Spectral Tales

  Spectral Tales

  A Ghost Story Anthology

  Jamie Campbell

  Sarah Dalton

  Susan Fodor

  Katie French

  M.A. George

  Sutton Shields

  Ariele Sieling

  H.S. Stone

  "Deathwatch" ? 2015 by Katie French

  "Tides" ? 2015 by Sarah Dalton

  "Shadowspirit" ? 2015 by M.A. George

  "The Little Girl" ? 2015 by Jamie Campbell

  "The Ghost Below" ? 2015 by Ariele Sieling

  "Slave Runner" ? 2015 by H.S. Stone

  "Farewell Ohana (A Ghostly Mini-Wave)" ? 2015 by Sutton Shields

  "Ghost Girl" ? 2015 by Susan Fodor

  Cover Design by Sarah Dalton

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Deathwatch by Katie French

  Tides by Sarah Dalton

  Shadowspirit by M.A. George

  The Little Girl by Jamie Campbell

  The Ghost Below by Ariele Sieling

  Slave Runner by H.S. Stone

  Farewell Ohana (A Ghostly Mini-Wave) by Sutton Shields

  Ghost Girl by Susan Fodor

  Deathwatch

  Katie French

  Charlotte looked down at the Snickers bar in her hand and up at the gun pointed at her chest. A sugar rush was not worth getting your guts blown out.

  Her sister Georgie was the trembling shape behind her. Charlotte tried to stay calm as the two masked robbers waved their weapons around the convenience store. It was hard to keep her head. The guns were so big, the men so angry. The robbers were young and white; she could tell that much. They had on matching black ski masks, jeans, and long black shirts, standard robbery uniforms. Except, one guy had on the new red Jordans.

  Bad move, hot shot. Haven't you seen CSI? They can track your shoes to the store you bought them from. They'll know shoe size, when you bought them, everything, Charlotte thought smugly.

  "Get down!" the closest robber yelled at her.

  All smugness fell away as Charlotte nodded and lowered herself to the floor. Sweat was collecting on her upper lip and her limbs trembled. Behind her, she heard Georgie drop to the dirty tile floor with a thump.

  "Now!" the robber shouted.

  Charlotte sunk to the floor. Tears were pooling in her eyes. This isn't real. It doesn't feel real.

  She'd just wanted candy, maybe a Monster Energy Drink and a walk in the first warm spring evening. Georgie had wanted to tag along, hoping an older guy might buy her a pack of smokes. Charlotte had spouted off something about, Sure, smokes for sexual favors. That snide comment had made Georgie clam up for the entire five-block trek.

  Now those might be the last words Charlotte would ever say to her older sister.

  Charlotte lay on the tile and tried to breathe. The floor was filthy. Hairs and specks of something orange clumped beneath her fingers. As the robbers demanded money from the clerk behind the counter, Charlotte focused on two things: not moving and thinking about how many disgusting germs she was currently touching by lying face-down on a gas station floor. When had it last been mopped, the Clinton era? If she could tell Georgie this, her sister would say something like, Why do you always think of the weirdest shit? Charlotte would shrug. Because she was weird. She read manga, knitted, and was a member of the school live action role play club. (L.A.R.P. if you're down with the lingo.) She was frickin' weird, okay? Georgie would roll her eyes and text someone.

  Tension was mounting at the counter. Charlotte watched as the clerk angrily drew bills out of the cash register and shoved them in a plastic bag. The clerk was in his fifties, but his arms were muscled, and his t-shirt hugged him snuggly. No paunch belly like most men his age. His hair was short and brown, his eyes brown, too. He had big ears and a small puckered mouth that gave his face an unfortunate shape. Was he new here? She'd come to this store many times in the past few years. She didn't think she'd ever seen him before.

  The clerk drew out another bill and shoved it in the sack. He was being painfully slow. Deliberately slow. His mouth was set in angry defiance.

  "Move your ass, grandpa!" the taller robber shouted through his mask. He smashed the butt of his gun down on the back of the clerk's head.

  Charlotte gasped. Behind her, Georgie started to cry.

