The Other Side

By Tony Burton

There are many who believe that there is an “Other Side” aspect to the universe, a place or dimension where non-corporeal beings exist. Sometimes these beings are benign, and sometimes not. In this collection of short stories of the supernatural, Tony Burton explores the ideas of ghosts, demons, spiritualism, and voudoun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wolfmont
• Release date: Apr 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781603640176

Tony Burton

Tony Burton, born in the UK, first visited Mexico in 1977. He has an MA in Geography from Cambridge University and a teaching qualification from the University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a former Chief Examiner in Geography for the International Baccalaureate Organisation. He lived and worked full-time in Mexico (as a writer, educator and ecotourism specialist) for 18 years and continues to revisit Mexico regularly since relocating with his family to Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada. He edited the Lloyd Mexican Economic Report for 12 years and has written extensively on Mexico's history, economics, tourism, ecology and geography. His work has been published in numerous print and online magazines and journals in Mexico, Canada, the U.S., Ireland and elsewhere. He won ARETUR’s annual international travel-writing competition for articles about Mexico on three occasions. His books on Mexico include "Western Mexico: A Traveler’s Treasury" (2014), now in its fourth edition, "Lake Chapala Through the Ages, an Anthology of Travelers' Tales" (2008), and "Mexican Kaleidoscope: myths, mysteries and mystique" (2016). His cartography includes the best-selling "Lake Chapala Maps", first published in 1996. Tony is the co-author, with Dr. Richard Rhoda, of the landmark volume "Geo-Mexico, the Geography and Dynamics of Modern Mexico" (2010).

Book preview

The Other Side

A Collection of Short Supernatural Fiction

Tony Burton

Wolfmont Press

The Other Side

A Collection of Short Supernatural Fiction

Tony Burton

Wolfmont Press

Smashwords Edition

ISBN-13: 978-1-60364-017-6

Copyright ©2009 Wolfmont Press

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Cover created by Tony Burton

Cover copyright ©2009 Tony Burton

These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Introduction

There are many who believe that there is an Other Side aspect to the universe, a place or dimension where non-corporeal beings exist. Sometimes these beings are benign, and sometimes not. You may call them spirits, lost souls, angels, demons, ghosts… there are many names for these entities that most of us never see.

Sometimes these spirit beings are considered to be uninterested in the doings of the physical world, but others believe they have strong interests in influencing events here, for good or ill.

Belief in the Other Side is not confined to any particular religious group, ethnic group, or country. Some people who are not particularly spiritual in a general sense may grow uneasy when walking by a graveyard late at night, or become jittery at unexplained noises in a house that has long lain empty.

A recent Gallup poll found that over 75% of Americans believe in angels. And a Harris poll discovered that over 51% of Americans believe in ghosts, and over 68% of Americans believe in the Devil. Is it any wonder that, with these numbers, we are curious about what is on the Other Side?

Although we tend to think of the Middle Ages as the time when the Church’s belief in witchcraft, demons, and spirits flourished, those beliefs have not died away even in our modern society. But should they disappear, or are they worthy of retaining?

We read almost daily of new scientific findings. Science is not something that banishes belief in the unseen, but rather verifies and validates it. We know that dogs and other animals hear things that we humans cannot hear. We know that some animals see and sense in wavelengths that are invisible to us.

We are aware that, unseen to us, cosmic rays, microwaves, and transmitted reruns of Bewitched pass by us and through us. Because we cannot see them, does not mean they do not exist. We humans simply lack the ability to detect them without some external device.

Will someone invent, someday, a device that allows us to detect, hear or even see, other unseen things that exist around us? Will those strange devices the Ghostbusters carried around in their eponymous movie, truly someday exist, allowing us to detect psychic manifestations?

Remember, it was only in the Seventeenth Century that von Leeuwenhoek discovered the existence of microbes, the previously invisible causes of disease. It was only in the late Nineteenth Century that Roentgen discovered the existence of x-rays, invisible radiation that had been unknown and undetectable before his work. And invisible cosmic rays were not discovered until the early Twentieth Century.

Until we have something that reliably lets us see or hear the Other Side, we can only theorize. Faith, in spite of its value, is not proof, else it would not be faith. Of course, there are those who believe that some of us, a very few, actually have made contact. Psychics, spiritualist mediums, shamans, the unlucky victims of hauntings—some even say that animals have a sensitivity to other-worldly manifestations that we cannot understand. So, the next time your cat jumps up and seems to stare at something you cannot see or hear, maybe she isn’t just messing with your head after all.

Table of Contents

The Other Side

Caught

Family Plot

Bluetick

Evil Invitation

A Knife In the Devil’s Hand

As Clean As Death

Snow Angel

About the Author

The Other Side

Madame Elena closed her eyes as she took her client’s hand in her own. Ummmm... she intoned in a low-voiced moan. My dear, she said in her heavy accent, such pain in your life!

Her client, Louise Hanover, blinked back tears and drew in a breath that quivered. Oh, Madame Elena! You have such a gift! Louise leaned heavily on her cane and grimaced as she maneuvered into her seat.

As Louise eased down with a sigh, Madame Elena, born Helen Varga, smiled a humorless smile behind her client’s back. Elena’s true gift, if she had one, was a preternatural ability to mislead and bilk the desperate and gullible. A few discreet inquiries over the phone about her new client, coupled with the lines on the woman’s face... who wouldn’t know she had much pain?

Madame Elena glided behind her client, sliding her hand over the thin shoulders hunched under the faded cotton. Have you brought the papers I asked you about on the phone? Her accent was amplified from her immigrant mother’s Hungarian intonations, a parody of Eastern European thickness. Bela Lugosi would have been proud. Her years in the theater had taught her to imitate many voices, but her mother’s was the easiest.

Louise nodded vigorously as Elena passed around the table and settled herself into the red-silk upholstered chair. The medium touched a button on the edge of the table and soft organ music oozed from the corners of the room.

Yes, yes... I did, Louise said. She snapped open a handbag and brought out a neatly folded piece of paper. I I brought it along with this photocopy of the letter I got... the letter.... Her voice broke and she wept, the paper resting in the palm of her hand. Elena reached over and carefully removed the paper from Louise’s fingers.

She unfolded the letter, and her lips moved without a sound as she read the letter describing the circumstances surrounding the death of U.S. Army Corporal Mark Hanover. Madame Elena looked at the other sheet of paper, a copy of Corporal Hanover’s enlistment contract. It had much interesting and necessary information: Social Security number, birthdate, eye color, hair color, height and weight. Louise continued to sob softly into a handkerchief, but Elena smiled again behind the letter.

Sshhhh... do not worry, dear Louise. We will do our best to contact Mark, and convey your needs to him. The information you have given me here will help me to form a clearer mental picture of your grandson, and thus to contact him. Her knee pressed against a hidden switch on the table leg, and a soft blue glow came from the cluster of quartz crystals centered on the table. She folded the paper again and tucked it under her scarf, then reached out to take both of Louise’s hands in her own. The older woman’s hands were shaking and moist.

Elena’s head lolled forward and she began to breathe deeply, rasping air in and out of her lungs. The music grew slightly in volume, and acquired an echoing tone. Elena raised her head and stared across the table at a point over Louise’s left shoulder. Her lips trembled.

Louise gasped as Elena’s hands tightened on her own, and the medium’s body seemed