Fever Dreams and Drunken Scribbles E-Book

Andy Rausch

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A collection of 20 weird and far-out stories, these unique tales cover a lot of ground.

“Searching for Dirty Jesus” follows a live-action roleplayer on a search for his father's killer. In “Chicken Car” a down-on-his-luck man devises a plan to achieve notoriety, through any means necessary.

What if a man with a Gila-Monster head decided to try his luck with online dating? What if the government conducted a secret experiment in which they altered the color of people's skin? What if a famous serial killer was hired to kill a Nazi war criminal hiding in the U.S.? What if the corpse of John Wayne was reanimated so he could appear in a low-budget zombie movie?

Find out the answers to these and many other questions in Fever Dreams and Drunken Scribbles, a powerful, one-of-a-kind story collection by a master storyteller.

“He's got some damn good stuff.” -Joe R. Lansdale, author of the Hap and Leonard series

This book contains graphic violence and is not suitable for readers under the age of 18.

Leseprobe

FEVER DREAMS AND DRUNKEN SCRIBBLES

ANDY RAUSCH

CONTENTS

Deja Vu All Over Again

Chicken Car

Matthew Todd’s Valentine

Maybe

The Reckanado

Friends ‘Till The End

You’re Doing Too Much

The Spook Light

Searching for Dirty Jesus

Someone to Hate

Shakespeare Said A Thing

The Silver Lining

A Familiar Face

The Gila-Man Tries Online Dating

The Iceman Killeth

A Snowy Night In Brooklyn

The $10,000 John Wayne Magnum Opus (Remix)

John Smith’s Great Day

Wish You Were Here

The Dog Creek Coven

The Day Henry Came Calling

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About the Author

Copyright (C) 2022 Andy Rausch

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Tom Gordon

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

This book is dedicated to Jordan, Jaiden, Jalyn, Josslyn, Julian Nance, and Logan Keenan. I love every one of you, but you're all little shits.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

ANOTHER INTRODUCTION

There are two things you need to know about me right up front. The first is that I love, love, love writing short stories. The second is that I hate, hate, hate writing introductions. Nevertheless, here we are once again. I've published several short story collections in the past, and the truth is, I never know what the hell to write in the introductions. (It is for this reason that my "greatest hits collection," Songs of the Dead, doesn't have an introduction. In hindsight, I probably should have written one.) As I embark upon this latest introduction, I worry that perhaps I've already said everything of any importance (if I ever said anything of importance) in those previous volumes. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this one turns out.

Okay, so let's talk about Fever Dreams and Drunken Scribbles, shall we? There's a story behind this collection. (The story behind the stories!) I published a collection titled Ssssstories! with a small boutique publisher back in 2020. Yes, the title Ssssstories! sucks donkey balls, but there's a story behind that as well. My oldest daughter (of four), Jordan, is an artist. Not only is she an artist, but she's an insanely gifted artist. I'm sure this sounds like proud parent “look-at-these-photos-of-my-awesome-kids” bullshit to you, but I assure you it's not. I am proud, but Jordan possesses a world of talent that's undeniable. If you're wondering why I'm telling you all this, just bear with me and chill the fuck out, okay? I'm getting to the point... I had long dreamed of publishing a book with Jordan's art on the cover.

In early 2020, as the first wave of Covid came crashing down upon us, I co-wrote a story titled "The Reckando" with my youngest kiddo, Josslyn. Once we finished that, I saw a unique opportunity to collaborate with Jordan and Josslyn on one special project. My idea was to assemble a short story collection that included "The Reckanado" while also featuring cover artwork by Jordan.

I usually publish with bigger small publishers (contradiction in terms much?), but most of those have concrete ideas about what a book cover should look like. The painting of Jordan's that I chose to use was bright and busy, and I knew I would find it difficult to convince publishers to let me use it. To be honest, I wasn't even sure it could be made into a suitable cover. It looked terrific as a painting, but I began to worry that it was a tad too busy for a cover. Additionally, I didn't know if any font would look good against it, and I had no idea where the lettering might be placed. My old friend, Becky Narron, had repeatedly asked me to publish something with her at Terror Tract Publishing. So, I put the project out through Terror Tract. Becky had a reputation for going above and beyond to help her authors, so I was sure she wouldn't balk at the cover art. She didn't. (She also let me include a drawing by Josslyn in the book's interior.) Everything worked out, and, in the end, the cover turned out pretty damned good.

There was another issue of note. This one involved the book's title. Jordan's cool as hell, badass painting depicted several snakes. Generally, a book's artwork reflects either the title or the book's contents. Well, what do you title a short story collection when you want it to tie in with a painting of snakes? I considered this long and hard, but I never came up with anything remotely decent. In the end, I went with Ssssstories!, which was a pretty shitty title. That collection was eventually released and landed with a thud. It sold next to no copies (due to low visibility), and Terror Tract went out of business shortly after. The rights to all of the stories reverted back to me.

