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.