Ghosts are most intense immediately after death, expending their energy to compel the living to complete some task of theirs left unfinished.
But after a few years, energy exhausted, ghosts fade and are reduced to wisps or phantasms… and then just unusual regions of spooky feelings when people pass through their former haunts.
Professor Bolton says ghosts can replenish their spectral vitality with fear and life force energy drawn from the living, but there are also natural waves in the world that intensify with great disasters.
But digging up someone’s grave works too.
Pass me the shovel.
And step back.
Category: My stories
Closing and Opening
Once, when I was young and foolish, I heard slamming noises coming from a church.
I walked in to see the bizarre sight of a priest running around, closing doors and windows.
And whenever the priest closed a door, a window opened.
Then, when the priest closed a window, a door opened.
He kept at this for a while until he fell down to the floor, panting.
“Whenever God closes a door, he opens a window?” I asked the priest.
“Yes,” he said. “But does he pay the heating bill in Winter or the cooling bill in Summer? Hell no!”
Knob
I wake up, get in the shower, and turn the knob.
Nothing.
No water.
Then, I realize I’ve turned the middle knob. The shower-or-bath knob.
Oops.
I turn the one to its left and HOT HOT PAIN HOT!
I stumble out of the shower and look at the note on the sink GET THE TEMPERATURE RIGHT FIRST damn, I forgot.
I reach back in and get the temperature right before stepping back in.
Soap. Shampoo. Shave. Brush.
I stepped out before turning the water off…
And couldn’t breathe.
On my nightstand, another note:
DRINK SLEEPING ELIXIR ANTIDOTE.
Can’t… reach… bottle…
Itchy Trigger Finger
Stone Ridge needed a doctor, so I hopped on the first train out.
When I arrived, sheriff welcomed me, pointed out some sights, and warned me about Bobcat Murphy: “He’s got an itchy trigger finger.”
Oh. Good.
A client.
I grabbed my bag and headed to the Murphy Ranch.
Bobcat put a gun to my head and said “What do you want, stranger?”
“Doctor,” I said. “Doctor Roberts, and I have a cream for your itch.”
Bobcat sighed. “Great,” he said. He put down the gun and dropped his pants.
Curing his jock itch cured the itchy trigger finger, too.
Pitchman
The drill sergeant shouted that he wanted the floors so clean, he could eat off of them.
So, we invented a brush and solvent that cleaned the floors perfectly.
We came back two weeks later to clean the floors… and were promptly arrested by MPs.
We were charged with going AWOL.
“But we did what the sergeant told us to do,” I said. “R&D ain’t instant. Heck, that stuff can clean just about anything.”
We were dishonorably discharged from the Army, but made a fortune with the brushes and solvent.
Heck, the sergeant is our pitchman in the informercials now.
Puzzle
I woke up with the worst hangover in my life.
I popped two aspirin, made coffee, and sat down at my kitchen table.
There was a box there.
I opened it and dumped out a bunch of weirdly-shaped little bits.
A jigsaw puzzle?
Oh well. I’ve got time.
So, I tried my hardest, but damn, none of the pieces fit together.
After two hours, I used up all the pieces, but it looked nothing like the picture on the box.
That’s when I realized it was a Corn Flakes box, and I’d just tried to solve my breakfast cereal.
Shower Her Out
You washed her out of your hair and down the drain.
But she’s back.
And she’s wrapping herself around friend after friend, whispering in their ears.
Sweet nothings. Worth nothings.
Preying on their loneliness
and fear
and greed
and all the things in her that made you get out the wire brushes and the borax…
SCRUB SCRUB SCRUB!
Can’t they see the bullshit for themselves?
Can’t they hear the bullshit for themselves?
What the fuck is wrong with them?
No, it’s not you. It’s them. It’s all of them.
They’ll wake up.
They’ll figure her out.
They’ll see. Eventually. Eventually.
Stretching It
The day before a pirate raid, you can go down to the beach and watch the men doing their pre-raid warm-up exercises and stretching.
It’s very important to limber up before shivering any timbers, keel-hauling, or walking the plank.
Nobody wants to be in the middle of a raid and then suddenly get a sprain or a charley-horse, dropping their cutlass from a twisted wrist.
And then there’s the basics: port, starboard, bow, stern.
No landlubber mistakes here, mateys.
Is that a stuffed parrot?
Argh. Go requisition a real one.
Either straighten up, boy, or we’re all in deep poopdeck.
Antidepressors
My doctor’s a little weird.
Instead of using tongue depressors, he calls them tongue anti-depressors.
“Because nothing’s more sad than an unhappy tongue,” he says. “I want my patients to be happy, and that includes their tongues! A happy tongue doesn’t mind being held in the face of rumor, and it certainly doesn’t wag along, let alone get gotten by a cat!”
It took a minute to digest all that before I had the nerve to ask “So, what makes them anti-depressors instead of depressors?”
“I soak them in tequila,” he says.
Which explains the lime and salt, I suppose.
The Rock
I bought her a drink, and she told me to go crawl back under the rock I crawled out from under.
I told her that I crawled out from under that rock long ago, and I was much younger and smaller back then. I don’t think I can fit under it.
And to tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure the rock is still there. For all I know, there’s a Starbucks there now.
So, I smiled.
She tossed the drink in my face.
The bartender tapped me on the shoulder. “Three’s your limit, pal. Hand me your keys.”