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Las Vegas five times just using coupon rebates, not having to pay for a thing. The dead don’t need coupons. The dead don’t need vacations. But Flensing does.

THE SECRET LIFE OF
    JAMES PATTERSON
    James Patterson has just seen Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique with his own eyes. It’s a tattoo parlor on a dingy street in a small town he passes through on his way somewhere else. The neon sign splutters and sighs like a garish animal taking its last breath. The place lies between a diner and a one-hour motel. Characters pass through its doors that could never be mistaken for Atlantean kings or expert swordsmen. Zothique has come down in the world, and it pains Patterson. It pains him plenty, although there’s nothing he can do about it. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t have time to. He’s on his way to a graveyard where a man named Flensing U.K. Hlanith claims he’s seen the ghost of Clark Ashton Smith. Yeah? thinks Patterson as he puts the town behind him. Well, I’ve seen a ghost too—right there, in a small town. Zothique. Debased. Defiled. If that isn’t a ghost, he doesn’t know what is. Before long, Patterson reaches the graveyard. Flensing is hopping up and down around the edge of the gravesites like a crazy person. He stops when he hears Patterson’s car approach. “Hi, you must be Patterson,” Flensing says, embarrassed. Patterson gets the feeling Flensing will never tell him what he was doing. “Yes, I’m Patterson,” Patterson says. “And you must be the graveyard guy. Where did you see Smith’s ghost?” Patterson thinks it best if he keeps this conversation as short as possible. “Er, I can’t remember,” Flensing says. Patterson thinks Flensing’s probably lying. “I just traveled two hundred miles after a long plane trip to come see you, Flensing,” Patterson growls. “I think at the very least you’d better show me where you saw the ghost.” Flensing blanches and shrugs. “Okay. Follow me.” And so Patterson follows Flensing into the heart of the graveyard. Flensing stops next to a crumbling stone with unreadable letters on it. “He was right here. Staring at me. About to tell me about the adverbs.” “What?” says Patterson. “Never mind. This is where he was.” “Good enough,” Patterson says, and takes out his camera, snapping a quick shot of Flensing. “Thanks,” Patterson says. Flensing, still blinking from the flash, says, “What was that all about?” “Nothing,” Patterson says, and walks back to his car, leaving Flensing, confused, behind him. Patterson has a secret life, all right, but it has nothing to do with Clark Ashton Smith. He likes to take photos of people who have seen ghosts. As he explains to the tattoo guy at the Zothique later that day, “Some of the ghost essence stays with the person who saw the ghost. You can see it in the photograph, if you develop it just right. You can never take a photograph of a ghost. But you can see a wisp of ghost if you take a photo of a ghost watcher.” “And what do you do with the photos?” the tattoo guy asks. “Nothing,” says Patterson. “I just stick them on the wall with all the others and wait for a pattern to emerge. Someday soon, it will . . . ”

THE SECRET LIFE OF
    KEVIN POINTER
    Kevin Pointer, a network administrator/photographer dresses in black most of the time. He has demons in his house that open bottles of sake and make him drink it. “Drink the sake, human beast!” they scream at him, cackling and waving their little swords. “Drink it ALL!” So he does, after which the demons usually become much more reasonable and revise their request: “Read us Saki! NOW! Read it all!” And so he reads all of Saki’s collected short fiction to them, until they fall asleep, their little black bellies rising and falling from their repast on the couch. It is then and only then that he retires to his bedroom, there to indulge in the particulars of his secret life. Every piece of black clothing he