20th Century Ghosts

by Joe Hill

There is an elegance and tenderness to this work that is reminiscent of an earlier era, of Joan Aiken and Ambrose Bierce, of Beaumont and Matheson and Rod Serling.

Writing things warmed his imagination up for the work of creating an evening full of sweet dreams.

I want to see if it’s true. If the sky opens up at the top.

Art knew ... but he still didn’t like to come over, and when he did, he usually had a couple of patches for bicycle tyres on him, to guard against dark happenstance.

Francis had flipped through it, but was unable to recognise any religious notables, although he was willing to admit there was one cloud that might’ve been a fat man in a fez.

The memory of that day in the dump made him a little sentimental for his father - they had had some good times together, and Buddy had made a decent meal in the end. Really what else could you ask from a parent?

‘You see what you make me do,’ Max said, gesturing at the inkpot. Then he flinched, realising that this was exactly what his father had said to him a few nights before; he didn’t like the old man peeping out from inside him, talking through him like a puppet, a hollowed-out, empty-headed boy of wood.

Finney’s face burned and his breath smoked, as if he were more demon than boy.

My knees were hitched to my chest. My arms were spread out to either side, as for balance. I floated in the air, nothing holding me up. I wobbled to the right. I rolled to the left. I was an egg that wouldn’t quite fall over.

I don’t know what happened to Mindy Ackers after high school. You know someone for a while and then one day a hole opens underneath them, and they fall out of your world.