Unexpected Hauntings

By Annie Reed

Ghost and apparitions and things that go bump in the night, oh my!

The stories in these pages take traditional ghost stories and turn them on their ear. From a ghost who's haunted by an apparition of his own to a teenage entrepreneur who unwittingly opens her home to all manner of ghostly pets to an unexpected holiday reunion, award-winning writer Annie Reed has crafted unique tales that will touch your heart—as well as send shivers up your spine.

 

"Annie Reed writes powerful stories about strong women." –Dean Wesley Smith, editor of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

 

"One of the best writers I've come across in years. Annie excels at whatever genre of fiction she chooses to write."  —Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award-winning editor and writer of The Retrieval Artist series

 

"The appearance of a new Annie Reed story is a treat. Try one and you'll be hooked." –David H. Hendrickson, award-winning author of "Death in the Serengeti"

 

"Annie's writing is magic, seriously." –Robert J. McCarter, author of A Ghost's Memoir series

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thunder Valley Ink
• Release date: Jun 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201855468

Annie Reed

Award-winning author and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch calls Annie Reed “one of the best writers I’ve come across in years.”Annie’s won recognition for her stellar writing across multiple genres. Her story “The Color of Guilt” originally published in Fiction River: Hidden in Crime, was selected as one of The Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016. Her story “One Sun, No Waiting” was one of the first science fiction stories honored with a literary fellowship award by the Nevada Arts Foundation, and her novel PRETTY LITTLE HORSES was among the finalists in the Best First Private Eye Novel sponsored by St. Martin’s Press and the Private Eye Writers of America.A frequent contributor to the Fiction River anthologies and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Annie’s recent work includes the superhero origin novel FASTER, the near-future science fiction short novel IN DREAMS, and UNBROKEN FAMILIAR, a gritty urban fantasy mystery short novel. Annie’s also one of the founding members of the innovative Uncollected Anthology, a quarterly series of themed urban fantasy stories written by some of the best writers working today.Annie’s mystery novels include the Abby Maxon private investigator novels PRETTY LITTLE HORSES and PAPER BULLETS, the Jill Jordan mystery A DEATH IN CUMBERLAND, and the suspense novel SHADOW LIFE, written under the name Kris Sparks, as well as numerous other projects she can’t wait to get to. For more information about Annie, including news about upcoming bundles and publications, go to www.annie-reed.com.

Book preview

Ghost and apparitions and things that go bump in the night, oh my!

The stories in these pages take traditional ghost stories and turn them on their ear. From a ghost who’s haunted by an apparition of his own to a teenage entrepreneur who unwittingly opens her home to all manner of ghostly pets to an unexpected holiday reunion, award-winning writer Annie Reed has crafted unique tales that will touch your heart—as well as send shivers up your spine.

One of the best writers I’ve come across in years.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Annie Reed writes powerful stories about strong women.

Dean Wesley Smith, editor of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

Introduction

The Four Thirty-Five

The Last Night at the Crowley

Blame it on the Ghosts

Night Dancer

The Outlaw of Ghost City

Dancing Across the Canyon

Copyright Information

About the Author

Introduction

I think cats can see ghosts. Don’t believe me? Ever have a cat stare intently over your shoulder at absolutely nothing? Or at least nothing you can see? Yeah, my cats have done that. It can be freaky as all get out when that happens in the middle of the night and I’m all alone in the living room reading a favorite Stephen King novel, like It or Doctor Sleep or Duma Key. At other times I just wonder if my cats are seeing spirits of cats gone by who check in with us from time to time to see how we’re doing.

I know quite a few people who’ve had encounters with something that might or might not be a ghost. I’ve had a couple myself. When something like that happens, you can either write it off to an overactive imagination or accept that this world contains more things than we can usually experience with our five senses.

When I think of ghost stories, what first comes to mind are scary stories. Tales that get told around a campfire at night by a person holding a flashlight beneath their chin. Gotta have mood lighting to tell a really scary ghost story.

