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  If only Margaret could die every day, then maybe Doug and I—

  As soon as she had the thought, she was sickened. She'd rather have Margaret back alive than to have any guy in the world. Anyway, if Margaret were alive, Doug would still be going out with her. Margaret had been beautiful. Still was. And Ellen was a frumpy, dumpy piece of nobody. She cried herself to a restless sleep.

  "You didn't go out," Ellen said the next afternoon.

  Margaret lowered her voice, looking around at the other graves. "I was scared."

  "I don't blame you." Ellen felt a small spark of joy, a lightness in her chest. If Margaret didn't go out, everything would be okay.

  "I want to see him."

  "You'd better be careful, Margaret. They want to keep you a secret."

  "I don't have to talk to him or anything. I just want to see him. To remember what he's like."

  "What about Doug? What if you freak him out?"

  "I didn't freak you out."

  "Well, you did a little, at first. I mean, it's not like I believed in ghosts or anything, or did one of those corny seances to try and bring you back."

  "I wonder if Doug misses me as much as I miss him."

  Ellen didn't know whether to lie or not. She had never kept secrets from Margaret before. She looked at the ground, at the seam of stubborn dirt where the grass hadn't taken root.

  "Are you ashamed of having me for a friend?"

  "Of course not." Ellen knelt in the moist grass by the tombstone. "You'll always be my best friend. Forever."

  "Better than Doug?"

  Does she know? Ellen's throat was tight. What would a ghost do to you if you tried to steal her boyfriend?

  "Doug still thinks about you a lot," Ellen managed to say, which wasn't a lie. "I talked to him a few weeks ago. He said that you guys listened to Crash Test Dummies together. He said that 'Swimming In Your Ocean' was your favorite song."

  "Crash Test Dummies. Now that's what I call irony, seeing the way I got killed."

  Ellen tried to change the subject away from Doug and death. "Do they have music...over there?"

  Margaret looked beyond the graveyard, beyond trees and stone and all things solid, as if she hadn't heard Ellen. "It doesn't hurt to get killed. It hurts more, afterward. Being dead, I mean. And knowing it. That's the worst thing."

  "I wish I could trade places with you." So Doug would be in love with her. Even if she couldn't do anything about it, couldn't hold his hand or kiss him. She'd be happy enough just to know he carried her in his heart. Just to be able to make him happy or sad when he thought of her.

  "Don't say that." Margaret drifted down from the stone. Part of her misty flesh seeped across Ellen's face. Ellen shivered.

  "It hurts to be dead, Ellen. It hurts to remember everything you lost."

  "You haven't lost me," Ellen said, wondering if Margaret was splashing the chill of death on her face just to warn her. But Ellen would never commit suicide. She was too scared. And if she died, she'd never have Doug. But would Doug have her?

  "I don't ever want to lose you." Margaret smiled, a white sliver of movement among the smoky threads of her face. The front gate of the cemetery creaked open.

  "Somebody's coming," Ellen said, but Margaret had already disappeared, back to her cold and dreamless sleep. Ellen pretended to mumble a prayer in case the visitors happened to see her. Then she went out the front gate and headed toward the soccer field.

  Ellen's mom would be mad, but Ellen didn't care. Nothing else mattered anymore. Let everybody else hate her. She had to find out once, for all, and forever.

  "This is really weird, Ellen," Doug said.

  What did Doug know about weirdness? His world was soccer games, shooting for college scholarships, getting tons of pictures in the yearbook. He'd been in the graveyard before, but not since Margaret's funeral, and certainly never when the sky was purple with sundown. A pale slice of moon hung in bare branches like an ornament.

  "How come you've never been back?" Ellen asked.

  "Because I—" Doug paused, gasped. "I don't know. It makes me think about her, and I don't like to think about her. It makes my chest hurt."

  They stood before Margaret's grave, Doug shivering in his soccer shorts and T-shirt. She'd dragged him here right after practice, had called him to the sidelines and told him she had something really important to show him. So important it couldn't wait for him to get dressed.

  She'd taken his hand, and he hadn't pulled away. She led him across the street and over the hill, feeling the eyes of Doug's friends on her back. They probably thought good old Doug was going to score, put another one in the net. Ellen trembled as they walked, brushing aside his questions until they came to the graveyard.

  "Margaret is my best friend," Ellen said. Doug looked at her as if she were crazy, but she didn't feel crazy at all. In fact, for the first time in years, she felt that her life was under her own control.

  "Yeah, Margaret was great," Doug said, looking around at the tombstones gray in the weak light. "She was really special."

  "I have to know, Doug. Did you really love her?"

  Doug let go of her hand. "You're scaring me."

  "The truth is nothing to be afraid of." Ellen squinted at Margaret's grave, but could see none of the strange milkiness of her ghost. She hoped they hadn't called Margaret away, that they hadn't confined her to some dismal, dark hibernation. "Did you love her?"

  Doug looked around. He seemed uncomfortable without an audience. Ellen wondered if this was how he acted when he was alone with Margaret. "Uh, yeah. Sure. Of course I did."

