I have started a new series. I will be releasing ghost stories every full moon on Amazon through the Kindle Vella platform. These will be available for free until the series is complete and I, God willing, plan to release a collection on Halloween 2025.
First Episode: "A Sort of Homecoming: Facing the Thing That Should Not Be."
Published September 17th, 2024 Corn Moon/Harvest Moon
SUMMARY:
A man returns to his grandparents' house to find his wife and
grandmother there with the news of a troubled spirit that is
disturbing the house. From closet door to creaky floor to the
basement, the man begins a hunt to face-down this terrorizing
threat.
If a home isn’t shudder-proofed or insulated against the trembling drafts from an icy dread’s numbing touch, something unnamed or unwanted will find its way in.
Dark and shapeless. Old and faceless. Fed on forgotten hurts. Nurtured by crippling nightmares. Made from limbs out of joint and words taken out of place.
It will stalk a home. Biding its time on the property line. Awaiting breath-like eons to gain entrance.
It will gain egress. Hitched in the backseat of a car. Dogging someone’s heels with its head down and eyes glowering. Perched on the shoulders like a bird-familiar. Nooked in the crook of an elbow. Wedged in the tread of someone’s shoe.
Carried like a burdensome load over the threshold. Stuck between receipts of the day’s worries. A more than sufficient evil to worry the day.
One way or another, this thing will find its way into a home.
It will bore its way through the siding.
It will wedge its way between gaps in the stone foundation.
It will crawl under the frayed weather stripping of the front door.
It will seep through the emaciated window seal.
Once inside, this unnamed thing will soak into the floorboards. Slip along the wiring in the walls. Trickle through the rusty pipes.
It will take up residence in the basement. Roost in the attic. Gather in the dust along the floorboards. Hunker down in peripheral corners. Squat in the half-finished root cellar.
And the worst place this thing could inhabit—its final place of refuge—its strong tower and veritable stronghold—creased inside the folds of my brain.
I found my way back to my grandparents’ home.
It hadn’t changed in appearance. It was forever the same.
But something was waiting for me.
Waiting for me to come home.