Flights of Fantasy

And I just happen to have a series of urban fantasy tales featuring a homicide detective and his ghostly partner! If you’re curious, you can find information about my “Gus and Ghost” series on this page, or you can keep reading and find an excerpt from their Halloween tale below…

Seventh: The Samhain Dilemma

Debbie Mumford

CHAPTER ONE

ONCE THE BASTARD WAS INCARCERATED, I’d never expected to see Jason Morgan again. But here I sat in a bland interview room in the high security ward of the forensic unit of the Oregon State Hospital, waiting for an orderly to bring in the maniac who had killed Sarah Allen and tried to do the same to me.

What a great way to spend a beautiful late October Saturday.

Designed to avoid triggering mental aberrations in patients who were also inmates, the room was more comfortable than a prison interview room, but far more sterile than OSH spaces beyond the forensic unit. No cheery paint jobs on the walls or brightly colored murals for this room. Nope, my navy blue sport coat was the most colorful item to be seen. White walls and ceiling, beige linoleum floor, a light tan overstuffed sofa and matching chair that had seen too many decades of use, and a slowly spinning ceiling fan whose white pine paddles circulated stale air. The best I could say about the room was that as soon as the interview was over, I’d get to leave it behind.

Why are you here, Gus? The question was a good one, and I’d asked myself the same thing several times as I drove south on I- 5 from Portland to Salem, Oregon. But this time, I wasn’t the one asking.

“You know why, Sarah,” I said to the ghost of the woman Morgan had killed in cold blood. “He said he had information that would save lives.”

Right, she said with a cute little snort. Though how she could snort—or talk for that matter—without physical lungs to produce breath, I’ll never understand. He’s suddenly concerned with saving lives. Too bad he couldn’t have developed that concern a little earlier, like before he killed me and tried to murder you.

Sarah appeared to perch on the edge of the tired couch. She’d been a pretty young woman, a doctor finishing up her residency at Sisters of Mercy Hospital, before Morgan had blown a hole through her skull in an alley at midnight on the cusp of the summer solstice. Now she was an attractive ghost, manifesting in pale blue scrubs and soft-soled white shoes, with her long blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail.

I’m sorry I never got to meet Sarah while she lived. We had a lot in common, which is why she was able to speak to me when I was called to the scene of her murder in my official capacity as homicide detective, and ultimately why she was still with me even after we arrested Jason Morgan and solved her murder.

You see, Sarah and I were both seventh-sevenths. That little accident of birth is what got her killed and provided me with psychic abilities.

*~*~*

If you’d like to read more, you can find Seventh: The Samhain Dilemma at your favorite online bookstore. If you’d enjoy even more spooky tales, Seventh: The Samhain Dilemma is also included in a bundle entitled On Hallow’s Eve!