Idiot

I'm not scared of ghosts,” Sue says.

“Me too,” I reply with a smile.

“But I’d like to become one,” she continues.

“Why?” I am amused.

“Because ghosts can travel anywhere, overhear people and uncover their secrets, know the past and the future.”

“Hmmm…I’m not sure about that." I laugh.

“How do you know? Isn’t that what planchette, ouija boards and seances are for? People call spirits, ghosts to question them.”

“Well….” I stop with a smile. Sue has always been an idiot. Her ghost is also an idiot. She still hasn't been able to figure out I killed her.

From Guest Contributor Sushma R Doshi

A Pushcart nominee, Sushma holds a PhD in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She likes to write and dream. She resides in India.

Always Everywhere

She's haunting him everywhere he goes.

She's reflected in the mirror when the lights go black. She's in the storm clouds chasing him through the day. She's the hum of the air conditioner cranked ten degrees too cold. She's the wetness soaking through his clothes in the rain.

He doesn't mind. Ghosts lose the power to terrify when you're addicted to the jump scare. She promised him she'd never leave and if nothing else, knowing that she's true to her vow is enough for him to hold on to.

He never would have imagined himself living in a romantic fantasy.

The Dead Are Ghosts

Every time Marvin rode the subway, he thought of Sarah. It got to the point he wondered if she was haunting him. For more than a decade they'd ridden the train together every morning, her to the high school where she taught, him to the warehouse that he managed. When he closed his eyes, he felt Sarah sitting next to him. Sometimes she'd even lay her head on his shoulder like she used to. He didn't want to look for fear of what he would see.

The dead ARE ghosts, but not in the world around us. They live inside.

Ghastly Ghosts

When I took the cashier job, it wasn’t explained to me that I’d be working with the supernatural. I didn’t abhor spirits, but those ghastly ghosts were frustrating. When I’d enter an amount in the computer, it deleted, and the customers would get angry at the slow checkout. So, I had another chat with the boss, and he told me he dealt with it, and if I couldn’t, then I should quit.

The next day, a sign on the door read: “STORE CLOSED DUE TO PESTS.” When I looked through the window, boxes of ant traps danced in the aisles.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Fallen Fruit

The peach tree in the yard was surrounded by fallen fruit, all of it shockingly well preserved, as if each one had been individually painted there. The house itself was in worse shape, with pealing paint, overgrown ivy, and several cracked window panes. No one lived there anymore but ghosts.

Sarah took in the scene from her car. She'd been nervous all morning, not knowing what to expect, but now that they were here, she felt nothing. She was simply numb.

"Let's go." Henry drove away. Sarah stared at the old neighborhood and wondered why people take pleasure from nostalgia.

Spooky Girlfriend

My friends don't like my girlfriend. They say all the same stereotypical bullshit, mostly revolving around how she's crazy and I'm crazy to be dating her. I think they're just intimidated by an older woman.

I should say they are ex-friends, because I rarely see them anymore. I spend most of the time at my girlfriend's house. Who wouldn't want to? She lives in the old mansion at the top of the hill. The same house we used to say was haunted when we were kids.

It's not really haunted. You just have to get used to all the ghosts.

Ghosts

In front of the circus truck came a moving van and two old clunkers. People were finally moving into the house at the end of the cul-de-sac, which we’d all suspected was haunted. The circus truck double parked beside the moving van and out poured our old friends, the bearded lady and fortune teller, clutching his crystal ball, two sweet loveable clowns who rolled out smiling, somersaulting around the cul-de-sac. Soon our kids were busy taming the lions while the elephants practiced their counting and we gossiped about the new neighbors until one of them floated by and said hello.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Ghosts

There's a refraction of light that occurs in the brightest sun, causing apparitions to appear. The superstitious call them ghosts.

People rarely fear these daytime ghosts. For most, hauntings happen after dark, when even the slightest sound or flicker at the edge of their vision can set their hearts and imaginations racing.

Philip knows better. His ghosts are worst at high noon. The more there is to look at, the less you're able to see. And so the ghosts of all those enemy soldiers he killed in the War attend him daily, and he can only drink himself to oblivion.

Hamlet

Hamlet wanders the halls of the castle, a man who isn’t sure what to do, what he believes. Ghosts, are they real? Should he tell his mother what he knows, or is it what he thinks? Was she in on it? She had to be, or not, the possibilities all dangerous, like plague in winter, like bad advice, like poison. Why is he wandering around the castle like it’s act two? It’s so dreary cold and kind of dark, isn’t it? Who to trust, who to tell, what to remember? Oh yes, to never a borrower nor a lender be.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Gaslighting After Dark

As the new employee at the haunted mansion, I quickly realized that my job is to communicate with the ghosts rather than clean up after them. Neither appeal to me very much.

To tell you the truth, I don't believe in ghosts. That's one of the first questions Ralph asked during my interview, and I straight up told him I wasn't the kind of person who had fanciful notions about such things. He said that was just fine. It works better when you don't believe.

It turns out that the undead are just as susceptible to gaslighting as the living.