Ghostly Encounters

By M. L. Ray

Callie and Jasper are best friends, and lead actors in Ghostly Encounters, the most successful site-specific theatre troupe in the world.

 

Callie is in love with Henry, the CEO, while Jasper prefers one-night stands with ensemble cast members. Until Trinity, the newest cast member begins to win his heart, from the bottom of a vodka bottle.

 

When paranormal activities start to rise in the venue, it`s up to Callie to figure out what the cause is. But she can`t dedicate all her time to the ghosts and the show when most of her energy is spent attempting to woo Henry`s heart.

 

As the two best friends start to lose focus, accidents occur in the theater. The audience is frightened to their cores every night, and the press is wild for them.

 

When the accidents start to occur closer to Jasper, Callie realizes what might be stirring the spirits back to life, and it is deadly.

 

With so much on her plate, her own heart threatens to break.

 

Will she be able to save Jasper from his fate?

 

Or will their Ghostly Encounters turn into more than just a theatrical show?

• Language: English
• Publisher: M L Ray Publication House
• Release date: Mar 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393086390

M. L. Ray

M. L. Ray is an author of contemporary and paranormal romance. She has been a lover of reading and writing stories since a young age.

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M. L. Ray

Ghostly Encounters

Copyright 2021 M. L. Ray

© 2021 M. L. Ray Publication House

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Chapter 1

I took my corset off after the show and there were bruises on my hips. Legitimate bruises. So, either I stop letting Lyle lace it up or I start eating more red meat, Callie grinned as she recounted last night to Jasper, who was only half listening to her.  Anyone else would have been insulted, but for two people who spent every spare waking moment together, it was impossible to listen to everything. Jasper simply grinned at her, leaning against the table and sipping his takeout cup of tea. It was dreadful, to say the least, but it did the job. And in America, a decent cup of tea like he had back home was a foreign concept.

Lyle used to work at a historical fort. He's a corset expert.

He's trying to kill me, Callie grinned, shoving Jasper over to lean against the table as well. She didn't seem too put out by it, and so he turned his attention to the rest of the cast, slowly streaming in.  He was tired, having done the late show last night, but he was happy.

Maybe he wants to make you a real ghost, Jasper teased her. She raised an eyebrow and he shrugged. As opposed to all the fake ghosts that we have here.

Right, Callie replied.

Jasper was one of the three male leads for Ghostly Encounters, the most successful site-specific theater company in the world. Site specific theater productions were an emerging art, producing shows in the actual locations rather than faking locations on a stage. The audiences, kept small, followed the actors from room to room, watching as they re-enacted characters from the venue's past. Ghostly Encounters tended to focus on haunted historical locations. Their headquarters, here in the city, produced the biggest, most complicated shows. There were several other branches, producing smaller shows. But when working for Ghostly Encounters, the main goal was to work out the Century Insane Asylum, in the heart of downtown. Every corner, every doorway, and every room were haunted, to the point where even cast members had quit over the strange happenings. Those who stayed either had hearts of steel or weren't bothered by the fact that ghosts were very real.  Jasper had not really believed in ghosts when he started working here, and even now, he questioned the things that came up. He was leaning towards the fact that they were real, but he was still the most skeptical of the cast, looking for an excuse to debunk things at every opportunity.

Callie had been the youngest performer ever cast, a tiny fifteen-year-old who could play even younger, a creepy child in the asylum. Now, at 21, but still tiny, she was the female lead in headquarters.  The three different shows that ran out of the asylum had several parts, and the large cast was chosen partly because many of them could play interchangeable parts, so long as they knew the script. Each show, appealing to tourists, but also to locals looking for a new way to experience the city, only needed a handful of performers. It was a business model that gave actors the flexibility that they needed, working as much or as little as they wanted, and always having several options to call if they could not come in that night. 

It had been Callie, on a tour of another city, who spotted Jasper three years before, in a community theater production and managed to get him to audition for Ghostly Encounters. The pair had been inseparable ever since, best friends off stage and often lovers on stage.  Callie's whole platonic heart belonged to Jasper, but their romantic hearts lay elsewhere. Jasper was famous for sleeping around, where Callie had always had her sight set on Henry, the company's owner. It was scandalous, seeing as Henry was thirty years her senior, divorced, with children her own age and only Jasper knew just how long they had been seeing each other.  But he liked Henry, a British transplant like himself, and he knew Callie loved him unconditionally.  They had both recently been promoted to Council members, along with Lyle, and the ever-present Adam, the oldest still performing member of the company. As Council members, they got their pick of roles, as well as managed the daily operations and small problems within the headquarters. They helped planned the shows for next season, and had hiring and firing votes, second only to Henry. Council membership came because of seniority and talent, and the four of them combined made up the powerful hive mind of Ghostly Encounters.

Adam swept into the room, shaking them from their thoughts, with a smile on his face, and a ton of paperwork in his hand. Tall and broad shouldered, just over forty, Adam often played the older roles, the fathers, and the disgruntled gentleman, leaving the heart throbs to Jasper and Lyle. Adam’s own history with the company went even farther back than Callie’s did, having been there from the beginning. He had always wanted to be a performer, but he also had a mind for business, and handled a lot of corporate issues for them.

Ouch, Henry killed a tree, Callie grinned as Adam placed the paperwork on the table beside her and rapidly started sorting through it. 

He's your old man, Callie, Adam replied. You could try to persuade him to go digital. Especially for the new hire handbooks.

Callie grinned, mostly to herself.

I'm trying to persuade him to do other things, she said slyly, and Jasper nearly dumped his tea on her. He considered himself a gentleman, never kissing and telling. He would tell Callie who he slept with, but the gory details remained untold. Callie, however, exclusively belonging to Henry, always found ways to tell Jasper about their exploits. They had not actually slept together yet, but she loved to annoy him with the details of all the things they had done. It was not so much that he minded Henry being with Callie as the fact that he didn't particularly want to picture either of them naked. Callie was his theatrical soul mate, and she was gorgeous, but he wanted nothing to do with her body when they were not acting. Small and thin, she wasn't his type at all. But Callie was his stage wife, regardless, and so long as he had her at his side and his slew of one-night stands, Jasper didn't see any need to be in a real relationship.

Jesus, Jasper rolled his eyes at her. Adam snorted, shaking his head.

Don't be such a prude, Jasper.

I'm not a prude, he replied. I just don't want to picture it.

Picturing it is nice, Callie smirked and Jasper left the two of them at the table. He wasn't particularly known for his friendly attitude, although those who he considered close were treated well. Jasper was uptight, grumpy on the best of days, but also a fantastic actor, who could bring any historical character to life with no inaccuracies. His attitude was a trade-off for his talent. Deep down, he was aware that he wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, and it made him love Callie even more for putting up with him. In his whole life, she was the only person who hadn’t scolded him for his attitude, and fully accepted him for who he was. Without her, he was sure he would have been fired by now, for some reason or another. Politeness, customer service, just didn’t come easy to him like it did to the rest of them. Perhaps it was because he had grown up in a different culture, where people were known to be more dignified and slightly less personable. But more likely, it was simply because he didn’t care. He could get away with a lack of customer service so long as he continued to perform as well as he did, and he knew it. 

Lyle was sitting at the desk in the front of the room, alternating between spinning in his chair and making sure the video would play smooth. This annual meeting served two-fold between updating the current company and introducing the newly cast members, so everything had to run smoothly and preferably before Henry made his appearance. At 18, Lyle was the youngest member in the company's fifty-year history to ever make Council. Cast at 16, his flexibility and personality, as well as talent had him soar to the