The Place Of Scary - Haunted Places

Scary game

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 06:57:00 PST

This new game is a bit harder. You had fun and saw the secret level in the last scary maze game. Now this is the sequel to it. Simply click the dot as fast as you can as it bounces around the screen. The more you click the fast it gets. Eventually you'll be able to collect some prizes and upgrades that will give you more skills. When the second ball comes out then that's when the real fun starts. It's not as hard in the beginning as the original scary maze game bit it's got a better ending. LOL Good luck!

Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel - Los Angeles, California

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 23:02:27 PDT

Brief history: Located on Hollywood Boulevard and opened for business in 1927, the Roosevelt Hotel is one of the most famous hotels in Los Angeles and one of the most haunted places in the world. It has long been a hangout for Hollywood's biggest stars, and the popularity of its trendy Teddy's nightclub still attracts the glitterati.

Ghosts: The Roosevelt is nearly as famous for its big-name ghosts, including Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift.

Haunting activity includes:

*Marilyn Monroe's ghost has been seen reflected in a mirror in room 229 and dancing in the hotel's ballroom.

*Montgomery Clift's ghost is thought to haunt room 928, where he stayed whilte filmingFrom Here to Eternity, and can still be heard playing his trumpet. His spirit has also been spotted on the eighth floor.

*One guest who stayed in room 928 felt patting on her shoulder by an unseen hand as she lay in bed reading.

*There is an eerie cold spot in the Blossom Ballroom that is about 10 degrees colder than the rest of the room.

*The ghost of a man dressed in white has been seen standing near a piano in the Blossom Ballroom. When guests approached the man, after hearing piano music, he vanished before their eyes.

*The ghost of glamorous movie star Carole Lombard, wife of Clark Gable, has been spotted on the 12 th floor, where she and Gable often stayed.

*Former Saturday Night Live cast member Ana Gasteyer, while staying one of the hotels's suites, encountered a piano that played by itself and the full-body apparition of a maid in a hall closet.

*Security guards have seen a ghost at the hotel's pool. It could be seen on security cameras, but when a guard went to check it, he could see no one -- although it still appeared on the security monitor.

*The ghost of a pony-tailed little girl named Caroline has been seen skipping and singing around the fountain in the lobby.

*Guests returned to their rooms only to find them locked from the inside.

Moss Beach Distillery - Moss Beach, California

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:58:17 PDT

Brief history: During Prohibition in the 1920s, the Moss Beach Distillery in Moss Beach, California became one of the most popular speakeasies on the West Coast when it was known as "Frank's Place," frequented by silent film stars drinking its illegal booze. After Prohibition, the place continued as a successful restaurant, which it remains today. Ghosts: The Blue Lady is the Distillery's most famous ghost and has been investigated by such prominent ghost hunters as Loyd Auerbach as well as the Unsolved Mysteries TV show. According to legend, in the 1930s a beautiful young woman, possibly named Cayte, fell for a piano player of questionable character and they began an affair, even though she was already married. She was killed by an unknown assailant on the nearby beach, and it is thought that her spirit -- dressed in blue -- still searches for her lover. Ghostly activity reported by guests and restaurant staff includes: Sightings of the Blue Lady herself A levitating checkbook Doors that impossibly lock from the inside Mysterious phone calls Disappearing earrings that later show up in one place Glassware moving During his 1999 investigation, Loyd Auerbach reports that he experienced the ghost "walking through" him several times Anomalous magnetic field and temperature changes. Note: The Distillery has various haunting "effects" set up throughout the restaurant, and these were "discovered" in the Ghost Hunters episode about Moss Beach. But as Loyd Auerbach points out in his article, "A Visit Does Not an Investigation Make," he (and others) have written about these effects well before the Ghost Hunters visit, and the genuine haunting activity has been reported and investigated before these effects were installed -- since the 1930s.

Gettysburg Battlefield - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:56:26 PDT

Few would argue that Gettysburg Battlefield is one of the most haunted places in the U.S. As the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, nearly 8,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed and tens of thousands more were injured there on July 3, 1863. There have been numerous sightings of ghost soldiers, sounds of battle, recorded EVP and even video.
Visitors to the park have reported seeing and even talking to these phantoms from the past only to have them mysteriously vanish.
Screams and moans, the sounds of gun and cannon fire -- all echoes from the horrific battle are occasionally heard and even recorded.
One of the most compelling ghost videos ever recorded was shot at Triangular Field by Tom Underwood in 2001.

Ghost encounters are also common in the period buildings surrounding the battlefield, including the Farnsworth House Inn and at Gettysburg College. The experiences continue up to the present day, and the area is well worth a visit, not only for its haunted reputation but also for its historical significance.

Rolling Hills Asylum - E. Bethany, New York

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:51:26 PDT

Located between Buffalo and Rochester, Rolling Hills Asylum's enormous 53,000+ sq. ft. brick building sits on a knoll in the hamlet of E. Bethany, N.Y. and has been a popular destination for ghost hunters for many years. Opened on January 1, 1827 and originally named The Genesee County Poor Farm, it was created by Genesee County to house those eligible for assistance including paupers, habitual drunkards, lunatics, the blind, lame or otherwise handicapped, orphans, widows, vagrants, and even a murderer or two. In the 1950s it became the Old County Home & Infirmary, and then in the 1990s was transformed into a set of shops and later an antiques mall. When the property owners, vendors and shoppers began to notice strange occurrences, a paranormal group was called into investigate and Rolling Hills' spooky reputation was born. Reports include disembodied voices, doors mysteriously held shut, screams in the night, shadow people and more. Rolling Hills Case Manager, Suzie Yencer relates one chilling experience: "It was September 2007. While working a public hunt, we had a gentleman with us that was filming a documentary about the building. He wanted to try an experiment in one of the rooms. The room he chose was in the basement, popularly known as The Christmas Room. The experiment he wanted to try was to sit in the room with no lights or equipment on. The only light we would use was a pink glow stick in the middle of a circle of people. We also placed a small ball and a toddler size rocking horse in the circle. The gentleman conducting the experiment requested that only I talk and try to make contact with the spirits. The more I talked, the more strange occurrences began to happen. The glow stick started to move back and forth, and the rocking horse began to slowly rock. A few of the guests in the room including myself saw a hand and arm come out of nowhere and reach for the ball in the circle and then just vanish...."

The White House - Washington, D.C.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:48:49 PDT

That's right, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. is not only home to the current President of the United States, it also is home of several former presidents who occasionally decide to make their presences known there, despite the fact that they are dead. President Harrison is said to be heard rummaging around in the attic of the White House, looking for who knows what. President Andrew Jackson is thought to haunt his White House bedroom. And the ghost of First Lady Abigail Adams was seen floating through one of the White House hallways, as if carrying something. The most frequently sighted presidential ghost has been that of Abraham Lincoln. Eleanor Roosevelt once stated she believed she felt the presence of Lincoln watching her as she worked in the Lincoln bedroom. Also during the Roosevelt administration, a young clerk claimed to have actually seen the ghost of Lincoln sitting on a bed pulling off his boots. On another occasion, while spending a night at the White House during the Roosevelt presidency, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was awakened by a knock on the bedroom door. Answering it, she was confronted with the ghost of Abe Lincoln staring at her from the hallway. Calvin Coolidge's wife reported seeing on several occasions the ghost of Lincoln standing with his hands clasped behind his back, at a window in the Oval Office, staring out in deep contemplation toward the bloody battlefields across the Potomac.

