by Melody Grace
Mother Ghost’s Grimm
Contents
Mother Ghost’s Grimm
Hide and Seek
The Second Rule
The Best Good Boy
The Queen in the Night
The Mummy’s Desire
Black Butterfly
A Brush of Myth
Stitches and the Tooth Fairy
Boggle the Bogeyman
My Homework Ate My Dog
Harry the Helper
Shadow Puppets
Nightly Chats
Kevin’s Super Adhesive Band-Aid
Avoid the Maple Woods
Genie Jinn - Grant My Wish
Dust Bunnies
A Witch Should Know
The Ballerina
Trash Night
Mr. Riddles
The Cavity
Grandad
The Mound
The Ghost of Jackson Creek
Grandma’s Doll
Bus Stop
The Witch in the Window
Up and Away
The House with the Brown Door
Bloody Mary & Bloody Marvin
Elementary Outbreak
A Visit From The Milk Lady
Mommy’s Calling
Don’t Go Into the House
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
The Green Lady
The 180 Kickflip
Jessica’s Bedtime
The Graveyard
Joe White And The Seven Orcs
Going On A Ghost Hunt
Ratta-tat Tommy
The Under Toad
A Witch In The Woods
The Bedroom Cupboard
The Ghost Who Couldn’t Haunt
A Web of Nightmares
Ember
Under the Bed
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, events, and incidents depicted are the products of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First Edition: December 2019
Mother Ghost’s Grimm: Volume 1
Copyright © 2019 Nick Botic//NBH Publishing
NickBotic.com
All right reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 9781676460640
Hide and Seek
Story // Melody Grace
Illustration // Chas B.
* * *
Do you love playing hide and seek? I know I do. I always pick the best hiding spot - right under your bed. It’s quite cozy down here and for some reason it’s the best place to hide without ever being seen.
Sometimes I get nervous when your mom or dad come to tuck you in at bedtime. “No monsters in here,” they always say, as they give a quick glance into your closet. I’m surprised you never hear my bellows of excitement when they peek under your bed next.
You see, your parents don’t think I exist. So those nightly checks that have become your comfort, are actually pointless. You can’t see what you don’t believe. But you believe in me, don’t you?
Those shadows that dance upon your wall at night? Oh yes, those are real. My friends like to stop by and say hello occasionally, no big deal. They love to hide too. We are all very good at this game.
Unfortunately, it does get quite boring being the one that has to hide all the time though, and my friends agree. So tonight, I think it’s your turn.
Have you found the perfect place? It’s under your covers isn’t it?
Ready or not, here we come.
The Second Rule
Story // N.M. Brown
Illustration // Stew Brown
* * *
My neighbor Stewart was my best friend. Every Wednesday after school, I'd get off the bus at his house. Then when my dad got off work at seven, mom would pick me up. We would play video games and explore his backyard.
There was only one thing… well; two things, about going over that I didn't like. Their names were Dean and Charlie; his little brothers. One would always mimic me and the other never stopped crying.
This week was no different; until Charlie got sick. We were playing like usual and he just started throwing up.
Stew walked me home early that day. The key froze in the deadbolt. It unlocked the door but didn't want to come out. I remember being so scared that it would break off and I'd get yelled at. Mom was usually home at this time. Why wasn't she coming to the door?
When I finally was able to pull the key out, I was greeted by an empty house. A bright orange sheet of paper hugged the wood of the front of my bedroom door.
Kayden,
If you get home before I do, don't worry. I ran out to the store and will be back soon. You need to follow two rules while home alone okay baby?
Lock the front door as soon as you get in the house.
Do not open the door for anyone; not family, not your friends, not even the mailman. NO ONE but me or Dad.
I love you so much, Mom
I ran to the front door as fast as my feet would take me. Both locks clicked in place as I let out a breath of relief that I didn't even know was there.
Everything was laid out on the counter for me to make a sandwich. I laid on peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, scooped up a handful of pretzels and took the plate of food to my room.
There were only two bites left of my sandwich when the knock at the door came. It was soft at first, I almost passed it off as something in the wind. But before long, it became unmistakable.
It never occurred to me to be afraid. The decision was made to put my soldier game skills to the test. Dropping down on my belly, I crawled silently across my living room floor.
A voice boomed from underneath the door as the doorknob began to rattle.
"Hello? I hear you in there little one. Your Mom asked me to check in on you. She's been in an accident. Please, open the door and let me so I know that you're alright."
From what I could see from the peephole, this man was a complete stranger. Still, my mom knew a lot of people. The thought of her being hurt somewhere broke my heart.
My hand inched toward the doorknob, closing around it but not turning to let him in. For all he knew, I wasn't even there. The force of his next round of knocks made me back away from the door entirely.
