The Ghost Diaries: Episode VIII

An original comedy horror serial

A ghost’s afterlife is turned upside down when an obnoxious family moves into his haunted house. Their presence quickly brings his worst nightmare to life — people who refused to be scared of ghosts.

The Ghost Diaries is a comedy horror story told through diary entries. It’s set in Deer Falls — the same small Colorado town featured in my stories Snow Dragon, Pandora Reborn, and The Crimson Reaper. This first episode of this serial is free to all Strange New Worlds subscribers. The entire eight-episode serial will be available exclusively to paid subscribers of Strange New Worlds and paid subscribers of my Patreon page.

I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII

---

---

June 21 —

Glorious day! The entire Farmer clan is history!

No one has ever vexed me on the level this family did during the six weeks they spent inside my house. Their time here with me felt closer to a mini eternity. None of that matters now. This place belongs to me alone again.

What’s left of my house, anyway.

Getting rid of those twits for good exacted a heavier toll than I wanted. I resorted to a desperate measure I never considered even a week ago. But I refused to stay idle and let this family keep ruining my afterlife.

Things finally took a favorable turn earlier in the evening. My chance to gain an upper hand came when I caught the Farmers playing a game of hide and seek. May closed her eyes and counted to fifty while the others raced out of the living room and squirreled themselves away in various closets around the rest of the house.

Their game inspired a wicked new plan.

Simply haunting them out of my house had failed in every possible way. So I seized on a different strategy for ridding this obnoxious family from my afterlife.

I tailed each kid to their chosen hiding place and quietly sealed the doors behind them to prevent them from getting out. Then, I made my way down to the basement and punctured gas lines leading to the furnace and the water heater. My final step required a trip to the circuit breaker. I switched off the power to the entire house, shrouding virtually every room in darkness.

“Hey! Who turned out the lights?” Lacey’s panicked voice emanated from an upstairs bedroom closet. “I can’t see a thing up here.”

“The power went out,” May said. “Someone needs to check the breaker.”

Translation: she wanted Rusty to go down into the basement to fiddle with the circuit breaker. Whatever. That suited me just fine. Sending that clown down there made it easier to fully execute my impromptu plan. It would allow me to frame him for what I intended to do — with his stupidity taking the blame.