I’ve never believed in the occult before, but I may have to change my tune. Because I’m pretty sure I’m being haunted by Tom Clancy’s ghost.
Actually, not just haunted. Poltergeisted. (Poltergeised?)
It started simply enough: Hubby is a Tom Clancy fan. And Hubby’s favourite reading spot is on our bed.
About a month ago I was blissfully asleep when a sudden loud noise catapulted me to wild-eyed wakefulness. It sounded as though somebody had smashed in our bedroom door with an axe. This is not a sound one wants to hear at three o’clock in the morning.
Hubby roused, too; although not as dramatically as I did. “It’s just my book.” He retrieved Clancy’s gigantic tome from the floor. “It fell off the night table.”
He promptly went back to sleep. I took about ten minutes to gradually disengage my fingernails from the ceiling before dropping back into bed and lying awake for the next hour, waiting for my heart rate to stabilize.
Several nights later, it happened again. This time it wasn’t quite so traumatic because I was pretty sure what had happened; but nevertheless I had a serious conversation with Hubby about stabilizing the damn book before we went to sleep. A few days later he finished it, so I assumed that would be the end of its nocturnal antics.
Fast-forward to a few nights ago. I was blissfully asleep when… BANG! I bolted upright and switched on the lamp, my heart jackhammering my ribs.
No crazed axe-murderer. Hubby didn’t even wake up, despite my violent thrashing and subsequent flooding of the bedroom with light.
After staring around the silent bedroom for a few minutes, I eased myself back onto the pillow and switched off the light. Hubby slept on. Maybe I’d dreamed the loud noise? Was I losing what little sanity I still retained? Eventually, I managed to ease back into a fitful doze.
In the morning, Hubby woke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed while I dragged my carcass out of bed, groaning. When he asked why I was so tired, I explained about the loud noise.
“I can’t figure out what it was,” I complained. “Sometimes the heating ducts click and bang, but this seemed so much louder.”
Hubby picked up the giant Tom Clancy book from the floor. “I guess this must have fallen again.”
Nobody had touched that damn book for weeks. I know we didn’t have an earthquake, and it’s highly suspicious that the sound woke me, but not Hubby. There’s only one explanation: Tom Clancy has returned from beyond the grave to mess with me.
What did I ever do to him? More to the point, what can I do to make him move on? Should I start reading frothy romances until his shade flees screaming?
Any suggestions?
Book 17 update: I made it Chapter 20 this week! Aydan’s cover has been irreparably blown, and now she has to find out who spilled the beans and how many assassins are coming for her.
Author Diane Henders 
It may not be as bad as it seems, Diane, and it may just be a case of the book being possessed. A lot of magic can be woven between the words… it’s a known fact.
LikeLike
That’s very true! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
📖 🙂
LikeLike
Cracked me up, but hit close to home. I had a really loud bang wake me up the other week and it made me sit straight up in bed in a fight or flight tactic. Then I realized the light on my wife’s side of the bed was on and she was awake. I calmed down a bit and immediately asked her what the loud bang was. She looked at me like I was crazy and said there was no loud bang. That she couldn’t sleep, so did some middle of the night reading. The only noise was when she closed the book she was reading and was getting ready to turn out the light and then her crazy husband all but shot out of bed with a crazed look on his face. Go figure!!
LikeLike
That’s hilarious! I’ve done the same thing — a sound that wasn’t loud at all jolted me awake thinking it was as loud as a thunderclap. It’s nice to know that our reflexes are good; but it might be nicer if they weren’t tested quite so rigorously! 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
You need a few cats. That way you can sleep as any noise can be attributed to them fighting in the middle of the night. I know these things
LikeLike
You’re right about that! Back in the days when we had cats, I wasn’t nearly so bothered by things that went bump in the night. Then again, the sound of a cat horking up a hairball would have me up out of bed and sprinting to the scene of the crime in mere seconds. All in all, a bit of poltergeist activity is probably less disruptive. 😉
LikeLike
I think your house is haunted. You need to move.
LikeLike
Hmm. Seems like kind of a drastic solution. First I’ll see if I can figure out how to make him move. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe you should put a copy of your book next to Clancy’s book. He either wants to read your stuff or is trying to make you read his stuff. Another possibility is that is just giving new material for your next book – the spy and the ghost …
LikeLike
Ooh, I like that! Wait, though… is it sleazy to steal story ideas from a ghost?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not when they’re throwing books at you…
LikeLike
An excellent point! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Woa, good thing the book is not about railroads.