Wanting to keep these stories in circulation, I decided to re-release the collection with a more prominent publisher. At first, this was just going to be a re-release of the same book with a better title. However, the concept changed when I realized I had enough new unpublished or uncollected stories to combine with the ones from Ssssstories! Upon further consideration, I concluded that two of the stories from Ssssstories! ("Dracula, Private Eye and the Demon Skull of Badakari" and "Authors, Gunmen, and Other Strange Creatures") did not meet my usual standards of quality. So, those tales have been excised from this latest incarnation.

I'm much happier with this newly-assembled collection than I ever was with Ssssstories! Nevertheless, that book will always hold a special place in my heart because it allowed me to collaborate with Jordan (and, simultaneously, Josslyn). I will forever be grateful to Becky for helping to facilitate that.

Now, let's talk about the stories themselves. Anyone familiar with my work knows that I'm not a writer bound to a single genre. While most of my longer fiction consists of crime novels and my shorter fiction of horror-adjacent weird stories, it's entirely feasible that, at some point, you might stumble across a story from just about any genre with my name attached to it. In terms of varied subject matter and genre, Fever Dreams and Drunken Scribbles is no exception. As usual, there is some truly bizarre shit to be found within these pages, but I've thrown in a couple of crime stories as well.

When you look at the table of contents, you'll find two stories labeled as "cabin story #1" and "cabin story #2." These stories are in no way related. They are about as different as two stories can possibly be. However, they share one curious and unplanned characteristic; "Maybe" and "John Smith's Great Day" feature male protagonists who have gone off the grid to live in remote cabins after the loss of their wives. Labeling these tales as "cabin stories #1 and #2" is simply my way of acknowledging and owning that similarity before someone else exclaims, “Hey, these two stories are kind of similar!” So yes, they sound pretty similar, but I assure you that they really aren't.

Well, that's about enough of this introduction business. Each of the stories included in this book is followed by brief story notes discussing their origins and other hopefully interesting tidbits. It is my sincerest hope that you enjoy this book. As I always (only half-) jokingly say, please leave a review on Goodreads and/or Amazon if you enjoy this book. However, feel free to skip the appraisal altogether if you don't.

Now, what are you waiting for? You've got about 77,000 more words to read, so get to it.

—Andy Rausch, December 9, 2021

CHICKEN CAR

I remember the first time I saw that damn car. It was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. It was bad enough I had to wear the stupid Chicken Shack uniform, which was red with three yellow chickens strolling across the front with the words “Get Clucked!” on the back, but now there was this god-awful travesty on wheels.

“Ain’t she a beaut?” asked Tim, my boss, and owner of Chicken Shack. The fucker had a twisted grin and a gleam in his eye. I swear, he was as proud of that car as he was of his kids. Maybe more. But to be honest, it kind of makes sense because his kids aren’t all that great. They’re miniature reproductions of him and his equally-obnoxious wife, Tina, so that makes sense. After all, you don’t breed two jackasses and get a thoroughbred.

Tim was standing beside his chicken car with his arm stretched in a pose along its side, like a used car dealer trying to sell a Buick. Tim looked like a used car salesman, too. He was wearing the same light blue Herb Tarlick off-the-rack J.C. Penny suit he always wore. His black hair—at least what was remained above his ever-receding hairline—was slicked back with what looked like a quart of motor oil. His oddly-thin face also wore the goofy, suspicious “I’m-trying-to-pull-some-shit-over-on-you” expression of car dealers everywhere. I’ve never known Tim to do anything particularly wily other than him screwing Darlene, my crew chief, in the walk-in freezer behind his wife’s back. But if you’d ever seen or met Tim’s wife, you would totally get it. If it were me, I’d rather screw Darlene, too, which is not to say Darlene is any kind of a looker. She’s pretty damn fugly, yet she’s still better than Tina. If I’m being honest, Tim is prettier than Tina, too, and he’s both a man and ugly.

“I had her special made,” Tim said of the chicken car.

I was sure he did. I couldn’t imagine anyone other than Tim wanting to own such a grotesque monstrosity. It was a bright yellow Cadillac that was probably older than my grandpa’s grandpa. And the yellow was so bright it burned your retinas looking at it. There was writing printed on the door that read: CHICKEN SHACK. Then, below that, in cursive: GET CLUCKED! And yet none of these details are the thing that made it so... special. No, that would be the giant chicken head. Yes, there was a chicken head. A great big, smiling plastic chicken head sticking out from the top of the car’s roof.

