Funk-N-Fiction

The second story on our second day of Halloween Flash Fiction comes from mystery author Gregory Ashe. Be sure to check out how you can win a bookish prize from Gregory after his story!!

Class V Haunted Mansion
by Gregory Ashe

Somewhere in the house, something screeched.

That didn’t sound good, I thought. But that was about all the attention I gave it. I had more important things to focus on. Like watching TV. Love Island Australia, specifically. In this episode, the girls were ranking the boys, and let me tell you, I had feelings. (It was research, okay? The shirtless guy with all the tattoos was a prison guard, and I’m a mystery writer, and the watchword of good fiction is verisimilitude.) There was something called “the hideaway,” and the hot prison guard (research!) was trying to decide who to take with him for an overnight stay. I was glued to the screen as I unwrapped the last of the pumpkin spice cupcakes that Indira had made. It was technically Keme’s, but there had been an emergency. (The emergency was that I was home alone and I was out of cake.) I was all set for a perfect night of junk food, junk TV, and absolutely zero socialization.

The screech came again. Louder.

I turned up the volume. But after a few seconds of watching the prison guard flirt with a girl in a bikini, I found my thoughts wandering. Had the sound been closer that time? Probably not. It was just a weird noise. There was a big storm coming in, with a lot of wind. This was an old house. There had to be some sort of logical explanation for it.

But then the screech came again, and it was definitely closer. And much, much louder. And right overhead.

One of the problems of owning a genuine Class V haunted mansion? (And I’m not talking about the ancient plumbing, or the secret passages, or even the abundance of taxidermy birds.) Sometimes—just sometimes—it actually does feel haunted.

Like, for real.

I mean, I know there’s no such thing as a haunted mansion. There’s no such thing as ghosts. I’m an adult (even if Keme doesn’t agree). I’m educated. I could safely be described as agnostic—my parents weren’t spiritual, and neither was I. I respected the fact that some people believed in the supernatural. I just wasn’t one of them. So, when I talked about my class V haunted mansion, it was a goof. All in good fun.

Until it wasn’t. Like, maybe you were home alone because your friends had abandoned you. Keme and Millie were at the movies, and Indira had gone out of town. Fox was at a gallery show. And Bobby was working, instead of here, protecting me.

Not here here. I mean, even if he were home, he wouldn’t be in bed with me. Because we were just friends. But in the house would be nice. Another warm body. Not that I was thinking about his body. Not that I hadn’t noticed his body. Not that it mattered or meant anything or made any difference, since we were just friends. Not that I was thinking anything about anything.

Maybe something was wrong with the boiler, because I was roasting under my blanket.

Something screeched overhead. And then there was a loud thump.

Hang on. Ghosts didn’t thump.

On the other hand, what if we were dealing with a poltergeist-type situation? Or that girl from The Ring? Or, uh, an evil leprechaun? That was a thing in the ’80s, I was pretty sure.

I heard my own train of thoughts.

This was ridiculous, I told myself. This was getting out of hand. Just because Millie was always talking about how the house was haunted, that didn’t mean anything. I was letting my imagination get the better of me (always a risk for a writer).

So, I did the sensible, responsible, adult thing: I called Bobby.

Bobby was a deputy. Bobby had a gun. If there was a poltergeist thumping around in the attic, Bobby could just shoot it—blammo. I wasn’t entirely clear on how a gun might work against a poltergeist, but it seemed like a good place to start.

When Bobby picked up, I said, “Ghosts aren’t real.”

A beat passed.

“Is that a statement,” he asked, “or a question?”

“Am I interrupting you? Are you in the middle of a shootout? Do you have a bad guy tied up and you’re about to zap a confession out of him with a car battery?”

Bobby wasn’t given to sighing. But you could still kind of hear him bracing himself. Then he asked, “Everything okay?”

“What are the odds—statistically speaking—of Hemlock House having a ghost in the attic?”

“Zero.”

“See, that’s what I thought, but—”

In the background, I heard Salk—one of Bobby’s fellow deputies—say, “You guys definitely have a ghost. That place is totally haunted.”

“I knew it!”

Bobby said something to Salk that sounded like “You’re not helping.” Then he spoke into the phone again. “What’s going on?”

I told him about the screeching. And about the thump.

“It’s either a poltergeist or a leprechaun,” I said. “The evil kind.”

“The evil kind,” Bobby repeated.

“Could be a gremlin,” Salk said.

“Oh my God,” I said. “It could be a gremlin.”

“It’s not—” Bobby began.

“Or what about those vampires?” Salk said. “The gay ones.”

“Could you go somewhere else, please?” Bobby said.

“I hadn’t thought about gay vampires,” I said. “They’d be twinks, right? I mean, that seems logical.”

The silence had the feeling of someone counting to ten.

“It’s probably a window,” Bobby said. “Squeaky hinges, you know? And it bangs when the wind slams it shut.”