Eastern State Penitentiary - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:39:35 PDT

Eastern State Penitentiary has become a favorite destination for ghost hunters as well as the public at large since it has been opened to tours. Built in 1829, the imposing Gothic structure was originally designed to hold 250 inmates in solitary confinement. At the height of its use, however, as many as 1,700 prisoners were crammed into the cells. Like many such places of high emotional stress, misery and death, the prison has become haunted. One of its most famous inmates was none other than Al Capone, was was incarcerated there on illegal weapons possession in 1929. During his stay, it is said that Capone was tormented by the ghost of James Clark, one of the men Capone had murdered in the infamous St. Valentine's Day massacre. Other reported haunting activity includes: A shadow-like figure that scoots quickly away when approached. A figure that stands in the guard tower. An evil cackling reportedly comes from cellblock 12. In cellblock 6, another shadowy figure has been seen sliding down the wall. Mysterious, ghostly faces are said to appear in cellblock 4. Unfortunately, not all of these cells are open to the public, even on the tours.

100 COFFINS - Coy Hall

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:30:38 PDT

Roth Cadman rode through the drizzling midnight rain towards the livery stable of Trinity Hill. Mud jumped from the street, up his leg and around his face. Rain fell in stinging drops. With the exception of a few dim lights shining from the saloon, the town looked deserted along Main Street. Cadman moved into the dry stable and dismounted. The livery, like the town around it, seemed deserted.

Maybe it’s the late hour, he thought to himself, pulling his things together and unsaddling the horse. But the explanation wasn’t convincing. Boom towns like Trinity weren’t in the habit of going to bed just after sundown. Cadman put the horse away and fed it. Beating the rain from his hat, he prepared to make a dash through the downpour towards the saloon. He needed a drink.

The sky rumbled with thunder. Wind moved the rain in sideway sheets across the dark, muddy vista.

Cadman stooped his shoulders and ran for it. The mud was three inches deep in places, and puddles, like small ponds, dotted the street. A plank sidewalk led up to the porch of the saloon. Cadman stood breathlessly beneath the awning, glancing inward over the batwing doors. People were inside, a lot of them, sitting quietly around the dim glow of candles.

Cadman did what he could before entering, smacking his hat against the rail and wiping the water and mud from his unshaven face. He was used to being alone, and used to being stuck out in the weather, but that didn’t mean it didn’t make him miserable. Nights like this made him feel like a stray dog.

As Cadman entered, the folks barely stirred. They turned and looked for the most part, then fell back to their solemn thoughts. Every table was full; people lined the bar shoulder to shoulder; the walls and steps were covered by those standing. There were more than a hundred people in the large room. For light, homemade candles, bitches as folks call them, constructed from tin cups and bacon grease lined the main bar and decorated the tables. Shadows danced in the few open spaces. A haunting aura hung about the room.

Not wanting trouble or attention, Cadman took the oddity in stride. His mind, though, was at work behind steady eyes as he made his through the labyrinth of people to the crowded bar. When he was a kid, his mother dragged him to church on Sundays. Anytime somebody in the congregation died, the church held a prolonged moment of silence. He remembered those mornings vividly, and how they chilled him to the core then. This silent group of folks at Trinity Hill brought him back to those days, stirring a long-dormant uneasiness.

He nudged his way to the bar without a fight, without words. To his chagrin, however, there was no one tending it. He wasn’t a man to snap easily, but he needed that drink like a sick man needs medicine.

The man standing beside him acknowledged his presence first. “Stranger,” the man tipped his hat in greeting. He was an old gentleman of the professional class. He wore a heavy gray mustache that nearly hid his mouth and had steely eyes that revealed years of learning. His slick black suit spoke of money.

“Howdy,” Cadman offered. “You know how I can get a drink?”

A thin smile crossed the old man’s face; his mustache twitched. “Tonight,” he said, “you’re free to take what you wish. Though folks’ll frown on a drink, I hear,” he paused. “There’s no need of money where we’re going.

“Where’d that be?” Cadman asked, curious to hell but trying not to play it up.

“Just hop on over and take a bottle,” the man goaded.

“You tryin’ to get me shot to pieces?” Cadman said defensively. “What’s goin’ on in here anyhow?”

Another man approached, shouldering through the crowd. He extended his hand to Cadman. He was a young man, clean-cut, with a round, reddish face. He smiled. “We didn’t think the outsiders were going to make it,” he said. “But we’re certainly glad to have you here with us tonight. My name is Joseph, sir. And I am very pleased to meet you.” Joseph exuded congeniality, too much in fact. His was an artificial personality, constructed with an eye to a strict agenda.

Cadman turned, leaning his back against the bar. “Roth Cadman,” he said, shaking the young man’s hand. There was no need to turn the thought over in his mind; Cadman didn’t like the fellah for an instant.

At the sound of Cadman’s name, the old man at his side grinned widely. “Cadman?” he asked. “Well a man would be mighty amiss if he hadn’t heard of you. Joe, you know who this fellah is?”

Joseph shrugged blankly. “A child of the lord.”

“Why, he’s a bounty hunter. Been in the paper several times. Three weeks ago when he nabbed Charlie Volquez just north of the border. Roth Cadman. Name’s Mortimer J. Alexander,” the old man said loudly. “I’m impressed to hell with what you do, young man.”

Cadman thought: This is better than the usual reaction I get. Hostility, especially in boom towns, was typical. Cadman nodded his thanks to Alexander.

Joseph didn’t share the old man’s enthusiasm; in fact, he seemed disappointed. The friendly demeanor faded. “A man-hunter?” he asked snidely. “Trinity Hill’s blessed with your presence.”

Cadman let the remark slide, but he knew he wouldn’t forget it. His ego was too large for the latter. If I catch roly-poly Joseph alone, he thought, he’ll get the worst pistol-whipping of his life. He winked his thoughts at the young man.

Joseph turned without a further word and walked back toward the front of the room.

“The boy’s got the idea that he’s important,” Alexander said, turning his back to the counter in imitation of Cadman. “It’s a hard disease to get rid of.”

“You might say that. How long you been in Trinity?” Cadman asked.

“Nine months about. I put up the bank across the street. Does well enough with all the money comin’ in from the oil. You visited before?”

“Yeah,” Cadman said shortly. “I don’t mean to get pushy, but you’re gonna tell me what’s goin’ on around here. Most of these folks haven’t breathed a word since I came in.”

Alexander nodded. “It’s not an easy thing,” he said, “preparing yourself to die. I’m an old man, but that still doesn’t make it simple. Folks, as you’d expect, are taking it hard. That’s why they’re quiet.”

Cadman’s understanding didn’t budge. “Everybody in here’s gonna die?”

“And you,” Alexander said, then twisted his face in confusion. “You really didn’t know?”

People in the immediate vicinity turned to listen, curious.

Cadman shook his head. “I was just passing through.”

“Then the Word hasn’t reached as far as we’d hoped,” Alexander sighed. “That explains why you’re the only stranger to come.”

The thought settled in Cadman’s mind that he stood in the equivalent of an asylum, surrounded by a cadre of religious fanatics. He didn’t like the prospect of it. And the whole town, he guessed, was like that: sitting here in the dark, waiting to die, waiting for the world to come to an end. I’m getting a drink and moving on, he promised himself. To hell with Trinity Hill; I’ll sleep in the rain if I have to. With that in mind, Cadman eased his backside onto the bar top and slid his legs to the other side. He hopped down with a thud.

A young man, similar in appearance and attitude to Joseph, piped up from close by. “You can’t drink,” he chided. “Sir, there’s no drinking in here tonight.”

Cadman, ignoring the young man, unhooked his duster, allowing it to fall open. It revealed two pistols holstered at his side. Their pearl handles shone even in the dim candlelight. “Well I’m gonna,” he said.

People turned at the sudden ruckus.

“You can’t drink liquor in here,” a woman shouted out.