But what about other kinds of ghosts? Not necessarily the scary kind, the ones who want to wreak vengeance on the living, or the Scooby-Doo kind, who turn out to be people wearing disguises. What about ghosts who interact with the living for an entirely different reason?

Unexpected ghosts.

Those are the stories you’ll find in this collection. Will there be scares along the way? Of course. These are ghost stories, after all. But for the most part, the ghosts in these pages have a different purpose in mind.

This volume of my Unexpected series was initially slotted for October to coincide with Halloween, but when my publisher and I took a second look at the stories in these pages, we realized these hauntings weren’t your typical Halloween-type hauntings. So we bumped up this collection to the beginning of summer. You can read these stories while you’re at the beach. Or when you’re relaxing by a pool with your favorite beverage.

Or if you’re brave enough, when you’re alone at night in the living room with only your ghost-seeing cat for company.

—Annie Reed

June, 2021

The Four Thirty-Five

At first Chet thought the kid belonged to one of the tourist families down by the lake.

The mountain lake stretched clean and cold and crystal blue for miles beneath a cloudless Idaho sky. Chet couldn’t remember the name of the lake, if he’d ever known it in the first place. Hell, some days he couldn’t even remember what state he was in. His memory had been going for years, like little pieces of himself blowing away on the chill north wind that set the pines and cedars to whispering among themselves come nightfall.

Something about the lake had called to him the first time he’d seen it from the open doorway of the boxcar that brought him here. Rough mountains all around, and train tracks that circled the edge of all that clear blue water. After the wind died down at night and the mountains got quiet, he would swear he could hear the sweet mournful sound of a train whistle from the other side of the lake, but no night trains ever came his way.

The only train he saw anymore was the Four Thirty-Five, six days out of seven, regular as clockwork.

Chet had found a nice place to call his own near the base of the old stone bridge where the tracks crossed over a feeder stream. The trees grew tall near his place, and the undergrowth was thick enough to hide a man if he was the hiding kind.

The lake was less than a half mile from the stone bridge away as the crow flies, he reckoned, but he never went down the steep hill to the lake shore. He didn’t even go down to the water’s edge late at night after the tourists took their cars and motorcycles and went home.

He could have gone if he wanted to, he told himself. Gone right on down to the shallows where the tourists let their kids swim and plunged his hand in deep just to feel the bone-cold chill of the water, but the idea of doing that just didn’t feel right. His place up by the tracks—now, that was home, and he liked it just fine. He could watch the Four Thirty-Five go by and make up stories about where the train had been and where it were going, and imagine catching a ride in one of the empty boxcars like the ones he’d traveled the country in before he’d settled down.

Every once in a while one of the tourist kids would take to wandering and head up the narrow trail that ran by his place.

Chet always stayed in the deep shadows whenever the kids came around, keeping quiet behind the undergrowth or beneath the bridge. He watched them—he always watched them, couldn’t help himself—but they never knew he was there.

He thought sometimes how nice it would be if he could swap stories with some of the older ones. The tourist kids who’d been places, like he’d been places when he used to ride the rails, but even the older kids wouldn’t want to talk to someone like him. The few times he’d gathered up his nerve—it had been a long time since he’d had a conversation with anybody—the kids had gotten bored and wandered away before Chet could take a single step out in the open.

This kid, now he was different.

Chet couldn’t peg his age—six or seven, or maybe a small-boned eight. Tow-headed, far too thin for his shirt and jeans, his shoes scuffed and dusty, the kid stood at the far end of the trail at the spot where the narrow footpath branched off from the access road to the lake.

The kid stood there, arms hanging straight at his sides, not fidgeting, just staring straight up the trail like he could see Chet even though Chet knew that was damn near impossible.

He faded farther back into the shadows, but still the kid kept staring at him.

Time passed, and the kid didn’t wander away. Cars drove by slowly behind him, but the kid stuck to his spot. No one came to get him. No one seemed to miss him.

This was damn peculiar.

Chet rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and tried to think what he should do. He’d heard stories when he’d been riding the rails about how city folk treated people like him when they got scared, and people always got scared when they thought someone might hurt their kids.

He didn’t want to be rousted from