  "Thought we said no violence!" the shorter robber yelled. He was jumpy, watching the road and pacing. He stared at the injured clerk, who was rubbing his skull furiously.

  "Shut up, T," the taller robber said. He turned to the clerk. "Get the money in the bag, or I'll use the other part of the gun."

  Charlotte knew she should be fearing for her life, but her brain loved to dig for clues. She had an addiction to mystery novels and spent way too much of her summer vacation watching reruns of Law and Order. Right now her mind turned away from "Oh shit, I'm going to die," to "There are some pieces of evidence I need to collect."

  First, she was pretty sure she knew the shorter robber, the nervous one pacing by the door. He sounded familiar. Like a boy who'd graduated a couple years ahead of her. His name was Trent, and he'd had pottery class with her freshman year.

  The second bit of evidence centered around the guns.

  Charlotte wasn't just a L.A.R.P. enthusiast. Much to her older, cooler sister's dismay, she went with friends to play Airsoft from time to time. They'd dress in camo, paint their faces, and drive to abandoned warehouses to shoot small, yellow pellets at each other, and then argue about who'd cheated. Airsoft weapons looked and felt like real guns, except for one minor detail-they had orange tips. This was to keep you from being shot down by police while you played. But sometimes people painted those tips black. And judging by the streaks of orange around these guns, that's exactly what these two had done.

  They're not real guns! she wanted to shout. But what if she was wrong?

  The clerk put the last of the money in the bag. The taller robber grabbed for it, but the clerk held the bag tight. The taller robber yanked the bag. The clerk held on. Charlotte watched the bag's plastic slowly split.

  "What the hell are you doing, old man?" He pointed the gun in the clerk's face. "I'll blast your ancient brains out!"

  The clerk gripped the bag harder. "Do it."

  Charlotte tensed. If the gun was fake, the clerk had just called the robber's bluff. If it was real?

  For a moment, the robber aimed at the clerk. They locked eyes.

  "Come on, B!" the shorter robber shouted. Charlotte was pretty sure it was Trent. "The cops'll be here any minute!"

  "You think this is funny?" the taller robber asked the clerk. "You'll think this is real funny, then."

  He stomped down the aisle toward Charlotte and Georgie. Charlotte hunched up small, but he strode past her and stood over Georgie.

  Oh God, not Georgie.

  Charlotte turned in time to see the robber grab Georgie by the hair. Georgie screamed and stumbled to her feet. Her hands went to her hair, curled in perfect brown ringlets until now. Tears streaked down her face. Her eyes were terrified.

  Charlotte watched helplessly as the robber shoved his gun into her sister's temple.

  "Please, please!" Georgie cried. Snot ran down her nose. Her trembling hands were up.

  Not Georgie.

  Charlotte had to do something. She rolled over and sat up, facing the robber. "Please," she said. "Don't hurt her."

  The taller robber glared. "Shut up! Both you bitches."

  Charlotte's mouth dropped. Oh no, he didn't.

&n
bsp; "Come on!" Trent shouted. He'd run to the door and looked like he was going to bolt.

  The taller robber backed toward the door with Georgie in tow.

  Charlotte thought she heard sirens in the distance.

  The guns were fake, right? She looked at the tip. Now she couldn't see any orange. Maybe she'd imagined it.

  The robber dragged Georgie to the door. He was going to take her with him. Charlotte couldn't let that happen.

  Charlotte forced her trembling legs to stand. "Let my sister go!"

  The robbers looked at her like she'd sprouted wings.

  The one holding Georgie by the hair pointed his gun at her. "Bitch, lay back down."

  He pushed open the door, dragging Georgie with him.

  Charlotte's mind ran all the scenarios of what would happen to her only sister. All were horrible.

  Terrified, Charlotte ran at the robber.

  She smacked into him, grabbing for his arms. Shocked by her sudden onslaught, he let go of Georgie's hair. Georgie ran screaming to the back of the store.

  Charlotte watched her, relieved.

  Then the robber backhanded her in the face.

  Heat and pressure surged up her cheek. Stars flashed before her eyes. She hit the ground hard.

  The world dimmed.

