Tag: Ghost Story

The Dead Man’s Switch

~ mstturpin ~ 1 Comment

A short story

Photo by Terrye Turpin

He opened his eyes to a world gone red. Somewhere nearby a woman sobbed, her keening cries almost drowned out by the chug and clack of a locomotive. The man, forty-two-year-old Roy Ellis, sat up and wiped the blood from his face. Gingerly, he probed the wound on his scalp. A painful lump swelled at his right temple.

Gripping the edge of the seat above him, he pulled himself up, boot heels scraping against the wooden floor. Once he stood, he found a battered and sweat stained cowboy hat on the seat. He straightened it as best he could and put it on before peering out the rail car window at the barren landscape flashing past. Clumps of green sage dotted the pale tan sand. The blue-gray outline of a mountain range spread across the horizon. He was on a train, that much was clear, but what was happening? How did he get here? If he was a passenger, he must have a ticket. He reached into his coat pocket.

Instead of the folded paper of a rail ticket, his fingers brushed something cold and hard. He lifted the object — a gold star with the words Deputy Sheriff engraved on the front. His hand flew to the empty holster at his hip. The acrid sulfur stink of gunpowder hung in the air, blending with the black coal smoke from the locomotive. The open door at the end of the carriage banged against the frame. Roy clutched the back of the seat and waited for a wave of dizziness to pass before he stumbled toward the opening. He dropped the badge into his coat.

The first dead man was behind the last seat. He wore a soldier’s khaki uniform. Watery blue eyes stared with a slack, empty gaze. A black-rimmed hole was centered on the young man’s forehead. A red trail of blood, slender as a crimson ribbon, leaked from the corpse’s nose. Roy rolled the body on its side, searching for a weapon. Nothing. He released it to flop against the floor.

The next unit, a passenger car, held a second victim. This one wore the navy blue of a railroad worker and lay sprawled across the aisle. The sobbing woman sat in the last seat on the right. A bruise bloomed on her cheek. She clutched a cloth to her face and when she noticed Roy, her sobs quieted to gasps, as though she couldn’t draw her breath. Across the aisle from her, a man in a black suit and a dandy bowler hat held one arm wrapped around a small boy. The man’s feet rested on a canvas duffle, half-shoved under the seat.

“What happened here?” Roy held onto the seat back to brace himself against the swaying train. He gestured to the body behind him.

“What the hell? That’s a poor joke.” The child squirmed in the man’s lap and reached toward the woman. The man hugged him close and whispered, “Now there.”

Roy gestured to his wound. “I came to just now. Can’t remember jack shit. Someone hit me a good one.”

The man squinted at Roy, then relaxed. “Train robbers. They blew the safe, then jumped off.”

“How’d they get on?” Roy glanced out the window at the desert flowing past.

“Stopped the train outside Tucson. Train started rolling after the explosion. Then this happened.” The man lifted his right hand to reveal a pistol and gestured with it to the body on the floor. The suit coat fell open and Roy saw a ragged, bloody hole in the man’s white shirt.

“You’re injured.” Roy stepped forward, but the man waved him away.

“It’s nothing.” He dropped the pistol to his side. “You see anyone up there? They were gonna check on the engineer, see what’s going on.”

Roy shook his head. “You stay here. I’ll go.” Later, he’d have to deal with the black-suited man.

He made his way to the front of the train, across the gangway and through the car he’d woken up in, and out to the entrance to the tender, where the water and coal were stored. A narrow corridor led through the storage area. Roy had to turn sideways to fit his bulk through the space.

A body blocked the cab. The dead man lay face down, a puddle of blood pooled around his body. A black Stetson rested on his head, hiding his features. His outstretched hand lay across the stock of a shotgun. Roy stepped over the corpse to gaze through the shattered glass on the cab door window. A second body lay face up in front of the firebox. His closed eyes made Roy think he was asleep, but a dark red rose of a wound covered the man’s chest. Behind him, the dull orange glow of dying coals lit the cab.

A third man, the engineer, slumped over the controls. His hand clutched the lever that, when released, would cut the throttle and slow the train. Not just a lever — Roy remembered the name they called it — the Dead Man’s Switch. So called because you had to be alive to press down the lever. It was a failsafe. In case of an accident, the engineer just had to let go.

“Hey!” Roy called through the window. He tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Stretching as far as his arm would fit, he fumbled for the latch. The small window did not allow him to reach far enough downward. They had wedged something against the lock, through the door’s inner handle. His fingertips brushed against wood and he recognized the familiar shape of an ax handle.

