A Paranormal Menagerie Too

By M.L. Steger

A Paranormal Menagerie Too, contains additional short stories for your enjoyment. The Migration stories are about ghouls. “Ghostly Hunting Party” came to me when I visited a museum in Lucerne, Switzerland. “Hypnosis Therapy for Weight Loss” is a humorist twist on dieting (parents be advised, there are some sexual situations in this one) “Homeowner’s Fees” is a warning for all you home owners out there.“Summer Break” is about a teacher on vacation. Enjoy!
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• Language: English
• Publisher: M.L. Steger
• Release date: Jan 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301914739

M.L. Steger

I was born in San Jose, California and have been writing my whole life. It started with poetry in elementary school, then in junior high and high school creative writing. I remember writing about my favorite eraser - sticking pins in it to give it arms and legs, and drawing a face on it, and calling it "Eraserman", the super hero of the writing world. My love for writing grew to include not only humor but ghost stories as well. I have always had a love for horror/ghost stories. I have particularly always loved short stories since I can usually finish them in one sitting. My favorite short stories are "The Papal Magician" by Greg Allen and "He Cometh and He Passeth by" by H.R. Wakefield. Though I do have many others. I enjoy the paranormal detective Carnacki created by William Hope Hodgson, and of course, anything by M.R. James is a big enjoyment for me. Though I do have episodes where I haven't written anything for months, I always come back to writing. Anything can give me an idea - strange looking vegetables at the grocery store. (They must be from another planet and are going to take over the world.) Or a phrase someone says. Maybe even a strange look someone makes. (Again, it may have something to do with vegetables.) I have worked in customer service, technical writing, word processing, and currently staff secretary.

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A Paranormal Menagerie Too

by M. L. Steger

2012 © copyright M.L. Steger

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Forward

Migration

Migration 2

Migration-Genesis

Ghostly Hunting Party

Hypnosis Therapy for Weight Loss or

A Dieter’s Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins

Homeowner’s Fees

Summer Break

Forward

Here’s a new group of short stories for your enjoyment. A few of them are heavy on the ghoul theme, I hope you don’t mind. Ghostly Hunting Party came to me when I visited a museum in Lucerne, Switzerland. Hypnosis Therapy for Weight Loss is a humorist twist on dieting (parents be advised, there are some sexual situations in this one) Homeowner’s Fees is a warning for all you home owners out there. Summer Break was originally supposed to be a haunted romance tale, but that fell by the wayside and instead became a story inspired by M.R. James Count Magnus. Some of these stories are a bit short on detail, but I find that oftentimes, a reader’s imagination is a better writer than any writing an author can do. Enjoy!

Migration

Because of my digestion, I find I sleep better when I take a walk after dinner. My walk around my neighborhood takes me to the edge of the foothills behind our small town. At night, when there is a full moon, the brown grass on the hills reflect in the moonlight, like waves of gray with the dark shrubs peppering the landscape.

Also along my walk is an old cemetery with many graves dating back to the 1800's when the area was first settled. I have only seen this cemetery outside the chain-link fence that surrounds it as the gate is always locked. Occasionally, I do see fresh flowers on the graves there, but I have never seen anyone in the cemetery. At least, not until recently.

I was on one of my walks as I passed by the cemetery and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something move.

Now, the cemetery contains many trees, and even on a moonlit night it is hard to see the area. There is only one streetlight outside the cemetery but it does not give enough light to see beyond the fence.

My imagination sometimes gets the better of me and I find myself quickening my pace past the graveyard, particularly at night. But the movement made me stop. As I looked closer, past the fence, I realized it was a tumbleweed that was moving in the breeze over the graves. It rolled just up to the fence, close to where I was standing.

I laughed at myself then started walking. The tumbleweed rolled along with me. Curiously, I stopped. So did the tumbleweed. At this time, I realized there was no breeze to account for its movement. I started walking again. The tumbleweed started rolling again as if following me. I stopped again. So did it.

At this point, I was still more curious than worried. I stepped forward a few steps. It rolled forward also, and stopped when I did.

I stood there for a moment contemplating it. As I stood there, I noticed it slowly moved closer to the fence.

I backed away. It started to roll up the chain-link fence. Just then a car with its headlights came zooming by and just for a moment, I thought I saw a partial face in the tumbleweed. I made my way quickly passed the cemetery while looking over my shoulder. The tumbleweed did not follow.

However, that night after taking off my sneakers, I found several nasty thorns were stuck to the bottom of my shoes-the four-sided thorn that is very painful if it gets stuck in your foot, and very hard to get off of your clothes. The kind of thorns that you find on tumbleweeds. In fact, it looked like I trailed a number of them into the house, as I picked them up out of the carpet.