Boo!! Scared ya! HAHAHAHA!!
It’s creeping ever closer to my favorite time of year. Halloween time. It’s almost time for ghouls and goblins, so as a pre-October treat, HAUNTED is out today! Read all about this fantastic anthology, featuring my short story, “I Spy.”
About the book:
Not all ghost stories are simple sightings and things going bump in the night. Not all ghosts are left behind because of simple unfinished business. No, sometimes that unfinished business is messy, complicated, and even deadly.
These are not your typical ghost stories—they are desire, love, and most importantly, revenge—all rolled into one. Revenge for a love stolen away, a love that never was, a retribution for a horrific act, or even an act of war.
Containing original stories and poetry by A.K. Alexander, Sara Dobie Bauer, Clint Collins, Harley Easton, Rhonda Parrish, Wendy Sparrow, Elesha Teskey, and ReLynn Vaughn.
I’ll give you a little teaser of my short story.
“I Spy” is about a happy young couple who wanna fix up an old seminary and make it a home for troubled kids. Well, there’s plenty of trouble when the vengeful ghost of a dead nun gets involved.
(Interestingly, “I Spy” is based on an actual place near my house called Madison Seminary that I’ve toured several times. Learn more about this haunted attraction HERE.)
Now, the tease …
“I Spy” (excerpt)
By Sara Dobie Bauer
“Look, I know we’re not supposed to talk about this, but …” I chew my fingernail. “The ghost stories.”
Tyler freezes, and I wish I could see his face. He can’t hide anything from me if I can see his face. “Tell me you haven’t been on Google. You promised.”
“I know, I … I haven’t been on Google, Tyler.”
He shimmies backwards out of the hole in the wall, and I snort.
“You have a million cobwebs in your hair, love. You look like a piece of that old furniture in the basement.”
He uses the back of his hand to push too-long locks from his forehead. “Bean, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“Right. Logically.” I bury my hands in my pockets. I don’t remember what it’s like to feel warm. “Look, logically, I know, ghosts aren’t real. It’s just, I’ve had some strange things happen, like my things goin’ missing, and sometimes I feel like I’m being watched.”
“Shit, can you actually feel when I’m checking out your ass?”
I clear my throat and glare.
He hops up to his feet, and I reach to dust off his hair, which takes me back to the first time we met when I helped clean vomit from his head.
Unlike Tyler, I come from a well-to-do family. For his job, Dad moved us from Ireland to Cleveland, Ohio, when I was sixteen, so maybe I did a bit of acting out, which ended with me having to do community service. Thanks to my underage drinking, the judge sent me to volunteer at a homeless shelter, which I thought would be just bloody awful.
Instead, I walked in to see this six-foot guy in hand-me-down clothes with the most beautiful face I’d ever seen, holding a bucket while some kid puked through withdrawal symptoms. The kid missed and ended up puking all over Tyler. I considered it my judge-appointed civic duty to assist the hot guy. That was seven years ago.
Now, I’m a business major at Cleveland State University, Tyler is an entrepreneur, and we often talk about adult things like marriage and kids—eventually.
He rubs his nose against mine. “Ghosts aren’t real.”
“But bad things happened here, right?”
He tilts his chin down. “Bad things happen everywhere.”
The scars on his body are proof of that—but that’s not what we’re discussing.
“People died here, though. Right? Like, in bad ways.”
He scratches his head, and I sneeze on released dust.
“Bless you,” he mutters.
“Tell me.”
He glances back at the hole in the wall, eyes puffy because he hasn’t been sleeping enough. “Let me just finish this. Why don’t you go downstairs, make some of your gross tea.” He only drinks coffee. “And we’ll talk. Just give me twenty.”
I hug my sweater-clad arms and nod. He kisses my forehead and crawls back into the hole in the wall, leaving me near him but alone in the long hallway on the fourth floor with tiles that look like eyes of a storm. Some of the tiles are rotted away, but the ones that remain are red and white and I swear they stare at me.
Wanna know what happens next? Duh, of course you do!
I hope you enjoy this haunting collection and that it gets you ready for the SPOOKIEST time of year!
Sara Dobie Bauer 