  ***

  Something was happening. Charlotte heard a commotion at the door. And sirens. Definitely sirens.

  She rolled over, trying to focus her eyes. Her cheek was throbbing, and she tasted blood.

  Commotion drew her attention. At the door, the clerk was fighting the robbers. He punched the shorter one in the face over and over. The taller one lay on the ground beside Charlotte. She scooted away and shook the dizziness from her head. She must be seeing things because the clerk had a dark halo buzzing around him. It looked like dozens of...bees circling him as he punched and punched the robber.

  The robber's name is Trent. He made a ceramic vase for his mother in pottery class.

  The buzzing grew louder. A dark cloud was blurring out the clerk's face. Charlotte felt like she was going to be sick.

  Pummeled and beaten, Trent slumped down the glass door, leaving a small streak of blood next to a faded Budweiser ad.

  He's finished, Charlotte thought with relief.

  The clerk drew out a Swiss Army Knife and flicked it open.

  What is he-

  The clerk stabbed Trent in the chest.

  Trent gasped, his eyes going wide behind his ski mask.

  Charlotte lurched back. The clerk had stabbed Trent. Trent who was clearly incapacitated. She watched in horror as the blood drenched Trent's shirt and began painting the floor. It ran down the grout lines toward her.

  She was going to pass out. Where was Georgie? Where were the cops? She couldn't hear the sirens over the buzzing. And why, in God's name, did he have so many bees around his head?

  The clerk wiped the knife on his sleeve and stood up. When he turned toward Charlotte, she screamed.

  His face, his eyes, his mouth were covered in huge, black beetles.

  Then she saw no more.

  ***

  Charlotte's mom ran across two lanes of traffic and clambered into the ambulance. Her short blonde hair was a mess and her eyes were red.

  "Oh my God, girls, are you okay?" She touched Charlotte's cheek with a trembling hand.

  Charlotte sat on one stretcher, Georgie on the other. The ambulance's interior lights were too bright. She just wanted to go home and? What? Take a shower? Scrub and scrub until she could slough this day away. But she could never scrub her mind.

  His face was covered in beetles.

  "Charlotte," her mom said, leaning in to look in her eyes. "Are you okay, sweetie? The police said you were attacked, but the E.M.T.s said you didn't have any severe injuries. Does anything hurt?"

  Charlotte shook her head.

  "What about me? I was attacked, too," Georgie whined. Somehow she'd already combed her hair and put on lip gloss.

  "I know, sweetie." Her mother moved to the other cot and began petting Georgie's hair.

  "Ma'am," the E.M.T. said from the ambulance's open back door. "I'm going to need to speak with you for a moment."

  Their mother nodded and climbed out of the ambulance.

  Charlotte turned to Georgie. Her older sister looked surprisingly unscathed. She tossed Charlotte her lip gloss. "Here. Put some on in case the camera crews come."

  Charlotte set the lip gloss in her lap. "When the clerk went after the two boys, where were you?"

  Georgie closed her pocket mirror and looked up. "Hiding in the back under the Doritos like you should've been. Thanks for saving me by the way," she said, leaning over and patting Charlotte's hand. "Guess I owe you for that. That dude was for sure going to rape me."

  "But did you see anything?" Charlotte asked, pressing her fingers to her eyes. "Did you see the clerk's face?"

  Georgie shook her head. "I was in the fetal position. You know, protecting this." She gestured to her face. "Thank God for the old guy, though, right? He's a frickin' hero."

  Charlotte followed Georgie's gaze across the street to the gas station. The clerk was outside, talking to the police.

  "Yeah," Charlotte said coldly. "A hero."

  ***

  When the news reported their story later that night, the reporter called the store clerk a hero as well.

  Charlotte watched from Georgie's bed, clutching a pillow to her chest. The eleven o'clock news started with their story, making Georgie squeal and then text seven people simultaneously.

  Charlotte turned up the volume.

  The blonde anchorwoman stared into the camera. "A convenience store escaped being robbed today, and locals are calling the store clerk a hero. We head over to Langdon's east side for more. Chuck?"

  They cut over to a young African American reporter in a blue windbreaker standing outside the convenience store.

