Novelist. Editor. Journalist. Business Writer.
I wrote a fairly twisted short story. It’s a bit of a departure from the type of writing in my novels. The kind folks at The Yard: Crime Blog published it on their site. Read it there.
On the up-side, it’s super short, so it won’t take you any time at all to read it. But it may take you a while to forget it. I hope.
Friday afternoon while working from home, the Ring camera alerted me to motion out front.
It was the FedEx guy.
Five minutes later, more motion out front.
It was UPS.
I retrieved both packages. And not four minutes later, more motion out front. Figuring it was USPS, I made my way to the door and peeked out the side window before opening it. It was this guy.
He looked into the window. He licked the deck a bit. He seemed to be waiting for me to open the door. Then he walked down the deck to peek in the other windows.
Maybe he wanted our Christmas presents. Maybe he was hungry. Maybe he wanted to get in the house and slaughter us all. You never know with a deer.
He then walked back to the front door. I was sort of surprised he didn’t shout out “Candygram!”
Our front door has a little hatch in it. You know, in case we ever open a speakeasy and people have to give us a password to get in. I opened this and told the deer to go away. He simply moved closer to hear what I was saying.
Eventually he gave up and wandered off.
Or so I’d thought. Turns out he simply went around to the back of the house to check out the back door situation.
Sneaky bastard. He did leave eventually.
A neighbor told me he had to chase this guy off because the young buck was licking the dogs through the fence!
Oh. And the deer made the news for following people in the park down the hill. I think this person was being overly dramatic with the attack language. But more dog licking was involved!
I’m starting to think it was this guy from earlier this year who followed me around out in the yard.
That one seemed interested in dogs as well
Anyway. It’s cute and all. But don’t feed the deer.
So much for all that. I’m sitting up here by the Jesus billboard in downtown Estes Park, trying to keep the Rocky Mountain winds from ripping through my ghostly guts. I just lost my job haunting The Stanley Hotel.
I don’t know what came over me. It’s a plush gig. That’s not to say anyone can do it. Lot of ghosts show up here looking for work, but a lot of ghosts are just regular people. The surfer bro who still thinks knock-knock jokes are funny. The accountant with the braying laugh. The woman who wants to pet every dog that comes around. Those things aren’t scary. They’re just annoying. And no one likes an annoying ghost.
Continue reading “A Ghost Story: The Stanley Hotel”
KEN WHEATON 