Friday, and the third tale of spook this week. All these are coming from published authors - so expect a good yarn and a true one at that!
Today's chill is provided by Shelly Arkon, author of Secondhand Shoes (I've linked it to Amazon - it's FREE today only. Go...go.. but come back again). I've put in a blurb at the end of the post, so you can calm down and recover after...the true spook story...
The House on
Mendocino Street
“Hey, I’ve scheduled us to go look at a house today. Just a
drive by,” my boyfriend at the time said. We met online and had been dating
only six months. He was a bit pushy about us buying a house and moving into
together despite me having five daughters.
Later that day we drove by it. The shrubs were overgrown and
the lawn appeared to be mostly sand. A pineapple palm grew right by the front
door. What was the previous owner
thinking? Huge cypress trees shaded the back. The house itself looked to be
in good condition. It was a typical concrete Florida house, painted yellow. And
it seemed to call to me.
The next day we met a real estate agent there so we could
tour the inside. A heaviness of sorts surrounded me when I first entered it. Shadows
passed over the walls and a spot in the dining room felt unusually cold, but I
dismissed it.
“Mommy, mommy,” my ten year old daughter said, running from
the back of the house. “Did you see the little boy and girl? They live here
with the old man.”
I ignored her, figuring her childlike imagination worked
overtime.
Three days into the house, the phone rang a lot. Every time
I picked it up, static filled my ear. With each passing day, the dining room
grew colder, and shadows continued to cast themselves against the wall. I
recall my teeth chattering and my nails turning blue in this room.
Every night at 3 AM I’d wake up to doors closing and feet
shuffling through the house. I’d get out of bed thinking the girls were goofing
around only to find them sound asleep. Next, the family room television would
flash on, and then off.
One day my ten year old asked, “Mommy, the old man that
lives here wants me to call him grandpa? Is it okay?”
Once again, I figured she had an imaginary friend. She
seemed to have had several since I could remember. But I was having vivid
dreams about an older gentleman with a beard.
Sometimes I would
feel someone brushing their hand against my cheek in my sleep. After it
happened several times, I came to the assumption that it wasn’t my boyfriend because
he would be dead asleep beside me.
While all of this was going on, my relationship with my boyfriend
deteriorated. He wasn’t one for working and bullied my children daily.
Four years later, one night at a family meeting, we all sat
around the dining room table. My boyfriend rose to his feet and slapped the
table top. It seemed to be his usual means of communication when it came to my
daughters. I don’t even remember what he was upset about, but I do remember all
the candles hanging on the wall to the right of the table flew towards him.
Each one pummeled him in the head.
In unison all the girls covered their mouths, gasped, and
then said, “Grandpa ghost doesn’t like you. He wants you to leave.”
Eventually, the boyfriend did.
It was nice to know that we had someone looking out for us
from the other side.
*****
Someone is definitely looking after Shelly's family and that must be reassuring to know.
or buy: here
The shoes didn’t fit. It was an omen.
Eighteen year old psychic-medium-germ-a-phobe Lila should
have listened to her ghostly Gram’s advice the morning of her wedding, “Take
off that dress and those shoes. And run.”
En route to the honeymoon, she decides to listen after too
many disagreements with her groom. It doesn’t pay to go along to make everyone
happy.
Still in her wedding dress and
shoes, she escapes out a diner’s bathroom window into the Florida woods despite
her fear of snakes and germs with her dead Gram’s direction.
So she begins a journey of finding her inner strength,
putting her on a deadly run from her psychotic groom and his deranged friends.
Will she ever get past her fear of germs and snakes? Will
she survive her honeymoon?
All about Shelly:
Shelly Arkon is the author of Secondhand Shoes
When Shelly isn’t doing the laundry, cleaning, cooking, chasing
grandkids, listening to daughter drama (five of them), or lopping heads of hair
at the salon, she’s writing beside her two fur-peeps, Sir Poops and Hair Ball, popping
an occasional chocolate while her hubby is flipping through TV channels.
She lives in New Port
Richey with her husband and two dogs. She’s also a member of Florida Writer’s
Association and Writer’s of Mass Distraction.
Visit Shelly at her blog
Thank you Shelly!
