The Story Behind the Story from Peter J White

To start,

I love the story behind this story (Ghosts of a Coven Past).

One of my closest friends bought a rowhouse built in 1885 in Allentown Pennsylvania when he and his family moved back to the states from Israel.

We were gearing up for book club, and he emailed us all with the following:

“So this Friday we’re meeting to discuss the Squid Game. Err, Lovecraft Country. And anything else gothic/Halloween-y that you may have read/watched. And I can tell you about the 1885 townhouse we’re buying which, if the books we’ve been reading recently are any guide, is probably haunted, infested by paranormal mycelium, has some sort of undead body in the basement, or was the site of a secret society ritual gone wrong. Or some combination thereof. Perhaps tomorrow’s inspection will tell us which.”

If that’s not a recipe for a book, I don’t know what is.

The minute I read this, I flashed on the beginnings of Ghosts of a Coven Past and put all my other projects to one side as I began work. I had a deadline to meet, after all: this was to be my housewarming gift.

What was meant to be a short story kept growing (this always happens to me), and as I researched and played with the topic, more and more stuff kept coming in.

The protagonist is a combination of myself and my buddy. His wife and children are completely transformed: in the book, for example, his wife is an FBI agent. In real life, she teaches middle school (which is more harrowing is tough to pick). In the book, the protagonist and his wife are parents to fraternal twin boys. In real life, they have one son.

This was a deliberate decision so if I were to write anything that could be construed as negative, I had created enough distance and plausible deniability as to insulate our friendship: probably the most important friendship I have.

Writing the book was a blast. I knew where I was going from the beginning, and as I dug into the city of Allentown and the history of the area, I unearthed enough cool stuff that the novel began to take on a life of its own and by the end was writing itself.

There’s really no better feeling than that.

I hope your listeners enjoy reading this book half as much as I did writing it.

I’d also like to share the true story of my ghost encounter with your readers, and this leads in to a prologue of a book I’m working on, a giveaway short story, and an introduction to my book series, Ghost Hunter.

I have seen a ghost.

A different version of it appears in book four, The Bad Beginning.

I’m working on a book set on a container ship…

…making a Seattle to Laem Chabang, Thailand voyage. Two ghosts haunt the ship (their story told in the prologue, part of which is below), both seeking human hosts to help continue their blood feud.

The problem is, two of the passengers are already compromised by invading spirits.

The book’s working title is Container.

Here’s the prologue:

Prologue:

Pichai Khasagone leaned over the wheel of his late-model Mercedes AMG, his eyes flicking from the road to the rear-view mirror. Sweat thickened his already thick black hair, the oily residue streaming down the sides of his neck.

He blinked as the sweat stung his eyes and raised an arm to wipe it away.

The Mercedes fishtailed around a corner on Laem Chabang Road as it arced left and south toward the port. The port glowed white and orange on the horizon, a beacon in the night, lit with bright white LED and orange sodium lights.

Pichai checked the mirror again, missed the next curve and plowed through some wooden tables and chairs set up outside a roadside noodle shop. He overcorrected, and the powerful car slid across the road to the other side, its left rear bumper kissing a ten-wheel truck.

The car jolted and slid, but Pichai had it under control again.

A glowing white light appeared in the rear-view mirror.

Pichai looked into the mirror and his whole body convulsed in terror: the head and shoulders of a beautiful young Thai woman floated behind the car, keeping pace easily. Below the ribcage, visible as glowing white bones in the moonless night, entrails dangled and glistened darkly.

Krasue, the ghost of Thai folklore.

Pichai stomped down on the accelerator, terror overwhelming reason, and the Mercedes shot along the road for the port, engine whining.

Krasue kept pace easily.

Little whimpers escaped Pichai, something like a small dog in mortal terror might make.

He gripped the wheel so hard, he’d squeezed all the blood from his fingers, his nails white and beginning to blue. His driving suffered for it, and he missed the final turn before the port and slammed through a laundry rack, a flimsy table, a couple of chairs and nosed the Mercedes into the side of a beach hut.

The airbags deployed with a bang that smashed Pichai back into his seat, bloodying his nose and dazing him.

But he sat for only a split second before he scrabbled for the door handle. He lunged for the beach, forgetting he was strapped in, hands scrambling at the seatbelt, finally loosing himself to step onto the beach.

He lost his footing in the thick sand, went to a knee, then, feet kicking up gusts of sand, fought his way to his feet, and kicked for the road.

The soft ping-ping-ping warning of a key left in the ignition the soundtrack to his desperate flight as he ran, arms windmilling, mouth open in terror, drool glistening on his chin, blood dripping from his nose into his mouth, fueling his terror.

Krasue followed at a leisurely pace, a spectral cat playing with its prey.

Pichai raced past the tall concrete wall shielding the container storage area, his breath labored and shallow, stars dancing at the edges of his vision as his body began to break down, unable to continue.