I hated that thing the moment I laid eyes on it. As I spoke to Tim, I couldn’t help but have a slightly mocking tone. I knew it was there and could hear it when I spoke. But Tim didn’t seem to notice. He was so in love with the car that he was utterly oblivious, like he couldn’t imagine anyone not loving it or, worse, mocking him for owning it.

As if the chicken head wasn’t strange enough, I noticed it had teeth.

“This chicken’s got teeth,” I said.

“You’re damned right it does,” Tim said proudly.

“Chickens aren’t supposed to have teeth, Tim.”

“Yeah, but don’t you love it?”

“Sure,” I managed. “It’s certainly... something.”

That was in the summer. Now it was fall. Tim came to me asking for a favor a week before Halloween. I had just burned the hell out of my arm dumping straight-out-of-the-bag-store-bought chicken strips into the fryer. I was standing over the popping grease, inspecting the pink skin on my forearm when I felt Tim’s hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at him, and he was, of course, grinning like a damned fool.

“What’s up?” I asked, trying not to sound as annoyed as I felt anytime I had to have any sort of interaction with him.

“You do a good job here, Colin,” he said.

I nodded, knowing that was bullshit. I did the bare minimum, and yet somehow, that was more effort than any of my coworkers put in. But I was still a terrible worker in the same way that the best smelling dog turd still doesn’t smell good. It’s just less bad than the others, and that was me—a slightly-less-stinky turd.

“Next week is Halloween,” Tim said.

Who gives a fuck? I know I didn’t. But I didn’t say that. I may have only made minimum wage working at Chicken Shack, but even that meager amount was substantially more than nothing.

“I’ve got the chicken car signed up to drive in the Halloween parade,” he said, grinning. He was so proud I thought he might burst at the seams at any moment.

“Uh, cool,” I managed.

“I just got some bad news, Colin.”

I waited for the punchline.

“My wife’s Uncle Dinky is quite ill, and frankly, it looks bad.”

Uncle Dinky? Uncle fucking Dinky?! Are you kidding me?!

“Dinky lives in Oregon, so Tina and I will be gone all week,” Tim said. “Nelson’s gonna take over while I’m gone. But there’s a problem.”

This guy had more problems than a math book.

“Since I’m gonna be gone, there’s no one to drive the chicken car in the parade.”

“What about Nelson?” I asked.

“No, no,” Tim said, shaking his head. “Nelson can’t drive because he’s got two DUIs. Of course, he still drives anyway, but he’s worried someone might notice him driving in the Halloween parade in a giant chicken car.”

I tried to picture this in my head. I did, and it was horrible.

Tim met my gaze and said, “I’d like you to drive in the parade, Colin.”

I stared at him. “Me? The chicken car? In the parade?”

He nodded, grinning big, mistaking my horror for enthusiasm.

“Isn’t it great?”

“I, uh... I can’t do that, Tim.”

“Sure you can,” he said, slapping his hand on my shoulder again.

I was about to concoct a story explaining why I couldn’t when Tim said, “I’ll give you a raise if you’ll do it.”

“How much?”

“A dollar.”

“A dollar an hour raise?” I asked incredulously.

Tim beamed. “Anything for the driver of my chicken car.”

So that was that. That was how I, Colin Booth, wound up driving that yellow eyesore in the Halloween parade.

My girlfriend Maggie broke up with me two days before the parade. We were sitting in my 1987 Camaro with the heater blasting us. It was cold, and it was dark outside. I had lost track of time but knew it had to be close to nine. We were parked in the country on a gravel road, and Angus Young was screaming from the speakers.

Maggie was rambling about something, but I didn’t know what. Something about her friend, Cheryl. I didn’t care about any of it. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I didn’t care about Maggie. I did. She was the greatest. She’s got a great rack and a hell of a sense of humor. But sometimes, when she spoke, I tended to tune out. It wasn’t on purpose, mind you. It was like she spoke at a frequency that my ears couldn’t quite hear.

She was still talking when I leaned over the console to attempt a kiss. She turned, made a face of disgust, and moved away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Don’t you wanna make out?”

“Is that all I am to you—a piece of ass?”

“No, of course not. But I’m not gonna lie, I do like having sex with you.”

She looked into my eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What was I just saying? Just now, before you tried to kiss me?”

I squinted and cocked my head, trying to find the answer, but all I knew was that it had something to do with Cheryl. So that’s what I said: “You were talking about Cheryl.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What was I saying about her? Do you know?”

I had no clue, so I just stared at her stupidly. She sucked her teeth, and her pissy expression became even pissy-er.

“This is what I’m talking about, Colin!”

I blinked. “What?” Were we fighting now? I didn’t even know. The fight just seemed to come out of nowhere. One second I’m trying to kiss her, and the next, she’s all pissed off and angry.

Maggie exhaled hard and crossed her arms. She was staring out the windshield when she said, “I don’t think we want the same things out of life.”

