SKELETON KEY Ghost stories final round part 1  

Nice way to wrap up the contest, here. My vote went to "Pink" because of the prose.

Really liked Pink. There are a lot of good stories here, but a lot of them have too much fat and aren't as digestible as a short story should be. The runner up for me would be Tiger by Twilight, which I also enjoyed for its craftsmanship and nice 'Ghost and the Darkness' vibe, although at times I felt it spent too much time fleshing out the Indian setting rather than telling the story. Kudos to all, though! There's a lot of talent in this batch.

Yeah, I thought it might be a little obscure for folks, but that's sort of what I liked about it. Getting ready to write it, I ran across this page in the wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhut

And another that described the Airi, the Bhut (ghost) of a dead hunter whose saliva is a poison...

Some of the hunt details I came across when reading about Jim Corbett killing the man-eater of Champawatt, which is also in the Kumoan foothills (I've been there. It's beautiful.) And I like the idea of a white hunter who hunts only man-eaters in order to protect the women and children those man-eaters normally prey upon ultimately becoming the prey for the ghost of a white-hunter in order to accomplish essentially the same thing...

If I'd had twice the length, I think I could have fleshed that out a bit, but I thought twice the length would be too much for this venue. Plus, it was the last day and I felt rushed, which also explains the typos ("here" instead of "hear") and one continuity error (the character if supposed to be James Ambrose Grosvendor, but I call him "Ambrose" in one place and "James" in another. I meant to put the full name at the end.) I really loved the character of Grosvendor. Maybe one day I'll get around to him again.

Fun writing it though and I'm grateful for the push.

So, I went with it.

Too many folks go for the obvious, I think. I wanted to try something new.

I didn't mind the obscurity, Dr. N. I thought the exotic setting was a nice change of pace. When I first read about the contest my immediate reaction, like yours, was to go for something new and different. Ghosts have been done in just about every form, and that's why the concept of a ghost plague struck me as being an interesting premise. The concept evolved (quickly, thanks to the deadline) into "Temporary Duty." I didn't have to refer to Wikipedia - luckily, my best friend (and co-author) is a working molecular biologist.

Overall, I think this is the strongest batch of stories (even discounting my own biased opinion of "Temporary Duty"). Thanks to everyone for participating, it's made for some interesting lunch reading.

Does your co-author friend work for a national laboratory? I couldn't help but notice some of the associated lab jargon (clearance stuff, etc).

The lab jargon all comes from his lab gig. While he couldn't divulge details from his own real-life temporary duty assignments, he was able to convey the feel and gist of things like security procedures, and provide specific information on the layout of both modern and post-war era bio labs. I knew some of the jargon would be arcane (for example, most folks won't recognize TDY as the military abbreviation for "temporary duty assignment," which is also used frequently by military contractors, or the reference to a Soviet bio-weapon research project). However, I kept the jargon for authenticity. Whenever I read something I don't understand or recognize (like some of the phrases in "Tiger by Twilight"), I typically research it when I get the chance. I always learn something new, and the research is often as interesting as the original material I was reading.

well, even if I don't win, you have to admit this is a nice paragraph...

I almost thought that your "Temporary Duty" was a prequel to Dawn of the Dead, with the walking dead being a result of this experiment that went wrong.

It could end up with a similar result. The diseased would crash and bleed out not long after the virus entered it's "angry" phase, but that would make for some very hairy days once it became widespread.

I like this one better:

I think it is descriptive in a way that really serves the story (and it struck me as my favorite paragraph).