Spine Tinglers

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE BASEMENT

BRUNO

THE INVESTIGATION

INCIDENT IN A DRUGSTORE PARKING LOT

THE BOOKSTORE

JAM

THE GARGOYLE

THE SKIN I’M IN

THE UNMASKING

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

RENFIELD’S REVENGE

DRONE

THE WIND

THE PSYCHIC

THE THINGS FINN LEFT BEHIND

ONE SHOT

POPPIES

THE FACE IN THE FRAME

THE PODCAST

THE LEGION

JUST ONE MORE

ALL TRICKS

DOUBLE VISION

TOIL AND TROUBLE

DARK RIDE

THE CITY’S SECRET HEART

ON A MIST-SHROUDED SEA

HAZEL

IT’S A COOKBOOK

THE HUM

SOFIE

THE HOTEL SERRA

BEAUTIFUL

ONE NIGHT AT BLOOD AND ROSES

SEEING SCRATCH

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ALSO BY LISA MORTON

BIO

INTRODUCTION:

Back around five years ago, I started working with producers Rob Cohen and Christine Roth, when they inaugurated the podcast Ghost Magnet With Bridget Marquardt and invited me to tag along to provide the weekly Ghost Report. I’d known Rob and Christine for a few years already, and we’d talked about doing a variety of different things, including a weekly horror fiction podcast.

Not long after Ghost Magnet started streaming, we got more serious about that fiction idea. I’ve been writing and publishing horror short stories since 1993 (my first sale, Sane Reaction, was based on a one-act play I’d written and directed, and the story version appeared in the British paperback Dark Voices 6). Since that initial sale, I’d written and sold many more short stories (even winning the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for one), and had become skilled at writing them quickly. This is why the idea of a weekly fiction podcast didn’t completely terrify me; as long as the stories were kept fairly short – no more than 1,000-1,500 words (or 10-15 minutes to read out loud) – I felt fairly sure I could keep up with the schedule, even while I was writing other things.

Well, I not only kept up with it, I ended up enjoying the heck out of it. Sometimes I’d end a long day of work by going into my backyard with something to sip, sitting down, and just writing. It was sheer bliss! I’ve never suffered from any shortage of ideas (I think one of the most common misconceptions among non-writers is that ideas are hard to come by – sorry, they’re not; it’s the time to sit down and write them that can be the most difficult aspect of writing). Sometimes I’d know what I wanted to write about when I sat down; other times, I’d just look around and let inspiration strike. That weird hum in the air? The Hum. The poppies that had sprung up in my yard after an early spring rain? Poppies. That dog next door that wouldn’t stop barking? Bruno.

The stories piled up quickly. We came up with our title, Spine Tinglers, and it was time for producers Rob and Christine to take over. They’d always envisioned Spine Tinglers as having a different reader every week, someone who was a celebrity in paranormal or entertainment circles. Sometimes they’d give me the name of a person they had access to, and I’d write a story specifically for that reader (i.e., The Psychic or Renfield’s Revenge).

Unfortunately, finding and recording those readers proved to be a lot tougher than writing the stories. We recorded less than a dozen before we all moved onto other projects and the Spine Tinglers podcast just kind of evaporated.

Except…I’d written 35 stories specifically for Spine Tinglers.

As we neared the end of 2023, we talked about resurrecting Spine Tinglers, albeit transmogrified – it would be reborn as a book, with hopes of eventually getting the podcast going again.

And so, here it is, many years after the idea was born…Spine Tinglers the book.

I certainly enjoyed writing these little offerings, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading (or maybe listening!) to them.

Is your spine ready?

THE BASEMENT



Alex stood on the landing, looking down at the dimly-lit staircase. He hated having to go down into the basement. Of course no one who worked at JT’s Liquor wanted to go down there; the space was inexplicably huge, with side-rooms and alcoves that were unlit. Except for a few of the better bottles of wine that JT kept down here, the basement had been unused for decades. It was impossible now to guess what it had once been used for. Alex’s co-worker Derren liked to joke that it had obviously been designed to hold satanic rituals in.

Even just going down there was an unhappy adventure. The stairs were ancient, rotting timber that creaked and felt suspiciously loose in places; they were narrow and gloomy, with a hard, dirty concrete floor waiting at the bottom. JT kept saying he’d look into replacing the old wood, but in the meantime Alex always held his breath whenever he got sent down to retrieve a rare bottle of cabernet for a wealthy customer.

It was January, and even in Los Angeles that meant it was cold and damp. Alex felt the temperature drop as he made his way down the stairs; he was shivering by the time he reached the bottom.

It was also completely dark. Anxious and chilled, his fingers crawled the cracking wall until he found the light-switch. The single bulb overhead went on, illuminating the waist-high wine rack in the center of the huge room.

He tried to focus on the task of finding the specific bottle, not looking around at the maze of cobwebbed rooms. Shapes loomed just inside doors; sounds echoed eerily through the space. Some of the sounds came from below.

Kneeling before the rack, Alex pulled out bottles, checking labels before sliding them back into their spots. He kept meaning to come down here and organize the bottles, but it was one more task that never got done because it involved the basement.

Alex suddenly trembled, realizing it felt like the temperature had just dropped even more. He could see his breath now in the lone lamp. The atmosphere in the room felt heavy, as if he was at the bottom of the sea. He tried to push aside his growing unease. Where was that bottle?

