GHOST GAL: The Wild Hunt
Read GHOST GAL: The Wild Hunt Online
Authors: Bobby Nash
NEVER SAY NEVERMORE
Published by Raven's Head Press
First Edition • May 2014
Publisher, Editor and Designer: Michael Hudson
Foreword: © 2014 Ernie Hudson
Cover painting copyright © 2014 by Jamie Chase
Alexandra Holzer's GHOST GAL: THE
WILD HUNT
Alexandra Holzer's GHOST GAL: THE WILD HUNT © 2014 Alexandra Holzer, Bobby Nash and Michael Hudson. Ghost Gal and the Ghost Gal logo are trademark of Alexandra Holzer, Bobby Nash and Michael Hudson. All rights reserved.
PUBLISHERS NOTE:
Except for brief passages used in reviews or critical articles, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Raven's Head Press.
Raven's Head Press
ravensheadpress.com
ISBN- 13: 978-1497438422 ISBN- 10: 149743842X
This one is dedicated to all of the believers who seek out the answers, the skeptics who question everything, and the adventurers who leap in head first with a smile. You inspire me.
Bobby Nash
The first mystery/ adventure of my Alexandra Holzer's GHOST GAL series is finally a reality. I hope you, the reader, will enjoy
The Wild Hunt
as much as I have.
See you on the Other Side––
Alexandra Holzer
Y
ou’d be amazed at how many times I still get asked to say, “That’s a big Twinkie.” A few years have gone by since Bill, Dan, Harold and I made two wonderful films together. I can honestly say those two films were career highlights for me even though I’ve been blessed by God to have many such moments on stage, television and in film.
Truth be known, both
Ghostbuster
films were hard work but I don't regret a single day that I was able to work on those sets. The franchise is still going strong thirty years later. Some call it a cult classic and I tend to agree with that based on all the
Ghostbuster
merchandise I’m still seeing all over the world. I’m not even sure how many animated television series and video games have come about from it. I’m just glad to have been a part of it. How’s that for longevity?
I don’t have to tell anyone who’s reading this book how many years there’s been talk of a
GHOSTBUSTERS III
. Honestly, I let those others guys worry about that kind of stuff. As for me, I’m ready if and when they do call. But as you probably also know our alumnus lost one of its founding members just last month and I don’t think that Harold’s (Ramis) passing is something this franchise or even the best of writers can overcome. Harold was the glue. There wouldn't a
Ghostbusters
without Harold Ramis. Harold pulled all of us together and he did it with such style. I know I probably wouldn't be in the business had I not had the chance to work with Harold at that time in my career. He taught me a lot, not overtly by trying to teach me, but just by watching him work and how he dealt with things. He will be sorely missed. There can't be another
Ghostbusters
without Harold. There can be another Ghost-something but it won’t be the four of us. That was always my fear, was that something would happen before we all got together again.
So it is with a sort of bittersweet sentiment I found myself in when my gal pal, Alexandra Gargiulo (Holzer) asked me to write the foreword for the debut novel of her own ghost buster,
GHOST GAL
based on the exploits of her own fictional alter-ego.
Before I had time to read a word of the book, I had no choice but to take a little mind trip back to my own
Ghostbuster
experiences. It was inevitable that such a book as this would give me cause for reflection. The character interaction, the constant improvisation, the fantastic set pieces, and the sheer delight of being a part of such a delightful comedy spook fest all came alive for me one more time. But that was then. And this is now. This introduction is not about my past accomplishments or
Ghostbusters
. It’s about
GHOST GAL
in her first published outing as a paranormal investigator or better yet, “ghost hunter” as our heroine’s father, Hans Holzer, coined the term. And you know what? I like the sound of
GHOST GAL
.
The first book is titled
THE WILD HUNT
and it is very appropriately named. I am not going to give the story away because I want you to read it and enjoy it just as I have. I will say this. If you thought the ghosts I faced were a force to be dealt with, wait until you meet the Slaugh.
Author Bobby Nash has crafted a tight, fast paced book that still manages to give us enough character development that we care about the cast of characters and what happens to them. And G
HOST GAL
is populated with a great cast. Alex, her skeptical fiancé, Joshua Demerest, her famed father and mother, Hans Holzer and his sweetheart, Countess Catherine Buxhoeveden along with two wonderfully weird angels, Samuel Esau and Jacob Black, who happen to be opposite sides of the same coin. Wait until you read about these two querulous guides who help departed spirits to the Other Side or Sides as it were. Oh there are plenty of ghosts, there are enough thrills and even a little levity to please most anyone who enjoys a good spook story.
As much as I’d like to say Nash took a cue from the original
Ghostbusters
, I need to be honest in my assessment in saying he did it his own way.
GHOST GAL: THE WILD HUNT
is a spook ride you, the reader, are sure to enjoy.
I said earlier there can never be another
Ghostbusters
. But I do have an answer for that question so many of you still ask, “Who you gonna call?” The answer is quite simple.
GHOST GAL
! That’s who.
____ Ernie Hudson
April 2014
And in men's minds a fear began
That hell had over-hurled
The guardians of the soul of man,
And come to rule the world
__ John Masefield
E
nergy crackled through the halls of the old castle like a thing alive.
With each whip-snap discharge, loud, thunderous booms echoed off the thick stone that made up the walls of the castle keep. Those stones, which had been so meticulously removed from their original home and shipped over to the New World piece by piece from an Irish castle the wealthy new owner had recently purchased, were unlike any other. It had taken months for shipping magnate Conrad Bartlett to disassemble the castle, catalog, number, and crate each piece, ship it across the Atlantic, and reassemble it on his families land in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Under normal circumstances, such an undertaking would have been a costly endeavor, but tensions in the Atlantic were high as both Nazi and Allied forces ran their military campaigns in the region almost non-stop. Soon, the entire planet would be gripped by the hells of war. If not for Bartlett’s military contract allowing him to cross the ocean at regular intervals, the yearlong reconstruction of the castle in the United States might never have been completed.
In hindsight, Conrad Bartlett might have wished that to be the case.
In addition to the physical attributes of the castle keep, he also brought with it the castle’s dark secret, a long and bloody history dating back to the earliest days of Ireland itself, perhaps even before that, a secret that had been locked away for centuries, hidden from prying eyes.
And now that secret had been loosed on an unsuspecting world.
Unless the specialist he called in could put a stop to it.
Outside, lightning sparked while thunder roared as the storm grew more and more fierce. Gale force rain pelted everything in its path with big wet droplets mixed with hail and flying debris tossed about by violent winds. The turbulent weather outside was like a mirror to the chaos brewing inside the recently rebuilt castle.