August 13, 2025 • 9 mins
A gang of graveyard-bound ghosts welcomes a familiar visitor—but this sunny spring day holds a surprise neither the living nor the dead will forget.
Jim Wright (he/him) lives in central New York State, USA. He writes short stories when he can and works as a school psychologist when he must. He is a past member of the Downtown Writer’s Center in Syracuse, NY.
You can read "Ghost Picnic" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.
Website: kaidankaistories.com
Please feel free to contact me through the website contact form.
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Jim Wright (he/him) lives in central New York State, USA. He writes short stories when he can and works as a school psychologist when he must. He is a past member of the Downtown Writer’s Center in Syracuse, NY.
You can read "Ghost Picnic" at https://www.kaidankaistories.com.
Website: kaidankaistories.com
Please feel free to contact me through the website contact form.
Follow us on:
Bluesky
Substack
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the kait k Podcast, where every story takes
you one step deeper into the world of the strange,
the eerie, and the unknown. I'm your host, Linda Gould,
and tonight's story is Ghost Picnic by Jim Wright. Ghost
Picnic takes you to a quiet and forgotten, abandoned graveyard
where a small band of ghosts past their endless days
(00:33):
in quiet companionship. Their latest visitor brings sunshine, spring flowers,
and the illusion of connection between the living and the dead.
But everyone living and dead have needs. Jim Wright lives
in central New York State. He writes short stories when
(00:53):
he can and works as a school psychologist when he must.
He's a past member of the Downtown Writer Center in Syracuse,
New York. And now here is Ghost Picnic by Jim
Wright and Joy. On this late spring morning, galaxies of
(01:15):
dandelions waved in the grass as our motley gang of
ghosts waited in the graveyard for our visitor to arrive.
Missus Norris sat primly on her marble headstone knees together,
the drowned boy Teddy crawled in the dirt, observing a
line of marching ants strangle Pete. The mutechi from the
ancient part of the cemetery, leaned against an ash tree
(01:39):
and fiddled with the ratty hemp noose cinched around his neck.
I squatted in the grass, watching the sky. I'm the
newest ghost. Once. My name was Tim Rankin, a doctor
in our little village of New Bohemia. I passed in
a car accident in nineteen forty eight after drowning a
fifth of bourbon. The gang tells me that half my
(02:02):
faces blew black from where I smashed into the steering wheel.
My curiosity must have survived my cross over to the
spirit land, because I've spent many decades here, mingling with
the dead and studying what it means to be a ghost.
It's a mystery why we four ordinary souls were marooned
as spooks in this boone yard when most folks fly
(02:23):
straight on to the real after show. Missus Norris thinks
we have unfinished business that nails us to this world.
But who the hell really knows. We heard hard breathing
and footsteps crunching through leaf litter. Soon a familiar figure
emerged from the trees, A blond, matronly woman dressed in
(02:43):
a quilted jacket, slacks, boots, and a floppy sun hat.
The woman carried a camp chair in a notebook with
a picnic bag over her shoulder. As she stepped over
a low iron border fence and entered our graveyard, I
felt a pang of envy. The living can move, it
will across the landscape, but we ghosts cannot travel one
(03:05):
step beyond the boundary of this abandoned cemetery. The woman
opened her chair, put her picnic bag on the ground,
and spread her hands like a priest. Welcome, spear. It's
it's me Amelia, back for another visit. My blessings be
upon you. We surrounded her in a loose circle. Amelia
(03:30):
fancied herself a medium. This was her fourth visit to
our graveyard in as many weeks. We ghosts have been
away from the living for so long that none of
us knew her, but she radiated friendliness. Her only drawback
was that she was a crank. She was completely blind
to our presence. Amelia settled into her chair and declared, Ah,
(03:55):
I feel the presence of a Civil War soldier. Come
to me, spear. She waved a hand and looked intently
past us ghosts. At some imaginary target reveal phantasm. As
Amelia spoke to the air Missus Norris sniggered, Strangle Pete snorted,
and Teddy the drowned boy had a big grin plastered
(04:17):
across his blue face. I laughed too, but I also
felt a twinge of regret that I could not share
with Amelia my fascinating insights about the ghostly life. Did
you know, I imagine, lecturing this foolish woman, that living humans
carry within them the spectral energy that can later become
(04:37):
a ghost, and yet breathers notice it no more than
their own skeletons. To the living, this ghost plasm is invisible,
intermixed with the other elements that make up the human body.