Cadman, flushed with anger, pulled a pistol from his side. “I’m taking a drink,” he said to whoever wanted to listen, and there were a few. “Any man or woman tries to stop me and I’ll shoot them dead.” He smiled caustically. Removing a full bottle of Kentucky bourbon from the shelf, he looked around the room, watching, wondering if anybody would call his bluff. They lost interest quickly, though. There was no fight in them beyond the battle in their own minds. They let Cadman break the rules without any further objections. Not even Joseph, who Cadman eyed in the far corner, protested.

Cadman downed a mouthful, then offered the bottle across the bar to Alexander. The old man looked tempted, but torn. “I can’t,” he said mournfully.

I don’t remember Trinity being hit so hard by the temperance drive, Cadman thought to himself. It doesn’t seem natural. A man used to fight not to buy vice around here. Cadman watched the weary crowd, then downed another quick drink.

Joseph Henriksen had his own way of dealing with unruly strangers: he told the higher-ups in hope that the responsibility would pass him by. He was a man of God, after all. And violence, he felt, was no one’s friend.

Joseph watched Roth Cadman from across the room -- watched him drink whisky insolently. The man is boastful and arrogant, he thought to himself, and fumed inside. But he’s dangerous, too. Joseph got a sense of the latter from the look in Cadman’s eyes. They had an animalistic nature, wary and unmoving. The look was enough to unsettle Joseph and push him away from a confrontation. He brooded in silence.

Moving amongst the people, comforting their frightened souls, had given his own mind little relief. He felt tense and, though he was reluctant to admit it, afraid. Though it didn’t create these feelings, Cadman’s presence accentuated them. Joseph moved to the front of the dark saloon and out the doors. The rank night air, for once in his life, was a relief.

Paul Goodman -- Paul of the Holy Trinity -- is waiting across the street, he thought to himself. He’s waiting in the sheriff’s office to come amongst us. I should be with the flock until his arrival, Joseph reprimanded himself. But what he should do and what he had to do were irreconcilable. His own mind couldn’t be at rest until he had a final talk with Paul, the flesh of his savior. Paul held the key to his own peace. How could he help the flock otherwise?

Joseph sunk his steps into the muddy street. The rain, it seemed, had passed for the night. The air felt cold and bitter.

The sheriff’s door was unlocked. Joseph entered, finding the meditating form of Paul sitting quietly at the desk. He was a slim, tall man with thin, sharp features. Paul looked up in the darkness. “What is it, my son?” he asked in an aloof, distant voice.

Joseph wrung his hands, nervously. “My lord,” he began with respect, “there is fear in my heart.”

Paul Goodman struck a match and lit a candle atop the desk. He moved his seat closer to the glow. “My son,” he said with a smile that seemed to hold a thousand years of forgiveness, “you would be lying to yourself and to others if you pretended to be without fear. Your lord respects fear and especially those who face it.” Again he smiled.

Joseph’s heart raced with what he guessed to be infinite love. Tears of mixed emotion escaped his eyes.

Paul raised a single hand. “I know what you want to say. And you know I feel the same for you and the entire flock of Trinity Hill. I marvel at the appropriate name of this wonderful place.”

“There is another thing,” Joseph said; his throat tightened. “A stranger arrived.”

“A blessing,” Paul smiled.

“No, my lord. This is a man of evil. I feel it in him. He is a killer.”

Paul cast a stern look. “Are you so intuitive to turn away those who would go my way?”

“No, my lord,” Joseph said shamefully.

“It is never too late to turn down the path I offer. You know this, Joseph. Do not deny the love in your heart to any man. He will pass with us tonight. He will die as if he’d been a fundamental member of our flock since the beginning.”

“Yes, my lord,” Joseph said, swallowing nervously.

“Is that all that troubles you, my son?”

“That is all.”

“Then lead, my faithful son. Steer those souls in that once house of vice. I will come among you in a matter of moments. Our time approaches.” Paul snuffed out the candle and the room once again fell to black.

Joseph, his hands clasped at his waist, left the sheriff’s office and headed back to the saloon. His heart still felt heavy, even more so than before.

Maybe it was the drink in his system, but Roth Cadman felt a sudden curiosity about the saloon’s proceedings. After downing a couple drinks, he had prepared to head out. The rain, as far as he could tell, had passed on. His horse had no doubt eaten its fill at the livery. But his thoughts of leaving had turned away when Joseph burst through the batwing doors, announcing that the arrival of Paul of the Holy Trinity was forthcoming. A matter of moments, he’d said. A murmur rose amongst the crowd which still hadn’t died away. It was a nervous chattering, a hundred voices going at once. Cadman became a spectator.

“You prepared to die?” Cadman said, still behind the bar, to the brooding Alexander.

“I thought so,” the old man said. His attitude had deteriorated steadily since Cadman’s arrival. “I hope Paul can get me going once more. Faith’s a brittle thing, you know that?”

“Not if it’s real,” Cadman said, waxing philosophic.

Alexander raised his thick eyebrows and sighed. “True,” he admitted.

“So when did this Paul fellah come into town?”

“Seven months ago to the day. Came in one night, a rainy one like this, soaked to the bone. He did some preachin’ around town, always out on the street with the people. His flock he called it.”

“And now he’s takin’ you home,” Cadman said.

Alexander nodded slowly.

Paul of the Holy Trinity didn’t keep his audience waiting. His arrival, however, was more low-key than Cadman had expected. What could’ve been accompanied by extravagant pomp and circumstance occurred with the pathos of a funeral procession. Even Cadman felt moved by the melancholy entrance.

“That’s the savior,” Alexander whispered unnecessarily, his face turning ashen.

Cadman watched the scene unfold.

Paul had the overhanging oil lamps relit, filling the saloon with light. The candles burned low. Paul took a noble stance on an elevated platform which held a player piano. He stood in front of the instrument, distinguished, raising his hands to quiet the crowd. Silence swept across the room with palpable force.

All the while, Cadman eyed the man named Paul intensely. There was something about him -- something he vividly recognized. Cadman swiftly moved over the bar and into the crowd for a closer look. Paul noticed Cadman’s approach, and his magnetic gaze fell over him. There was a reserved stillness in the man’s face. Cadman racked his mind, trying to remember.

“My children,” Paul began in a loud, velvety voice that resonated off the saloon walls. “The night of our departure has finally come.” He smiled.

Finally it clicked in Cadman’s mind, and a quaking chill traveled up his spine. Fresno. Two years ago. He’d tracked a highway robber from Fresno to Trinity Hill, killing the man when he wouldn’t surrender. He’d watched the man die -- seen his grave on the hill behind town. Watching Paul of the Holy Trinity spout his rhetoric, there was no doubt in his mind. Paul was the very man he’d killed that night -- the man he’d seen buried. The savior of these fanatics was a dead highway robber.

Cadman quickly turned towards the bar, his eyes searching out Alexander. Fortunately, the old man hadn’t moved from his perch. Leaning in, Cadman spoke calmly and quietly. “What if I told you I knew that man?”

“Paul Goodman?” Alexander asked.

Cadman nodded. He looked over his shoulder suspiciously.

“How?”

Cadman stamped the fear from his voice, but his mind was rampant with it. “Because I killed him. I saw him buried on the hill behind this saloon, right here in Trinity.”

“Well,” Alexander said in disbelief, “I don’t doubt he looks like him, Roth. Maybe you oughtta take another drink, huh? We’re all worked up.”

Cadman couldn’t find fault with the old man’s reluctance to believe what he said. His disbelief was natural. I’d react the same, he thought. “Why don’t you take a trip with me?” Cadman asked. An idea popped into his mind: the grave should still be in the cemetery. Alexander will see then, and I’ll see for sure myself. It wasn’t an easy thing to believe. “Come out to the graveyard.”

