Here we are at October 31 – Halloween! It’s been quite a month! Thank you all for coming along for the ride this year! If you’re interested and still haven’t gotten your copy yet, the actual print book “31 Ghosts Volume 1: 2017-2019” is available at Amazon and other bookstores. I’m not going to make grandiose plans for the rest of the year like I seem to do at the end of October every year. But I will say the eBook and audiobook version of Volume 1 of 31 Ghosts will hopefully be done before your Thanksgiving leftovers! Fingers crossed. That’s all I’m going to commit to for now. Thanks again! This marks the sixth year of 31 Ghosts and I hope you enjoy these stories even half as much as I do! Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get some sleep!

“Andy, you have to help me with my costume for tonight!”

“Tyler, we’re ghosts. We don’t do costumes!”

Tyler gave him a frown. “Just because we’re ghosts doesn’t mean we can’t dress up! It’s Halloween! The one night we can walk among the living!”

“Why don’t you go as, I don’t know,” he looked at the translucent figure before him, “A ghost.”

Tyler looked at him sternly. “Andy, if you’re not going to take this seriously…”

“How can I take this seriously, Tyler? We’re ghosts! Where did this whole costume thing come from?”

“I was just thinking that the kids around the neighborhood looked so cute. I’m tired of watching Halloween from the window of this attic. I want to go out there,” he gestured towards the street. “And if I want to go out there I need a costume!”

“Zombie?” Andy suggested.

Tyler screwed up his face like he bit into a lemon. “Eww, no! No self-respecting ghost would go as a lowly zombie.”

“I’m sorry,” Andy said. “I had no idea you were prejudiced against zombies.”

“What about a cucumber?” Tyler said.

“Yeah, do that…” Andy agreed.

“I can’t believe you would suggest I go as a cucumber. That’s a terrible costume!”

“What? Then why did you… Ugh! This is ridiculous!”

“Not as ridiculous as a cucumber costume,” Tyler mumbled under his breath.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Andy said.

“Really?”

Later that night Andy and Tyler slipped out of the attic down the creaky stairs past the livings downstairs and outside. They started down the sidewalk just behind a group of kids dressed as various Marvel characters.

Tyler turned to Andy and admired his costume. “You know, Andy, I have to hand it to you, this is perfect.”

“It’s classic. And you can’t go wrong with a classic,” he said as they floated along under their white sheets with the eyes cut out to see.

Happy Birthday to me! Early in our relationship, Akilah took me to Chevy’s on my birthday and totally outed me to the waitress. I still have the sombrero on the wall by the kitchen. At this Chevy’s no one’s safe…

“So… yeah, that’s about it. Do you have any questions before I have you shadow Jessica on the floor?” Amy asked Lauren, the new waitress.

“I do have a question, but… it’s kind of weird,” her cheeks colored.

“Please, feel free to ask! The more you know…” Amy said cheerfully.

“Well,” Lauren started, “Is it true what they say about this place?”

“About Chevy’s?”

“No, about this Chevy’s,” she said conspiratorially.

“Oh!” Amy said with understanding. “Yeah, unfortunately, it’s true. Greg the dishwasher will totally try to hit on you,” she said quietly. “But he’s a decent guy – just tell him you like girls or you’re not interested and he’ll legit back off and not bother you again.”

“No, not that…” She looked around and asked with a voice barely above a whisper, “Is this place really… haunted?”

“Oh, that,” Amy said and took a deep breath. “So… yes. It is haunted.”

“Have you seen the ghost?”

“I don’t think anyone here has actually seen the ghost, but I think all of us are familiar with him.”

“Him?”

“You know,” Amy had an idea, “I think I’ll let you find out on the floor with Jessica.”

They met Jessica in the kitchen as she was grabbing plates for a customer. “Jessica, this is Lauren. She’s going to shadow you, okay?”

“Hi,” Jessica flashed Lauren a smile. “Sounds good. You’ve had waitressing experience?”

“Yeah,” Lauren said, “a couple years.”

“Great. Here,” she handed Lauren four plates. “You can help me drop for this 8-top. Best way to learn is by jumping right in.”

