Exerpt:
This is an excerpt from "Ghost Story," a short story by Pamela Jean Herber, which appears in Ghosts at the Coast, The Best of Ghost Story Weekend, Vol. 2. For your personal enjoyment only; please honor all copyright laws.
GHOST STORY
by Pamela Jean Herber
It happened right here next to the broken down dock on a night just like this one. The moon was a sliver away from full. This very lake jostled lengths of broken reeds back and forth against the shore. Fog gathered inches off the water and crept toward the land. Bats flitted beyond the light of a campfire. Three grown women sat huddled near the fire. They pulled their hats down over their heads and zipped their coats all the way up to their chins to keep out the night’s chill. The rhythmic clinking of the reeds and the random leaping of the flames pulled each of the women into her own personal trance.
Helen paused at this point in her storytelling, partly for effect, and mostly to stall. She had been following the images in her mind as she spoke. The next scene was starting to come together but she wanted to feel the whole thing before committing to it. She took a moment to yawn and to absorb the warmth of her two best friends. Jan snuggled up to her left side and Kristi to her right.
Jan’s dark eyes and long black hair reflected the moonlight and the shadows. Helen couldn’t tell if she was absorbed in the story or the magic of the evening.
Kristi drummed her fingertips together in an impatient prayer. “I know, I know,” she said. Her voice cut deep into the silence of the night. She sat straight up leaving Helen’s right side exposed to the night air. “A boat washes up to the shore. Only they hear it first. They hear paddles and they think they see the outline of a man. But when the boat lands, it’s empty.” Kristi’s whole body smiled. After a dramatic shudder, she rejoined the huddle.
Jan added to the story. “Yes. What we—I mean they—thought were paddles could have been the water splashing against the rotting boards of the dock. And the man? Fog and water can play all sorts of tricks with moonlight. Who knows what’s real and what isn’t?” Jan’s words drifted out over the lake. The water swallowed all but the word real, which it sent back as an echo to be absorbed by the ancient bark of the fir trees behind them. Real, real, real.
“I thought this was my story.” Helen should have known they wouldn’t let her finish.
“But you were stuck. I was just trying to help,” Kristi said. Her intentions were always good.
“Yeah, right.” Helen had promised herself she would be patient. As always, her tongue hadn’t been paying attention at the time.
“It’s fun this way, too,” Jan said. “Come on Helen. Don’t be such a grump. Take your turn.”
Jan was right. But couldn’t Kristi be honest for once in her life? Why couldn’t she come out and say she didn’t want to wait?
“Okay. What is real and what isn’t?” Helen grasped for words.
Kristi cut in. “There really is someone in the boat. A man. A serial killer.”
“No.” Helen was determined to tell her own story. “The person in the boat is neither real nor imagined. She . . .”
“She?” said Jan and Kristi simultaneously. “Come on Helen!”
“It is my turn. I am going to take it.” Helen paused.
Kristi twirled an auburn spiral of hair around her thumb.
Jan rolled her eyes.
“She is in the boat and she is a ghost. She wants to take us back with her to her home, the bottom of the lake; she wants to add our jewelry to her collection.” Helen bit her lip, held her breath and waited. “Your turn, Kristi.”
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