The train rocked through a curve, and the engineer’s body shifted. His head turned toward Roy, as though about to reply. There would be no answer from this man — the lower part of his jaw hung loose, bits of white teeth and bloody gore dotted the front of his uniform shirt. Dead, but still his hand kept its grip on the switch.

“Jesus!” Roy backed away from the door. His boot heel caught on the forgotten corpse behind him, and he fell, hard.

He kicked at the dead man, imagining the cold hands grasping at his ankles. Roy sucked in a breath as his sight went dark. A sharp stab of pain pierced his temple. When he could see again, he stood up. Things were coming back to him now. This was the train from Tucson to Tucumcari. He’d got on… he couldn’t recall boarding. It floated in his mind like the memory of a dream, wrapped around the stink of sulfur and burning coal. Roy bent and picked up the hat from the body, uncovering his face.

“Jacob.” Roy dropped the hat. He knew this man. His hand sought the gold star he’d found earlier. Was this another deputy? Had they worked together? He shivered and thought of the old wives’ tale — someone just walked across his grave.

“What did you find?”

The voice behind him startled Roy, and he spun to face the intruder. The man in the black suit leaned against the opening to the tender. One hand gripped his bloody side, the other held the pistol, pointed down. The tan canvas satchel was slung across one shoulder, the words US Army stenciled on the side.

“We need to stop the train.” Roy nodded to the cab. “Engineer and fireman are dead. The engineer is stuck on the throttle.”

Sweat dotted the man’s forehead and upper lip and his face was pale as curdled milk. “Won’t it run out of fuel? We can just wait.”

Roy shook his head, thinking of the firebox, almost empty of coal, and the dead man driving the train. Despite the lack of fuel, the train rushed on. Would probably keep traveling until it ran out of rail, crashed, or entered the gates of hell. “There’s a curve, right before we reach El Paso. We’ll never make it past if we don’t slow down. Train will jump off the rails and crash.”

“Break down that door!”

“And how would you do that? Can’t shoot it — it’s solid steel. You’d end up shooting us both before you did enough damage to get the door open.”

“There must be something we could use. An ax or a shovel?”

Roy touched his temple. He figured he’d already been acquainted with the ax, and the coal shovel was locked inside with the dead. They’d join them soon, once the train reached that curve. Hell, they might already be dead. Except he thought then of the woman and her child. There were at least two people left worth saving.

“We can uncouple the passenger car.” Roy pushed past the man. He followed behind, protesting.

“How do you know that will work? It’s too dangerous.”

“You go across. I’ll stand on this side and you stand on the other. Together, we’ll pull the release. I’ll jump once it’s loose. Car will slow when the engine isn’t pulling it.”

They reached the car where the woman and child waited. “Ma’am. We’re going to let this car loose from the train. It should slow down and stop, but you need to hold tight and stay put until it does.” The woman stared blankly at him. She clasped her boy to her side. “Do you understand?” When she nodded, Roy added in a soft voice, “I’m sorry for all this.”

Outside the car, the wind from the train’s passing whipped Roy’s hat from his head. It disappeared under the wheels of the locomotive. Across from him, the black-suited man still held onto the gun and the tan duffle.

“You’ll get a better grip if you put that away.” Roy gestured to the gun. “And leave that sack inside.”

The man slipped the gun into the holster at his side. He shook his head, though, at leaving the bag. “I’ll keep this right here.” He set the sack at his feet.

Roy wrapped his hands around the lever that would release the pin holding the car’s connector. “Grab hold from your side and pull.” When the man bent and grasped the bar, Roy asked, “Would you die for that money, Bill?”

The man, Bill, jumped up and bared his teeth. “So. You remember?”

“All of it.”

Bill stumbled back and drew his pistol. “I’d die with it if I stay on this train. But that ain’t going to happen. You pull that lever.”

“And if I don’t?”

Bill nodded toward the train car behind him. “You’d let them die too?” He turned the gun on Roy.

For an answer, Roy bent and pulled on the bar. It lifted an inch, then two. Coal smoke stung his eyes and blurred his sight. Rust flaked off and tore his bare hands. The metal squealed as they hoisted the bar. Roy dropped his hands. “I can’t do it by myself. You need to pull from that side, too.”

A minute passed while the train chugged forward. How close were they to the curve? Finally, Bill dropped the gun and grabbed hold of the bar. Together, they heaved it upward. The pin rose. Just as it popped loose, Roy grabbed the Army duffle and yanked it across the gap.