Alexander looked around with nervous eyes. His faith already on unsteady ground, it didn’t take much convincing to get him away from the saloon. “They won’t let us go,” he said; but he was ready to run.

“Yeah,” Cadman admitted. He thought for a moment. “There’s a trap door behind the bar I’ll bet,” he said. “They gotta keep the liquor somewhere.”

“The front door’s the only other chance.” Alexander’s eyes darted through the crowd.

Paul, fired up now, worked the crowd into a furor. They called back his shouts, and the place began to roar.

Cadman hopped the bar like before, but nobody seemed to notice. In the better light he could make out the markings on the floor. It didn’t take him long to discover the outlines of a square door. Thankfully, there’d been no effort on the bar owner’s part to hide the passageway. Cadman nodded his discovery to Alexander, whose mustache twitched in nervous relief.

Lifting the door, Cadman peered into the dark storage space below. He took a candle from the bar and went down. The space was black as pitch and no taller than five feet; barrels littered the way. The candlelight helped him find his footing, but little else. Hunched over, Cadman felt his way to the cold wall.

The shouting voices resonated through the floorboards, nearly causing them to buzz.

Cadman had known fear many times in his line of work. It was an everyday reality. But, seeing Paul standing on that platform had shaken him harder than any grazing bullet. It was a different type of fear -- distant, but more poignant. Regardless, his mind remained steady from years of practice.

When the dim candlelight fell over the form of a cellar door, resting closed at an angle above him, Cadman nearly thanked God for the blessing. He rushed carelessly back to the trap door and pulled himself up onto the barroom floor. He stood, motioning to the waiting Alexander to follow. The old man, smartly, had already made his way across the top of the bar. “He’s getting ready to tell them how it’s going to happen,” Alexander said.

Together, they hopped down into the cellar and moved through the cramped darkness to the waiting doors. Cadman pushed them open, emerging into the night air first. Rain fell in a light drizzle. Just as he looked up, however, his excitement turned sour.

A gun clicked.

Joseph pointed a revolver at Cadman’s head. “Come on out Mortimer,” Joseph said. “Both of you stand up.”

Thunder shattered the sky.

Angrily, Cadman stood in the muddy lot behind the saloon. The cemetery hill loomed in front of them. Alexander was at his side, brushing the mud from his suit. He didn’t speak.

Cadman went over the situation in his mind. He’d sized up Joseph in the saloon, and had made the conclusion that the boy was a lightweight in everything except talk. He certainly wasn’t a fighter. But it didn’t take a killer to kill; and the way Joseph had the revolver trained on Cadman’s face meant that it wouldn’t take much skill either. But the boy didn’t want to kill; he wanted Cadman and Alexander to rejoin the saloon fanatics in their ritual.

“How’d you know?” Cadman asked.

“I’ve been watchin’ you all night,” Joseph said proudly. “And this’s the only way out. It wasn’t much of a stretch. Now drop your guns, Cadman. Both of them.”

“Aren’t you missin’ out on what the savior’s saying?” Alexander asked sarcastically.

“Old man,” Joseph said threateningly, “the lord’ll leave you behind with an attitude like that.” He shifted his gaze. “Drop the guns, Cadman!”

Cadman played a trick he’d been executing for the last decade. He pulled both pistols at the same time, holding them out for Joseph to take with his one free hand.

“I said drop them,” the young man said. He extended the revolver.

Cadman called his bluff. With lightning quickness he tossed one of the pistols towards Joseph, gripped the other, and with a swift blow, brought the butt down on Joseph’s gun hand. The young man let out a cry as his gun dropped to the mud.

Cadman was on him in a second, swiping the front of Joseph’s skull with the handle of his pistol. It was enough to stagger him. Cadman reached down, grabbing the two pistols from the mud. He holstered his own, tossing the other to Alexander. “Keep that on him,” he said. “We’re goin’ to the cemetery.”

Alexander nodded rapidly. He pointed the gun at Joseph. For good measure, Cadman uppercut Joseph in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. Joseph shouted out, doubling over in pain.

They labored up the hill in the rain, gaining the mud trail about halfway up. The cemetery was crude, but no worse than any other boom town. Wooden crosses shone greyly as a lightning bolt split the sky.

“Why’re you takin’ me here?” Joseph asked. “You gonna kill me?”

“No.” Cadman said. “That man inside: Paul. I know him.”

“How does a man like you know him?” Joseph asked snidely.

“’Cause I killed the bastard.”

“Right here in Trinity,” Alexander put in, his gun still aimed steady.

“That’s insane,” Joseph said. “Paul Goodman is a man of God.”

“He was a highway robber,” Cadman said. “I tracked him here two years back.” The three walked through the maze of graves to the back corner. “This is it,” Cadman said, kneeling at a dilapidated cross. He remembered the burial vividly; he had a good memory when it came to his business.

“The grave of a man you murdered,” Joseph said, continually looking over his shoulder at the peaking roof of the saloon. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Notice anything strange about it?” Cadman asked. The sight, even though he’d half expected it, made him shudder. The dirt sank inward almost a foot as though something had been removed from it. “I’ll bet if you dug this up there’d been nothin’ in it.”

Joseph was silent, but his look was ambiguous. He conceded nothing.

Again, lightning lit the sky.

“They’re all like that, Roth,” Alexander spoke up. “The three or four around here are at least. All of ‘em sunk down.”

“When Paul showed up in Trinity,” Cadman asked, playing an absurd hunch, “did it coincide with anything?”

“We’d sunk a new oil well about that time,” Alexander said.

“Maybe you released more than oil,” Cadman said vaguely. “Sounds ridiculous,” he said. “But so is everything else going on in Trinity.”

“You’re insane,” Joseph said, looking over his shoulder impatiently. “You insinuating that demons and the like came out of that well and possessed corpses?” he laughed. “Lord, please forgive this man.”

From the bottom of the hill, a series of indistinct shouts rose suddenly from the saloon and cut through the night. They were shouts of pain and agony, not of praise and worship.

The sound stirred Joseph to life. Disregarding Alexander’s gun, he ran towards the noise. Quickly, he disappeared over the crest of the hill.

The screaming continued, unabated. A hundred shouts of terror and agony rang through the din of the storm, climbed the cemetery hill and assailed Cadman and Alexander. The two men stood transfixed, listening, trying to see through the darkness. Neither moved for a moment.

The chorus ceased slowly, one voice at a time. The whole scene lasted minutes.

Alexander looked at Cadman. “You don’t …” he stopped, thinking.

Cadman felt the urge to turn and run; to get as far away from Trinity Hill as his legs could afford him. But his urge died with the grisly shouting.

“What about the boy?” Alexander asked. “Joseph.”

Cadman shrugged. Whatever happened, he did it to himself, he thought.

“Let’s head back down,” Alexander continued. “I wanna have a look.”

Cadman instinctively followed Alexander through the graveyard. His imagination ran wild as he made out the roof and upper façade of the saloon. If something had come out of the well … He watched the graves as they passed. All of them were the same -- all drooping, missing something. He wondered if many of the townsfolk were like Paul Goodman. But that wasn’t likely. There’d be too much of a chance of getting recognized. If I’d only been here a day earlier, Cadman thought. I’d have recognized Paul before it was too late -- recognized him for what he really was.

The bleak silhouette of the saloon sat calm and quiet. Cadman and Alexander moved cautiously around to the front entrance. They stopped, looking over the doors. Not surprisingly, all of the lights had been snuffed out except for a few candles here and there. Alexander started to push through the doors but Cadman held him back.

