Haunted Tales Read Free Page A

road to pick up another group of
children.   Waiting until the bus was
moving again, Clarissa turned back to Maggie. “Well, maybe if you could try to
remember what happened the first time you saw a ghost,” she said slowly,
thinking it through as she voiced it, “maybe you could tell me, and then I
could do it.”
    “I was pretty little,” Maggie said , her nose wrinkled in concern. “I don’t know if I can remember all the way back
then.”
    “Please?” Clarissa implored.
    “Okay,” Maggie said, biting her lower lip in concentration.
“The one thing I remember is that I first started seeing ghosts when I looked
sideways.”
    “You looked sideways?” Clarissa asked. “What does that
mean?”
    Sitting back her in her seat, Maggie kept her face frozen
forward while she moved her eyes to look at Clarissa sitting beside her. “Like
this,” she said.
    “What?” Clarissa asked.
    Maggie huffed with frustration. “Look at my eyes,” she said,
keeping her face forward.
    Clarissa leaned forward and looked at Maggie’s face. “Oh,
only your eyes are looking sideways,” she said. “I get it.”
    Maggie blinked and then turned her head.   “Yeah, I remember that I saw more ghosts when
I looked sideways at them,” she said. “And sometimes they would disappear when
I turned and looked at them.”
    “Were they shy?”
    Maggie shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “But that’s all I
remember.”
    Clarissa sat back in her seat facing forward and slid her
eyes to the side. “I don’t see anything,” she whispered to Maggie.
    “That’s ‘ cause there aren’t any
ghosts on the bus,” Maggie said. “It only works when there are actually ghosts
around you.”
    “Oh, yeah,” Clarissa giggled. “I forgot.”

Chapter Four

 
    Mary shivered in her chair and glanced up to see if her
office door was open. She was surprised to see a middle-aged man sheepishly
walk from the door towards her desk.
    “I’m sorry,” he stammered nervously. “I’m probably in the
wrong place.”
    Mary smiled up at him and slowly rose from her chair,
pushing against the armrests to leverage her decidedly pregnant body into a
standing position.
    “You’re pregnant,” he blurted out.
    Her smile widened. “Yes, I know,” she said with gentle
humor.
    Shaking his head nervously, he exhaled softly. “Of course
you know,” he said with chagrin. “I’m such an idiot. I really should be
leaving.”
    “Wait,” she exclaimed, holding out her hand as she slowly
walked across the room. “Don’t make me waste all of that effort.”
    His eyes widened in horror, and then he saw the smile on her
face and relaxed. “Sorry,” he said again with a sheepish smile. “I’ve never
done anything like this before.”
    Biting back a chuckle, Mary leaned back against her desk.
“Like what?” she asked.
    He looked around her office. “You know, been to a psychic or
anything like that.”
    “Well, I hate to disappoint you,” she replied. “But you
still haven’t been to a psychic. I’m a private investigator.”
    “But I thought…” he stammered. “I came here…”
    He looked around helplessly.
    “I can see and communicate with ghosts,” she said. “But I
don’t look into the future or read palms or find missing items.   I just have the ability to communicate with
some dead people.”
    “How?   How can you do that?” he asked.
    “Well, it all happened the night that I died,” she replied.
    He stared at her, his jaw dropping, and stepped backwards to
the door. “You think you’re dead?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “I got better,” she said, trying to keep
a straight face. She looked at the fear in his eyes and took pity on him. It
really wasn’t his fault that he was slightly awkward. “I died on the operating
table and had an out-of-body experience.   I even went towards the light.” She paused for a moment and met his eyes.
“I was given a choice. I could continue on or go back and live. I could be