I stared at her. “Things out of life? What are you talking about? I was just trying to kiss you. What the hell, Mags?”

She turned to look at me again. “You have no ambition. No drive. No goals. Look at yourself, Colin. This is all the life you want, isn’t it? I think you’re actually happy with things the way they are. You’re in a holding pattern.”

“Holding pattern?” I asked. “What does that mean? Look, I like my life, sure. I think it’s great. Don’t you? Tell me what’s wrong with my life. Just one thing.”

“You’re thirty-six, and you live with your parents.”

“So what? A lot of guys I know live with their parents. Some of them are a whole lot older than me.”

“You’re a loser, Colin,” she spat. “I knew it when we met, but I tried to ignore it. I told myself you could change, but I know now that you never will.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’m not a loser. Just look at my badass Camaro. How can a guy with a sweet ride like this be a loser?”

She shook her head angrily, so overwhelmed with frustration that she didn’t know what to do. Then she said, “I’m through.”

“Through with what?”

Her eyes locked on mine. “I can’t be with you anymore.”

I felt like I’d just been slapped. I sat there staring at her for a long moment. “What do you mean? Like what, tonight? Or forever?”

“I want to break up.”

“Really?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We’d been going out for nine months, and I’d really thought she might be the one.

“Take me home,” she demanded, turning to stare out the side window.

“Wait,” I said, unsure how to finish the sentence.

“What?”

“Could we at least have sex one last time?” I asked. “I’ll even wear a rubber this time, and I promise I won’t take it off in the middle like I did last time.”

I figured that was probably the wrong thing to say, but I wasn’t prepared for the way she reacted. She let out a loud, angry grunt that was a mixture of disgust and frustration, and she slammed both of her fists against the dash.

“Hey! Hey!” I said, holding my palm out. “I get that you’re mad, but don’t take it out on the car!”

Maggie turned and threw the door open. Before I even knew what was happening, she was out of the Camaro, slamming the door so hard the whole car shook.

I got out and stood there, staring at her over the top of the car. “Get back in, Mags. We can talk about it.”

She stood there with her back to me. “I’m not getting back in that car. I’ll walk, thank you very much.”

“It’s cold, and we’re ten miles outside of town,” I pleaded. “It’s too cold to walk. Just get back in the car.”

“I won’t!”

“Fine,” I said. I got back inside the car, backed out, and sped away. I decided if Maggie wanted to stage a dramatic escape, I’d let her. “Have fun walking,” I muttered, watching her fade into darkness in the mirror.

My dad lost his shit the night before the parade. He was always in a crappy mood. He’d worked in a factory making cabinets all his life, and he had always been drunk and angry anytime he was home. But now he’d lost his job, so he was even drunker and angrier than before.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, looking down at my phone. Mom was in another part of the house. I had no idea what she was doing, but Dad was here with me. He was coming in from the garage when he saw that the kitchen trash basket was overflowing.

“What the fuck, Colin!” he screamed. “What is this shit?!”

I had no idea what he was talking about or his current excuse for being angry. Not until he hurled the trash basket across the kitchen with all the strength he could muster. The flying wastebasket left a trail of trash behind as it soared, smashing hard against an overhead cabinet. When it crashed, the racket it made was loud enough to wake the dead.

Still sitting at the table, I could only stare. Stunned by the spectacle before me, my mouth was agape. In a flash, my dad was charging through the kitchen and into the dining room, rushing towards me with fire in his eyes. I felt certain he was going to punch me, but he kicked an empty chair into the table instead.

“You know what?” he screamed. “You’re a piece of shit! Do you know that? A fucking piece of trash!” I turned away from him, and he roared, “Don’t you turn your back on me, you little fuck!”

I pushed myself back from the table and stood up. I turned and found myself face to face with him. He squinted his eyes like a low-rent Clint Eastwood and puffed out his chest. “What are you gonna do?” he growled. “You think you’re tough enough—”

I punched him with everything I had, and I felt his jaw break. The old prick flopped backward, hitting his head against the wall. And that was it—he was unconscious.

I turned and left the house, vowing never to return.

When I showed up at work to pick up the chicken car, I was still wearing my Chicken Shack uniform despite not working in three days. When I knocked on the door frame outside the office, Nelson looked up at me. “Wearing your uniform for the parade was a great idea,” he said. “It’ll make you look more professional.”

Whatever.

I grabbed the keys without saying a word. I went outside, unlocked the car door, climbed inside, and started her up. I revved the engine a couple of times, and then I peeled out, heading for the parade.

It was five minutes before the parade’s start time. I was quite a ways back in the procession, right behind the high school marching band. There was a pickup truck behind me. It had a sign advertising the feed store on its side, and there was a guy wearing a hockey mask standing in the bed waving to people with a toy machete.

