Ghosts Among Us: Stories from Pulphouse Fiction Magazine: Pulphouse Books

By Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert J. McCarter and 8 more

Everyone loves a good ghost story. Somehow the creepiest, scariest ghost stories always feature sadness at their core.

From a story about a woman who must face her ghosts on Christmas Eve night, to a ghost detective stuck in his own cemetery helping other ghosts move on by solving their own murders, to a ghost who writes letters to the living—these ghosts seem more alive than dead. Their sagas just continue into another realm.

So, steel your courage and delve into these ten stories from the other side of the veil.

Includes:

"Death by Vodka" by Robert J. McCarter

"Dead Girlfriend" by Ray Vukcevich

"The Writing on the Wall" by Kevin J. Anderson

"The Dead on Somerset Hill" by Chuck Heintzelman

"Dreams of Memories Never Lived" by Rob Vagle

"Flowers for Mother" by J. Steven York

"Ghosts of Christmas Present" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

"The Developmental Adventures of Phil" by Jason A. Adams

"Salt" by T. Thorn Coyle

"Just Desserts" by R.W. Wallace

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Oct 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201840105

Dean Wesley Smith

Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres. At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, and a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang. His monthly magazine, Smith’s Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month. During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown. Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series. For more information about Dean’s books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com and sign up for his newsletter.

Book preview

Ghosts Among Us

Ghosts Among Us

Stories from Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

Edited by

Dean Wesley Smith

WMG Publishing, Inc.

Contents

Introduction

Death by Vodka

Robert J. McCarter

Dead Girlfriend

Ray Vukcevich

The Writing On The Wall

Kevin J. Anderson

The Dead on Somerset Hill

Chuck Heintzelman

Dreams Of Memories Never Lived

Rob Vagle

Flowers for Mother

J. Steven York

Ghosts of Christmas Present

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Developmental Adventures of Phil

Jason A. Adams

Salt

T. thorn Coyle

Just Desserts

R.W. Wallace

About the Editor

Introduction

Ghosts are a really, really fun topic. As a writer, I have entire novels starring ghosts and three different series as well. As an editor, I love great ghost stories and look for them all the time.

The only problem is that they are very, very difficult to do as Pulphouse stories. Not at all sure why.

And it seems the same writers write and sell me a lot of ghost stories. R.W. Wallace has an entire ghost detective series of stories I am publishing.

Robert J. McCarter sells me a ghost story or two at times.

And I tend to buy ghost stories from Rob Vagle as well.

The problem? I can only use one story from each of them in this anthology.

So I looked out ahead in the coming issues of Pulphouse and found a number of stories that would fit, but they were all original stories and I want the authors to have the first publication of their story in the magazine, not in an anthology.

Besides, these are all supposed to be reprint stories, so I didn’t want to break my own rule.

So I finally decided to publish a Kristine Kathryn Rusch story that will be in Issue #15. Her story is a reprint and is wonderful.

For a time I even thought of publishing one of my own stories, since I write a lot of Pulphouse stories. It was going to be the origin story of Marble Grant. A Pulphouse story if I have ever seen one. But thankfully I remembered a wonderful J. Steven York story with a ghost and that saved me.

Not saying I won’t publish one of my own stories at some point, but not right now.

So even though I love ghost stories and publish a lot of them, I had some issues finding ten stories by ten different authors for this anthology. But in the end I found enough and I think they are all great.

And I think you will as well.

---

—Dean Wesley Smith

Las Vegas, Nevada

Death by Vodka

Robert J. McCarter

Robert J. McCarter gives us a stunningly original and wonderful story of a ghost dealing with his addiction. Robert has invented a world where ghosts can write letters to the living. Amazing concept, even more amazing results.

To: Abigale Durand

From: Harold Durand via Afterlife Communications Incorporated

Date: 4/23/2013

Hey honey. It’s Hal. I’m dead. But, you know that.

I found my way to that ghost typewriter thing we’ve been reading about. SECI chamber is just a stupid name, I know it stands for something that no one can remember, so they should get clever with it, like ghost-writer or ghost-mail or some such thing. I stood in line with a bunch of other ghosts for eight days until I got my turn at it. It’s got instructions and all, but it’s like typing in ultra-slow motion while concentrating hard, and as much as I’d like to entertain you with my stream of consciousness rantings, I best keep it quick.

Here goes:

I’m sorry.

Yeah. That’s probably too quick. Let me try again:

You deserve better than me and, hey, now you get your shot.

Okay, that’s too flip.

Maybe I should just come back to that, warm up a little. Bear with me, I’m not at all good at being dead yet. No one is at first. And dying wasn’t awful. I mean it hurt, like hell, my system didn’t have enough vodka in it to dull the pain of running my car into a telephone pole and being burned to death. Likely not enough vodka in the world for that, though.

I remember the smells: oil, burning plastic, smoke. I could taste blood and was groggy. I couldn’t see straight—and not just from the booze. I heard shouts and the crackling of fire, a siren in the distance. I pushed the airbag out of the way and coughed; the smoke was getting bad. And then…

Shit. I’m not going to tell you that. You don’t want to hear how your suddenly-off-the-wagon, drunk-ass husband died blow by blow, how he couldn’t get out of the car, couldn’t get away from the flames, couldn’t…

Yeah. Sorry. It’s a vivid memory, my most vivid memory at this time. JJ tells me it will eventually fade, that I’ll be able remember the good times if I keep working through this.

