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    A Little Book of Little Ghost Stories
    A Little Book of Little Ghost Stories
    A Little Book of Little Ghost Stories
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    A Little Book of Little Ghost Stories

    By John White

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    About this ebook

    A Little Book of Little Ghost Stories is a collection of traditionally styled short ghost stories. Set in modern times, the tales are told in the time-honored fashion of long-established ghost stories we heard as a youth that kept us awake in the dark. Employing the conventional premise that those who have passed on retain their essential human characters, these stories take you on a voyage of the paranormal cast in familiar environments, instead of the unrealistic, hyper-dramatic Hollywood concoctions that have evolved in recent years. From an old man remembering a traumatic experience during his tour of duty in Vietnam to a modern real estate saleswoman trying to sell a house to a late night customer, these storylines flow from the themes and routines of our everyday lives. Told in brief, evocative accounts, the stories focus on the ancient technique of telling a quality tale that speaks to our human natures as opposes the theatrical staging of far-fetched supernatural exploitations so common in present day productions.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn White
    Release dateMay 26, 2012
    ISBN9781476124933
    A Little Book of Little Ghost Stories
    Author

    John White

    Retired Assoc. Professor of Criminal Justice, Martin Methodist College, Pulaski, TN Retired police officer, 30 yr.s service Ph. D. in Public Administration, Tennessee State University Co-founder of the Tennessee Law Enforcement Training Officers Assoc.

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      Book preview

      A Little Book of Little Ghost Stories - John White

      A Little Book of Little Ghost Stories

      by: John L. White

      Published by John L. White at Smashwords

      Copyright 2012 John L. White

      ISBN 9781476124933

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      The Ghost in the Library

      ‘Til Death

      The Homeless Ghost

      Ghost in the Radio

      Emergency Leave

      Amends

      Carousel

      Return

      The Ghost in the Library

      Castle Wood wasn’t a castle and it was not in the woods. It was a library nestled at the edge of the campus. College recruiters referred to it as quaint or filled with tradition, but it was neither. The library was old, a converted antebellum mansion that had originally been the manner house of the university’s founding family and had, over the years severed as a dormitory before being converted into its present incarnation.

      The aging library’s façade was lost on Nikki as she plodded along the dimly lit sidewalk in the humid night. All she had on her mind at the moment was the looming term paper in Philosophy and how she should have started working on it weeks ago. Mounting the well trodden granite stairs she crossed the wide porch and passed through the incongruous glass and metal security doors.

      The interior of the library was a jarring architectural hodge-podge of pre-Victorian wood paneled walls, turn of the century shelving, and modern furniture and lighting. The strange mixture of styles served to make the place more visually unappealing than it did interesting.

      Nikki trudged through the glass doors and stopped to get her bearings. A matronly looking woman with thin lips sat perched at the checkout counter like a vulture waiting for something to die. She shot Nikki a sharp, disapproving eye. Nikki tried to remember her name but couldn’t, so she gave a quick nod before proceeding. Even though she was a junior Nikki had not spent precious little time in the library. Most of her work had been done on line but this term she had not fared so well under Dr. Wilkins. He had stipulated that all research for term papers in his class had to be gleaned from hardcover books, no websites allowed. How primitive, Nikki shook her head as she started to wander the endless stacks, past cubbyholes and study areas scattered through the rooms. This was definitely not going to be fun she concluded for the umpteenth time, no fun at all.

      She tried to remember the filing system that freshmen had been briefed on during their orientation, but that had been long ago and the finer points escaped her. Beginning to read the titles she worked her way into a recessed portion of the gloomy repository and suddenly began to read titles that offered hope. Scanning the rows of old, seemingly seldom used volumes she noted authors that rang bells until she hit a section containing Descartes’ work.

      Snatching a couple of books from a high shelf she lugged them over to a small table. Dropping them on the polished old wood caused an unusually loud report that made a sallow young man she had not noticed jump in his seat. Dark eyes glared up at her as she let the strap of her backpack slip off her shoulder and eased the heavy load to the floor.