Up ahead, beyond the marching band, people were scrambling to find their places. I could see a homegrown, shitty excuse for a float on the other side of the band. The gray-haired mayor was standing in the middle of it, wearing khaki slacks and a windbreaker. A few guys were surrounding him on the float. Two of them were wearing hockey masks and carrying toy machetes. Real original. Another guy had a sheet pulled over his head. I assume he was supposed to be a ghost and not a Klu Klux Klansman, but this was Missouri, so who knows?

Someone in the drumline gave their drum a couple of practice whacks. There was excitement in the air, and everyone was anxious. The band members were readying themselves to begin marching. The truck behind me revved up its engine. Looking at the band again, I noticed one girl was in an electric wheelchair.

Sitting there waiting to go, I thought about Maggie accusing me of having no ambition. My mind then turned to my parents, who also thought I was a loser without purpose. I hated it when they said those things, and it made me really angry. At that moment, I realized for the first time why it made me so mad. It was because they were right.

I was a loser.

I had done nothing with my life, and I had zero plans.

I sighed, not wanting to be at the parade at that moment. I looked over the steering wheel, seeing the floats starting to move. The marching band began to march, and the chaotic cacophony of band music drowned out everything else. I dropped the chicken car into drive and began to idle forward.

I looked at the families and children who lined the street. They were smiling and happy. Seeing them happy made me angry, and I thought, who the hell were they to be happy? Why couldn’t I ever be happy? Why couldn’t I have a good life?

Maggie had been right. I had no ambition. I was a loser who lived with his parents and made minimum wage working in a greasy second-rate chicken joint. I had made nothing of my life, and it was clear I never would. Adding insult to injury, here I was driving this fucking chicken car!

The drums were pounding and tap tap tapping, and then somewhere ahead, I heard Van Halen’s “Jump” blaring from some unseen loudspeaker. All this music and chaos had brought the spectators to life. Kids were eating big globs of pink cotton candy. Others were waving neon glow sticks. Everyone was having a grand old time. Everyone but me.

As I considered the sorry state of my life and stared at the procession ahead and all its spectators, the tumblers in my head clicked into place. And I knew. I knew what I had to do, and I could feel the smile spreading across my face.

Lifting my foot off the brake, I thought about what I was about to do and the way I would make my mark on this world. The way Colin Booth would become famous, despite everyone’s lack of expectations.

This chicken’s got teeth.

You’re damned right it does.

I stomped the gas pedal. The chicken car shot forward. With the din of the band and Van Halen playing, it took a few seconds for people to realize what was happening. Some never did.

Suddenly, I was engaged in a grand game of Pac-Man, with the chicken car eating up the band members. I saw them disappearing beneath the front of the car as I kept my foot pressed down on the gas. I could hear the thwomp! sounds as the car passed over them. The tires struck some of them, and the car climbed up and over the fallen. The chicken car continued to accelerate, and I was mowing down band members three at a time. Some of them looked back and dove out of the way, but some of them looked back and saw me just in time to die. Now the girl in the wheelchair was right in front of me. And then she wasn’t.

Thwomp!

Within seconds I had made my way through the band’s ranks, and the chicken car was zipping through the school’s taut banner stretching across the band’s front row. With the banner flapping from the sides of the blood-spattered chicken car, I continued rocketing forward. And then I heard a new sound. A strange, uneven sound that I didn’t immediately recognize. I considered this for a moment and realized it was laughter. Mine. I hadn’t even known I was laughing, but I was.

I veered to the right, so I could hit the mayor’s float at an angle. This way, I wouldn’t be stopped by the collision. Just before the chicken car struck the float, I saw the mayor holding his hands out as if he could stop me. But I didn’t stop. Even at an angle, the crash was jarring, and the mayor, the ghost, and the duo of Jasons went flying willy-nilly. One of them—I don’t know which—went under the car, and I heard that satisfying thwomp! sound beneath me. The chicken car careened off the float and shot farther to the right, going up over the curb and devouring the crowd. I was laughing even harder now and found it difficult to catch my breath.

This chicken’s got teeth.

You’re damned right it does.

By God, I had done it. I was going to be famous. No one in this crummy little town would ever forget Colin Booth.

STORY NOTES FOR “CHICKEN CAR”: My friend Clark Roberts (who co-wrote “The Dog Creek Coven”) asked me to write something for a holiday-themed anthology he was editing. I initially chose Halloween with an early version of this story in mind. However, I soon learned I had misunderstood Clark’s pitch. His anthology would contain stories for children. This story, as you now know, is not child friendly. I then shelved the idea and wrote “Matthew Todd’s Valentine” instead.

The following year, Becky Narron asked me to pen a story for a Halloween-themed anthology Terror Tract was publishing titled Hell-o-ween (2021). Remembering this idea, I went to work on what would ultimately become “Chicken Car.” It’s a weird, sick little story, and I had a blast writing it.