He called out again.
"Hello? Your mother Nora asked me to come and get you. You need to come with me to the hospital."
I froze in place. My mother's name was Helene; Nora was our elderly neighbor. The mailman was always mixing up our letters. This guy must've looked in our mailbox before coming to the door. One thing was for sure, my mother didn't send him here.
The phone was on the charger less than four feet away. I grabbed it and dialed 911. I spoke to the operator in a voice louder than I knew I was capable of.
"I called the police! They're on the way."
He slunk back from the other side of the door like a snake. Disgust and annoyance were etched onto his face. A final sneer was given in my direction, then he turned and ran.
As soon as I was sure he was off the porch I ran to the front window and peeked through the curtain. It smelled musty, dust sprang into the air and danced along the rays of sunlight.
The man was almost out of sight at this point. His awkward run slowed to hurried steps.
As he turned down the street, he stole one last glance at my house.
His eyes were black. Horns sat atop his forehead where he knew there were none before.
The Best Good Boy
Story // Alanna Robertson-Webb
Illustration // Elizabeth Kirkman
* * *
Only my barks p
rotect the house from the monsters. My barks keep the noisy, bad things away like the loud, long, metal thing that choo-choos through at night on the metal road. It crashed into the house zero times because my barks protect us. My hooman cannot understand what I say when I bark at things, but I am telling things that this is my family and to stay away from my family.
I must bark every night. The doggo here before me, Zeus, didn't bark and a bad thing happened. I was just a tiny little goofy pupper when Zeus told me why I must always bark at all of things, and I have never forgotten his lesson. I will not fail my family. They are my family now, and my barks will protect them forever and ever until I go to the big field in the sky.
Before me Zeus was new to the family. He was very young pupper back then, and his other family had beaten him when he barked, so he never did. His new family, now my family, lives near a big, leafy, squirrel forest with lots of sticks to chase and chew. Zeus never smelled the monsters until he came here, and he didn't know they were bad at first. They were different, and doggos like things that smell different.
He was left outside one night when the humans were drinking the yucky water from the brown and green bottles, during one of the things they call a parrrr-tay. They forgot all about Zeus, and he never barked so they didn't know he was in the outside. He was cold and alone and in the not-fun dark, and when the moon came up the monsters came out.
They crawled out of the woods, clicking their jaws and talking to each other. Not talking like the hoomans, but talking in a buzz buzz sound. They were bigger than pupper Zeus, and dark like sky without sun or hole without bone, and they did not look like normal things. They had claws like meowers, but were not meowers either. They smelled like burger package left in trash too long. They had wings like birds, and I think hoomans called these things beeeeetles.
Zeus, being not strong little pupper, stayed under the porch and used eyeballs to watch them. They smelled interesting, but his doggo instincts told him to hush. Normally he would chase beetle and maybe eat beetle, but these beetles could bite back or even squish puppers. They were not normal bugs because bugs should not have as many legs as a doggo and did not come out at night like flappy bats did.
The bad bug things started to move closer to the house, to the family, their claws helping them move quickly across the ground. They stopped talking when they got closer to the house, the hiss-talk fading to no hiss-talk. Zeus wanted to smell them and make them friends, but his paws would not let him move yet.
Just then the choo-choo of the long, metal thing happened, and the bad things dropped to their bellies, their claws trying to cover their heads. They cried in pain, pressing their faces to the ground to try and get rid of noise. That was when the littlest hooman, Sally Ann, came in to the outside to look for Zeus. She opened the door, almost not able to reach the opener thing, and called to her pupper. His little hooman had the deliciousness that is pizza for him, his favorite hooman food.
The monsters, starting to not feel pain from noise, waited while littlest hooman stepped into the outside. When she got off the steps, they slowly began moving towards her, hungry like fox with cluck-cluck birds. The big bad bugs circled far around her, sniffing at the pizza and the hooman, getting closer and closer. When Sally Ann saw the first one, she whimpered like a hurt pupper, the pizza flopping to the ground. Such a waste should still be eaten later. She put her tiny hooman paw in her mouth to not scream, her not-furry body shaking like tree in wind.
Zeus watched as the bad things began herding Sally Ann back towards the squirrel woods like sheep doggos did to sheep. The monsters would jump at her to scare her into taking a few steps, and now water-salt was coming from her eyeballs. The scared little pupper knew he had to do something when the bad things started biting her to get her to move faster, because he had to protect his littlest hooman.
With a bark Zeus run run run from under the porch, his bark sounding so mighty to protect her. One of the bad bugs bit into Sally’s shoulder, its teeth going so deep that her dress changed from white to red. Another one clawed at her thin hooman legs, deep scratches hurting her. She wailed, and just as her momo and dado came out to get her Zeus latched onto the back of one of the monsters, his sharp pupper teeth digging into its neck.