Something on the ground, just within the entrance, caught his eye. He bent to pick it up, then recoiled in horror, throwing it with force back to the ground.

“What was it?” Alexander asked excitedly.

Cadman rushed off the porch without answering, towards the livery. Alexander was at his heels, though. “What?” he asked again.

Cadman turned. “A finger,” he said with difficulty. “A god-damn bloody finger with the nail broken back. Like it’d been clinging to the wood.”

Alexander looked past him into the night, a look of illness on his aged face. “Every grave up there looked that way” he said, “like Paul Goodman’s. There could be hundreds out there like him.”

Cadman searched for words but couldn’t find them. The same thought had been going through his mind. Joseph, he guessed, must’ve made it inside the saloon -- probably the last to go. Trinity Hill was a battleground, he thought to himself. The saloon a mausoleum. And Alexander and I listened to a massacre. “The first,” his stomach wrenched, “of many.”

Alexander looked at him like he understood the quiet words, like they had come from his own mind. “There’ll be more like this,” he said to himself. To Cadman: “When we sunk that well, seven of the men died in an accident. They were blown to pieces,” he paused. “That’s what we thought anyhow.”

Cadman nodded, rain dripping from his hat. All we can do is run, he thought.

Dead Things - Marius Dicomites

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:28:52 PDT

It was worse than she expected.

Nothing could really prepare you for the cold, irrefutable confirmation - the shock of the moment when all doubts and illusions were snatched away to be replaced by a suffocating and onerous grief. The final day for the dead was the beginning for those left behind. This was when the mourning truly began.

Rachel watched silently as the long procession gradually gathered around the graves. It was still raining heavily – it had been raining for most of the day – and as they held their umbrellas over each other, she felt they were closing themselves off from her. They were a close, impenetrable group, and she was not allowed to be part of them. But she understood; she was the one to blame for all this. She had no right to share their grief.

From a distance, hardly feeling the cold or the rain, she held herself as she watched the ceremony. Desperately, she tried to draw some consolation from the priest’s words, but she was only reminded of what she had lost. How could words relieve the gnawing shock and disbelief she still felt? How could words ease the emptiness? There could be no persuasive reason or justification for all this. She just wanted those she had lost back again. She wanted things to be the way they had been before.

She lowered her head as the ceremony finished. The mourners passed her as they left. None of them spoke to her, and she didn’t attempt to speak to any of them. When they had all gone, she took a step towards the graves. But it was too much. Despite the stark reality before her eyes, she still didn’t want to accept the truth. The tears she had tried to suppress clouded her eyes. Falling to the ground, she began to sob uncontrollably.

And then they came. They wrapped their arms around her and took her into their fold. They held her close and tight. Whispering to her, they pressed their faces against hers; they rocked her gently and tried to soothe her as the reality penetrated her consciousness and she began to scream with grief. Holding her even tighter, they drew her away. She didn’t resist. She needed peace. Surrendering, she fell back against them; she hid within them as unwanted memories flooded relentlessly into her broken mind.

Willingly, she lost herself to them, and prayed that she would never recover herself again.

They had left her alone.

It didn’t matter. She had no use for them anymore. She had recovered enough of her sanity to recognise the distant pity they had shown her. Since the day of the funeral they had chosen to keep their distance - not one of them had spoken to her face to face. They hadn’t reached out to her again. They had been a hollow presence offering reserved consolation. Well, she no longer needed the forced solace they had shown her; knowing the contempt they really felt for her, she had no further patience for their cold compassion. She had depended on it in the beginning – it had been her only grasp on her sanity. Now she knew its worth, and she despised it as much as she despised them.

To be left alone; that was what she wanted. With the curtains closed and all the lights off, the outside world didn’t exist anymore. There had been phone calls for a while – incessant phone calls – but then she had ripped the phone cord out. Without day or night, without time, without even sound, she had kept to her bed; cocooned by the bed sheets wrapped around her, drifted in and out of a half-conscious sleep, where dreams with familiar faces waited for her – and she woke up crying. To be left alone; she needed to be left alone.

But there was someone in the house.

Unconsciously, she had been hearing it for some time; agonised, struggling to be heard, the intermittent murmur of a man’s voice from the room next door - their child’s bedroom. There had been so many thoughts running through her mind; broken, disjointed and irrational thoughts that she had been compelled to utter out loud – the man’s voice had been lost in the confusion. But the thoughts had stopped now, and it was there, it was definitely there.

And he had no right to be in her house. It was her house!

Swaying with rage, dragging her breath down her throat, she threw the bed sheets off her, and stumbled unsteadily, heavily, almost blindly, out of the door and into the passage. Fleetingly, it crossed her mind that it might be a burglar. But she didn’t care. There was too much rage inside her to care, and she was already giving voice to her rage when she pushed the door open.

The room had changed; everything had changed. Her child’s bed, the cartoon wallpaper they had taken days to put up, the toys that had filled the room – they were gone. Instead, the walls were covered with stained, faded wallpaper which was peeling off the walls at the edges; heavy pine furniture took up most of the space and dominated the room; and ingrained in every aspect was a gloom that seemed almost indelible.

And there was the bed.

Any rage she felt was dissipated at the sight of the frail, withered form that lay there, struggling to breathe but hardly moving, clearly so weak he was unable to move. It was a sight that instantly aroused pity in her; but it was also impossible. She was curious now. Expecting the incongruous vision to vanish at any moment, she moved cautiously closer and looked down at him. He saw her. His eyes widened with shock.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

He had asked the question she had wanted to ask him. Still unable to believe he was real, she reached out her trembling hand to touch the bed.

They both screamed at the same time.

They were pulled apart from each other. An invisible force swept over her like a wave; it was as cold as ice, and she shuddered involuntarily as it continued to move in ripples through the air. It was palpable - she was unable to resist as she was carried along with it. The man – the whole room – simultaneously moved away from her; she was thrown into a world of constantly changing visions of the familiar and unfamiliar; intrusive, pulsating, all-consuming visions which stole all sense of her physical body.

And suddenly she found she was no longer in the bedroom.

It was the materialisation of a memory that had burned every detail of itself into her mind. She was making her way down the staircase, struggling to see through the thick, billowing smoke which choked her every time she drew breath. She knew what was coming. She knew what was about to happen –

“Mama!”

A tremulous moan of revulsion and disbelief fell from her lips. She shook violently with the next step, and then couldn’t go any further – it was too much. Not again, she pleaded inwardly, her body leaning backwards. She struggled to persuade herself it wasn’t real; but the smoke stung her throat with each breath, and the searing heat was beginning to burn her skin. It was real. It was happening again!

“Mama!”

Knowing what was about to happen, she could feel her heart pounding as she stumbled blindly forwards. The cry had come from the living-room. She couldn’t see anything through the door; the thick smoke obscured everything.

“Amy,” she screamed out frantically.

“I can’t get out. Help me!”

“Stay where you are,” she ordered. “I’m coming!”

The words she had spoken before; they were exactly the same words she had spoken before. Tears began to stream down her face. “I don’t want to,” she pleaded faintly.

“Mama!”

The voice jolted her from her hesitation. She couldn’t just stand there and watch. She had no choice. With clenched fists, she threw herself through the door; and felt the explosion from somewhere inside the room throw her whole body forcibly back through the door and against the wall in the passage. Her head struck the wall first; she could taste blood as her twisted form slumped to the ground.

She couldn’t move. Sitting with her back against the wall, she could only watch helplessly as the flames spread into the passage; and she could only listen to the cries for help as her sight rapidly darkened. Her strength was draining away from her. She opened her mouth to cry out for help; the sounds were stifled as they climbed up her throat. She could hardly focus her thoughts now. There was nothing she could do.

