In accordance with the Bram Stoker Awards® Etiquette Rules, for the Non-Fiction Category, I am offering this free version of “Never The Ghost You Want” (originally published in the 2021 anthology PARANORMAL CONTACT: A QUIET HORROR CONFESSIONAL, via Cemetery Gates Media) for Bram Stoker Award® consideration.
Title of Work: Never The Ghost You Want
Publisher: Cemetery Gates Media
Publication Date: 14 March 2021
Never the Ghost You Want
by Nicholas Day
I do not believe in ghosts but lived in a haunted house, years ago, and it fucking sucked. People just think you’re telling stories, for starters. They imagine you’re going a bit crackers. And maybe you are, but why wouldn’t you be? After all, your house is haunted, goddammit.
Now, I’ve had roommates before, sure, but they could be reasoned with, even possessed material form. Conversations may not have always been ideal, but they weren’t out of the question, nor did they require the aid of a medium or the clumsy fingering of a ouija board. These roommates were, best to my knowledge, alive. And, at the very least, they chipped in for bills, rent, and the occasional pizza. Motivations weren’t mysterious, and most of them didn’t slam doors.
In my experience, ghosts don’t give a fuck about you. In that way, they are actually quite a lot like living, breathing people, roommates or otherwise. Ghosts are busy doing their own thing. What you are doing is of little concern to them, or their need of wandering the hallways or marching up and down the stairwell, invading your dreams, what have you.
That’s how it started, for me, through dreams.
Nicholas Day 