“Hey!” Bill snatched at open air. His mouth round with shock, he stumbled to his feet. The space between the cars widened as the train pulled away. “Toss that back over!” He drew his gun and fired, but the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Bill leaped toward Roy.

If he had made the jump as soon as Roy grabbed the money, he might have made it. Instead, he missed the platform at the end of the car by a foot. The steel wheels made quick work of him. Without time for even a gasp, they sucked him under.

Roy heaved the sack from his car and into the slowing carriage. It was too late for him to make the jump, but he’d not go to hell with the money on his conscience. They’d planned the robbery together — him, Bill, and Jacob. No one would suspect a deputy sheriff, so Roy had figured he’d at least get away with his share of the Army’s payroll. The train had stopped for the wagon they’d abandoned on the tracks. After that, his memory grew hazy again. It didn’t matter. He’d been responsible for all the death on the train, even if he hadn’t pulled the trigger himself.

The locomotive thundered down the rails, intent on its destination. The last train he’d ride. Back in his seat, Roy pulled the gold star from his pocket and pinned it to his coat.

THE END

The Orchard

~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

A ghost story

Photo by the author

I don’t remember why I wrote this story. Possibly it’s one I entered in a contest on the Vocal website. Like Medium, Vocal is a site where writers can publish stories and collect a few pennies when people read them. I wasn’t successful there and finally closed my account once I reached the $20 minimum to cash out. I won’t mention how long it took to earn that money.

And that, dear readers, is one example of why I don’t recommend trying to make a living writing short stories.

This one’s a ghost story, but it’s not too scary.

The Orchard

Mae Emery returned, as she had each year since childhood, to her Aunt Judy’s orchard. The sultry dog days of summer gripped Pennsylvania, but Mae couldn’t get warm. She wrapped her body in bulky sweaters and stiff jeans, clad her feet in heavy boots. Workman’s clothes.

“I’m so glad you’re here. Your mother would want you to be with family.” Aunt Judy pulled her close as soon as Mae stepped from her car. The last of the season’s blossoms swirled around their feet like snow.

“It’s good to be back.” Mae studied the older woman, searching for some sign of the breast cancer her aunt had survived years ago. They didn’t talk about things like that back then, Mae’s mother had told her, as she herself lay dying from that same disease.

That summer and into the fall, Mae worked in the gift shop alongside her aunt. The orchard had been in their family for generations, passed down at last to Mae’s mother’s older sister, Judy. Less than a hundred miles from Gettysburg, the farm attracted tourists and local families both. As the pears ripened, the orchard filled with workers. The bell above the gift shop’s door chimed as customers flooded in, searching for trinkets and t-shirts. Mae forced a smile upon her lips while her hands dished out pies, jars of pear butter, and doughnuts warm from the fryer.

Evenings, Mae retired to her tidy room above the store, scented with cinnamon and the sweet smell of candles in the gift shop below. Snuggled underneath a faded quilt, she slept beside a view of the trees from her window. Aunt Judy had offered Mae her mother’s old room in the main house, but Mae could not imagine resting there. At night, the house settled with creaks and pops like footsteps on the wooden floors.

Below her window, at the edge of the orchard, the orange flames from the pickers’ campfires glowed. If the wind blew from the right direction, it would carry their soft conversation. Mae could pretend their words were those of the ghosts rumored to haunt the orchard.    

One night, when the full moon cast its glow, Mae dressed and strolled barefoot among the trees. The leaves rustled like restless spirits. The grass on the ground as familiar as the rug beside her bed. This was the one place she thought might melt the cold center of dread and sorrow she carried.   

She found the canteen, propped against a trunk, as though someone had dropped it there. Worn wool cloth covered the rusted tin container. She tipped it over the grass and a stream of dry soil spilled from the spout. A flash of white drew her gaze. Mae froze. Something drifted out from the trees at the end of the row. Mae drew in a breath. A boy’s pale face appeared in the moonlight. He wore a jacket, long trousers, and a flat-brimmed hat, the colors muted by the dark.

“Hello?” Mae stepped toward him.

His eyes were blank as pennies. He stared past her, alert, as though watching for someone else to come through the trees. A snap, a heavy step on a twig, sounded behind her. A brush of cold flicked against her neck. Mae spun. The row was empty. When she turned back, the boy had disappeared.  

Clutching the flask to her chest, Mae jogged back to the gift shop. When she reached her room, she slammed and locked the door then collapsed against it, panting and shaking.

