My Life as a Ghost Hunter

by Robin Banks

 I believe that there really is a monster in Loch Ness, and a Big Foot in the forests of Maine. I believe in naughty fairies that hide your keys, and helpful elves who do your work for you in the night. In believing in “Faery,” I tend to focus my beliefs on the kindly, though perilous, supernatural beings. I am offended at the portrayal of Big Foot as a ravening homicidal maniac. Who did he ever kill? And of course no one can find Nessie in all that water: she doesn’t WANT to be found.  Gentle creatures, or mischievous, or powerful, they all pay us little heed.

My belief combines theology with mythology. Good stuff.

So, one night when I was at a party with a group of friends, and the idea came up of going over to the cemetery to play hide and seek, I was in full agreement. Some people may be afraid of the dark, but not me! 

So, there I was, hunkered down behind a grave marker, trying to make no noise so I wouldn’t be caught, when I started to reflect on my situation. Here I was, in a cemetery, no one in sight. It was easy to remember all the ghost stories I had ever heard and read about the perilous places of the dead. My philosophies of ghosts being non-threatening was somewhat weakened by my setting: perhaps the person buried right under my feet didn’t much like people walking on him in jest. Perhaps it was the resting place of a very evil person, who didn’t go to his rest, but was wandering the world getting revenge for his condemnation. 

            It was then that I started hearing the noises. They were easy to explain: squirrels. “Squirrels go to their nests after dark,” said my logical brain.  “Okay, then birds. It’s true that most birds are diurnal also, but there ARE night birds. Owls, for example.” But the sound wasn’t a “whoo,” but a loud rustling in the bushes right behind me. A solid rustling like something made by a large animal.  I turned around to see what it was. It was too dark to see much, but there was a partial moon which allowed me to see something darker than the bushes. And big. It wasn’t moving. I tried to talk down my increasing nervousness. It’s nothing but the hedges. 

            I noticed that I was crouching even lower behind the gravestone. I was also on my toes, crouched ready to run. “I am so stupid! There is nothing there! Even if there were something there, what could it be that would justify my crazy panic? Just a person. Or an animal.” Whatever it was, as I watched it, it made a quick movement…towards me? At that point, all logic deserted me. I would have run if I could have moved. Instead, I huddled in the fetal position and covered my head with my arms! I could hear it! It was coming closer to me! My heart was beating so fast I was surprised that I didn’t explode. And then the noise paused… and something touched my head. 

            I don’t know what happened next. I must have just blanked out, because the next thing I observed was loud talking, and people shouting to me to come out: we had been caught by the police, and they wanted us out of there. I peeked up from my huddle, and could see lights coming. At that point, I leapt to my feet and ran to the group of noisy friends. It was a good thing that it was dark enough that they couldn’t see my face! After I had bragged about my philosophy of the harmlessness of those around us from “another world,” I certainly would have deserved teasing. It took me several hours to recover my sangfroid, and even then, I couldn’t join much in the hi-jinks of the party. 

            When I got home, in brushing my hair before bed I found a thorny twig in my hair. I knew I hadn’t been near a thorny bush. I nodded to myself, grimly. As I had always thought: some of those pesky “little people” had had a good time teasing me tonight! They must have been really amused! I felt relieved, and a bit ashamed. I had always known that the supernatural couldn’t hurt me!  Only if I let it scare me to death! What I needed was to spend more time alone in scary places in the dark! Next time my friends wanted to play night games, it would be good practice for me. 

            I knew that I would never play night games again. In fact, I would avoid even going outside at night at all. 

And I would get a night light.

The Last Swim

by Miles A Head

As Hans treaded water, he thought how ironic it was that this would be his fate. 

“I’ve always avoided swimming in the ocean because I am scared of its power” he thought.

He knew that he didn’t have the strength to attempt to swim for land. Not only was he not a strong swimmer but he had already been treading for a while. It was feasible that Andy would get concerned and send someone out to find him, but Hans wasn’t counting on it. He felt pretty sure that he would drown long before anyone could find him, he wasn’t even worried about sharks getting him before he drowned. 

Luckily, the ocean was calm at the moment. He spent some time trying to float on his back to conserve energy. He tried to think of how long it had been since he had left the beach house. It wasn’t much use, once he had realized the desperation of his situation, his sense of time had become distorted. 

As he started feeling the panic rising as his last bit of energy was being used to keep his head above water, he heard a new sound. The welcome sound of a motor. His instinct was to yell, but with the sound of water and the boat, there was no way they could hear him. 

As he listened, he thought it sounded like the boat was coming nearer. What were the chances that anyone could see a head bobbing just above the water unless they were specifically looking for him? It was dusk so Hans had heard the boat before he could see it. 