He made the mistake then of glancing up, and saw something that froze his heart: the air thirty feet away was moving, a dim shape that rose as Alex did. He forgot the bottle as he watched something take form in the unlit room across from him. It moved when he did, and he found himself drawn towards it. Even as his mind screamed at him to flee, his feet pulled him toward the amorphous, glowing shape.

When he was two feet from it, gripped by both terror and curiosity, he raised an arm to reach out – and his fingers encountered something solid, flat, glassy…

A mirror.

The ghostly shape was in the mirror. Which could only mean –

Alex spun and saw a body splayed out on the filthy floor at the bottom of the steps. His own dead eyes stared up at him, and he realized that he hadn’t survived this trip down those stairs that JT really should have replaced.

His scream was silent as he realized where he’d be spending eternity.

BRUNO



As the doctor unwrapped Tessa’s right index finger, she felt hope give way to despair.

It was a full inch shorter than her other fingers. Dr. Abramson saw her dismay and tried to sound compassionate. I’m sorry, she said, there was just too much damage to save the whole finger.

Knowing it was stupid even as the words came out of her mouth, Tessa asked, And it won’t grow back?

Tessa’s mom put a sympathetic hand on her back. I’m afraid not, said Dr. Abramson. But at least the other injuries from the attack were minor and shouldn’t leave any scars.

The attack…

I hate that dog, Tessa whispered.

So do I, honey, Mom said. Now let’s go home.

Tessa saw the dog every morning on her way to Alexander Hamilton High. His name was Bruno, and he was a huge German Shepherd owned by a thirtysomething muscleman with a shaven head and a lot of tattoos that Tessa thought were probably gang signs. His house was right in the narrowest part of the street, between her home and her school. It was only three blocks to her school, but since the attack Tessa’s mom had driven her every day.

Usually Bruno was kept in his fenced-in front yard. Tessa still passed that yard on the far side of the street; anyone who had the audacity of walking on the public sidewalk in front of Bruno’s yard was subjected to a heart-stopping display of vicious barking as the dog hurled his bulk against the fence over and over. Bruno’s owner had acquired him two years ago; Tessa had walked by him almost every day since, so she’d gotten used to the uproar. Even walking on the far side of the street drove the dog to hysterics.

But a week ago, Tessa had been passing the house on her way to school in the morning when she hadn’t heard anything…at least not at first. She’d actually slowed down, sensing that something was wrong. Suddenly Bruno had charged her from behind a nearby parked car, still trailing a length of chain that had somehow snapped. Tessa had run, but Bruno was faster; he’d leapt onto her from behind. Fortunately her backpack had shielded her from the worst of it, but when she’d instinctively held up a hand, Bruno had bitten off part of the index finger. Just then she’d heard shouting and Bruno’s owner had run up, grabbing the chain and pulling the dog away. As Tessa sat up, covered in bruises and blood, she’d seen the man walking away, dragging Bruno. Your dog just attacked me! she yelled after him.

You shouldn’t be walking in this neighborhood, the man shouted back without even turning.

Tessa had limped back home. Fortunately her mom hadn’t left for work yet, so she called in and then rushed Tessa to the hospital. They’d cleaned the wounds, given Tessa as much comfort as a bureaucracy was allowed to, handed over the large bill, and sent them home.

Tessa had wanted to be a pianist. She was good; she played in all the school shows. Her mother had hopes that her musical skills would land her a scholarship; Tessa wanted to play in an all-girl rock band.

Now she couldn’t reach the most important keys.

The doctors said that she should be able to re-learn how to play, but Tessa had her doubts. The entire balance of her hand had been changed.

Bruno had taken more – much more – than just part of her finger.

Of course Mom had gone ballistic on the owner, screaming at him through the fence around the yard, but he hadn’t come out. She started looking for an attorney.

Two days after the doctor had unwrapped her mutilated finger, Tessa heard at school that Bruno was found dead in the yard. At first she didn’t believe it…but when she walked home from school that afternoon, there was no frantic barking, no thuds as the fence shook.

It was true – Bruno was gone.

Tessa wondered if her Mom had done it. Or maybe it was Derren at school, who liked her and was the one who’d told her about Bruno. Heck, it was likeliest to have been one of the neighbors; she wasn’t the only kid Bruno had ever attacked.

The next morning Tessa awoke to a gray, cold, early winter day. She put on a heavy sweater, scarf, and mittens that she also liked because they hid her gnawed finger. It wasn’t raining, but a heavy mist hung low over everything. She could barely see fifty feet in front of her.

As she approached Bruno’s yard she started to cross the street – then caught herself. If Bruno’s really gone, I don’t have to…if he’s gone. She forced herself to stay on this side, trembling as she approached the beginning of the chain-link fence.

There was no sign of Bruno.

It’s true – he’s gone. Tessa was just feeling some weight lift from her when she heard it: paws running on grass, and a frantic barking that sounded like it came from the far end of a long tunnel. Skin crawling, she tried to peer through the mist.

He’s not dead.

But something was wrong; there was no sign of Bruno, even through the haze. And the sound…it wasn’t right. A word popped into Tessa’s head:

Ghost.

She knew then: the dog had died, but its fury hadn’t. It would patrol this yard, maybe forever.

Realizing that, she felt pity for the animal. I’m sorry, she whispered through the fence, before adding, but you can’t hurt me anymore.

The barking stopped.

Tessa continued onto school, knowing that she’d never have to walk on the far side of the street again.

THE INVESTIGATION