The next morning, before the shop opened, Mae brought the canteen to her aunt. “I found this last night in the orchard.”  

Judy turned the flask over, her fingers tracing the circles stamped into the tin. “This is very old,” she said. “Things turn up now and then. Civil War stuff, mostly bullets. Metal lasts longer.” Judy handed the canteen back to Mae. “What else did you see?” she asked.

“There was someone there, a boy.”

“Dressed strangely?” Judy asked. When Mae nodded, Judy said, “A spirit. I haven’t seen him in years.” She brushed the hair back from Mae’s face. “Sorrow calls to sorrow,” she said.

That night, Mae studied the canteen. How had it come to be there, in the orchard? Who had left there it, for her to find? Soft notes of guitar music drifted in through the open window from the pickers’ cabins. Mae carried the canteen outside.

An older man, face creased and lined by days spent in the sun, sat next to a dying campfire. He nodded hello as she strolled by. Mae had known many of the regulars, the pickers who returned season after season. She’d taken turns working the trees, her back aching at the end of the long day, bent from the weight of pears.

Most times, her mother stood at the bottom of the ladder, steadying it and pointing out the ripe fruit. High in the green of the branches, Mae couldn’t see every side of the fruit, but together, they saw all the pears. This was the first year she hadn’t worked among the trees.

With the canteen tucked under her arm, Mae crept through the orchard. The guitar music faded, and not even a whisper of wind moved the leaves. This was her world—the pears, the trees, everything around her constant and comforting. If she belonged here, then so did the boy.

“It’s okay,” she said. She lifted the canteen, an offering.

Then, all around, spectral figures wafted through the trees. They passed by Mae, the stream of ghostly men parting as they flowed around her. Soldiers. Ghosts, filled with fear and sadness, but with courage as well. They marched forward, unseeing. In the distance, a drum beat a tap, tap to their steps. Mae waited as wave after wave of blue-coated foot soldiers appeared.

She spotted him. He marched, beating the drum strung at his waist. Mae held out the canteen. The boy’s icy fingers brushed hers as he gripped the container and it faded to transparency. Canteen slung over his shoulder, the boy took up the drumbeat and joined his company. The soldiers passed—mounted men silent except for the creak of their saddles, foot soldiers gripping their rifles, cannons mounted on caissons whose wheels did not disturb the grass. Mae lifted a hand in a half-salute and stood watch until they faded and broke up like mist over the ground.

THE END

The Homecoming – A Scary Story

~ mstturpin ~ 1 Comment

500 word flash fiction

Photo by the author

This story is one I wrote last year for the NYC Midnight Scary Story contest. The judges liked it enough that I advanced to the second round in that contest. One of the prompts that had to be included was a character that was a nomad. I don’t remember the other prompts. The story also had to be 500 words or less, a real challenge when you have to include specific things.

I’m not entering any NYC Midnight contests this year. They have been a good incentive to stretch my creativity, but I’ve put off writing a novel for too long and now is the time to concentrate on that. For now, I hope you enjoy this little tale. It’s a ghost story of sorts, but not too scary.

The Homecoming

Every October, Evangeline was drawn back to the place she had known as home. No matter how far she traveled, like a bird she returned, drawn to dark mysteries in the East Texas house.

She parked the RV in the weed-filled drive and waited as the witch came outside. The old woman’s name refused to rise in her recollection, but her face was one Evangeline could imagine as her own reflection, twenty years forward.

“You’re here,” the witch said. “Come inside.”

Evangeline left the motor home, with its collage of bumper stickers from places pinned on a map. Never settling, lest she mistake familiarity for forgiveness.

The porch creaked with her steps, the wood gone soft and gray. Beside the house, laundry hung on a line—cotton dresses and sheets that snapped like sails in the wind.

She followed the old woman down a hallway with portraits on the walls. A young man in a soldier’s uniform, a bride in an oval frame, a family of stern-faced folk. Last, a photograph, colors faded to blue-green, of a mother and child. Broken glass hung in the frame. Someone had carved out their faces, taken a sharp edge to the paper. Evangeline trailed her fingers across the clinging shards of glass. A carmine drop of blood bloomed on her thumb.

Inside the bathroom, water dripped into a claw-footed tub. The scent of mold and rain-damp leaves, of things left to rot, drifted out. Evangeline covered her face to hide from the room.

“Sit.” The old woman pointed at the kitchen table. Scattered across the surface were dried herbs, a hen’s egg, a black candle, and a clump of clay molded into the shape of an infant.