The boat turned on its lights and Hans realized that it had past him and was now heading away from him.

My Dog Needs a Bath

by Mel N Collie

I have been trying to give my dog Willie a bath for like a thousand years. 

He doesn't like it, he just wants to play in the mud and then come inside the house without a bath. 

I told him like a thousand times, "you can not come in here until you take a bath!" I told Willy that he can't go inside until he has a bath. 

One day me and my friends got together and decided that it was time to give Willy a bath. We went out back where he was and sprayed him with the hose.  Then we took him to the park and played with him until he was dry. But wen we got back he was as dirty as when we first washed him!

I gave a long sigh and put him in the backyard to go play and went inside for a nap. I will try again in an hour.

Murder, He Wrote

By Sandi Beach

“I'm sorry but we're going to have to let you go.”

    “What? Why?”

“This is never easy to say, but you're not what we're looking for anymore” 

Thomas was flabbergasted and blindsided. He has never liked his desk job, but it was the only thing he had. His true passion was adventure. 

“Let me see you to the door.” His boss said.

They walked to the door. Everything seemed like time had stopped itself. Thomas talked with his boss for the very last time.

“Please, just give me one more chance!” Thomas pleaded. 

“I am sorry but I am afraid I can’t do that.” Thomas’s boss said, without any sympathy. 

Thomas  walked out the door. He seems like he was in a dramatic music video because everything seemed slow and sorrowful. He was only eighteen, he had never been fired before.  He walked across the street, very slowly, there was no one around and his eyes started to tear up.

“Why didn't you get the money?”

“I'm sorry, but I can't do business for you anymore.”“

“I knew you were such a filthy traitor. Ever since you poisoned that aunt's cheese, planted that deadly nightshade, tried to release a dragon, cut Mrs.Washington’s brakes, sent Sylvia’s father to a terrible place, abandoned that cradle, and used comic sans on your report, I knew you were a rat, Jonny.” 

The Stranger pulled out his gun. 

“Wait, I didn't mean what I said. I'm sorry!

    “It's too late. He said. 

The gun cocked and went off. The other stranger flopped to the floor and was dead.

He thought that he had gone away with it, but as soon as he looked to the other alley, he saw a man staring at him.

Thomas started to run.

The Enchanting Pie

by Ben Dover

Tartan’s tail lashed with impatience as he guarded the oven, waiting for the pie’s tell-tale golden, crispy crust and its sparks of lightning to change from green to blue. His biggest concern had been whether the contest ingredients and equipment would react the same as what he’d practiced with over the last months. He had methods of adjusting the recipe: if the mushroom flour was drier, he would let the Cloud berries steep longer and include only 5.6 ounces to increase potency. If the plum sugar was a lighter shade of purple, he would have to chop the berries finer and add to the bake time to increase cohesion. It was a precise art that he was reasonably confident he has mastered; still, knowing that getting it wrong could result in the pie violently exploding or turning the judge purple made Tartan nervous. 

The judge, Krull Femursnap, a dapper ogre in his finest bulging three-piece suit, took bites of each entrant’s pie. After a soggy bite of Estelle Flitter’s Pheonixberry pie, Krull’s face tried unsuccessfully to mask a scowl. Steam was pouring out of his ears as he gave her a low score. After an unpleasant-sounding crunch of Thanter Barbeque’s Squelchberry pie, Krull’s skin hung loose on his unreadable mask of a face. Later, though Tartan’s was the last pie after a long day of judging, he swore he saw a flash of unexpected satisfaction on Krull’s face as the fork pierced the golden flakey crust and gave a crisp pulse of blue electricity. Whether it was the unfiltered expression of delight on Krull’s face as he took bite after bite or the fact that he drifted slowly off the ground towards the ceiling, no one had any doubt about who the winner of the competition was going to be.

To Sleep Perchance to Dream

by Stan Dupp

I stood at the podium, knees trembling, heart racing. My mouth was dry. I took a tremulous sip from the glass of water provided.  

 

“To be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether ‘tis n-n-nobler…” Snickers and whispers floated from the back of the room. My mind went blank. My heart drummed loud and incessant in my ears. Eyes wide, I looked for something, anything, to jog my memory. An errant paper airplane came hurtling in my direction, and for a moment seemed to suspend in the air before it landed at my feet amid an eruption of more snickers followed by the sharp rapping of the teacher’s yard stick on her desk in a desperate attempt to restore order.  

“Please continue Mr. Kowalski.” 

 

“W-Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to s-s-suffer the slings and airplanes…” A loud laugh burst from the crowd.  I scrunched my eyes in shame, inwardly flogging myself. Another rap sounded on the desk.  I drew a deep breath and swallowed hard. 

