“Solution” • by Gustavo Bondoni

The specter glowed greenly in the moonlight.

“Spray it!” Wendy whispered. “If we disperse it, we can finally sell this house!”

I tugged on the handle and the nozzle shot a pulverized solution of Holy water.

My friend Ed spends his life in the darkest corners of the Internet, looking for information on ghosts and hauntings. When he heard my problem, he said, “Nothing to it. Spray the ghost with Holy water.”

So when the phantom, as soon as the droplets touched it, turned a deeper shade of green, turned more solid, and sprouted huge teeth and tentacles, all I could say was, “Thanks for nothing, Ed.”

Then the ghost attacked, and we joined the ranks of the dead.

I’m going to haunt Ed.

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Gustavo Bondoni is novelist and short story writer with over three hundred stories published in fifteen countries, in seven languages.  He is a member of Codex and an Active Member of SFWA.His latest novel is a dark historic fantasy entitled The Swords of Rasna (2022). He has also published five science fiction novels, four monster books and a thriller entitled Timeless. His short fiction is collected in Pale Reflection (2020), Off the Beaten Path (2019), Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).
 
In 2019, Gustavo was awarded second place in the Jim Baen Memorial Contest and in 2018 he received a Judges Commendation (and second place) in The James White Award. He was also a 2019 finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest.
 
His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com

Gustavo has become a fairly regular contributor here. Two of his more recent appearances in our virtual pages were “S’mores Therapy” last week and “Warranty Claim” back in November, but he has quite a few more stories on our site. Check them out!

This week’s Pete Wood Challenge was to write a 150-word or less story that includes the line, “Thanks for nothing.” To see the previous winners of previous challenges, click this link. 

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“Do you miss Firefly? Do you like The Expanse? If so, then Privateers of Mars is exactly what you need. [...] Structured as three loosely interconnected short stories, it reads like three episodes of a great science fiction show that you wish someone would make.”

—Amazon reader review