I haven’t added anything to this page for over a month, which is admittedly longer than I would like, though I was thinking I’d pair the next post with the release of my second offering, The Bad Things. The plan was for the book to be available shortly after New Year’s, though it looks like the release is going to be pushed back a bit. The revision process can throw you curveballs, a reality to which I expect anyone who has endeavored to write a book of any ilk can sympathize. Sometimes it maroons you at the plate, fouling endless strings of balls into the stands as the onlookers roll their eyes. I am guessing the delay is unlikely to be more than a few weeks, and I figured I would post something related to the story in the interim.

There are myriad ghost-hunting shows packing the streaming services these days, and they seem to follow one of two formulas: either a building is known to be haunted and a team of experts sets out to investigate, or entities of some form are making the lives of one-or-more people markedly unpleasant. The investigators in such shows are equipped with roughly the same set of gadgets and varying degrees of skepticism, attitudes I suspect are tailored to match up with whomever they believe their primary audience to be. At home, the viewer hears playback of sounds and voices on recording devices that were positively not manipulated, and the same is invariably claimed for slowly floating smudges of light, for the little demonic stick figures that only advanced technology can expose.

I am not trying to disparage the efforts of these investigators or imply that they are frauds (although some undoubtedly are—every profession has its charlatans), but rather suggesting that one should consider how easy it is to manufacture such proof in the modern world. I don’t imagine it would require any more than the proper application for the little computer you carry around in your pocket these days, along with a little know-how.

But what if there was something there, and what if that something was not at all what the experts have determined it to be? What if the ghosts and demons of the paranormalsphere were fabrications initiated by none other than the entities responsible for making the trouble? What if the standard supernatural roster—ghosts and demons and angels and spirits and all the goes bump in the night—was invented and subsequently reinforced to prevent the human race from discovering the true nature of those behind it?

The next time you curl up on the couch to watch a ghost-hunting show, you might consider this: are the ghosts and demons not the ones telling the mediums that they are, in fact, ghosts and demons? 

If you find this idea intrigues you, then The Bad Things may fall within your wheelhouse. There is currently an elevator pitch for the story on the “News” page of this website (I will see that it stays up until the book—along with its own dedicated page—is made available).

Until next time,

Cal