 

“…Arrows of outrageous f-fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles,” I glared at my classmates. “And by opposing, end them, to d-die to sleep no more, and by a sleep, to say we ennnndddd…” And as I spoke the words, they echoed off into the hollow air. I blinked a long blink and watched the world slowly tip to the left, and with a muffled shout from the teacher, crash into my side.  

 

Black. 

Quiet. 

 

A circle of fuzzy light came first, then sounds filtered down as if from a long tube. Dark shadows poked themselves into view.  

 

“Is he dead?” was the first audible phrase. Then, as if cotton was pulled from my ears, “Stand back! Give him some air!” …and then I wished I really was dead.  

Written in the Dust of a Jailhouse

by: Kirsten Swore

My name is Charlie, and I am not a witch. That's a debatable statement. Half the county thinks that I dapple in dark magic, seeing as they have thrown me into this dusty jail cell. It all started a couple of days ago, when I went to talk to my neighbor. I hadn’t seen Walter for a while, so when I saw him walking up his walkway to his house I decided to catch up with him.

After I started talking to him, he started to cough uncontrollably. I assumed that he had been smoking, or something like that; so imagine my surprise when he looked at me accusingly and rushed into his house. The guards appear to be taking me out of my cell. These shackles keep strangely slipping off my wrists. Anyway, the next morning the court summons came. I was on trial for sorcery. 

Coming out of this reverie, there appears to be a crowd gathered around a stake in the ground waiting for me. I suppose that my tone of voice during the trial was kind of insolent, but you should have heard the questions they were asking me. The trial didn’t go so well, Walter died two days later of a bad cough, so they came and arrested me at my house. That's my story. You know the rest.

The Judge is here, so is Walter's family. This rope tying me to the stake is loosening. They’re continuously trying to set the logs on fire, but it keeps going out. Something doesn’t want me burned. The Judge should really take extra vitamins for that bad cough of his. My name is Charlie; and I suppose that I admit to being a witch.

The Date

by: Miles Ahead

Lily was sitting in her seat in the classroom next to her best friend Mary. She felt like the teacher in the front of the classroom was a distant speck. Lily was dreamily focused on Brixton, who in her opinion was the kindest, most handsome boy in college. Then the bell rang letting school out.  

Lilly swore that Brixton looked at her as she got up. When she was almost out the door, Lily felt a tap on her shoulder and spun around to find Brixton in front of her. “Hi.” Lily managed. Then he said the magic words, He said, “I was wondering… If you wanted to go on a date to a restaurant at 6:00 tonight?” Trying to sound confident she said, “That would be amazing! I mean that would be amazing, or like whatever. 

The rest of the day was a blur. From 5:00 to 5:59 Lily was getting ready. She had a beautiful blue dress, a woven bracelet, and her hair was perfect. Then, Brixton knocked on the door. Lily ran to open it but her little brother was faster and opened the door. “Who are you?” Carter asked. Brixton replied with, “I’m Brixton.” “Why are you dressed fancy like my sister? Hey, I got it! You are my 18-year-old sister’s husband!”. Brixton replied, “No… but maybe someday.” Then Carter asked, “Okay then… what are you going to name the baby?” “Can you just get your sister?” Lily had been listening in the living room like a wild dog listening to its prey. Lily got up and said that her dad had been drinking a milkshake, which was a lie. Then, lily and Brixton went on their date, and when they got back, they shared a special moment that Lily would never forget. 

Siren Song

By Mona Lott

“Are you sure you won’t take me?” Joni asked her mom.

“Nah. You’ll have to take the bus.” 

Joni watched her mom put on lipstick and spray her hair, then Joni turned and walked toward the front door. She didn’t open the door right away but stood, looking out the glass. Heavy clouds promised rain. She put her hand into the pocket of her jacket and rubbed a piece of cotton between her fingers. She had carefully sewn the last piece of her childhood blanket into her pocket where no one would see. 

Over her shoulder was a bag with a single, heavy book in it.

It’s time, she thought. Joni knew she would need to hurry to catch the next bus, but she paused another moment before opening the door and going out.

*        *       *

Joni got off the bus in front of a dilapidated county building and paused on the sidewalk. She took the book out of the bag, exhaled slowly, and walked into the building. In the middle of the main room was a large, wooden desk. As Joni approached, a woman behind the desk looked up at her, eyebrows raised.

“You finally found it, huh?” She took the book from Joni.

“How much do I owe?”