After lighting the candle, the woman grabbed Evangeline’s hand and squeezed a drop of blood into the flame. A clock chimed three times.

“Hurry.” The witch pushed a wicker basket at Evangeline.

Outside, dark clouds threatened. She raced to save the wash. When she tried to return the basket, the witch blocked her. “You must face this.”

Evangeline shivered. The bathroom door creaked closed, hiding what waited inside. No giggling play, no splashing. Only drip, drip, drip.

“The spell didn’t work. I don’t remember,” Evangeline lied.

“It was an accident. Forgive yourself.”

Before she climbed into the RV, Evangeline kissed the old woman’s cheek. “I’ll see you next year,” she said. “Goodbye, Mother.”

THE END

The Message

~ mstturpin ~ 1 Comment

A Short Story

Photograph by the author

I wrote this story for the NYC Midnight Fiction Contest way back in 2021. The genre had to be “Ghost Story” and I decided to set it at the Excelsior Hotel in Jefferson, Texas – rumored to be haunted. I published a copy of the story on the Medium site but it didn’t get many views, so here it is again, for anyone who didn’t read it back then.

The Message

The day before her twentieth wedding anniversary, Doreen Clark traveled alone to the Excelsior Hotel, where ghosts were rumored to roam the halls. The hotel, built in the late 1800s, had wood floors that creaked and moaned at night, as though the place were filled with spirits burdened by ghostly pains.

“Welcome,” the chipper clerk greeted her. “Have you stayed with us before?” The woman wore black cat-eyed glasses around her neck, suspended on a rhinestone studded cord.

“Years ago.” As the clerk confirmed her reservation, Doreen stepped over to study the photographs arranged on the lobby wall.

“Fascinating, aren’t they?” The clerk gestured to a gilt-framed photo of a seated woman garbed in old-fashioned, dark, mourning clothes. A translucent figure, a man with a drooping mustache, hovered behind the woman, one hand resting on the carved wooden back of her chair. “Are you familiar with the history of spirit photography?”

“Oh yes,” Doreen replied, “my husband was an amateur photographer. He loved the stories behind the photos.” Spirit photography dated back to the late 1800s, when enterprising photographers used long exposure to create ghostly images transposed onto the pictures they captured. The enterprise proved profitable, as grieving relatives longed to see their beloved again.   

“They’re interesting, but I feel sorry for the folks who believed they could connect with their dead loved ones.”

Doreen smiled and shrugged. “I’m sure they got some comfort at least, the true believers.” If she told this woman the real reason she’d journeyed back to this particular hotel, on this date, Doreen wondered if the clerk would pity her or think her crazy.  

After she dropped her bags in her room, Doreen texted her daughter, then carried a book to the courtyard, to warm herself in the late October sunshine. Fragrant crimson roses climbed the brick walls. Had there been roses back then? The novel, a gaudy romance, couldn’t hold her. A nap would suit her better.

She woke at dusk and rose, wishing for a candle. Houdini’s widow, she’d read, kept a candle burning for him every night for years. Doreen placed her palm on the frosty glass of the French doors, looking over the courtyard. Something moved outside, a wisp of white that could have been a bit of gauzy cloth batted in the wind.

She remembered her wedding day, so many years ago. They had danced in this courtyard, Doreen’s white lace dress sweeping the cobblestones. What are ghosts? Doreen believed them to be the echo of memory, suspended in air like motes of dust. When Houdini died, he promised to contact his beloved. His widow waited years for that signal.

Her fingers clutched her phone as she unlatched the door leading into the courtyard. The modern equipment lacked the romance of the long exposure on glass photographic plates, but maybe it would do. Lifting the phone, she centered her image in the screen and focused on the wall of roses behind her. She snapped a shot, then another, and another, turning to capture all of the courtyard until she felt faint and dizzy.  

Back in the room, Doreen scrolled through the digital images. The phone’s camera had done a fine job of capturing the splash of red roses and the moss-dotted stone of the courtyard, even in the fading light. Nothing else. No outline or familiar face, no time-worn hands resting on her shoulders.

Leaning forward, her lips a finger’s width from the panes, Doreen breathed on the cold glass of the French door. “Oh Bill, I miss you so.” The pane fogged, and she lifted a finger to scrawl a heart. She turned her back to drop the phone on the bed’s quilted coverlet. All those photographs -they couldn’t all be fake, could they? She vowed to return next year, and every year after that, as long as it took.

On the courtyard side, a shape appeared on the pane then quickly faded—the imprint of a kiss, as though tenderly etched on a photographic plate.   

The End