I’m sorry, she whispered inwardly, and everything slipped away from her.

Sooner or later, it was going to stop. It couldn’t go on forever. Nothing could go on and on forever. She had to endure and be patient. It was going to stop.

“Mama!”

Shuddering with revulsion, she pulled the bed sheets over her head. A strangled cry escaped from her mouth as she curled into herself and wrapped her arms around her knees. But she couldn’t hide. The house had become a part of her now, and so every sound jarred harshly into her hearing, and every movement crawled through her with a violating, almost palpable sensation.

Nothing was hidden now.

“Mama!”

“I can’t help you,” she cried out desperately, pulling the bed sheets off her and sitting up in the bed.

“Mama!”

“I can’t help you,” she screamed, her body shaking violently. “I can’t – “

Her words were stifled as another low but distinct sound crept through to her from the bedroom next door – an insistent scratching, something heavy falling to the ground, and then beginning to drag itself across the ground. She knew what – who – was coming; she could hear him straining and gasping for breath as he struggled to push himself forward.

The door.

The realization that there was no key on the door threw her into a panic verging on hysteria. She was galvanised into action. She heard him coming out into the passage as she rushed to the door. Frantically, she made an effort to push the chest of drawers beside the door across it; but it was far too heavy – it refused to move. As the door shook and the doorknob began to turn, she twisted around with a shudder and held her back against it. It was futile. Her body sank convulsively to the ground as he repeatedly thrust against the door. He was too strong. This wasn’t the frail and elderly man she remembered – he was steadfastly exerting himself beyond his endurance.

The door began to open. She screamed as his hand came through the gap and clutched hold of her arm; without thinking, she pulled the rest of him through the door as she shrank away with terror and revulsion, and suddenly he was bent over her, his hands repeatedly reaching out to her as she tried to pull herself away. He was as cold as ice; she could feel the sharp cold in the air around him.

“Help me,” he pleaded hoarsely, his countenance suffused and twisted with agony.

“No,” she screamed maniacally. Her back came up against the wall as she recoiled from him again. Digging his nails into the carpet, he dragged his emaciated body across the ground; and she felt the cold emanating from him enclose her as he came over her. Its not real, she whispered inwardly, as his trembling hand touched her face. But she could feel his breath; she could feel his skin.

“Help me!”

In a sickening shift, the palpable became impalpable. His twisted face penetrated her consciousness and burned into her mind. There were gnawing thoughts streaming inside her head – but they weren’t her thoughts. The world around them rocked back and forth before; and she could only feel relief as an impenetrable black quickly smothered everything around her and engulfed her consciousness.

Where was she?

The room had changed; the man was gone. It gradually came to her as her awareness of her surroundings grew. This was the room where she had found the old man. But there was something horribly wrong. There was one change.

She was the one in the bed.

In a half-conscious stupor, her thoughts were sluggish and struggled to find coherence. Making an effort to rise from the bed, she immediately sank back down again as a sickening nausea washed over her and made her crave sleep. It was then she grew aware of a dull but constant, slow-throbbing pain in her chest and abdomen.

“Help me,” she whispered.

There was someone in the room with her. Her vision was blurred, and at first all she could discern was a figure composed of shadows moving about. Whoever it was, they chose to ignore her plea; silently, with an unmistakable urgency, they moved about the bedroom. They were searching for something. Although her vision obscured the detail, she could hear drawers opening and been rifled through, objects been pushed impatiently aside.

“Who are you?” she choked out.

And suddenly they were looking down at her. It was a man in his early twenties. Tension tautened his face, but there was the barest trace of a smile on his lips. His eyes gleamed with familiarity, but there was no compassion or warmth.

“Who are you?” she said again.

His face convulsed with contempt. Before she could say anything else, he lifted a pillow over her; he wanted her to see it in his hands. A feeble moan crept from her lips as he thrust it down onto her face. Blindly, she reached out to try and push him away, but she was too weak to have any effect, and it only made him press the pillow down harder.

This wasn’t her death, but she could feel the pillow pressed against her mouth; she was the one struggling for breath. But this wasn’t her death. This –

The sight was ripped away from her. For a moment, she was sure she had been blinded; but then another sickeningly familiar vision bled into the dark before her eyes.

“Mama!”

She shook her head with shock and held herself as she stood in front of the door again. Tears welled in her eyes. The past would always come back to her. There was no choice – she had no choice. She hurled herself through the door; and felt the explosion throw her body against the wall again. But something had changed; she felt it as she sank into unconsciousness.

She knew the truth now.

Dead things caught in the fragment of a past that would never release them; on and on, it would go and on – until they were driven insane, and then they would be lost in the moment of their deaths. There would be nothing but their deaths.

It was there in her mind - distinct memories that hadn’t existed before. Her husband had come home drunk. He had lit a cigarette and quickly fallen asleep on the sofa; the cigarette had slipped from his hand. Amy had entered the room to see him, and she had seen the fire starting on the sofa. She tried to wake him, but he wouldn’t wake up – and the fire had quickly spread out of control. She wouldn’t leave the room. She made an effort to pull Graham off the sofa, but he was too heavy for her – and she still wouldn’t leave the room.

And then she had played her part. It was the fireplace. There had been something wrong with the fireplace, and if she gotten there a minute earlier it might have ended differently. The fireplace had exploded just as she entered the room. It wasn’t the explosion that had killed her. It had ended for her when her head struck the wall.

It wasn’t her fault. The hole in her mind was gone – it wasn’t her fault. There was nothing she could have done to prevent what happened. The fireplace had been installed a week earlier – she now realized it had been faulty. If it hadn’t been for the explosion, they might have all survived the fire.

What was she going to do?

The truth could bring little consolation now. It was a living death. They would keep going back in time to die again – she would never see their faces. And in another time, in the same house, an elderly man would be suffocated to death.

What was she going to do?

The answer came to her as the old man’s labored breathing slithered into her hearing from the bedroom next door; it was the only thing on her mind as she climbed off the bed and, steadying herself, went towards the door and out into the passage. She heard him falling off the bed as she came to the door of his room. Her fear of him had gone; there was no reason to fear now. As she heard him beginning to drag himself across the ground, she opened the door and went straight to him, calmly knelt down in front of him as he reached his hand out to her, his agonised eyes holding onto her with a frantic desperation.

“Help me,” she said hoarsely.

He understood; she could see he understood. He crawled closer to her and held out his hand again. As she stopped down to him, a movement at the corner of her eye made her look up. There was nothing there, but she still had the sensation of an invisible presence repeatedly throwing its gaze at them as it went about the room. She remembered the old man’s murderer – what had happened before the murder. Time meant nothing in this existence. The past was waiting for them; it had been waiting for them all along.

She stretched out her hand.

It happened so easily this time. In an instant, she found herself standing in the doorway, looking down at the old man as he lay on the bed. There was a discernible, palpable change in the substance of her surroundings; she could feel the cold in the air and the ground beneath her feet; she could see the light from outside slipping through the gaps in the curtains, and hear the sounds of voices in the street. This time it was different. It was real, or as real as it could be. Why was it different?

She stiffened as she heard hurried footsteps from the room below her. The old man moaned with dread and made a feeble effort to lift himself out of the bed.

It was happening.

The trepidation thickened and pounded inside her as she rushed to the bed. At first the old man could only look at her with disbelief. And then he held out his hand.

“Help me,” he pleaded.

“Shh,” she hissed warningly, and for a moment could only stare down at him as her mind struggled to formulate a plan. They couldn’t go downstairs; he would be waiting. What was she supposed to do? What would be enough to change things?

The wardrobe.

