Ghost Circuits
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About this ebook
In March 2011, another UK author challenged Peter Salisbury to write outside his usual science fiction comfort zone and produce at least one ghost/horror story. This collection is the result, in which some readers may believe that technology refused to fully relinquish its grip on the author, despite his struggle to wriggle free.
(14,300 words plus samples of other stories, total more than 18,000 words)
Peter Salisbury
I am a life-long fan of science fiction, and so when I had an idea for my first story, I wasn't surprised that it was in that genre. The first book took me ten years to complete, but I've got a little quicker since. I am pleased to say that I now have over thirty books published in my name. What next? So far I haven't run short of ideas for new stories, so there are several projects in various stages of completion, and I hope to be publishing the next story before too long, so please subscribe to my alerts. My profile picture is a portrait of the author as a young man, painted by my daughter Charlotte Salisbury who has also contributed to several of my book covers. Professional background In the 1970s I studied Chemistry at university and then spent over thirty years in classrooms across England teaching almost anything but Chemistry, including Photography, Communications Skills, General Science, Computing, and Information and Communications Technology. In the 1990s I spent ten years writing abstracts of chemical patents. This was a most exacting process but very rewarding to be reading about the very latest inventions in the field, and the abstracts were distributed world-wide to research scientists by subscription. Articles of mine have been published in magazines and I have written assignments used for assessing Communications Skills for a major international Examination Board. After retiring early this century I began writing in earnest.
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Book preview
Ghost Circuits - Peter Salisbury
Ghost Circuits
Six electrifying ghost and horror short stories
Copyright Peter Salisbury July 2011
Smashwords Edition
**
No copying or distribution of the text contained in any part of this document by any means is permitted without the prior permission of the author. All characters and situations described are entirely fictitious and any resemblance to any person is coincidental.
Ghost Circuits
A collection of six electrifying ghost and horror stories engineered for the information age: a computer simulation has a visitor, a killer App does just that, a cloud sucks the fun out of us all, a dead phone rings, a lucky day is anything but, and a computer repair technician joins the fight to defeat alien hordes. The first five are completely new stories; the sixth is an extended version of a previously published flash fiction story. (total 14,000 + words)
The cover picture was created from a photograph of the circuits of a 1950s valve radio. The image was manipulated in GIMP.
Table of Contents
Dig This (8,139 words)
Click Here (1,186 words)
Vampire Cloud (1,180 words)
Chrissy's Phone (1,629 words)
Lucky Day Card (881 words)
Ms Fixit (extended version, 1,368 words)
More stories by Peter Salisbury:
Sample Chapters from other stories
Dig This
'Pub time?' Andy said, tucking a stray curl of red hair underneath a tweed cap.
'As good a place as any, now we're on our own,' Sam said.
'Did Greg or Mary take the bones back with them?'
'No, I locked them in the four-by-four. There's a bone specialist coming out here tomorrow.'
'Not every day you find four charred skeletons in the middle of a dig.'
'Edmunds, the landowner, says the pub does good food,' Sam said, looking back towards the village. 'And it's a free-house, with real ale.'
'When'd he tell you that?' Andy said, snapping shut the lock on the tool bunker.
'This morning, while I was waiting for the rest of you to arrive. He was here with Smith, the builder. Had his site office up and the dig all marked out.'
'Already? Even before you got here?'
'That's right. Smith was standing by with his excavator raring to go.'
'These country folk start early.'
'They'd been warned not want to begin until at least one archaeologist was present.'
'And with you being the most senior...'
'Exactly, so that's how come all the topsoil was off by the time you turned up with your camper van.'
'Yeah, then Greg and Mary were late, as expected, with the trainee and the equipment trailer.'
Sam shook the dust out of the old, grey trench coat she always wore on digs, stamped a little of the mud from her boots and cast a professional eye around the site. 'OK, looks like we're all done here.'
The builder had fixed up the electrical and water supplies he intended to use when the building work was able to commence. A standpipe dripped slowly into a bucket. The dig itself was the only thing that marred the surface of the field that extended just beyond the village boundary. Beside the excavation to the north was Sam's four-by-four, then on the south side was her small caravan, Andy's camper and the site office demountable.
'We could put the lights on,' Andy said. 'It'll be dark when we get back.'
'Might as well. Hopefully the villagers won't mind us burning their electricity on a couple of low wattage bulbs while we're in the pub.'
Something large rustled in the hedge as they passed through the gate but they ignored it and headed into the village.
'Odd we didn't have any on-lookers,' Sam said as they ambled along.
'Yes,' Andy said in a thoughtful tone. 'We didn't even get the teacher bringing the children down from the village school. Still, it's a bit eerie down that bottom corner of the field, don't you think?'
'Can't say I noticed. Perhaps they'll come down tomorrow.'
At the far end of the village street, they entered the pub through the creaky door of the public bar. A dozen local residents sat about, nursing glasses of ale in various stages of consumption. Sam and Andy received the odd nod of acknowledgement as they moved between the tables but more often an open stare of curiosity. The visitors went through to the empty saloon bar, where there were tables laid with cutlery for diners. They bought a drink, examined the menu and placed their food order. After choosing a table, they amused themselves with dating the various items on display. The heavy oak beams of the ceiling were hung with horse brasses, brass plates and jugs, together with assorted culinary utensils, and there was a range of small agricultural implements which decorated the walls. In the middle of one wall, there was a fireplace which, assuming it was original, put that part of the pub back into the fourteenth century, notwithstanding a collection of much more recent fire dogs. A lazy flame flickered on a solitary log in the grate.
While Sam and Andy were taking their inventory, the locals surreptitiously moved in from the public bar and filled up nearby tables. When either Sam or Andy glanced in the direction of any one of them, they always happened to be looking somewhere else.
By the time they were about half way through their drinks, a teenage girl presented herself at Sam and Andy's table. She wore standard waitress garb: black shirt and trousers with a barely functional, but clean, white apron.
In a strong Wiltshire accent, she said, 'I'm Emily, your waitress for the night.'
Sam, looked up, her smile a little too bright. 'I'm Doctor Samantha Stone