  Georgie pointed. "There it is!"

  Charlotte shooed her hand away and leaned in closer.

  "Thanks, Joan. At about eight PM this gas station convenience store on the corner of Harper and Wayne was the scene of an armed robbery. Witnesses say two masked men carrying guns burst in and demanded the clerk hand over all the cash in the register."

  The report cut to Georgie standing outside the gas station. Her hair and lip gloss looked impeccable.

  "There I am!" she squealed, bouncing on her bed.

  "My sister and I were just, like, getting some snacks and in busted these two thugs. And we were like, 'Oh my God!' They started yelling, and one grabbed me and was going to rape me, but my sister attacked him."

  The TV cut back to the reporter. Georgie frowned at the screen. "That's all they're going to show?"

  The reporter in the blue windbreaker continued. "The two girls escaped with minor injuries because the store's clerk took matters in his own hands."

  The TV cut to a distant shot of the clerk talking to police. When he sensed the cameras on him, he stepped behind a pillar and was hidden from sight. A black shape flew after him.

  One of those horrible beetles. Charlotte pulled her pillow closer to her chest.

  "The man identified as fifty-two-year-old Darren Warzinski declined to comment, but witnesses say he confronted the armed gunmen and saved the girls' lives. The men were thought to be armed with high-powered rifles, but the police later revealed they'd been using replica weapons.

  "During the scuffle one of the young men was killed. His name, as well as the name of the other gunman, has yet to be released."

  His name was Trent. She couldn't stop picturing the image of the knife plunging into Trent's chest, of the blood. She closed her eyes and tried to think of anything else.

  The TV droned on, but she'd heard enough. She turned the volume down and lay back in bed. Across the room, Georgie was texting furiously. She had Twitter and Tumblr up on her computer. She was loving every minute of this.

&nb
sp; Charlotte just wanted it all to go away.

  She pulled out her laptop and Googled images for black beetles. After looking at pages and pages of gross insects with antennae and segmented legs (enough to make her skin crawl and her scalp itch), she finally spied what she'd seen on the man's face. It was called the deathwatch beetle. Wikipedia said it was, among other things, an "omen of impending death."

  "Great," she said.

  When Georgie answered her phone and started talking a mile a minute, Charlotte pushed off the bed and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

  She stripped down and turned on the shower. She lit one of Mom's smelly candles and turned off the lights. The candlelight and shower noise were soothing. She stepped in the spray and let it bathe her for a long time.

  When she was pruney, waterlogged, and a little more relaxed, Charlotte turned off the shower and stepped out. Reaching for a towel, she spotted an image in the dark mirror.

  She screamed.

  ***

 

  There, in the mirror, was an image made for nightmares. Charlotte's reflection was gone, replaced by a dead thing. A dead girl. Her white, sagging skin and sunken eyes stared out. Her lank hair clung to her scalp in chunks. Her shirt and jeans were crusted with dirt and beginning to decay.

  The girl was dead. And she was staring at Charlotte.

  Charlotte clung to the wall, afraid to move. She glanced at the door. Getting there would require her to move closer to the corpse in the mirror. Her legs wouldn't allow it.

  Would her family come? She heard nothing.

  She couldn't take her eyes off the dead girl. Her neck had a gaping wound, as if someone had slit her throat. Who would do such a thing? And why, dear God, was Charlotte seeing her?

  It's just a hallucination, Charlotte told herself as she tried to unlock her legs.

  The dead girl turned. Charlotte watched horrified as the girl puckered her chalky white lips and blew.

  The candle in Charlotte's bathroom went out.

  Charlotte sprinted to the door and yanked on the knob. Her heart was leaping out of her chest. The knob would not turn.

  Behind her, the mirror began to pulse with an eerie green glow.

  Charlotte pounded the door.

  "Help! Help! Mom! Dad! Georgie!"

  No one came.

  Slowly, Charlotte turned around, clutching the doorknob like a lifeline.

  The dead girl was the source of the glow. The pulsing swamp-green glow seemed to come from within her body like a firefly. Her eyes, white and filmy with decay, were fixed on Charlotte.