But occasionally we ghosts can spot tiny phosphorescent flares in
the auras of the living, a sign of their inhabiting
(05:00):
inner ghosts. And were you also aware? I could tell
the clueless Amelia that spirits fade over time. Fact every year,
we ghosts leak a little bit of energy, like color
leaching from cloth in the sunlight. But I waste my time.
The self absorbed world of the living does not care
(05:24):
about the dead. Through most of the morning, Amelia held
court in our graveyard, interrogating fictitious spirits. Little girl, tell
me of life on your celestial plane. Eventually, though she
was rummaging through her picnic bag, we pressed around Amelia
with hungry stares as she took large bites from a sandwich.
(05:46):
And then an event occurred that I had prayed for
during every one of Amelia's visits. A random flare of
ghost energy of greater length than usual unexpectedly out from
Amelia's aur near her neck. I pounced, grabbing it. Because
both the flaire and I were made from ghost stuff,
(06:09):
I was able to yank it hard, like a fluttering handle.
Though she couldn't see me. A look of panic crossed
Amelia's face. She cried out, dropped her sandwich and put
a hand to her throat. At first, her tattered bit
of plasm resisted my tugging, but gradually it stretched into
a longer, tongue shaped scrap. Strangle free Peep stepped forward
(06:33):
to help me pull. As the flare extended, Missus Norris
and even Teddy laid hold and hauled with all their might.
Amelia flailed her arms and struggled to breathe, but the
flare stubbornly withstood our tug of war, and then as
we heaved with our last strength, Amelia's full spectral form
(06:57):
spilled from her body and tumbled on the ground like
a newly hatched pupa. The ghost thing wriggled a soft mass.
We watched as it immediately began to harden an imprint
with the shapen face of Amelia. Near by. Her physical
body sagged dead in her chair. Missus Norris attacked first,
(07:21):
cackling as she plunged both hands into the sticky ghost plasm.
She crammed a great clot of it into her mouth.
The rest of us followed, raising to gobble up the
spirit image before it toughened and became inedible for ghosts.
As we tore out chunks of Amelia's ghost body, its
still forming face made hideous weeping meeping sounds. At last,
(07:44):
our feeding frenzy ended. Nothing remained of our prey but
a sheen of goo on the grass. The rest of
the day, we lay in the shade, full and satisfied,
knowing that devouring Amelia's God had probably added at least
a century to our gang's flickering existence. In the early evening,
(08:07):
a passing hiker discovered Amelia's body. As medics removed her
amid the flashing lights of an ambulance strangle, Peep smacked
his lips and croaked the first words I had ever
heard him say, Ha, yummy picnic. What I loved about
(08:27):
this story is how gentle it was. I was lulled
into the idyllic charm of a sunny spring morning, the
whimsical banter of ghosts, and the idea of a kindred
spirit like Amelia visiting the graveyard and picnicking there, and then,
just like the ghosts attacked Amelia's plasma, it bit into me.
(08:48):
That's the beauty of horror. It doesn't have to be
wrapped in shadows and filled with monsters. Sometimes it arrives
in daylight, with laughter, in a place that feels relatively safe.
This story is also a sly reminder that hunger, whether
for food, time, or even just a little more existence,
(09:10):
is one of the great universal forces. The living one
to keep living, the dead one to keep from fading.
