Grin Grim

By Mara Reboi

Do ghosts in your house need therapy? Is there something dusty and disturbing about how many people desert your workplace without a goodbye? Maybe you own some antiques wishing to never know where all the small scratches came from? Perhaps you enjoy making fast friends in the strangest of times, or you love being invited to weddings that seem just too perfect?

 

In that case, pick up this nifty collection and take a plunge into the small worlds of comedic horror to catch up on the creative creeps. These are the short stories that quench any thirst for a happy grin...until things turn GRIM.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mara Reboi
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201282684

Book preview

This book is once again dedicated to my biggest supporter - and love of my life. They made this happen the first time, and helped to make sure I didn’t miss the second one either.

And thank YOU, who picked up my book.

I hope you enjoy it.

Great Bones

––––––––

Eliza White sighed when she saw her youngest son’s newest purchase. It was a house built in Gods’ knows when, and by the look of it, it had been abandoned ever since. It even looked like mice would not inhabit it, if they had a lick of sense in them. There was not even a whisper of white paint on the wooden walls, the roof was probably leaking from everywhere it mattered, and it was BIG. And in big houses, there were always even bigger problems to fix. Apparently, her son Elias had decided to blow life into it with some paint, holy spirit, and buttloads of money. He even intended to live in it with his wife, future children, and yes, his mother Eliza.

She stared at the building behind her thick glasses that made her look more like a grandma than she actually was. She really did not even have grandkids from any of her four children, yet, but she already had the posture, weight, and clothes that signed her up straight to elderly class. She did not mind the discount though. For being only 55 years old, she also had mastered the creaky walk and displeased facial expression of someone who has only eaten lemons for a decade. She gave that sour look at the house when she slowly got out  of her son's car.

Elias had driven her there to see The Project! and she had promised to check the place up since she was going to live there, with the unfortunate couple, too.

You’ll have your own wing, momma! It’ll be amazing! Elias had said smiling so widely that the mother bear inside Eliza had woken and forced the rational, practical, and smart, side of her to give up and smile back in defeat. Yes, she was going to move there, into the most haunted house in the whole state. It was going to be a hoot.

Eliza was not amused.

Well, what do you think? Elias asked when he slammed the driver side car door closed. Beautiful isn’t it? It will be gorgeous when the crew is done with it! It should not take very long, just a few months since apparently the whole house is untouched by mice, rats, and even bugs! Can you imagine? he beamed and looked at his mother, who knew exactly why her hair had started turning from chestnut brown to grey as steel at a young age. She kept her witty answers inside her and felt a few more hairs turn snow white at the back of her head. Tickle in her neck reckoned that before the house would be in livable condition, she would look like Marie Antoinette in her later years.

It looks... Old, she said, trying to find anything nice to say about the building that had only one unshattered window out of a hundred.

Well, old ones are the best. So much history, potential, and character! He flailed his arms in the air like a victorious lunatic and failed to see how his mother hid her face in her hands to take a deep breath to collect herself. After having a second of shuffling her want of slapping the young idiot across his face and suffocating it with pictures of that young moron being a helpless little baby on her arms just a couple decades ago, she turned off her own survival instinct and gave a gentle pat to Elias’s back.

Well, I will take a look at it and tell you what I think. You know how things have to be just right for me to accept them. Maybe you could wait here and play the annoyed birds-game while I do my rounds.

It’s ‘Angry Birds’... Are you going to do the notepad thing again?

"Yes, yes... I never go anywhere this old without it."

Yes, momma. I’ll wait here. Just holler if you need me.

Yes, yes... she said, already wandering on the porch and opening the huge front door that made an ominous creak.

The front entrance was grand with those stairs that called you to put on a flowy evening gown and slowly slope your way down them like the queen of the world. Eliza was not impressed by them, nor did she feel like putting something as uncomfortable on as a dress, as she wiped some freshly fallen dust off her glasses and put them back on.

Well. Where are you all at? I don’t have all day to wait for you to show up! she said to the dust-filled air and stepped deeper in. The floorboards creaked as she walked and peeked into rooms and corridors.

The front door slammed closed just on cue.

Typical, she said, unfazed by the loud noise. Bit of a cliché, if you ask me.

She found her way to a dining room that still had some tables standing, some still having tablecloths on them, and chairs waiting to be sat on. There was a piano on the corner.

Well if you won’t show yourselves, I guess a lady needs to entertain herself! she said loudly and steered herself to the piano. It was out of tune, as expected, paint chipped away, and some keys were missing. She sat in front of it and started playing a horrible tune straight from a horror movie. The song sounded like a hundred tortured spirits being bashed against the keys and then told to scream at the greatest volume they could muster. That was before she started to sing.

OLD MC DONALD HAD A HOUSE IIAAAII IIIAAIIII OUUUUUUU! IF YOU WON’T COME OUT RIGHT NOW, I WILL GET TO YOOOOOUUUU!

Before she could start the next part, the whole room sprung to life. Ghostly figures appeared around the still standing tables, startled and holding ghostly playing cards, frozen to stare at this woman who had just given them the ultimate threat of more singing. Some had protected the ears of their ghostly children, and others had run out of the room leaving only some ectoplasm footprints behind.

"Oh please,