"Lucinda" by Lael Littke

"Lucinda"
By Lael Littke
Thirteen (1991)
Edited by T. Pines
Tagline: 13 Tales of Horror by 13 Masters of Horror

Ten year old Kate secretly watches her older brother Brandon fight with his girlfriend, Lucinda.  She says he cheated on her with some chick named Holly. Lucinda is standing knee deep in a lake wearing her red commencement robe.  She threatens to swim down to her secret place and stay there to punish him. Brandon and Kate walk away from the drama and Lucinda is never seen again.

Turns out this lake is a drowned town.  Six years later Brandon blames himself for Lucinda’s disappearance. He is now Kate’s sole guardian and he drags her back to his nightmare because the lake bed has dried out and he hopes to finds Lucinda’s body.  Instead he believes he’s being haunted and Kate wakes up to puddles on her bedroom floor.

"A Friendly Exorcise" by Talmage Powell

“A Friendly Exorcise”

By Talmage Powell

From the collection “Alfred Hitchcocks’s Behind the Death Ball” (1974)

Tagline: That master hustler of horror chalks up a new high in terror.

This short story begins with an old, sweaty sock caressing a young wife’s face on its own.  In this tale a young couple, Jim and Judy Thornton move to a new house. They are additions to the neighborhood and know nothing about their home when, right away, the haunting begins.  Jim doesn’t believe his wife until his meat bone starts hopping around on his dinner plate and must grab it and smack it down. 

Judy decides this must be the poltergeist of Andy Bickleford who lived with his parents in the house before Jim and Judy moved in.  She feels Andy is harmless because the worst he ever did was toss Jim’s bone around.