And when there's hungers meet, well, someone's gonna suffer. The
Kai down. Kai has so many interesting stories like this
one from every genre, so please subscribe to the podcast,
(09:30):
and you can check out the substack to see comments
by authors about their inspiration. I also post art that
I like, any kind of art on the various social
media so pick your poison and follow me on Instagram, Facebook,
Blue Sky, or substack. It's all in the episode description.
Thank you for listening today and I'll see you next week.
Welcome to the kait k Podcast, where every story takes
you one step deeper into the world of the strange,
the eerie, and the unknown. I'm your host, Linda Gould,
and tonight's story is Ghost Picnic by Jim Wright. Ghost
Picnic takes you to a quiet and forgotten, abandoned graveyard
where a small band of ghosts past their endless days
(00:33):
in quiet companionship. Their latest visitor brings sunshine, spring flowers,
and the illusion of connection between the living and the dead.
But everyone living and dead have needs. Jim Wright lives
in central New York State. He writes short stories when
(00:53):
he can and works as a school psychologist when he must.
He's a past member of the Downtown Writer Center in Syracuse,
New York. And now here is Ghost Picnic by Jim
Wright and Joy. On this late spring morning, galaxies of
(01:15):
dandelions waved in the grass as our motley gang of
ghosts waited in the graveyard for our visitor to arrive.
Missus Norris sat primly on her marble headstone knees together,
the drowned boy Teddy crawled in the dirt, observing a
line of marching ants strangle Pete. The mutechi from the
ancient part of the cemetery, leaned against an ash tree
(01:39):
and fiddled with the ratty hemp noose cinched around his neck.
I squatted in the grass, watching the sky. I'm the
newest ghost. Once. My name was Tim Rankin, a doctor
in our little village of New Bohemia. I passed in
a car accident in nineteen forty eight after drowning a
fifth of bourbon. The gang tells me that half my
(02:02):
faces blew black from where I smashed into the steering wheel.
My curiosity must have survived my cross over to the
spirit land, because I've spent many decades here, mingling with
the dead and studying what it means to be a ghost.
It's a mystery why we four ordinary souls were marooned
as spooks in this boone yard when most folks fly
(02:23):
straight on to the real after show. Missus Norris thinks
we have unfinished business that nails us to this world.
But who the hell really knows. We heard hard breathing
and footsteps crunching through leaf litter. Soon a familiar figure
emerged from the trees, A blond, matronly woman dressed in
(02:43):
a quilted jacket, slacks, boots, and a floppy sun hat.
The woman carried a camp chair in a notebook with
a picnic bag over her shoulder. As she stepped over
a low iron border fence and entered our graveyard, I
felt a pang of envy. The living can move, it
will across the landscape, but we ghosts cannot travel one
(03:05):
step beyond the boundary of this abandoned cemetery. The woman
opened her chair, put her picnic bag on the ground,
and spread her hands like a priest. Welcome, spear. It's
it's me Amelia, back for another visit. My blessings be
upon you. We surrounded her in a loose circle. Amelia
(03:30):
fancied herself a medium. This was her fourth visit to
our graveyard in as many weeks. We ghosts have been
away from the living for so long that none of
us knew her, but she radiated friendliness. Her only drawback
was that she was a crank. She was completely blind
to our presence. Amelia settled into her chair and declared, Ah,
(03:55):
I feel the presence of a Civil War soldier. Come
to me, spear. She waved a hand and looked intently
past us ghosts. At some imaginary target reveal phantasm. As
Amelia spoke to the air Missus Norris sniggered, Strangle Pete snorted,
and Teddy the drowned boy had a big grin plastered
(04:17):
across his blue face. I laughed too, but I also
felt a twinge of regret that I could not share
with Amelia my fascinating insights about the ghostly life. Did
you know, I imagine, lecturing this foolish woman, that living humans
carry within them the spectral energy that can later become
(04:37):
a ghost, and yet breathers notice it no more than
their own skeletons. To the living, this ghost plasm is invisible,
intermixed with the other elements that make up the human body.