LikeLike
I haven’t actually read it, so maybe it is. Uh-oh.
LikeLike
What to do about your dilemma? I would definitely avoid anything frothy-romance-related. Those may result in somewhat different sounds startling you awake in the middle of the night! If said frothy “romance” involves frothing milk for a lusted-after Nespresso coffee, maybe waiving a Betty Crocker cookbook around the bedroom might help. Bonus points for sage tucked into the binding.
Frothy? Frothted? Why am I thpeaking in a lithp now?
My better half told me about some very intrusive noises two nights ago, but I was apparently the cause of it. I couldn’t tell I was snoring–I slept through that alleged racket. Then again, I’m the oddball–my dad snored, and I grew up hearing that continuously down the hallway. It lulls me to sleep.
Oddly though, now that you mention it, I have had incidents recently where I’ve heard something really loud. Like you say, something breaking, a very sharp/heavy sound like wood being broken. Or every so often, someone yelling my name loudly. Only I’ll wake up and nobody is around, nothing has fallen…weird. I either have an overactive imagination, or that same poultrygeist has invaded Casa Rudy.
LikeLike
“Poultrygeist” – bahahaha!!! Now I’m having visions of startled chickens being flung aloft in the night. 😉 Maybe you and I just have very vivid dreams, but I’ve also snored myself awake sometimes. It’s not a good combination to be a light sleeper and also occasionally let out a single VERY loud snore.
As to your frothy lithp: I can never keep a straight face whenever somebody mentions pith helmets. Just sayin’…
LikeLike
I had what I believe was a ghost that would show up as I slept and push he bedroom door open or bump the bed and sometimes even sit on the bed next to me. I wasn’t bothered too much cause my husband was usually there with me, even though he never woke up to these things. But when he started traveling for work and it would happen, it bothered me. Even thought I believed her to be benevolent. One night I told her(I just always felt like my visitor was a young girl) that I was fine with her hanging around but to please try to not wake me. She stopped. Is that what was really happening? I don’t know for sure, but since I asked and the noises, bumping and sitting stopped, I feel that if there really was a spirit there, she was happy to have been acknowledged. So, except for a slight embarrassment at possibly talking to no one, if it works it might stop the scary unexplainable events. Maybe he’s just a spirit who likes Clancy and just wants someone to read that book to him. Good luck.
LikeLike
Wow, what a spooky story! My mom died when I was young, and afterward I experienced some bed-bumping and bed-sitting and cool drafts at night, too. At the time I thought it was only because I wasn’t sleeping well and my own body movements were waking me, but… hmmm.
And hey, maybe you’re right about the fan-ghost. S/he will have to find some other narrator, though — over a thousand pages is far too much for me to read aloud. Back in the early days I tried narrating my own audiobooks, and I only got halfway through Book 1 before my voice gave out. 🙂
LikeLike
Your life reads like fiction! 🙂 I think the only way to get rid of the ghost is by reading that darn book yourself.
LikeLike
I hate to admit it, but… *glances furtively around* …Tom Clancy isn’t one of my faves. Maybe that’s why he’s haunting me: His ghost has taken offence.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t read Tom Clancy but suspect I would rather be woken by his shade than by Mills and Boon authors. I recover more easily from loud noises than from scoffing disbelief and nausea.
Huge congratulations on reaching Chapter 20. It sounds as if Aydan will count every noise that wakes her as a good thing. The noise she sleeps through would be the dangerous one…
LikeLike
That’s very true! Aydan doesn’t get much sleep when things go sideways. 😉
And you’re probably right about the ‘kindred spirits’. Apparently I wouldn’t be very good at reading romance anyway — I had to look up ‘Mills and Boon’ because I didn’t even know what genre they published. Looks as though Tom’s ghost will be safe from that fate.
LikeLike
SPOOKY! I hope you’re growing sage in that spectacular garden of yours because it sounds like you need to burn some around your house. Then again, maybe he just wants you to read his book? Or Maybe he’s a fan. Leave one of yours lying around so he can read it. 😉.
LikeLike
Ooh, I like the way you think! I was thinking more in terms of ‘he’d read my books and now he was rolling over in his grave’. Your interpretation is much easier on my ego. 😉 And if that doesn’t work, there’s always the sage.
LikeLike