When Ghosts Dream

By M.R. Adams

Claudius Merloche’s heaven isn’t paradise. Living in a dreamland with his family, Claudius dares to doubt eternal peace. He finds the shadows creeping in. A loved one is lost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9780692221068

M.R. Adams

M.R. ADAMS writes in the supernatural and science fiction traditions. He received a B.A. in English from Georgetown University and an M.F.A. in English/Writing from Mills College. (www.MRAdams.info) New Release Email Alert: http://bit.ly/1lH368S

Book preview

II

1

Claudius Merloche had taken up counting. In death, the days were eternally sunny, and there was no sleep. On occasion, a breeze would waft over him and his family, refreshing and rejuvenating them.

He only had two events to mark the time. With his young children, Ben and Stephanie, in their laps, Clara would read. Claudius tried to listen, but he could never grasp the words, instead flinging off into a tangent of thoughtful inquiry or a daydream. He always had the impression she read in English, and that he understood the words, but the more he tried to organize them into something understandable, to arrange them grammatically, the deeper in distraction he would delve. And when he wasn’t doing this, he sat by his wife on the red and white checkered blanket, looking over the grassy plain, watching his children play various games before a vast lake that stretched to a mountain, a rainbow above.

The mountain was new, but Claudius did not remember when it appeared. He wasn’t even sure the lake was technically a lake, perhaps a sea. He never saw boundaries enclosing the liquid body. He had asked Clara once. She laughed at him, and they sat. They just sat, reading and watching the children.

There was a cluster of trees behind them. He remembered, because the spotting had hid him when he first arrived in this peaceful heaven. However, when he looked back for the first time in his new afterlife, the gathering of trees were now a forest. He would leave his wife, taking a walk, each time noticing something new. On his second adventure, there was a trail; on the third, many trails. The forest grew deeper, the trails more varied, and the trees taller, blotting out the sun until only hazy beams of light reached the forest ground. He took one last journey, marking his path with small rocks. The air, dead in its coolness, used to be refreshingly crisp. The shadows seemed lurking. The trees’ thick roots were tangled into beastly cages. Claudius returned to his wife, abandoning the forest and never looking back again. He had to find peace where he was. He counted to pass and track segments of time. Two hundred and thirty-seven was his record. From time to time, he could not resist peeking back at the forest, and each time he noticed it was a bit closer, a bit darker. His back turned, he feared what might creep up on them, but his reason triumphed. The forest had no life of its own,