"You could have fallen in love with him," Margaret said. "I wouldn't have minded too much."
"I know. But every time I kissed him, I would have thought of you. And he wouldn't have."
"Yeah." The moon shone into Margaret, making her hair radiant. She was beautiful, both inside and outside. "Well, when you're dead, warm lips are gross anyway."
They shared a laugh, and even though the wind howled around them, Ellen was warm. She might not know what losing love was like, but she knew what having it was like.
"You'd better get home," Margaret said. "Your mom's going to kill you."
"Naw. She's not going to kill me. I'm going to live a long time."
The cemetery was silent except for the brittle rattling of bone-dry leaves. After a moment, Margaret said, "Live for both of us, okay?"
Ellen reached out, held the wispy hand of her best friend. "I promise," she whispered.
Ellen left Margaret to her dark sleep and headed for the gate, street, and home. Tomorrow Doug would be telling half the school that she was nuts, but she didn't care. Doug could go stuff himself, as far as she was concerned. She could hardly wait to get home and tear his picture into shreds.
There was one more thing. She paused at the gate. "See you tomorrow, Margaret," she called across the empty graveyard.
A peaceful hush was her only answer.
THE END
###
About the author:
I have written 12 novels, including
The Red Church, Speed Dating with the Dead, Disintegration,
and
The Skull Ring
.
Other electronic works include
Burial to Follow
and the story collections
Ashes, The First, Murdermouth,
and
Gateway Drug.
I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where I write for a newspaper, play guitar, raise an organic garden, and work as a freelance fiction editor.
Come to the Haunted Computer, become a Spooky Microchip, and help me build my next book. You’ll also find writing tips, free fiction, and survival tips.
Talk to meat[email protected]"hauntedcomputer" on
,
Twitter
, or
hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com
. If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends and give another Nicholson title a try. If you hated it, why not try another one anyway? What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, and what
does
kill you is probably lurking in my next book. Read on for more.
Try these other thrillers because they are good:
OCTOBER GIRLS
By Scott Nicholson (writing as L.C. Glazebrook)
Five days until Halloween and all hell is about to break loose.
And it’s all Crystal’s fault.
Momma warned her not to consort with the dead and tried to teach her the magic spells that would close the portal to the afterlife. But Crystal doesn’t want to be a trailer-trash witch like Momma. She has dreams of going to community college and escaping the Appalachian town of Parson’s Ford.
Her best friend Bone is only too happy to escape the afterlife and help Crystal break the rules. Bone died too young, and she’ll do whatever it takes to remain among the living.
Then a teen movie maker comes to Parson’s Ford, and he has a very special project in mind: a horror movie starring a real ghost. The kids who watch his movies turn into brainwashed zombies. And to totally complicate matters, Crystal thinks he’s kind of a hunk, and she’s afraid her boyfriend Pettigrew only loves her because of Momma’s magic spells.
Now it’s Halloween, the night when the portal to the afterlife is widest, and somebody’s been messing with Momma’s potions. The fate of the world is in Crystal’s hands, but she hasn’t been paying attention to her lessons. And a mysterious figure in the afterlife is urging Bone to stay loyal to her own kind instead of to Crystal.
The movie is rolling, the creatures are stirring, and the brainwashed teenagers are ready to welcome a new star from the other side of the grave.
Crystal and Bone must overcome drama queens, coffin cuties, and mangled magic if they want to remain best friends forever—but at this rate, forever may not last much longer.
Learn more about the paranormal romance series
October Girls
or buy it for
Kindle at Amazon
CURSED!
By J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson
Albert Shipway is an ordinary guy, an insurance negotiator who likes booze and women and never having to say he’s sorry.
And he thinks this is just another day, another lunch, another order of kung pao chicken. Little does he know that he’s about to meet a little old lady who knows his greatest fear. A little old lady who knows what’s hiding in his heart. A little old lady who dishes up a big stew of supernatural revenge, with ingredients as follows: First you take one psychotic ex from a family of serial killers. Next add a pinch or two of an irrational childhood fear. Now thoroughly mix in an angry sister, a life-stealing great-granddad, and a notorious mass murderer—who happens to be dead but doesn’t know it. Let it stew and froth and bubble thoroughly....
In just a matter of minutes, Albert’s life turns upside down and he enters a world where magic and evil lurk beneath the fabric of Southern California. And all his choices have brewed a perfect storm of broken hearts, broken promises, shattered families, and a couple of tiny problems. Namely, killer mice and a baby.
Albert Shipway is finally getting a chance to right some wrongs.
