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  In that one glimpse of shu-shaaa, he’d seen both the beauty and the emptiness of cosmic union. When all was one, there were never two.

  He read the rest of Mayzie's poetry.

  ###

  Bill looked out over the meadows at the foot of Fool's Knob, at the Lord's great natural work. He could almost imagine the pressed place in the grass where he and Nettie had joined in the flesh.

  He still had his memories, even if they were starting to fade with the passing of time. The bad memories had fallen away, the sharp edges of nightmare had dulled, the old pains were dead and buried.

  But the good ones faded, too, and that made him sad. He could barely picture Nettie's eyes. He knew they were dark brown and deep, but he couldn't quite recollect how they made crescents when she smiled. He didn't remember her voice clearly, even now, here in the field with the sparrows making their songs and the breeze tickling the jack pines. He had to breathe deeply and swell his chest to catch a faint reminder of the smell of her skin.

  But they would be meeting in the sweet bye-and-bye. It was just a matter of being patient until the Lord willed him home. He only wished he could have given Nettie a good Christian burial. But she had dissolved like the others.

  He couldn't bury her flesh, and her soul was far gone to a better place.

  He hollowed out a depression in the damp soil with his fingers, scratching at the roots of clover and dandelions. He picked a buttercup and laid it gently in the shallow grave and pressed the dirt over the bright yellow petals.

  Tomorrow was Easter, a day of rebirth. But today was just another day spent sealed inside a dark cave, waiting.

  He knelt in the grass and prayed, then stood in the meadow and looked way off.

  ###

  Tamara put down the magazine she'd been reading. Ginger and Kevin were playing Sorry on the living room rug. It wasn't cold, but Robert had built a fire in the fireplace anyway. The flames were loud and cheery.

  Robert sat beside her on the couch and kissed her on the neck. "I'm going to kiss you every five minutes for the rest of your life."

  "Can I have that in writing?"

  "Hey, you know me well enough by now. After all we've been through?"

  "We can get through anything as long as we stick together," she said. So maybe that was corny. She didn't care. It was true, whether dealing with otherworldly invasions or the stresses of everyday life.

  "You still haven't told me about—"

  "And I will, when the time's right. There are still a lot of things I need to figure out."

  "I'm sorry for the way I acted. About the—”

  “Gloomies. And being selfish.”

  “And doubting you. And for . . . you know."

  "Shhh. I know. You're only human, thank goodness." She touched him lightly on the head. "I understand. I've been there, remember?"

  “Are you going to read my mind for the rest of my life?”

  “That’s what wives do.”

  She looked at Ginger. Her face was scrunched from concentrating on the game. Kevin was too old for Sorry, but he played because Ginger asked him. He was a good brother.

  Tamara had been overloaded with powers after the explosion, almost as if shu-shaaa’s dying spirit had jumped into her head. And she'd been able to do all kinds of odd things. Reading minds was easy, she could handle that. It was the other stuff that scared her, like being able to move objects with her thoughts and making the tree branches bend a certain way and making the clouds gather in the sky. And she believed, though she never tried, that she could make the earth move a little faster in its orbit or the moon drop down for a good-night kiss.

  And Tamara had sensed Ginger's powers, somehow a miniature, immature version of her own. No person should be so cursed. Nobody should have to see the future.

  She didn't want Ginger to be followed around by Gloomies for the rest of her life. So she had sucked up those powers, vacuumed them out of the corners of Ginger's mind by a process she couldn't describe in a thousand psychology papers.

  Ginger turned away from her game, smiled at Tamara, then took a drink of hot chocolate. Just a normal six-year-old girl. She picked up a crayon with two bare toes and put it to her mouth and bit it.

  Well, maybe not TOO normal.

  Tamara wished she could get rid of her own powers as easily. She didn't think she had the wisdom to wield them. She didn't think any mortal did.

  But the powers were fading. Nothing lasted forever, and she now knew that was a good thing. What still bothered her was the lingering memory of the shu-shaaa’s dying cry.

  Each night when Tamara closed her eyes and hunted for sleep, the cry haunted her. The cry was one of pain, an agony brought by understanding, because at the last, it had realized the destruction it had wrought on this world.

  Just before the explosion, it had linked with Tamara and translated the strange pattern of human language and thought. It had finally understood the price of its own survival. And, in its alien way, it suffered regret. It had joined with Tamara and the others in that huge tidal wave of togetherness that had swept it to destruction.

  The creature had accepted its death so that others might live.

  In Tamara’s darkest hours, when Robert snored and the sheets were damp, she wondered if perhaps the alien had been more human than any of them.

  ###

  Across the cosmos, in the nibbled edges of nebulae and Oort clouds and asteroid belts and white dwarves, shu-shaaa paused in its star grazing. The members felt a small prick as one of their collective died. There was no pain, only an emptiness that was quickly filled and forgotten.