So, JJ, yeah. He’s a ghost. He was there at the point the pain became unbearable and then was suddenly gone. He walked right into the flames, extended his hand and said, I got you, buddy. Come on, it’s okay.

Yeah. That guy, JJ Lynch, the one writing those crazy ghost memoirs, welcomed me to the afterlife. I feel rather special—that is, when I’m not feeling like a stupid ass for my death by vodka.

And that’s the thing I should probably talk about—me diving off the wagon headlong into the afterlife. It’s probably what you’re wondering about. And I know it can’t make up for me being gone, but maybe talking about this will help both of us.

But that’s the thing. I don’t want to talk about it.

JJ assures me this is the way to go. He’s an experienced ghost, his form crisp and clean, barely transparent, and he walks and doesn’t fly. He even stood in line with me for a day waiting for the SECI chamber until he got called away to deal with something more important than me.

You, see, shame will do you in on this side, just like it does for the living.

I’ve seen the ghosts in the bardo, like we read about in JJ’s book, and it’s…bad. They moan and are amorphous and fairly transparent, trapped in the endless hell of their regret and shame. Yeah, I don’t want to end up like that so here I am, writing about my shame and regret so I don’t have to live an eternity of it.

So let’s talk about that vodka bottle. It was Smirnoff, not even good vodka, but thank god it wasn’t one of those gross flavored ones. But I’m avoiding this again.

Hello, my name is Hal and I’m an alcoholic. Right? We all know that. I just got my two-year pin last month. I even went to a meeting before work. Which was fine, but it felt like I was just going through the motions, another zombie in the basement of a church handing it all over to a higher power. It’s felt like that most days lately. I put on my tie, I go to the office, I talk clients, draft wills, create trusts, and use the same basket of tricks to help the well-off deal with their estates.

I mean, sure, there is some variety, and I’m not defending horrible people that did terrible things, but… hell, you know this too. You’ve heard me complain about it for fifteen years now since I moved over to Estate Planning. Feeds the body, not the soul.

All I’ve got now is a soul. No one needs a lawyer over on this side. I’ve got to figure out how to feed this soul. JJ say this, writing to you, is the way.

I wish I could tell you something really dramatic happened that day. Like I got a call and learned that my best friend had died or Stella dropped dead while making reminder calls for next week’s appointments. But it wasn’t like that. It was the usual. Two initial consults, three signing meetings, and working with Stella the rest of the time getting papers drawn up. All standard. Except for one thing.

I got a call from a freaked-out young man in Colorado saying that his aunt and uncle had just died and that he was the executor on the will and I had drawn the papers up.

Standard as can be. I help people prepare for death. They die. I help the survivors deal with the mess left behind. And if I did my job and my clients did what I told them to, it’s not that bad of a mess.

The kid, his name was Alex, told me their names. It was that nice couple with no kids I told you about a few months ago. They were in their late fifties, in great health, had worked hard, done well with their investments, and were so pleasant. It was clear that they were in love. They wanted to make sure their estate went to their nieces and nephews and a few causes they cared about. I was surprised to hear they both died, but I did my job, walked him through what he needed to do, offered my services if he needed more help. Alex was a mess when we started talking, but had it under control by the end of the call. Before we hung up, I asked him, If you don’t mind my asking, how did they die?

And I’m prepared for any answer here. This is idle curiosity. And yes, I did have that spreadsheet of mine where I track ages, causes of death, and analyze the numbers of how my clients die. Weird, yes. I am well aware of your distaste for my little hobby. But it’s something that makes this strange job bearable. Excuse me…It’s something that made it bearable.

Anyway, I had the spreadsheet up on my computer, thinking it’s going to be a doozy, because they both died at the same time. Like a plane crash, car crash, or fire. Something quick and unavoidable.

You know what Alex said? He said, They stepped out in front of a train holding hands. His voice was eerily flat; I am sure he was in shock, and then I was too.

So, I said, I’m sorry for your loss. Got off the phone and stood staring out the window at downtown Tucson just blinking, my mind running in circles.

And that’s when it hit me. The need to drink. It was like when I broke my arm a few years back and the itches under that cast were driving me nuts. I would shove anything down there to try to relieve the itch. But you know this about my addiction.

I paced back and forth, shouted at Stella when she intercommed for my next appointment. This couple, they were sweet and smart and clearly in love. Why? Why would they do it?

I picked up the phone and called Alex back, tried to keep my voice calm and asked him if he knew why.

He was silent for the longest damn time and I was ready to pull my remaining hair out. My uncle, Alex said, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer five months ago.

I froze, staring out the window towards the Santa Catalina Mountains from my fancy high-rise office.

I have to go, Mr. Durand, he said.

I mumbled something and then he hung up.

I did the math. They came to me right after his diagnosis. Which helped explain why they were so easy to work with.