The big bad bug screamed and shook its body, tossing the pupper to the ground. It tried to bite Zeus' throat, but Zeus did fast roll-over trick hoomans taught him, so he did not get bit. The bug got mad, its jaws clack-creeching so loud that it hurt doggo ears. Brave Zeus, good boy, did not stop fighting. He jumped on bad bug again and again, until it stopped moving.
When it stopped thrashing the hoomans watched in horror, the rest of the bad-yuckie tasting, no good bugs scurried into woods like rats from meowers. They thanked Zeus so so so much, calling him Good Boy and Best Doggo and Perfect Hero. Sally Ann got taken to the hooman veterinarian and came home all better, bringing lots of treats for her good boy pupper. Zeus also got to eat pizza his hooman dropped on the ground, even with the shoe marks on it. Still good!
Zeus is gone to doggo paradise now, and the hoomans miss him, but I will help them. Now me, Hades the doggo, am the best good boy. When the monsters try to sneak out of the woods I bark and bark and bark, so it hurts their ears, and my hoomans now bring me, their Good Boy, lots of pizza. No bad thing will ever get my family while my barks protect our house.
The Queen in the Night
Story // Tor-Anders Ulven
Illustration // Ashley Franklin
* * *
This is the tale of the Queen in the Night,
a sinister story of beauty and blight
But do be aware, as everything’s true;
once you learn of her fate, she will learn about you
Her pale skinny frame was a gift from a child,
who drew her on stone when the world was still wild
Her silken black dress is a river of shade,
that flows all around her in wonderous shapes
Her crown gleams in beautiful colors of dark,
jagged and primal and gruesome and stark
Her eyes are like blazing fires of blue,
and woe the day if her gaze falls on you
The mouth of the Queen is a swirling black hole,
twisting and turning as it swallows your soul
But even when feeding the Queen cannot rest,
until her spindly black claws steals the heart from your chest
She rises from mist when the light fades to black,
and ghastly black spikes will then shoot from her back
She looks to the sky and whispers her name,
to always remember the tale of her pain
But the Queen wasn’t always this horrible ghost;
once she was pretty and beloved by most
The children would gather in swarms when she came,
and the adults would bow in awe of her fame
Yet there were beings that shunned her with hate,
who loathed her beauty and scoffed at her grace
You see, they were jealous and bitter and vain;
all they could think of was ending her reign
So, they gathered in shadows, these cowardly fiends,
and uttered a horrible curse on the Queen
She would never again feel the warmth of the light,
she would wither away and turn into a Wight
And it came to pass, as the curse had foretold,
the Queen became crooked and mad from the cold
The children that loved her, that she held so dear,
now huddled and shivered and trembled in fear
Over thousands of years her hatred has grown,
now she sits on her shadowy eerie mist throne
She looks over her realm with her all-seeing sight
and demands that you call her the Queen in the Night
Now that I’ve told you the truth of her fate,
I hope you are careful before it’s too late
One final warni
ng, I’ll whisper it close;
the sweet taste of children delights her the most
The Mummy’s Desire
Story // Matthew. M. Montelione
* * *
Marshall Alfani rode his bicycle to the Vanderbilt Museum on a crisp October day. A cool breeze blew through his wavy brown hair. The beautiful Long Island weather did not mirror Marshall’s stormy mood. He had left his house in a hurry, after his parents annoyed him. He thought he was mature for an eleven-year-old, but his parents apparently didn’t think so. They hardly let him go anywhere by himself, save for the museum, which was only a ten-minute bike ride from their house. The unique artifacts at the museum always interested him. He had a deep love for history and felt like he was transported to older times when he was there. Marshall had fun getting lost in his imaginings of Ancient Egypt, medieval castles, and colonial times.
He pulled up to the bike stall and secured his ride. He rolled his eyes as he texted his Mom that he got there safely. Visitors walked around the museum grounds, kicking up fallen leaves of gold and red that covered the grass. Jack-o’-lanterns and scarecrows lined the gravelly walkway to the entrance, and fake spiderwebs abounded. “Halloween time is so cool,” Marshall thought.
He walked down the pebbly path to the museum. The small rocks made loud crunchy noises beneath his feet. “Stupid rocks.” Marshall didn’t like drawing attention to himself. Adults always shot him weird looks when they noticed he was there without a parent. In fact, the security guard Gary Parker, who knew his family well, often had to assure strangers that the boy was allowed to be there by himself. Marshall wished that they’d just mind their own business, although, he understood why they cared. There were always stories on the news that scared Marshall, stories about kids going missing.