A side note: as I was writing this, a fan named Colin Booth asked me if I would name a character after him. Thus, Colin Booth became the driver of the chicken car. It’s a good name. It wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if Colin’s name had been something weird like Elmer Von Pussyfarts.

MATTHEW TODD’S VALENTINE

Matthew Todd's family moved into the Broadwell House on the first day of autumn. The Broadwell House was the second oldest house in Bakersville and had been built by a successful businessman named Thomas Broadwell. Matthew and his little sister, Davina, loved their new home. The big brick house was spacious and had three stories, which neither of them had ever seen in a house before. It also had a giant backyard with several trees, one of which supported a tire swing.

“Can the third floor be my room?” Davina asked.

Their parents chuckled. “You want an entire floor to yourself?”

"Yes. I'm seven, and I am old enough to have my own floor."

Daddy had picked up Davina in his arms, grinning. "No, Davina, you can't have a whole floor to yourself. Nobody gets a whole floor to themselves."

This displeased Davina, but the revelation that the entire third floor would be used as a giant play area cheered her up. That third floor was hands down her favorite thing about the new house.

“What about you, Matthew?” Mommy asked. “What's your favorite thing about the house?”

“I like the neat dumbwaiter thingies,” he said. The dumbwaiters were small manual elevators that had originally been used to deliver dishes of food up to the upper rooms. Then the servants would use a pulley to deliver the empty dishes back downstairs after dinner. Matthew thought the dumbwaiter system was really cool, which concerned his parents.

“I don't want you playing around with that,” Daddy said.

“Yes,” Mommy agreed. “It's dangerous.”

Matthew had tried to protest, but his parents wouldn't listen. That was it, they said. The dumbwaiters were off-limits. Despite this, Matthew still planned to put their tabby cat, Jeremiah, inside the tiny elevator one day when no one was around. That, he believed, would be a little secret just between him and Jeremiah.

Matthew and Davina were happy with their new house, and over the next few months, they became very comfortable there. But things changed when Mrs. Marshall, the elderly woman who lived next door, let slip that she believed the house was haunted. Once she realized she'd frightened the children half to death, she apologized. Nevertheless, Matthew and Davina remained afraid.

That night their parents sat them down for a discussion.

“We've lived here for two months,” Daddy said. “Tell me, children, have you seen or heard any ghosts during that time?”

Matthew and Davina looked at one another. Then they looked up at their daddy but said nothing.

“See,” Mommy said. “You haven't seen or heard anything because there aren't any ghosts here.”

Davina protested. “But Mrs. Marshall says—”

“Mrs. Marshall is a crazy old busy-body,” Daddy said.

Mommy told him to shush, but Daddy said, "But she is, honey. You know it, and I know it. She's just a crazy old woman telling crazy old woman stories." Then he looked at Matthew and Davina. "Listen to me, kids. There are no ghosts here. Absolutely none."

Matthew looked into his Daddy's eyes. “How do you know?”

“Because there are no such thing as ghosts.”

And that was the end of the discussion. Matthew and Davina were still scared to sleep, but eventually, the night passed. They were still frightened the next night, but that passed too. Eventually, life continued the way it had been before, and Matthew and Davina forgot about what Mrs. Marshall had told them.

Things went on this way, and life was normal again until one night when Matthew awakened to the sound of a girl's voice. "Hi, Matthew," the voice said. He sat up in his bed, blinking. He rubbed his eyes and looked around but saw nothing.

“Over here,” the voice said.

Matthew turned towards the dumbwaiter to see that its sliding door was open. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. That's when he saw the little girl's face staring at him from inside the dumbwaiter. He gasped. His chest tightened, and he wanted to scream, but the little girl said, "Don't scream, Matthew. I'm your friend."

He sat up in his bed and stared at her. “Do you promise?”

“Of course,” the little girl said, smiling. Now that his eyes were used to the darkness, he could see her clearly.

“Who are you?” Matthew asked.

“My name is Sarah,” the girl said. “Sarah Broadwell.”

“What are you doing here?”

“This is my house.”

“No, it's not,” Matthew said. “It's our house.”

Sarah nodded. “Yes, it's your house now, but it used to be my house. My daddy had it built special just for us.”

Matthew stared at her, his eyes widening. “Your daddy had the house built?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, nodding.

“But . . . wasn't that a long time ago?”

“Yes, it was.”

Matthew said, “Then you must be pretty old. Older than my parents even. But . . . you don't look old. You look like a kid . . . like me.”

Sarah's expression changed, and she looked sad. "I'm eleven."

Matthew wrinkled his face, trying to understand. "You're only two years older than me. So then, how could your daddy have had this house built? It's old. Real old.”

