The Christmas Ghost Writer
by M.D. Smith
Eddie had cracked the code to writing the greatest Christmas ghost story ever told. Don’t just write about a ghost. No, write with one, a real ghost writer.
After a year of obsessive research and digging through ancient carols, forgotten folklore, and yuletide urban legends, Eddie zeroed in on a sagging Victorian house at the edge of Duck Hill, Mississippi. Folks called it the Midnight Caroler’s House. “A place where the wreaths never rot, and where voices sing seasonal songs at midnight without mouths.”
On Christmas Eve, Eddie drove down from Memphis in his dented Corolla, pine-scented air freshener swinging, a half-eaten fruitcake on the passenger seat. He parked beneath the leaning mailbox—its flag drooped like a broken candy cane. Perfect, but not until dark.
He killed time in the town’s diner, nursing a lukewarm hot chocolate. Families in ugly sweaters gave him wary glances, as if they sensed where he was headed.
By dusk, the sky was streaked red and green with holiday lights reflecting off low clouds. Eddie trudged up the overgrown, foreboding path. Snow crunched beneath his boots. Unusual for this far south, but a perfect setting. The house loomed ahead like a giant gingerbread left to rot—its eaves sagging, shutters dangling, a string of tattered Christmas lights flickering weakly like dying stars.
He climbed the steps, each one creaking like a sleigh pulled too long. The front door stood ajar, a brittle wreath of holly and ribbon hanging crooked. He pushed inside. The air hit him, cold, stale, and yet faintly spiced with cinnamon, as though the house still remembered holiday feasts of decades past.
Eddie stepped inside and was immediately cocooned with spiderwebs. He waved away silken strands like ghostly threads trying to tug him backward.
“Hello?” he called into the dark parlor, where shadows stretched like ribbons. “I’m Eddie. I’m looking to hire a ghost, and preferably one with the most chilling Christmas tales.”
The temperature plummeted. From the grand staircase came a sound, sort of a drag, drag, THUMP. Then a massive figure materialized, glowing blue, wrapped in chains tangled with garland. Its mouth opened in a hollow “O,” like the beginning of a carol.
“You’ve got guts, mortal,” it thundered. Its voice echoed like the mountain king. “But if you want the darkest Christmas lore, you need Mabel. She saw the Krampus wars. She knows the hymns that drive men mad.”
The air shimmered, and she appeared, Mabel, with thin, severe, eyes black as coal. Her presence peeled the tinsel from the walls. She hovered like a helium balloon before it sinks to the ground.
“You want horror?” she asked, her voice soft as a snowdrift but sharp as a candy cane’s tip. “I’ve seen stockings filled with teeth. I’ve seen a choir of dead children sing for eternity under frozen bells. I’ve watched Saint Nicholas descend chimneys that weren’t his.”
Eddie swallowed. “Perfect. Come back with me to Memphis. We’ll get started. I’ve got color sugar sprinkled cookies.”
She ignored the cookie comment. “You said, ‘hire a ghost to help you.’ What are you offering?” Her color shifted to slightly crimson.
“I know cash isn’t of much use to you. So, I’ll pay all the back taxes on this place and cover the next twenty years. No one will bulldoze this house. Ever. Here’s my card with my apartment address. I guess you can supply your own transportation?”
She made a face like a schoolteacher when a kid spilled eggnog all over her desk on the last day before Christmas break. “Agreed.”
The next evening, Christmas night, Mabel appeared without warning in his apartment. She perched on his plaid couch, flickering beneath a single blinking strand of Christmas lights on the wall. Around her: half-eaten candy canes, greasy takeout cartons, and a tinsel-covered fake tree sagging like it had given up. A fruitcake mummified on the counter.
She sniffed, or pretended to. “This place reeks of failed festivities.”
Eddie grinned nervously, shifting a pile of hamburger wrappers, empty French fry cartons, and some wadded gift wrap. “It’s… homey. Wait till you see the eggnog. It’s pretty fresh, only ten days old. Oh, but you don’t eat. I forget.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve dwelt in houses where snow turned red on the doorstep. Where carolers bled songs that weren’t theirs. Where something evil whispered beneath the tree skirt for twelve straight nights.”
“And?” Eddie asked, hands poised over his keyboard. “Keep going. I’m ready to write.”
“But this,” she gestured at the squalor, “this is worse. You’ve left candy canes to melt into your carpet. Even demons tidy up after a sacrifice.”
She floated toward the wall, expression grim. “Clean this pigsty, mortal. No ghost worth her salt would haunt a man who leaves fruitcake to fossilize. Much less on Christmas night.”
“Wait. Mabel!” Eddie lunged, but she was gone, leaving only a trail of frost across his couch.
Eddie stood still. The cursor on his laptop blinked like a star on a dying Christmas tree. Then he sighed. He grabbed a trash bag.
If he was going to write the greatest Christmas ghost story ever told, he’d first have to clean up after the living.
BIO: M.D. Smith of Huntsville, AL, writer of over 350 flash stories, has published digitally in Frontier Times, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bewilderingstories.com and many more. Retired from running a television station, he lives with his wife of 64 years and three cats. https://mdsmithiv.com/