ghosts - Stories

Jason lives in the house he and Eric bought, talks to the dog, and tells his counselor the dreams. He doesn't tell about the cabinets that stand open on their own, or the whispers, or the footsteps that favor the left foot, the way Eric’s did. Pushed to the brink, Jason returns to the mountain where they once foraged for the Ghost of October, the mushroom that appears only when it chooses.

A note on this story: it is written in the dense, melancholy register of 19th-century Gothic fiction, and does not shy from grief, loneliness, or loss along its way to its ending.

For a hundred and fifty years, Jack has walked a county that has forgotten him, a farm boy who bartered his soul at a crossroads and paid twice over for it. Refused by Heaven, unclaimed by Hell, he has only a stolen coal to light his way, and windows he can watch but never touch.

Then he finds Julian's: nineteen, ill, certain no one would notice if he stopped waking. As October nears Halloween, the veil thins, and an old bargain comes due.

John, Hutch, and Putter are the kind of frat bros who use a girl in the middle so they don’t have to name what they’re doing together.

On Halloween there's no girl, but there is a campus legend every freshman has already dared: the grave of Midnight Malcolm, the sodomite witch hanged in 1693.

Call him three times and he comes back to claim what’s his.

On the edge of adulthood, Noah Jacobs carries the weight of two absences— a father who died before he took his first breath, and a mother who chose to leave. With high school behind him, he intends to spend the summer alone in the quiet refuge of his father’s old room. But life has other plans, and an unexpected arrival soon alters the course of his grief, his future, and his heart.

A musically based story where a young guitar player takes over for a deceased member of a popular group and is guided by his ghost.

Killian Kendall has seen his share of darkness — but nothing like this. When a routine case investigating a series of thefts from a Native American archaeological site unearths a trail of looting and lies, Killian finds himself pulled into a mystery that blurs the line between the living and the dead. A simple case of missing artifacts quickly escalates to violence and murder. Killian must navigate small-town suspicion, fragile alliances, and his own unraveling heart as whispers from beyond the veil grow harder to ignore. Some truths refuse to stay buried...and some connections transcend death itself.

This is a collaboration with Aero1107.

John asked if he could use my main characters from "A Ticklish Thriller" in his story, "My Ticklish Grandsons," and create a backstory for Mikey and his family. I was extremely flattered and eagerly accepted and was even more surprised when he asked if I'd work with him on developing his story. Then that started an idea for a stand alone sequel to Thriller using his characters The Giovanni Clan which became "The Ticklish Brotherhood."

Love doesn’t end. Its role changes.

Lonnie doesn’t stop loving Leo.
He stops trying to live inside that love.