  They resumed their feeding.

  THE END

  ###

  About the author:

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

  Other electronic works include Burial to Follow and the story collections Ashes, The First, Murdermouth, Gateway Drug, and Flowers. 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:

  LIQUID FEAR

  By Scott Nicholson

  When Roland Doyle wakes up with a dead woman in his motel room, the only clue is a mysterious vial of pills bearing the label “Take one every 4 hrs or else.”

  Ten years before, six people were involved in a secret pharmaceutical trial that left one of them murdered and five unable to remember what happened. Now the experiment is continuing, as Dr. Sebastian Briggs wants to finish his research into fear response and post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s backed by a major drug company and an ambitious U.S. Senator, but he also has a personal stake in the outcome.

  Only by taking the mysterious pills can the survivors stave off the creeping phobias and madness that threaten to consume them. But the pills have an unexpected side effect—the survivors start remembering the terrible acts they perpetrated a decade ago. They are lured back to the Monkey House, the remote facility where the original trials took place, and Briggs has prepared it for their arrival.

  Now they are trapped, they each have only one pill left, and cracks are forming in their civilized veneer.

  After the pills are gone, there’s only one option. “Or else.”

  Read about it at Haunted Computer or view it at Amazon US or Amazon UK

  TRANSPARENT LOVERSr />
  By Scott Nicholson

  Private investigator Richard Steele must solve his most difficult case ever—his own murder—while caught between women on both sides of the grave. In a race against time as his spirit slips away, Richard confronts his many, many failings and trusts in a power beyond his understanding—love. His only weapon is faith, and he's running out of bullets. It's going to be a hell of a showdown.

  Learn more about Transparent Lovers or view it at Amazon US or Amazon UK

  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 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.

  If only Jacob can figure out which of them 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 view it at Amazon or Amazon UK

  THE RED CHURCH

  Book I in the Sheriff Littlefield Series

  By Scott Nicholson

  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.

  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 view it for Kindle at Amazon or Amazon UK

  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 or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK

  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 view it at Amazon or Amazon UK

  Do you like movies? View the screenplay adaptation at Amazon US or Amazon UK

  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.

  When Digger Wilson brings his paranormal team to the White Horse Inn, he is skeptical that his dead wife will keep her half of the bargain. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. But when one of the conference guests channels a mysterious presence and an Ouija board spells out a pet phrase known only to Digger and his wife, his convictions are challenged. And when people start to disappear, Digger and his daughter Kendra must face the circle of demons that view the hotel as their personal playground. Because soon the inn will be closing for good, angels can’t be trusted, and demons don’t like to play alone….

  Learn more about Speed Dating with the Dead and the 2008 paranormal conference and inn that inspired the novel or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK

  AS I DIE LYING

  By Scott Nicholson

  Richard Coldiron’s first and last novel follows his metafictional journey through a troubled childhood, where he meets his invisible friend, his other invisible friend...and then some who aren’t so friendly.

  There’s Mister Milktoast, the protective punster; Little Hitler, who leers from the shadows; Loverboy, the lusty bastard; and Bookworm, who is thoughtful, introspective, and determined to solve the riddle of Richard’s disintegration into either madness or genius, and of course only makes things worse.

  Richard keeps his cool despite the voices in his head, but he’s about to get a new tenant: the Insider, a malevolent soul-hopping spirit that may or may not be born from Richard’s nightmares and demands a co-writing credit and a little bit of foot-kissing dark worship.

  Now Richard doesn’t know which voice to trust. The book’s been rejected 117 times. The people he loves keep turning up dead. And here comes the woman of his dreams.

  Learn more about As I Die Lying and the six people in Richard Coldiron’s head or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK

  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. 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 young movie maker comes to Parson’s Ford, and he has a very special project in mind: a horror movie starring a real ghost. 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 view it for Kindle at Amazon or Amazon UK

  CURSED!
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  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.

  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 view it for Kindle at Amazon or Amazon UK

  GHOST COLLEGE (Supernatural Selection #1)

  By Scott Nicholson & J.R. Rain

  First in a new series featuring paranormal investigators Ellen and Monty Drew. Ellen claims to possess a sixth sense but Monty, a former P.I., only believes what he can see. She views their work as a sacred mission while Monty just wants a happy wife and a paycheck.

  Then the Drews are summoned to a Southern California bible college after workers report hearing mysterious voices at night. When they encounter the unhappy ghost of a young girl, Monty's skepticism is shaken, but he resolves to help his wife free the trapped spirit. Their search uncovers the Latin phrase "Non omnis moriar"—not all of me shall die—and they learn more about the site’s history as a Catholic school destroyed by an earthquake. But a mysterious presence has plans of its own for the young ghost, and Monty and Ellen must go head to head with a Dark Master that’s had more than a century of practice in demonic deeds.