Who Spoke on the Other Side

Who Spoke on the Other Side

and Other Short Stories

Micah Castle

Copyright © 2017, 2021 by Micah Castle. All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 9781521828120

Book Cover Graphic Design by Jesse Daughtery

First edition digitally and physically published, 2017

Second edition digitally and physically published, 2021

Thanks to. . .

Nicole, for being with me for this long. Happy five-year anniversary!

J.D., for always willing to listen to me ramble on about any subject.

J.T., for always being there when I need you.

And to my beta readers, who without them, this book would've been worse off...

Neil Butters

Laura James

Maurice L. Robinson

Wendy Fisher

Michael Denney

Table of Contents

Who Spoke on the Other Side — 4

Misplaced Trust — 25

The House on Chestnut Street — 29

From the Inside, Out — 45

A Winter's Morning — 49

Notes Under Stones — 75

Sounds of a Silent Forest — 88

Johnny's Story — 116

Beyond the Wall — 126

The Planet, In'pher — 156

Who Spoke on the Other Side

I

Sitting at my cubicle in the creaking chair management had yet to replace, I ground through emails. One after another I handled our customers' computer problems: how to bring up the word processor, how to plug in their mouse, how to install more RAM to make their PC go faster...

All of them were technical questions ranging from electronic watches to computers, although some about cars or lawn mowers were thrown in. A regular, slow day as a customer support agent for a tech company no one would know by name. As I sipped the coffee that smelled like an ashtray, I read through the ever-growing list of problems.

After closing out one email, I opened another titled: 'HELP PLEASE.'

I skimmed it. Some days we received random emails about suicides, murders, or bombings that weren't taken seriously. People love to screw with others when they're behind a keyboard. Typically we forward these to the correct departments—though most agents didn't follow this rule, since it always came to nothing—but this email sent a wave of prickling cold over me. As if the words hadn't sunk in the first time, I read it to myself again, aloud.