“Well,” Sarah began, “I was eleven when I had my accident.”

“What accident?”

She told him about the time she tried to climb inside the dumbwaiter and fell down to the bottom floor, breaking her neck.

“You broke your neck? That must have hurt really bad.”

“It was worse than that,” she told him. “I died, Matthew.”

Matthew's mouth fell open. He stared at her for a moment, trying to understand what she was telling him. "How could you be dead, Sarah? When my grandpa died, they put him inside the ground over at Plainview Cemetery, and we never saw him again. Mommy says he's up in Heaven with the angels."

Sarah smiled. "My body is buried in the ground at Plainview Cemetery, too," she said. "Right next to my mother and father and my two sisters, Bonnie and Ella."

Matthew rubbed his eyes again. He wondered if he was really seeing this little girl inside the dumbwaiter who claimed to be dead and buried. When he opened his eyes again, she was still there staring at him.

“Okay,” Matthew said. “If you're dead and you're in the ground, then how can you be here with me?”

Sarah looked at him with big sad eyes. They were pretty—Matthew could see that even in the dark—but they were sad.

“I'm a ghost, Matthew.”

He stared at her with his mouth hanging open again.

“Seriously?”

Sarah nodded. “I'm dead serious.” Then she giggled a little. “Dead serious. That's funny, isn't it? Because I'm dead.”

Matthew didn't laugh. Staring at the face of this pretty girl who was being so nice to him, he wasn't sure whether or not he should be afraid.

“Are you scared of me, Matthew?”

“No. I'm not scared.”

“Good,” Sarah said, smiling. “I died 153 years ago today. On Valentine's Day.”

Matthew thought about this. “Valentine's Day is tomorrow.”

Sarah giggled again. “It's after midnight, silly. It's already tomorrow. It's Valentine's Day.”

Matthew nodded. “I guess you're right.”

She told him she could only be seen once a year on the anniversary of her death. And when she came back, she was only able to speak to one person.

“And I'm the only person you can talk to?”

Sarah nodded. “Just you, Matthew.”

After this, she climbed out of the dumbwaiter. When she did, Matthew could see through her transparent body, like it was made of steam.

“Can I sit on the bed beside you?”

Matthew told her she could. He then stayed awake all night talking to her. The two of them giggled and had fun, and Matthew kept thinking about how pretty she was. He believed she was prettier than any of the girls who went to his school. But, unfortunately, she was a ghost.

When daylight came, Sarah convinced Matthew to pretend he was sick and stay home from school so they could spend more time together. After all, this was the only day she would be here, and he was the only person she could talk to.

Matthew convinced his parents he was sick, so he got to stay home. Since his mom and dad had to go to work, his grandma stayed with him. She stayed downstairs, however, so he could sleep. But he didn't sleep. Instead, he sat up, still in his pajamas, talking to his new friend.

As they sat next to one another on the bed, Matthew looked at Sarah and asked, “What's it like to be a ghost?”

She smiled awkwardly. “That's a weird question, Matthew.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, “but I've never met a real ghost before.”

She told him it was okay. Being a ghost, she said, wasn't terrible, but she hated not being able to talk to people or be seen but once a year.

"Some of the Valentine's Days were really hard," she explained. "There were years when no one lived in this house, so I would come back, and there would be no one to talk to. Then there was an old woman who lived here for a while, but she couldn't hear, and she could barely see, so she never even knew I was here."

Matthew looked down, considering this. Then he said, “I don't think I'd like being a ghost.”

She looked at him and smiled. “I don't think I like it all that much either, Matthew.”

Matthew was lying on his bed, and Sarah was beside by the window when his grandma came in, bringing him a bowl of hot soup. She looked at him, unable to see Sarah. "I brought you some chicken noodle soup. I remember you didn't like cream of mushroom when I made that, so I thought maybe you'd like this better."

Matthew nodded and spoke in a croaky fake sick voice. “Thank you, Grandma. I appreciate that.”

She positioned the tray on his lap and set up the mug of hot cocoa on his nightstand. Then she kissed him on his forehead, embarrassing him a little. Sensing this, his grandma said, “I'm sorry about that, Matthew. I just want you to get better soon, okay?”

Matthew smiled at her politely, and she turned and went to the door. When she reached it, she stopped and looked back at him. "Is there anything else I can get for you?" He told her no and promised that he would call for her if he needed anything. Then she went back downstairs to let him sleep.

Once she was gone, Sarah floated over to his side and looked down at the soup. “That looks good,” she said. “I sure wish I could eat.”

He looked at her. “You don't eat?”

She shook her head.

“Never?”

“No, Matthew,” she said. “Ghosts don't need food.”

She sat down on the side of the bed and watched him eat. Then she said, “I miss my family.” Hearing the sadness in her voice, he looked up at her. “Where are they?”

