The Jon LyMonday Teaser: A free sample of a Christmas book - The Ghost of Christmas Threeve

A free sample of a Christmas book this close to Christmas? What is this, Christmas come early? Here's an excerpt from The Ghost of Christmas Threeve by Jon Lymon.

He flung his legs off the bed and assumed a sitting position.

As he did so, he sensed the bedroom change colour from a pale grey/blue to a vivid yellow/orange like the sun making a rare December appearance. He turned back to the window to confirm no break in the slate grey sky. The source of the light was in the room at the end of his bed where, unless he was very much mistaken, which he wasn’t, the bedpost at the left foot end was spinning on its axis, wood chippings flying off and hitting the walls, wardrobe and carpet.

Crosby watched fascinated until the spinning slowed to a stop and he saw that the bedpost had taken on the shape of the face of an old man, forehead lined, hair receded, chin jutting, teeth crooked.

It took a few seconds for the man’s eyes to stop spinning and for him to look straight at Crosby who stared back in disbelief.

“So, you think you’ve got it bad, huh?” The voice was well spoken, slow, croaky, the lips performing impressively to move in synch with the sound.

Great, a bedpost that talked, was Crosby’s first thought.

He looked around to check he was awake. Check. And this was his bedroom? Check. And he had a pulse? Check.

He stared at the chiselled apparition, features sharp yet crudely carved. “I don’t know who you are,” Crosby told him. “A stress hallucination, I think. I had one earlier in the year. A cushion came to life and started talking to me, although there was no face.”

The old ghost spied the broken bedpost by the wardrobe.

“You killed my brother,” he uttered with contempt. “You chopped his head off.”

Crosby looked down at the beheaded bedpost.

“Carry on talking rubbish, mate, for as long as you like. I know what this is.”

“You have no idea what this is. I very much am here and you are very much there, wasting away, wallowing in misery on this merriest of days.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me if I don’t partake in the merriment. Being merry costs money, and that’s something I don’t have access to anymore.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve been handsomely paid for your work for six years.”

That got Crosby thinking that he must be due some sort of statutory redundancy pay, something he vowed to talk to Terry about during the Betwixtmas break before they went back…

And then Crosby felt the slump as he realised there was no going back, that this break was permanent.

“Know this,” said the bedpost, reasserting its presence. “You are not in quite the pickle you imagine yourself to be.”

“Easy for you to say when you’re just a head on a bed. No money worries. Nothing. No job to lose. Family to support. Who are you anyway?”

“I’ve a bed to support and I’m the post that’s the ghost of the Christmas you fear most,” said the post, poetically, in a manner that suggested he’d delivered that line many times before.

Crosby looked around the room for something he could throw at the post and thought about kicking it so it could join its brother in oblivion.

“Is violence really the answer?” the post said calmly. “Is that how you’ve taught your son to behave?”

Crosby was getting more concerned. Now this thing had the ability to read his thoughts, as well as talk and move.

“What do you want?” Crosby asked. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve a job to do. Like I said, I want to show you the Christmas you fear most.”

“I’m living it right now.”

The bedpost spun and Crosby saw the face depart, returning the mahogany to its regular inanimate smoothness. Crosby scanned the room to see where the face had gone and saw it in the folds of the brown shirt he’d hung on the wardrobe door, ready to wear tomorrow.

“This time yesterday, excitement was in the air, was it not?” Crosby’s dark shirt said, brightly.

“I’m pretty sure you know what’s changed since then,” said Crosby.

The face moved from the shirt across the wooden wardrobe door and animated the makeup removal sponge on Marie’s dressing table.

“Your wife and son need you to help them enjoy happiness, if only for a few days. It’s been a difficult year, has it not? Your wife’s career took a turn for the worse, did it not?”

Not something Crosby needed reminding of. “You expect the years to be difficult when you get older,” he said. “But thankfully, they pass quicker.”

“You wish to let your wife and child down?” the sponge spoke with conviction.

“Of course not.”

“But here you are, alone in this room, letting worries about the future cloud the here and now.”

“I’ve got to think about the future. Else we’ll all be out on the street.”

“Ahh, that is what you fear most.”

“Not having a roof over my family’s head? Of course I fear it. More than I fear for my sanity talking to a sponge.”

“Surely you must know that there are people far worse off than you this very evening and every other evening of the year for that matter.”

“Can’t you let a man wallow a little in his own misery on the day he lost his job? Surely that’s good grounds for wallowing?”

The face returned to the bedpost and spun to look at him. “The self pity of the man who’s had life easy.”

“Easy? What do you know about life being easy? What do you know about life?”

“Enough to show you a thing or two. Actually three.”

“Just do one, mate, I’m not in the mood. I was this morning, then I lost my job on the day I thought I was getting a promotion, and funnily enough that’s caused me to lose my appetite for celebrating.”

“How many more Christmases do you expect to have?” asked the bedpost.

“What?”

“You are not so young anymore. There is no guarantee.”

“There never was. I just didn’t know it back then.”

“Every Christmas could be your last. You want to spend your last Christmas like this?”

“That’s a bit grim isn’t it? You’re certainly not here to cheer me up, are you?”

“I’ve been sent to give you a once in a lifetime opportunity that is not afforded to many mortals.”

“What? Can this get any worse?”

The eyebrows of the bedpost ghost rose. “Actually, that is precisely why I’m here,” he said.

Crosby looked at him, inviting the apparition to tell him more.

“Your day could get worse, or infinitely better. Want to find out?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I have the power to show you three alternative Christmas Eves to the one you are currently experiencing.”

Read The Ghost of Christmas Threeve here.