That is, if it's not too late.
Learn more about the urban fantasy
Cursed!
or buy it for Kindle
at Amazon
THE RED CHURCH
Book I in the Sheriff Littlefield Series
By Scott Nicholson
Stoker Award finalist and alternate selection of the Mystery Guild
For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won't stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.
Sheriff Frank Littlefield hates the red church for a different reason. His little brother died in a freak accident at the church twenty years ago, and now Frank is starting to see his brother's ghost. And the ghost keeps demanding, "Free me." People are dying in Whispering Pines, and the murders coincide with McFall's return.
The Days, the Littlefields, and the McFalls are descendants of the original families that settled the rural Appalachian community. Those old families share a secret of betrayal and guilt, and McFall wants his congregation to prove its faith. Because he believes he is the Second Son of God, and that the cleansing of sin must be done in blood.
"Sacrifice is the currency of God," McFall preaches, and unless Frank and Ronnie stop him, everybody pays.
Learn more about the
real haunted church
that inspired The Red Church or buy it for
Kindle at Amazon
DRUMMER BOY
Book II in the Sheriff Littlefield Series
By Scott Nicholson
On an Appalachian Mountain ridge, three boys hear the rattling of a snare drum deep inside a cave known as "The Jangling Hole," and the wind carries a whispered name.
It's the eve of a Civil War re-enactment, and the town of Titusville is preparing to host a staged battle. The weekend warriors aren’t aware they will soon be fighting an elusive army. A troop of Civil War deserters, trapped in the Hole by a long-ago avalanche, is rising from a long slumber, and the war is far from over.
And one misfit kid is all that stands between the town and the cold mouth of hell…
Learn more about
Drummer Boy
and the Appalachian legend that inspired the novel and
buy it at Amazon
DISINTEGRATION
By Scott Nicholson
Careful what you wish for.
When a mysterious fire destroys his home and kills his young daughter, Jacob Wells is pulled into a downward spiral that draws him ever closer to the past he thought was dead and buried.
Now his twin brother Joshua is back in town, seeking to settle old scores and claim his half of the Wells birthright. Jacob’s wife Renee is struggling with her own guilt, because the couple had lost an infant daughter several years before.
As Jacob and Joshua return to the twisted roles they adopted at the hands of cruel, demanding parents, they wage a war of pride, wealth, and passion. They share the poisonous love of a woman who would gladly ruin them both: Carlita, a provocative and manipulative Hispanic whose immigrant family helped build the Wells fortune.
Joshua wants other things, too, but Jacob’s desires are divided between the forbidden love he can’t possess, the respectability he can never have, and the revenge he is dying to taste. And Renee has dark motives of her own.
If only Jacob can figure out which one to blame. But the lines of identity are blurred, because Joshua and Jacob share much more than blood.
And the childhood games have become deadly serious.
Learn more about the psychological thriller
Disintegration
or
buy it at Amazon
THE SKULL RING
By Scott Nicholson
Julia Stone will remember, even if it kills her.
With the help of a therapist, Julia is piecing together childhood memories of the night her father vanished. When Julia finds a silver ring that bears the name "Judas Stone," the past comes creeping back. Someone is leaving strange messages inside her house, even though the door is locked. The local handyman offers help, but he has his own shadowy past. And the cop who investigated her father's disappearance has followed her to the small mountain town of Elkwood.
Now Julia has a head full of memories, but she doesn't know which are real. Julia's therapist is playing games. The handyman is trying to save her, in more ways than one. And a sinister cult is closing in, claiming ownership of Julia's body and soul . . . .
Learn more about
The Skull Ring
and False Recovered Memory Syndrome or
buy it at Amazon
SPEED DATING WITH THE DEAD
By Scott Nicholson
A paranormal conference at the most haunted hotel in the Southern Appalachian mountains…a man’s promise to his late wife that he’d summon her spirit…a daughter whose imagination goes to dark places…and demonic evil lurking in the remote hotel’s basement, just waiting to be awoken.
When Digger Wilson brings his paranormal team to the White Horse Inn, he is skeptical that his dead wife will keep her half of the bargain. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. But when one of the conference guests channels a mysterious presence and an Ouija board spells out a pet phrase known only to Digger and his wife, his convictions are challenged. And when people start to disappear, Digger and his daughter Kendra must face the circle of demons that view the hotel as their personal playground. Because soon the inn will be closing for good, angels, can’t be trusted, and demons don’t like to play alone….
Learn more about
Speed Dating with the Dead
and the 2008 paranormal conference and inn that inspired the novel or
buy it at Amazon