  "How many girls have you gone out with since then?"

  "What's that got to do with anything?"

  "It's got everything to do with everything."

  "Are you feeling okay?"

  "I'm fine." Ellen grinned, not caring if her dimples were dumpy. "Never been better. How many girls?"

  "Heck, I don't know. Five, six."

  "Maybe ten?"

  "Maybe."

  "And you loved Margaret the best?"

  "You're weird. I've got to go."

  "Just answer me, and you can leave."

  He scratched his head. His eyes reflected the moonlight. "Well, I loved her. But you got to move on. You got to keep living. I know you were her best friend, but I didn't know you were so hung up on her."

  "Even dead people have feelings." She almost wished Margaret would rise like fog, to tell Doug how much she missed him. Ellen wondered how Mr. Cool would handle that.

  "I'm getting out of here." Doug headed for the gate, hunched, his arms huddled across his chest. November was always cold, especially in the graveyard. But Ellen knew some things were colder than November. Like a guy's heart.

  "She loved you, you know," Ellen called.

  Doug stopped near the gate, his shadow mingling with the wrought-iron bars. "I thought you were taking me out here so we could be alone. I was going to kiss you. I was going to be gentle. Hell, I was even going to walk you home after."

  "I bet you say that to all the girls," Margaret said, her voice everywhere and nowhere.

  Doug glanced at the sky, shook his head as if to clear away cobwebs or memories or imagined voices, then hurried through the gate.

  "He's not so hot after all," Margaret said from her tombstone perch. "Not like I remember him."

  "Some people grow on you, and some don't."

  "You could have fallen in love with him," Margaret said. "I wouldn't have minded too much."

  "I know. But every time I kissed him, I would have thought of you. And he wouldn't have."

  "Yeah." The moon shone into Margaret, making her hair radiant. She was beautiful, both inside and outside. "Well, when you're dead, warm lips are gross anyway."

  They shared a laugh, and even though the wind howled around them, Ellen was warm. She might not know what losing love was like, but she knew what having it was like.

  "You'd better get home," Margaret said. "Your mom's going to kill you
."

  "Naw. She's not going to kill me. I'm going to live a long time."

  The cemetery was silent except for the brittle rattling of bone-dry leaves. After a moment, Margaret said, "Live for both of us, okay?"

  Ellen reached out, held the wispy hand of her best friend. "I promise," she whispered.

  Ellen left Margaret to her dark sleep and headed for the gate, street, and home. Tomorrow Doug would be telling half the school that she was nuts, but she didn't care. Doug could go stuff himself, as far as she was concerned. She could hardly wait to get home and tear his picture into shreds.

  There was one more thing. She paused at the gate. "See you tomorrow, Margaret," she called across the empty graveyard.

  A peaceful hush was her only answer.

  THE END

  ###

  About the author:

  I have written 12 novels, including The Red Church, Speed Dating with the Dead, Disintegration, and The Skull Ring.

  Other electronic works include Burial to Follow and the story collections Ashes, The First, Murdermouth, and Gateway Drug. I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where I write for a newspaper, play guitar, raise an organic garden, and work as a freelance fiction editor.

  Come to the Haunted Computer, become a Spooky Microchip, and help me build my next book. You’ll also find writing tips, free fiction, and survival tips.

  Talk to me at [email protected], "hauntedcomputer" on Twitter, or hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com. If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends and give another Nicholson title a try. If you hated it, why not try another one anyway? What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, and what does kill you is probably lurking in my next book. Read on for more.

  Try these other thrillers because they are good:

  OCTOBER GIRLS

  By Scott Nicholson (writing as L.C. Glazebrook)

  Five days until Halloween and all hell is about to break loose.

  And it’s all Crystal’s fault.

  Momma warned her not to consort with the dead and tried to teach her the magic spells that would close the portal to the afterlife. But Crystal doesn’t want to be a trailer-trash witch like Momma. She has dreams of going to community college and escaping the Appalachian town of Parson’s Ford.

  Her best friend Bone is only too happy to escape the afterlife and help Crystal break the rules. Bone died too young, and she’ll do whatever it takes to remain among the living.

  Then a teen movie maker comes to Parson’s Ford, and he has a very special project in mind: a horror movie starring a real ghost. The kids who watch his movies turn into brainwashed zombies. And to totally complicate matters, Crystal thinks he’s kind of a hunk, and she’s afraid her boyfriend Pettigrew only loves her because of Momma’s magic spells.

  Now it’s Halloween, the night when the portal to the afterlife is widest, and somebody’s been messing with Momma’s potions. The fate of the world is in Crystal’s hands, but she hasn’t been paying attention to her lessons. And a mysterious figure in the afterlife is urging Bone to stay loyal to her own kind instead of to Crystal.

  The movie is rolling, the creatures are stirring, and the brainwashed teenagers are ready to welcome a new star from the other side of the grave.

  Crystal and Bone must overcome drama queens, coffin cuties, and mangled magic if they want to remain best friends forever—but at this rate, forever may not last much longer.

  Learn more about the paranormal romance series October Girls or buy it for Kindle at Amazon

  CURSED!