But occasionally we ghosts can spot tiny phosphorescent flares in
the auras of the living, a sign of their inhabiting
(05:00):
inner ghosts. And were you also aware? I could tell
the clueless Amelia that spirits fade over time. Fact every year,
we ghosts leak a little bit of energy, like color
leaching from cloth in the sunlight. But I waste my time.
The self absorbed world of the living does not care
(05:24):
about the dead. Through most of the morning, Amelia held
court in our graveyard, interrogating fictitious spirits. Little girl, tell
me of life on your celestial plane. Eventually, though she
was rummaging through her picnic bag, we pressed around Amelia
with hungry stares as she took large bites from a sandwich.
(05:46):
And then an event occurred that I had prayed for
during every one of Amelia's visits. A random flare of
ghost energy of greater length than usual unexpectedly out from
Amelia's aur near her neck. I pounced, grabbing it. Because
both the flaire and I were made from ghost stuff,
(06:09):
I was able to yank it hard, like a fluttering handle.
Though she couldn't see me. A look of panic crossed
Amelia's face. She cried out, dropped her sandwich and put
a hand to her throat. At first, her tattered bit
of plasm resisted my tugging, but gradually it stretched into
a longer, tongue shaped scrap. Strangle free Peep stepped forward
(06:33):
to help me pull. As the flare extended, Missus Norris
and even Teddy laid hold and hauled with all their might.
Amelia flailed her arms and struggled to breathe, but the
flare stubbornly withstood our tug of war, and then as
we heaved with our last strength, Amelia's full spectral form
(06:57):
spilled from her body and tumbled on the ground like
a newly hatched pupa. The ghost thing wriggled a soft mass.
We watched as it immediately began to harden an imprint
with the shapen face of Amelia. Near by. Her physical
body sagged dead in her chair. Missus Norris attacked first,
(07:21):
cackling as she plunged both hands into the sticky ghost plasm.
She crammed a great clot of it into her mouth.
The rest of us followed, raising to gobble up the
spirit image before it toughened and became inedible for ghosts.
As we tore out chunks of Amelia's ghost body, its
still forming face made hideous weeping meeping sounds. At last,
(07:44):
our feeding frenzy ended. Nothing remained of our prey but
a sheen of goo on the grass. The rest of
the day, we lay in the shade, full and satisfied,
knowing that devouring Amelia's God had probably added at least
a century to our gang's flickering existence. In the early evening,
(08:07):
a passing hiker discovered Amelia's body. As medics removed her
amid the flashing lights of an ambulance strangle, Peep smacked
his lips and croaked the first words I had ever
heard him say, Ha, yummy picnic. What I loved about
(08:27):
this story is how gentle it was. I was lulled
into the idyllic charm of a sunny spring morning, the
whimsical banter of ghosts, and the idea of a kindred
spirit like Amelia visiting the graveyard and picnicking there, and then,
just like the ghosts attacked Amelia's plasma, it bit into me.
(08:48):
That's the beauty of horror. It doesn't have to be
wrapped in shadows and filled with monsters. Sometimes it arrives
in daylight, with laughter, in a place that feels relatively safe.
This story is also a sly reminder that hunger, whether
for food, time, or even just a little more existence,
(09:10):
is one of the great universal forces. The living one
to keep living, the dead one to keep from fading.
And when there's hungers meet, well, someone's gonna suffer. The
Kai down. Kai has so many interesting stories like this
one from every genre, so please subscribe to the podcast,
(09:30):
and you can check out the substack to see comments
by authors about their inspiration. I also post art that
I like, any kind of art on the various social
media so pick your poison and follow me on Instagram, Facebook,
Blue Sky, or substack. It's all in the episode description.
Thank you for listening today and I'll see you next week.
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