      Sorry, She whispered, pulling out a straight backed wooden chair and gliding into it.

      The dark eyes did not soften to her apology and he quickly lowered his thick jumble of black hair over the book he was reading and resumed his contemplations of the words on the page. Nikki shrugged it off, figuring he was some intellectual type who was put off by her athletic sweats. She’d met a lot of people like the dark hair boy on campus, people who looked down on jocks like her. At first she had tried to explain that she saw just using athletics to work her way through college like many of them working at other low paying jobs, but the wall of rejection had forced her to retreat from explanations and simply accept the facts that not everyone would like her, not even all the jocks. Basketball players were the worst, she thought as she began trying to focus on the text. The college funded basketball far better than softball, her sport, and the bias in funding trickled down to students’ attitudes about who was important and who was not.

      Nikki shook off the wandering thoughts and tried to force her mind into the work at hand. After what seemed like hours, but was only a fraction of that time, she looked up and studied the boy, who was a sight more interesting than dry philosophical propositions and ideas that rambled around in her head like marbles on a hardwood floor. The boy was thin with a narrow face and hollow cheeks. A dark stubble of beard scattered along his jaw line. He had a pallor that testified to years without sun and his arms under the heavy pea coat appeared to be as acquainted with exercise as his skin was to the outdoors. Nikki noticed that his lips did not move as he read. She had found that many people, especially those who read very little, could not read without forming the words with their lips, an association with speech, she had concluded; more accustomed to the spoken than the written word.

      She watched as his long agile fingers turned the pages, a practiced motion, like swinging a bat, she thought, a certain kind of grace, acquired with years of practice. Something within her wished her fingers moved like that over books, but she didn’t, they were more suited for the handle of a softball bat.

      As she was ruminating about this he looked up and caught her staring at him. He said nothing, just stared back. She felt a wave of self-consciousness rush into her face with a hot flush.

      Sorry, She quickly said.

      He only looked at her for a moment.

      You say that a lot. His voice was deeper than she had expected but not harsh.

      I … I was just thinking …. She struggled to make some sort of sensible explanation but the jumbled thoughts were still rambling around in her head along with all the philosophy she had been ingesting.

      You make that sound as if it’s an unusual experience. He said flatly.

      Nikki flushed again but felt he had not intended it as an insult, she had only taken it that way.

      No, I mean …I was day dreaming, I guess. She did not want to tell him she had been apprising him as he read. We got off to a bad start, I’m Nikki.

      She extended her hand across the table and he sat looking at it for a long moment. When she was sure he would not take the offered welcome, he let his long fingers engulf her smaller hand for a brief instant. His hand was ice cold. The touch jolted her at first but Nikki pushed the surprise aside and smiled at him.

      Bradley, He said and pulled his hand back, folding it over his arm as if trying to warm himself.

      Nice to meet you … She started to say but he had returned to reading his book and she thought better of interrupting him again.

      Try as she might Nikki could not get back on track, all the words ran together and she found herself rereading passage after passage with no retention at the end of any of the paragraphs. Instead she found herself stealing glances of Bradley. She had been on campus for three years, and true there were a hundreds of students, but she could not recall having ever seen him before. He obviously was not a sports fan so that would explain that much and if he was sitting in the philosophy section he was probably a philosophy major and that was way outside her field. But she should have seen him in the Student Union, or at an assembly, or at least in the dining hall, but try as she might she could not recall seeing him once.

      Suddenly there was a thumping sound, like heavy steps, but coming from above her. Nikki looked up and the sound stopped. She waited but nothing happened and she returned to the arid expanses of the current volume she was trying to convert into intelligible meaning. Then she heard it again, thump, thump, thump, rhythmic, paced, like walking, but walking on the ceiling. She turned her head one way and then the other, as if her ears were radar dishes, but she could not place the origin of the noise. Then it stopped again.

      She listened

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