  By J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson

  Albert Shipway is an ordinary guy, an insurance negotiator who likes booze and women and never having to say he’s sorry.

  And he thinks this is just another day, another lunch, another order of kung pao chicken. Little does he know that he’s about to meet a little old lady who knows his greatest fear. A little old lady who knows what’s hiding in his heart. A little old lady who dishes up a big stew of supernatural revenge, with ingredients as follows: First you take one psychotic ex from a family of serial killers. Next add a pinch or two of an irrational childhood fear. Now thoroughly mix in an angry sister, a life-stealing great-granddad, and a notorious mass murderer—who happens to be dead but doesn’t know it. Let it stew and froth and bubble thoroughly....

  In just a matter of minutes, Albert’s life turns upside down and he enters a world where magic and evil lurk beneath the fabric of Southern California. And all his choices have brewed a perfect storm of broken hearts, broken promises, shattered families, and a couple of tiny problems. Namely, killer mice and a baby.

  Albert Shipway is finally getting a chance to right some wrongs.

  That is, if it's not too late.

  Learn more about the urban fantasy Cursed! or buy it for Kindle at Amazon

  THE RED CHURCH

  Book I in the Sheriff Littlefield Series

  By Scott Nicholson

  Stoker Award finalist and alternate selection of the Mystery Guild

  For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won't stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.

  Sheriff Frank Littlefield hates the red church for a different reason. His little brother died in a freak accident at the church twenty years ago, and now Frank is starting to see his brother's ghost. And the ghost keeps demanding, "Free me." People are dying in Whispering Pines, and the murders coincide with McFall's return.

  The Days, the Littlefields, and the McFalls are descendants of the original families that settled the rural Appalachian community. Those old families share a secret of betrayal and guilt, and McFall wants his congregation to prove its faith. Because he believes he is the Second Son of God, and that the cleansing of sin must be done in blood.

  "Sacrifice is the currency of God," McFall preaches, and unless Frank and Ronnie stop him, everybody pays.

  Learn more about the real haunted church that inspired The Red Church or buy it for Kindle at Amazon

  DRUMMER BOY

  Book II in the Sheriff Littlefield Series

  By Scott Nicholson

  On an Appalachian Mountain ridge, three boys hear the rattling of a snare drum deep inside a cave known as "The Jangling Hole," and the wind carries a whispered name.

  It's the eve of a Civil War re-enactment, and the town of Titusville is preparing to host a staged battle. The weekend warriors aren’t aware they will soon be fighting an elusive army. A troop of Civil War deserters, trapped in the Hole by a long-ago avalanche, is rising from a long slumber, and the war is far from over.

  And one misfit kid is all that stands between the town and the cold mouth of hell…

  Learn more about Drummer Boy and the Appalachian legend that inspired the novel and buy it at Amazon

  DISINTEGRATION

  By Scott Nicholson

  Careful what you wish for.

  When a mysterious fire destroys his home and kills his young daughter, Jacob Wells is pulled into a downward spiral that draws him ever closer to the past he thought was dead and buried.

  Now his twin brother Joshua is back in town, seeking to settle old scores and claim his half of the Wells birthright. Jacob’s wife Renee is struggling with her own guilt, because the couple had lost an infant daughter several years before.

  As Jacob and Joshua return to the twisted roles they adopted at the hands of cruel, demanding parents, they wage a war of pride, wealth, and passion. They share the poisonous love of a woman who would gladly ruin them both: Carlita, a provocative and manipulative Hispanic whose immigrant family helped build the Wells fortune.

  Joshua wants other things, too, but Jacob’s desires are divide
d between the forbidden love he can’t possess, the respectability he can never have, and the revenge he is dying to taste. And Renee has dark motives of her own.

  If only Jacob can figure out which one to blame. But the lines of identity are blurred, because Joshua and Jacob share much more than blood.

  And the childhood games have become deadly serious.

  Learn more about the psychological thriller Disintegration or buy it at Amazon

  THE SKULL RING

  By Scott Nicholson

  Julia Stone will remember, even if it kills her.

  With the help of a therapist, Julia is piecing together childhood memories of the night her father vanished. When Julia finds a silver ring that bears the name "Judas Stone," the past comes creeping back. Someone is leaving strange messages inside her house, even though the door is locked. The local handyman offers help, but he has his own shadowy past. And the cop who investigated her father's disappearance has followed her to the small mountain town of Elkwood.

  Now Julia has a head full of memories, but she doesn't know which are real. Julia's therapist is playing games. The handyman is trying to save her, in more ways than one. And a sinister cult is closing in, claiming ownership of Julia's body and soul . . . .

  Learn more about The Skull Ring and False Recovered Memory Syndrome or buy it at Amazon

  SPEED DATING WITH THE DEAD

  By Scott Nicholson

  A paranormal conference at the most haunted hotel in the Southern Appalachian mountains…a man’s promise to his late wife that he’d summon her spirit…a daughter whose imagination goes to dark places…and demonic evil lurking in the remote hotel’s basement, just waiting to be awoken.