He looked over his shoulder, the movement unbalancing him and slipped and hit the road hard, slamming his head against the tarmac. More stars blossomed in the periphery of his vision.

Krasue paused to look down on him, mouth wide in a delighted smile that revealed teeth badly in need of dental and orthodonic care, stained dark brown and jagged.

Something like a laugh issued from lungs, visible as black-orange sacks in the glow of the sodium lights, the sound something like rotten meat falling to the floor—something soft and organic ripping.

Krasue hovered over him, her beautiful face a snarl of rage, her guts glowing and pulsing in the light of the port.

Her voice was the voice of the grave. Meaty. Liquid. Human, but in an uncanny-valley way.

“Big, powerful man,” she growled. “Look at you.”

“What do you want from me?” Pichai screamed.

More of the rotten laughter, the sound somehow amplifying the terror—unnatural, threatening, ominous.

Pichai rolled to his stomach, head pounding, lungs heaving, his bespoke leather shoes slipping on the fine layer of dirt over the road.

He lurched to his feet into a stumbling, forward-falling run, headed for a container ship docked straight ahead, The Ozymandias.

He lost a shoe in the scramble, but he didn’t slow down or appear to notice, everything in him pushing for the ship.

Sanctuary, he thought. A place to get away.

Something tapped him on the shoulder and he wheeled around so abruptly he once again fell to the ground, the back of his head slamming into the road. Stars obscured his vision, and he scrambled backwards, crabwalking, spun, got to his feet and cut through a narrow lane between the stacked containers, a glimpse of the Ozymandias beckoning from its berth.

Krasue smiled, eyes glinting in the orange light and followed.

I appreciate your giving me so much of your time. It means a lot to me.

Thank you!

Peter J. White

Excerpt:

A cat appeared at the threshold of the doorway.

A cat? A black cat? Are you fucking kidding me? How cliché.

Roger moved to swing his legs over the side of the bed, only he didn’t.

Body won’t obey. What the fuck?

You’re dreaming. Simple. Sleep paralysis. Told you.

This is no fucking sleep paralysis. This is happening.

Nonsense.

The cat arched its back and rubbed itself against the doorjamb in a way that sent a shiver of dread through Roger.

Sexual. Can feel the lust pouring off the thing…

The cat stretched, yawned lazily, the yellow slits of its eyes glaring in the dim light coming through the gauzy curtains covering the bedroom windows.

Those eyes…

The cat seemed to grin at him as if sensing his discomfort.

It walked lazily over to the side of the bed, coiled itself, then leapt up. It sat for a moment, staring at him, tail twitching, unblinking eyes staring into his, lips turned up to reveal its sharp little teeth.

Those eyes…reaching deep into me, reading my secrets, measuring the weight of my soul…

Nonsense.

The cat stood and put a paw on Roger’s leg.

Cold shot through him and he would have gasped if his body had allowed him.

The cat grinned up at him, yellow eyes glittering, lips curled back, and took another step.

It walked up Roger’s legs, the weight of the thing tremendous, out of proportion, the cold shock of its presence icy, penetrating to the soul.

Thing weighs as much as a grown woman…

How can that be?

Dreaming. That’s how. Sleep paralysis.

Wake up!

No, this is real. The goddamn cat a familiar or whatever the fuck they call them.

Don’t be an idiot. Wake up!

The cat seemed to relish the confusion and pain Roger was suffering, lingering with its paws on each of his thighs.

Then it lowered its head and butted his breastbone.

Pain shot through his chest and for a moment he was certain his heart had stopped.

The cat headbutted his sternum again and he found himself staring at the ceiling, unable to move, shadows from the streetlamp outside making ghostly shapes as the curtains swayed from the breeze coming through the cracked open window.

The shadows began to take shape: a ring of figures, dancing, flickering as if they were shadows cast by firelight. Trees in the background.

Smoke? Wood smoke and something else…flesh and hair and…

The scene suddenly so real Roger felt he’d been transported in place and time.

Nonsense. Wake up!

The cat walked up his belly to sit on his chest.

Weight tremendous. Can’t. Breathe.

The cat stretched.

And kept stretching, growing impossibly tall, changing, morphing into…

An old woman, breasts stretched out tubes of flabby flesh hanging down to her soft, sagging stomach, swinging as she straddled Roger.

Those yellow eyes stared into his, and the creature’s mouth opened, teeth a cross between a cat’s and human, blackened, rotten, with sharp fangs intact.

A foul odor issued from her mouth and added to the sense of suffocation. Roger’s mind began to fray under the onslaught, claustrophobia claiming him, panic rising.

The thing on top of him cackled again, sending a gout of foul breath into his face.

Roger tried to buck her off. To gag. To cry for help. To breathe.

Total paralysis.

Going to suffocate. Going to die any moment now.

The deep spot in his inner self was alive with panic, yammering at him:

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

The thing on top of him stiffened.

At first,
Roger thought it was nearing an orgasm of some sort, but no…

Another presence had arrived…