It took me several seconds before I could manage “I mean, when you say it like that.”

“Do you want me to come check it out?”

“No, you’re working.”

“And you’re a concerned citizen. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“No, Bobby, it’s fine. You’re right: it’s a window. I’ll go shut it, and it’ll be fine.”

“If you’re worried—”

“Nope.” (Although, if I were being honest, I didn’t love the idea of immortal twinks. Give the rest of us a chance, you know?) “Sorry to bother you. I promise I’m totally okay and not at all crazy. Uh, pretend this never happened.” And then, because sometimes I am the absolute weirdest, I said, “Farewell,” in a Vincent Price voice and disconnected.

I don’t know why, so don’t ask me.

Instead of pondering why every interaction with Bobby brought out the absolute dorkiest side of me, I focused on the situation at hand. A window. In the attic. I mean, big deal—it was just an old, dark, poorly lit attic? What could go wrong?

That was probably the last thing those gay boys thought before they got turned into vampires.

I padded out of my room. I made my way to the narrow flight of stairs that led up to the attic. I crossed myself, said a prayer to Our Lady RuPaul, and started to climb.

As I did, all of Millie’s ghost stories flooded back to me. There was the Bird Man (he wasn’t a bird at all—he just loved pigeons), and there was Lord Livingstone in Chains (yep, he dragged chains around—very Jacob Marley), and Swingin’ Susan (she hanged herself), and Adolpha the She-Wolf (I honestly have no idea, I probably blocked it out), and there was—

But when I reached the door at the top of the stairs, my mind went blank. I had a moment of pure paralysis. It’s just a window, I told myself. It’s just a window. My hand started working again. I opened the door.

Screeeeeeeeeeech

I froze. My heart hammered in my chest. That noise—whatever it was—wasn’t a window. It wasn’t rusty hinges. I didn’t know what it was, but I thought the best policy would be to get back in bed, pull the blanket over my head, and wait for Bobby to get home.

And tell him what? I’d chickened out?

I took a breath. And then another one. And then I forced myself to start walking.

A single bare bulb illuminated the attic. It was a long, dark space crowded with old crates, and furniture under dustcloths, and chests and trunks and, I kid you not, an entire mirrored cabinet full of dolls. (If that doesn’t give you nightmares). The old boards creaked under my steps, and my reflection warped along the mirrored cabinet.

And then I saw it: an open window, just like Bobby had predicted. A gust of wind slammed it as I approached, and a loud bang ran through the house. Before it could open again, I set the latch. There, I thought. I even dusted off my hands. If I’d left it open, water could have gotten in. I was a responsible home owner. I was a problem-solver. I was brave—

At that moment, something SCREECHED behind me.

My heart exploded.

My hair stood on end.

I levitated into the air.

And then laughter erupted, and I realized that—somehow, against all odds—I hadn’t died from pure fright.

Behind me, Keme and Millie were leaning on each other, giggling so hard they looked like they were about to wet themselves.

“What is wrong with you?” I demanded.

“You deserved it,” Keme said, switching from giggles to a scowl in an instant. “You stole my cupcake.” To Millie, he added, “Did you see how scared he was?”

“In the first place, I only ate that cupcake because it was an emergency!” (I chose not to go into the exact nature of the emergency.) “And in the second place, I wasn’t scared because I know there’s no such thing as ghosts—”

Several things happened at once:

The storm broke open.

The power went out.

In the darkened attic, something glowed. And for a moment, I saw her hanging in the air: Swingin’ Susan.

If you’ve ever seen an episode of Scooby-Doo, you’ve got a good idea what Keme, Millie, and I did next. We grabbed on to each other and scampered.

When Bobby got home from his shift, we were all hiding in my bed. Under the blanket. With a sign on the door that said NO GHOSTS ALLOWED. We heard his progress through the house. He stood at my door for a while, probably deciding if he was going to risk it. Then he opened it.

We peeked out from under the blanket.

“Do I want to know?” he asked.

“We’re having a SLEEPOVER!” Millie told him. “We saw a ghost, only Dash says it wasn’t a ghost, it was just those creepy dolls, and Keme says if it wasn’t a ghost Dash should go up to the attic again, and Dash says he’ll go up to the attic tomorrow but he can’t tonight because of his vertigo.”

Bobby looked at me. Whatever he saw on my face made him smile. And then he said, “I’ll get my pillow.”

“Oh, uh, Bobby,” I said. “We do have a strict no ghosts policy, but in case we’re dealing with a poltergeist, gremlin, or evil leprechaun, could you bring your gun?”

Gregory has graciously offered to give away 3 copies of any title in his catalogue – ebook or audio – deliverable via BookFunnel.

To enter, just leave us a comment with a real (or definitely not real) spooky experience.

Contest starts today, and goes through midnight (Pacific US time) on November 3rd. Our winners will be chosen from all eligible entries on November 4th and notified, and then announced in our wrap-up post.

Good luck & Happy Reading!!