About the Author:
Born and
raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years
traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling
in Northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty
years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and
coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a
multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Some of
her short stories have appeared in anthologies, others in magazines. Three of
her books (Softly Say Goodbye, Who Am I?, and Mama’s Advice) are Amazon bestsellers. Her other books are: Take Chances,
Where U @, The Wrong One, Pony Dreams, Evil Eyes, Inits, Canoples
Investigations Tackles Space Pirates, The Call Chronicles 1: The Griswold Gang,
The Curse of Grungy Gulley, Paradox Lost: Their Path, Canoples Investigations
Versus Spacers Rule and Starlight. Additionally, she has shorts available on
Amazon: Grace, Secret From the Flames, Family Curse … Times Two, Right Wrong
Nothing In Between, and The Ghost Catcher.
Blurb:
Ghosts are popping up all over Landry. The town is being
overrun and no one knows why—least of all Hailey Hatmaker and her Ghosties
crew. Only none of these ghosts are talking. They’re terrified of something
that only Hailey and her team can figure out. Something which could prove
disastrous for them all.
Excerpt:
It felt so good to discover ghostly action in Landry once
again. The Ghosties had just finished a dry spell like no other we had ever
seen. We’d just gone through five months
with nary a ghost to bother us. No goo oozing out of heating vents, or papers
flying out of hands to plaster against the
ceiling.
The call this morning had me, the fantastic, fabulous
Hailey Hatmaker, gathering my group together lickety-split. We met up on the
run, and raced all the way over to Bank of Landry. Once there, we had almost
danced with glee at what greeted us. That was an hour ago. This particular
ghost was proving far more difficult to exterminate than we had anticipated.
We could have got harsh long ago. I grinned. I sure don’t want this to end any time soon.
I’m having fun again.
“You won’t stick around. No ghost has ever ignored me.”
I planted my pink and white beret more firmly on my head
and darted forward. When I put on white jeans and a peppermint pink t-shirt
this morning, I never expected an emergency call.
Nope, I wasn’t a cop, a firefighter, or even a paramedic. I
had my thirteenth birthday just before Halloween and started dealing with
ghosts nine years ago. Me and my fellow Ghosties had helped Landry, Georgia
deal with weird hauntings, and this one proved we had a lot more ghostbusting to do in the future.
“Banks don’t give out free samples,” I yelled. “Tell me who
you are, and what you want.”
That should have worked, except for one little thing. The
wispy man behind the counter wearing a baggy black coat, vest, and pants with a
white shirt ignored me. With a frantic expression and a bobble of his checkered
bow tie as he swallowed, he tossed more money in the air. It was the worst
thing to do when the Ghosties carried weapons that brought instant obedience
from the other ghosts we had encountered.
I signaled the other Ghosties over. They gathered in a
circle, two on each side of me.
“Did you get the dirt?” I asked.
“The manager said he worked here in 1912,” Annie Knott
said. “He went bonkers after the Titanic sank.”
She tucked one side of her chin length, light red hair
behind an ear after delivering the current info in a clipped voice. Her green
eyes darted from side to side when the ghost cackled.
“Did he do this when it happened?” Freddie Conders asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “I’m pretty sure that he won’t
quit because we asked nice. Lemon juice and salt?”
“No other way to handle it.” I pulled out a spritzer from a
fanny pack. “Sly, Freddie, take the left. Annie, you’re in the middle. Tink and
I will handle the right. Don’t miss.”
Sylvia ‘Sly’ Cherboom broke into giggles while Tinker
‘Tink’ Kacklin groaned. None of the others ever lost a chance to remind him
about the day he doused one of our sworn enemies. He still claimed that it was
an accident.
Like the rest of us wouldn’t have loved to cover Suzie in
lemon juice and salt. Tink really needs to
explain that better than he has.
“Places,” I said.
Tink held up a salt sprayer, a baby bottle with the tip of
the nipple sliced off. I stood beside him with a spritzer filled to the brim
with lemon juice. Annie faced our target. She had a weapon in each hand since
she was such a great shot. Sly and Freddie hauled out their containers and
skidded to their position.
“One last chance,” I said to the spook. “Leave. Don’t come
back.”
The ghost tossed a bundle of hundreds into the air. The
Ghosties fired. Our target sizzled and howled before vanishing.
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