“They're dead, silly.”

“I know, but aren't they ghosts like you?”

Sarah tilted her head, looking at him strangely. “I don't know where they are, but I don't see them. I've never seen anyone since...”

There was a long silence, so Matthew asked, “Since when?”

She looked at him with sad eyes. “Since I died.”

Then she leaned forward and cupped her hands around her face.

Matthew leaned forward.

“Don't be sad,” he said. “Are you... crying?”

She looked up at him. “No, Matthew. I can't cry either. I can't do much of anything.”

He felt bad for her. Staring into her sad eyes, he thought again about how pretty she was. Thinking about this, the words blurted out of his mouth. “Gee, you're beautiful, Sarah.”

Her expression brightened, and her eyes got bigger. "Really? You think I'm beautiful?"

Matthew nodded. “I do. You're the prettiest girl I've ever known. I mean, I've seen some pretty women on television, but I think you're even prettier than they are.”

She stared into his eyes, and Matthew could feel himself falling in love with a ghost.

“It made me jealous when your grandmother kissed you,” she said. “No one's kissed me in a long, long time.”

Matthew stared at her, wondering if she wanted him to kiss her.

Sarah cracked a smile as they continued staring into each other's eyes in silence. "Would you do something for me, Matthew?"

Staring at her, feeling lost in her beauty, the words came out of his mouth before he even realized he was saying them. “I would do anything for you, Sarah.”

She leaned in towards him. “Would you...”

“What?”

“Would you kiss me?”

Matthew didn't say anything. All his life, he'd been afraid of girls, but he wasn't scared now. He leaned forward as if he'd kissed hundreds of girls. Both of them puckered their lips. As their faces grew near one another, Sarah closed her eyes. But Matthew kept his open.

Then, at the moment their lips should have touched... they didn't. Instead, Matthew's face passed through hers. Again, it was like Sarah was made of steam.

Realizing what had happened, both of them leaned back with wide-open eyes.

“What happened?” Matthew asked.

Sarah stared at him, startled, and then doubled over from sadness.

“It's because I'm a ghost,” she said. “I guess we can't touch.”

Matthew stared at her, trying to understand. “So you've never tried to kiss or touch anybody before? Not since... since you died?”

She looked at him with a sad, dreamy expression. “No, I never did.”

Seeing that Sarah was sad, Matthew wanted to cheer her up. He thought about it for a moment and then said, “Sarah?”

She looked up, and they made eye contact again.

“Yes?”

“Would you be my Valentine?”

Her eyes got big, and she looked like she would have cried if she could have. She smiled and then giggled happily. "I've never been anyone's Valentine before!"

Matthew stared at her. “So you will?”

She reached her arms out like she was going to hug him and then stopped herself, remembering that she couldn't. “Yes, Matthew,” she said. “Of course I'll be your Valentine!”

The two of them laughed and smiled and had a good time for the rest of the day and evening, stopping only when Matthew's mom entered the room to bring him supper or tell him to take a bath. As Matthew and Sarah talked, they fell in love with one other.

As midnight drew near, Sarah said, "Matthew?"

He looked at her, really staring into her eyes. “Yes, Sarah?”

“I've never been in love before.”

“Me neither,” Matthew said. “But then I'm only nine.”

Sarah laughed. “Well, Matthew, I'm 153!”

They both laughed at this.

“Matthew,” she said again.

“Yes, Sarah?”

“I do love you, you know.”

He looked at her pretty eyes and said, “I love you, too, Sarah.”

When they both knew their time was almost up, Sarah asked, “Will you meet me again next year on Valentine's Day?”

He smiled a big smile. “You know I will, Sarah.”

“And you'll think about me every day until we see each other again?”

“Of course I will.”

They talked for a few more minutes. Then, when Matthew was talking about his teacher, Mrs. Milton, he looked up and saw that Sarah was gone.

Matthew thought about his ghostly friend every day for the first few months, but he eventually began to question whether or not she had been real. Maybe he really had been sick and had had a fever, which had caused him to believe he'd seen her. The more he thought about it, the more he believed this. After all, ghosts weren't real. His daddy had told him so, and his daddy was very smart.

One day, Matthew remembered Sarah while he was at school, so after class, he asked his teacher, Mrs. Milton, if she believed in ghosts. Mrs. Milton blinked and stared at him, considering this. "No, Matthew," she said. "I don't believe in ghosts. How about you? Do you believe in them?"

“No,” Matthew said. And he meant it. Time had passed and had fooled him into believing Sarah had been a dream and nothing more.

By the time Valentine's Day came around again the following year, he'd completely forgotten her. So when she spoke to him, saying his name and waking him up in the middle of the night, he was startled. He sat up, blinking his eyes and rubbing them. He looked over at Sarah, sitting on his bean bag.