It was in the corner of the room. It was large enough to fit both of them. Hurrying over to the wardrobe, she threw open the doors and returned to the bed. Pulling aside the bed sheets, she brought her arms under the old man’s knees and back. He was so light and frail – it was surprisingly effortless to lift him from the bed and carry him to the wardrobe. As she heard a door opening downstairs, she placed him inside in a sitting position against the inner wall. The footsteps were beginning to make their way up the stairs as she climbed inside the wardrobe to join the old man and closed the doors.

How could they die if they were already dead? What did they have to be afraid of? It was incomprehensible - there was nothing to fear, yet the fear choked them into a cowering silence as the footsteps came nearer. This was real. The old man was going to die, and what would happen to her when she was discovered with him?

The footsteps entered the room, and then they stopped. In her mind, she could see him looking around the room, trying to determine where the old man would hide. But she didn’t need to imagine. When the footsteps started again, they came straight towards the wardrobe; and when they stopped, she knew they couldn’t hide anymore.

She thrust the wardrobe doors open and threw herself blindly at him. Her hands found his throat, and she used the hold to push him back with all the force in her body. At first he was surprised – he hadn’t expected her to be there – but he quickly recovered his senses, and then his face contorted with a brutal rage. He seized hold of her arms, and they both writhed frantically against each other. He couldn’t get near enough to harm her; with her hands clutching his throat, she kept on pushing him away. But she was beginning to weaken; she couldn’t sustain the effort. If she lost, it would all be over, and the past would reclaim them. There had to be an end to this. It had to stop.

Her strength flooded back to her, and her frustration and rage drew on it as she pushed at him violently. They stumbled out through the door and into the passage; and there was a moment when they were both helpless and blind as they fell over the banister and down the staircase. In her mind, she was ready to seize control again as soon as she had the chance, but her head struck the wall as she tumbled down the stairs. The pain and shock caused her to loosen her hold, and she could do nothing as she was sent sprawling into the passage on the ground floor.

Her body wouldn’t move. Her consciousness was quickly slipping away from her. Hearing sounds from the living-room, she twisted her head sideways – and tears welled in her eyes as she saw her daughter going into the room. She could smell the smoke. She could -

“No,” she whispered, and caught her breath as a figure suddenly knelt over her. It was the old man. Had she saved him? Where was his murderer? If it was over for him, it was good. But what about her? What about her family?

“Help me,” she pleaded desperately. He stretched his hand out to her. Her vision was deteriorating, and as she reached out to him she found herself reaching out to darkening shadows.

And the world slipped away.

In the dark, she could hear crying.

The light started to trickle into the dark. There were voices now. They were familiar, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. There was too much to dread, and so she kept her eyes closed tight. There was nothing more she could give. If failure and disappointment waited for her again, she would hide from the voices and anything that reminded her of the past. She didn’t want to be hurt anymore.

“Mama!”

Involuntarily, her eyes flew open, and she confronted the source of the voices. Her husband was sitting up against the wall, sobbing uncontrollably; their daughter knelt beside him, crying with confusion, and crying because he was crying. Shaking her head with a wary disbelief, she crawled slowly to them on her hands and knees. Hesitantly, she touched her daughter’s tear-stained face; her touch remained there, and when she was finally persuaded of its substance, her defenses slipped away and the uneasiness and doubts in her mind dissolved into relief. Looking at her husband, she could only feel pity. He was in shock. He realized what he had done, and it was too much for him.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. His body quaked as he tried to speak. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed.

There was no anger inside her. What was the point of recriminations? It was in the past. “I know you are,” she answered softly, resting her hand on his shoulder. She brought her daughter closer to her, and smiled as she hugged them both. In death, this was her existence now. They were all together, and they were all that mattered to her. The world was altering around them again. The visitants who had looked after her at the funeral, and after the funeral, grew into her awareness and surrounded them with warmth. There was no dread. She was certain that whatever happened it couldn’t hurt her anymore.

They would all be together.

When You’re Alone - Jonah Koenigseker

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:26:29 PDT

Karen was gone. She had been gone for three weeks now and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Due to the season, friends and family called to wish me happy holidays and inquire about how I was doing being that it was the first Christmas without Karen. The calls were appreciated, but invariably the well-wisher would quickly be escorted off by whiny, over caffeinated children or a demanding wife to perform some tired annual ritual. During the lulls between calls, I began to feel an intense tinge of loneliness. Christmas had always been a time of cheerful gatherings and exciting festivities for me. Now I was living hundreds of miles away, on the outskirts of Detroit, and while their well wishes were somewhat comforting, I was still alone.

Following an adjustment phase, I made the decision to cure the emotional and mental paralysis ailing me. The first few days of the next week I immersed myself in repetitive, tedious work, something to occupy my muscles and mind. Cleaning. Folding clothes. Going through and organizing the boxes in storage, something Karen always nagged me about doing. I missed her, even the sometimes incessant nagging.

By Thursday afternoon I completed the household chores, crossing the final one off the list I had created to track my progress and throwing the crumpled piece of paper in the trash. There was nothing remotely watchable on television, especially now that I had cut back, canceled the satellite dish and resorted to basic cable. I still had time off from work, though, and I needed something to occupy my time. I checked my work e-mail, but my mailbox was empty. Even work would be a pleasant reprieve from the solitude I was experiencing. In search of something to do, I walked into the kitchen and noticed the cupboards were beginning to look bare, so I decided to make a trip to the supermarket the next morning. A trip I use to take with Karen.

The next morning I spent nearly two hours at the market deciding I would stock the fridge and cupboards just in case a blizzard trapped me inside the cramped one bedroom apartment. Before my selection of products had been based solely on the product’s price, but this morning I made a point to review the health facts, dragging my index finger across the information printed on the boxes and cans. Calories per serving, vitamin A, sodium, I examined it all meticulously. Karen had been worried about my health.

When I arrived home I unloaded the car full of groceries. My muscles strained and it felt good in a pleasantly sadistic way. Endorphins shot up my neck and towards the receptive neurons and the human opiate reminded me to take a trip to the pharmacy the next time I was out. My hands ached, still tender from the accident and I needed something more sustainable to numb the pain.

Again, I checked my work e-mail and again there was nothing unless I was counting the few generic holiday messages, probably copied and pasted from the previous year’s greeting and sent out in a blanket e-mail. All the groceries were put away, the cupboards now overflowing with unnecessary non-perishables. I ate lunch later than usual on account of the grocery trip and was content to know it would shorten the rest of my day. While at college my mother had given me a cookbook, something to keep me from relying on burgers and tacos. I prepared a new recipe that took me about an hour and a half. Not long after I was once again looking desperately for something to cure my boredom. The afternoon’s lineup of shows were the usual; reruns of decades old sitcoms, talk shows and a racial assortment of judges. Around three I began staring lazily at an infomercial and fell asleep, but woke up forty minutes later more tired than before. That night I remained awake. I couldn’t sleep right, now that Karen was gone. I could still smell the aroma of the body lotion she used before laying down to bed. The glow from the moon displayed the still visible contours of her body on the face of the mattress. At four in the morning, I moved to the couch and was able to grab less than two hours of undisturbed sleep before the alarm rudely made its announcement.

The weekend was a monotonous two and half days of torture. My nocturnal habits had been knocked off course like a barreling train being released from its trusty steel rails. Of course, my sleep hadn’t been the same since Karen was gone. Progressively it was worsening and outside regular visits to the pharmacy, I was finding it hard to cope.

