as far apart as the bus seating would allow. Gabby fat couple clumped together, silently. Mr. had his head back and his eyes closed, rubbing his bulbous abdomen. It wasn’t that she needed someone in her life. She proved that when she walked away from a twenty-year marriage. She certainly didn't need the arguing or the nursemaid duties all men seemed to require. That was unfair. She’d had one marriage, one man. Maybe they didn’t all need nursemaids. Mrs. Gabby Fat Couple opened a package of antacid tablets, took out two, and placed them on Mr.’s extended tongue.

It’s always easier to figure out what you don’t need. The trick is figuring out what you do need. So what did she need in her life?

Maybe all husbands weren’t selfish, unimaginative, reticent and clueless. She was hard pressed to think of any of the men she knew that wasn’t. Leaning her head back, she stared at the ceiling. Maybe Dr. Tanner, her optometrist. Or Carl in accounting. Not knowing them on a personal level she could imagine them to be different from the husbands she actually knew. Could Dr. Tanner look into his wife’s eyes without checking for glaucoma, could he see the soul without seeing the iris?

What did she expect from this trip? Turning her head, she looked out at gray skies and sighed. She expected to get some damn sun in Mexico and lie on the beach in the bright yellow two-piece swimsuit that cost too much. Then again, if some younger-than-she-was hunk happened to notice her and find her attractive, she’d be like Helen and not walk, or swim, away from him. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the window. A little sun, a little adventure, a little…

“Do you mind?” A deep voice asked as he settled into the seat beside her.

I Lived in a Haunted House

Debra and Brenda, sisters

I don’t believe in scary ghosts. I do believe in supernatural occurrences that might seem frightening because we don’t understand them or can’t control them. But as far as Hollywood style-mean, scary ghosts – nah. The ghosts I believe in aren’t scary. Which is why when I moved into a haunted house, I never felt fear. 

I did get irritated when she kept unlocking my back door. The first time it happened, I assumed I’d forgotten to lock it. I usually went out the front door so it seemed a logical conclusion that I’d forgotten to lock the back door before I’d left. And after the second time, I could’ve sworn I’d locked it. From then on, I made a mental note and checked it twice. But often I would come home to an unlocked back door.

She didn’t like metal music. My nephew came to stay with us for a month. When I wasn’t home, he’d crank up the metal. If he stepped outside, she’d change the station. He figured I had a weird radio, but I knew better.

I say ‘she’ because my sister dubbed our ghost, Mary, after my mother-in-law whose house it was before we moved in. When both my in-laws died, we inherited the house. We added two additions to the house – a family room at one end and a large rec room on the back. After my son moved out, my sister moved in for a year and the rec room became her living room. The odd thing about our ghost is that she never ventured into the additions, which added credence to my sister’s belief that she was my mother-in-law. She enjoyed rearranging small items in my sister’s bedroom but never went into her living room. I’d see a shadow in the hall or hear some little noise, but always in the original part of the house.

Rusty in his pumpkin costume

She made herself visible only once. My sister was sitting in her living room, watching television, when a white smoke appeared in the doorway between that room and the bedroom. She hovered there for several moments as if visiting with my sister but wouldn’t enter the added on room. Debra watched and waited, but she eventually just vanished without incident. My youngest nephew, who was six at the time, listened to my sister's story of her ghost encounter. He then patted my sister on the arm and said, “Aunt Debbie, I think that mousse stuff you put on your hair is going to your brain.”

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