They set the plates down at the table, Jessica asked if they needed anything else and both women started back towards the kitchen.

Without warning, an icy shiver ran up Lauren’s back. The shock of the sensation momentarily took her breath away and she was grateful they’d set the plates down because she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have dropped them.

A voice so near her ear she could feel the wind from the speaker said, “Ray, third on the right, table 19”.

She instinctively looked towards where the voice came from but there was no one there. She shivered and composed herself and kept walking. Only then did she notice Jessica looking at her.

“Did you feel it?”

Lauren’s eyes widened. “Yeah, what was that?”

“And you heard him, right? Ray, third on the right? Table 19?”

“What…I don’t understand. Who was that? Who’s Ray?”

“We just dropped table 19,” Jessica explained. “Looks like Ray is the one in the baseball hat, red shirt,” she turned and pointed discreetly.”

“Okay, but… what was that voice? That chill?”

“That’s… the birthday ghost.”

“The what?”

“The birthday ghost. Everyone has theories on who he is, how he died, whatever. But the thing is he seems to scope out all the parties and then tells the server if someone has a birthday at their table.”

“That’s crazy!”

“I know.” Then Jessica added excitedly, “I’ve got a friend who’s psychic. She came in one night and said she made contact with the ghost. She said he told her he was with his family, and it was his little brother’s birthday, and he swore everyone to secrecy – no one could tell the waitress it was his birthday because he was terrified of getting the sombrero and the staff singing happy birthday to him. The brother was going to tell the waitress – as brothers will do, of course – but apparently had a freak aneurysm in the bathroom. Died like instantly.”

“Oh my god! When was this?” Lauren asked.

“No idea. My friend couldn’t get a date, and no one here knows anything about a kid dying in the bathroom. But my friend said the ghost haunts this place for the sole purpose of finding out whose birthday it is and letting us know.”

“That sounds like a terrible afterlife!” Lauren shook her head.

“Yeah, kind of does,” Jessica agreed. “But, I don’t know, at least the ghost has all you can eat chips and salsa!” she smiled. “Let’s get a sombrero for Ray at table 19.”

I had my first author reading today! I was super excited for the opportunity. The actual event was… a little underwhelming, but, again, it was a fantastic opportunity and I’m really grateful for it! And it ran late, which is great! Except Akilah and I still had to get something to eat, and I still had to get my steps in and write a story! Fortunately, this story literally came to me on my walk. It was me, Alli, and…

We started up the hill and Alli kept looking behind us. She usually only does that when there’s something back there – a dog, a person – that she wants to pay attention to. But there was no one behind us on the climb up cemetery hill…

Yes, at the top of the hill there’s a cemetery. But it’s still a bit off from the top of the hill – I’ve never actually been inside or close enough to see any graves. And we’ve done this hill hundreds of times now, and she never gets paranoid like this going up (there’s a spot on the other side of cemetery hill that I wrote about on October 1 that we try to avoid in the dark, but this wasn’t that side).

When we reached the top of cemetery hill and turned back on another road, I definitely started to hear things. A rustle in the bushes isn’t anything to write home about. But a rattle in consecutive bushes as you walk along… a little weird. It genuinely sounded like something was following us behind and to the side – where “to the side” would involve the impossible transit through bushes, fences, parked cars…

And then we hit the dark stretch. It’s about a quarter mile where there are no streetlights and the houses are spaced apart with very little lights outside. Alli was looking behind her still; so was I. At one point I stopped and turned my flashlight behind me, I was so certain there was someone or something back there. Cranking up the power of the flashlight beam, I scanned up the dark deserted street, into the bushes, into the trees. I almost hoped to see the mirror-like reflection of a pair of cat eyes in the bushes – at least a flesh-and-blood mountain lion would explain this feeling.

Nothing.

Alli looked at me and I looked at her. And then we booked it down the hill.

Back on the hill two ghosts emerged, one from the bushes, the other floated down from an overhead tree branch. They high-fived each other. “Man, this just gets so much easier when the veil between our world and the living is so thin!”

“It’s almost unfair,” the second ghost said. “We’ve been trying to scare that guy for months!”