“Six dollars and thirty-five cents.” Joni put the exact amount on the desk and turned around. She felt her cheeks flush as she walked toward the door. She would never get into this mess again. In fact, she would never check out a book from the library again. Then, almost to the front door, she saw something out of the corner of her eye sitting on a display shelf: “The Code Book: the secrets behind codebreaking”. Woah. “Adapted for young adults.” She turned toward the book. Well, . . . maybe just once more.

The Mission

by Amanda Lorien

 

The colony was dying, the queen desperate for food. 

 

I climbed up the side of the door, terrified, but determined to be the hero.  Peering through the holes in the screen into the Great Indoors, I spied our salvation – the crust of a peanut butter sandwich! 

 

My excitement quickly faded as I remembered the last disastrous mission to the Great Indoors. A small army of us had come early in the morning, before the heat was too oppressive and the sun too blinding. We hadn’t found much, but a few measly grains of rice were better than the starvation we were experiencing at home.

 

We transported the morsels quickly across the slick, cold ground, a long line of us in perfect formation, following the Commander’s orders to perfection.

 

And then, disaster. 

 

A long white tunnel hovered above us in the sky and an unnatural wind blew backward from the mouth of the tunnel. As the tunnel roared, most of our party was sucked into its black depths, crying in terror and pain, limbs and antennae twisting in unnatural ways. The rest of us were flung into chaos, dropping the precious food and scurrying to shadow. Even then, the machine found many of us in our hiding spots and whipped us upward to our deaths. I was one of the few to survive, though the last to return to the colony. 

 

As I now peered through the screen into the Great Indoors, I realized that I was shaking. In a surge, the terror of our last mission had returned: memories of the cries of my comrades flying to their deaths, the aches of old injuries never completely healed, the humiliation of returning to our queen defeated and empty handed.

 

I realized that I preferred starvation. I turned and climbed down.

Regulations Regarding Laser Systems

by May B.Dunn

It was a misty morning when Arthur woke from a deep sleep.  As he fell out of bed, he hit his head on the edge of his nightstand.

    “Fungal kicker!” he swore loudly as he bent down to retrieve the fallen trinkets that had been knocked down. 

“I wonder how this got here,” he said, looking at the small model airplane, the only thing left to remind him of his time in the Air Force. Then he looked outside his window at New Cella City.  The towering peaks and the skyscrapers’ glow looked magnificent in the morning.

   Just then his alarm clock went off, making him jump. “Ghaa!” he said in surprise. “Six already!  I need to get to my appointment.”

  On an ordinary day, Arthur would be going to the New Cella City Bureau of Dimensional Research.  As a scientist of great renown he got paid quite a lot. His latest project was working with his colleague John on a type of generator that runs on pure ghetalosachonium, a powerful and rare element. 

After  a quick breakfast Arthur got dressed and headed outside the doctor's office. The doctor he was seeing was on the fifth floor of a large medical building, the New Cella City Health Care Center. He made his way into the building through to the propulsion tubes and up to the 5th floor.  In the transition hallway, he stepped on a square glowing on the tile.  As he stood still, the square moved him across the room to the end terminal.  The vitals from the scan appeared in front of his head. 

“Room 5 7 B,” said a robotic voice.

The Night I Saved Prom

by: Justin Thyme 

Mary Ellen Stoddard was the most beautiful sophomore in high school—beautiful voice, a lead role in the school musical. I was just in the chorus, but I watched her closely at rehearsal—movie-star beautiful. 

My sister, perhaps not beautiful, was a senior, the best actor in the school, and everybody liked her, including me. She also had a lead, and she was secretly in love with Lars Christensen, the lead lead. He was cool: tall, thin. He could sing and dance and laugh. He took my sister and me home each night after rehearsal, and we sat in the car until late, talking. That is, they talked. I sat in the back seat mostly in awe. 

Mary Ellen was one of the untouchables. What made me think I could ask her to Prom? Besides, I couldn’t drive, and I didn’t have anyone to double with. 

So, I asked Mary Ellen to Prom, and I asked Lars if I could double with him and Karen Palmer. They all said yes. Perfect. We made reservations to eat at Brattens, 40 minutes away, after the dance. No one asked my sister to Prom. 

We had just gotten to the dance when Mary Ellen dropped a bomb: “My mother says I have to be home at 11:00.” Eleven! I had planned on 1:00. We wouldn’t get to Brattens before 11:30. Mary Ellen and I danced but we didn’t talk much. Prom ruined. At her door (10:45) I said, “I had a great time.” Right. 

I said to Lars at my house, “Wait here.” A few minutes later, my sister wearing a Prom dress and a smile slid into the backseat. Everything came alive. What a time we had. Lobster. Me and three seniors. Best Prom ever.