On Tuesday afternoon, I realized I needed to get out of the apartment, so I showered, shaved and searched for anywhere where I could spend idle time walking and people watching. When I had gone to the supermarket I had felt as if a weight had been lifted. For a moment, I imagined the dulling pain from my reclusiveness being absorbed by unsuspecting bystanders in doses too minute to make any considerable difference to them. It was only three by the time I had exhausted the mall, hardware store and a used book store. Earlier, I had been so immersed in a new Bentley Little novel that I skipped lunch entirely. Dinner wasn’t for another few hours, but I decided it best to eat now. Despite the other day’s forage, I decided to eat out. The company of others had either boosted my spirits or digested a share of my pain. Regardless, Karen was gone and I would have to save money, so I ended up resorting to fast-food and promised myself I would start eating healthier tomorrow. Slowly, I drove to the far side of town hoping the round trip would consume more time. Someone behind me laid on their horn. I waved back enthusiastically with a one finger greeting.

The dinner rush hadn’t yet begun, so I took my time ordering, scanning the overhead menu and quizzing the attendant behind the counter on each item. The young woman was young and attractive. A pair of large almond shaped brown eyes and plump pinkish lips set in a cream colored face. Her brunette mane was tucked tightly in the corporate hat she was obligated to wear. A pony-tail protruded from the opening in the back. It was when she smiled that I saw Karen’s face. A face of ten years ago before she was gone. Despite, her best efforts, I ended up ordering something off the dollar menu anyway. When I reached for the bag, my hand brushed against hers slightly and it was soft and supple. Soft and supple, like Karen’s hands. She giggled embarrassingly and her cheeks flushed in tones of crimson.

Upon arriving home, the contentment from earlier in the day was beginning to wear off. I tossed the keys into a basket by the door, hung up my coat and checked the answering machine where the bold, red numbers looked back unblinking. I checked my cell phone’s voicemail. Nothing. Once I was done with the sack of food, I was back to where I had been before. No, it was worse. The deep contrast of the satisfaction I felt before with the mind numbingly dullness of my life here in the apartment made me slip into a deeper depression. I checked out a social network site Karen had insisted I visit.

Something she had insisted on before she was gone.

I located some old high school friends and a couple of college buddies. I sent them all messages and my spirits were lifted to a small degree. It would have made Karen proud.

It was Friday evening when it dawned on me that I spent nearly forty-eight hours without speaking to another human soul. I checked my account online, no one had made me their friend. Maybe they were out. Maybe I should call them. But what would I say? I had lost touch long ago. I could call Evan, the guy from work that I talked to on break. He wasn’t a friend, really an acquaintance, but then again he knew I was new in town. Karen would have wanted me to call.

Evan answered. He was busy. Screw him anyway.

Karen had warned me about this. Warned me that I wasn’t friendly enough. Too cold and distant. She pleaded that I do more, make some friends, join some type of sports team. I promised I would, but never did. And here I was in a new town, away from family, friendless and without Karen.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I drank milk. I did some push ups. I even took some of the green and white pills for my hands, which made me drowsy, but nothing more than that. The television was on at all times now, a voice, a soothing human voice in the background. I popped some popcorn, opened a beer and switched it to ESPN and listened to the sportscasters carry on with some pointless drivel. Waiting for them to say something stupid, I’d yell at the screen and chuck popcorn at the two dimensional figures. It was my first semi-human interaction in more than two days. Someone from the apartment below hit the floor with a blunt object. I yelled back and they returned the verbal assault with something unintelligible. Perhaps tomorrow I would leave them a treat, maybe a broken back window or slashed tires.

The next day I decided to return to the fast-food restaurant and order from the young woman who resembled Karen. I saw her behind the counter and as I approached the register I waited. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Hi,” I replied. “I was here the other day, remember? You helped me with my order.”

She looked back with eyes wide and hands falling to a defensive position, an automatic reaction when being confronted by a potential stalker or just general creep. “I’m sorry sir. I don’t remember. Can I take your order?”

How could she not remember? She had smiled at me. “You helped me order. Two double cheeseburgers and a fry,” I looked for a reflection of recognition. “Then our hands touched.”

“Just a moment, sir. I need to talk to my manager.”

“No you don’t!” I yelled as she escaped to the back. “I was here the other day and you took my order! Stupid-”

“Listen, buddy,” A burly man behind me stepped to my side poised to leap on me if necessary. “Maybe you should go somewhere else.” The man was twice my size with facial scars that just begged ‘take the first swing.’ In spite of my anger, reason prevailed.

Once in the car my disdain for the woman for failing to recall the other day was still palpable, but the anger I had felt dissipated. Though my head was clearer, the hands that gripped the steering wheel throbbed with pain.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the acne encrusted face repeated. “Your prescription is no longer good.”

“Listen,” I moved in closely and pulled out a fifty visible to him and no one else. “I really need those pills.”

“I understand, sir, but I can’t give you anything without a prescription.”

“How much is your student loan payment this month?

“Sir, I’d love to help you out, but really I could lose my job over this.”

I leaned in closer eyeing the blue checkered tie around his neck. A noise, something falling from a back shelf was all I needed. He jerked towards me, gagging at first.

“What the-!” he shouted before the words were cut off again.

In the back, a middle aged woman with cheaply dyed hair caught a glimpse of what was transpiring at the front counter and came running. “Let go of him!”

Hours later, I was exhausted from driving around and decided to make my way back to the apartment. I first scouted out the complex for any flashing lights before parking in a discreet lot towards the back.

Nothing about either of the incidences was covered by the local news. To temper the pain in my hands I popped several Advil tablets in my mouth. Since the accident I had become resistant to most pain relievers, so I felt nothing. What would Karen have thought about me if she had been here? Would she be understanding? Or would she have been terrified?

For the rest of the week I laid low hoping to avoid attention. I kept the blinds shut and constantly made sure the doors were locked, checking it over and over like someone with an obsessive compulsive disorder. In reality, I didn’t have anything to do. Television had somehow worsened and I never was much of a reader. Still, I needed something to entertain myself. On account of the pain in my hands, I couldn’t work out. Having a dog would have provided some comfort, but Karen had been allergic. Even if I were to get one, there was no room for one in the apartment.

At two-thirty I waited anxiously in my car outside the mailboxes for some interesting correspondence. The mailman was fifteen minutes late, but when he arrived he showed no signs of urgency. My impatience swelled with each minute he wasted. Finally, he had finished, and I unlocked the tiny door and grabbed the pile of envelopes inside. Bills. Junk mail. A magazine Karen had ordered before she was gone. I was about done when I flipped over a plain envelope. It was from the DMV. I needed new tags. At last something to do.

By noon I was in line, having forgotten to grab lunch. I was the only one with a silly grin on his face. In front of me a girl, not yet school age, whined to her mother and it reminded me of my sister when she was younger. Behind me I could smell a waft of perfume and the feminine fragrance was comforting, especially since Karen had been gone.

Someone placed a hand on my shoulders. “Excuse me. Is this the line for renewing tags” a woman about my own age asked. I assured her it was.

The touch of another human felt – shocking. It was the first time I had been touched since my first visit to the fast-food restaurant. It took an hour before I was attended to, but I didn’t mind. I was glad to be in the company of others, even if they were strangers

When I was called, I approached the counter and received the normal apathetic, condescending so-called welcome expected of a government bureaucratic. But I had done more than simply be the next person. Apparently, I had made the huge mistake of not having filled out forms X, Y and Z.

Not allowing the woman to damper my mood, I read the instructions of each form carefully and filled out all the information. When I was done I returned to the side of the counter.

She noticed me in her periphery, turned and unprovoked let loose. “Just a minute, sir! Can’t you see I am helping someone at the present moment?”

She breached the boundaries of her authority. And as we argued and shouted and came within inches of blows I wondered who this woman thought she was. What gave her the reason to believe she had some right to berate others in public as if they were misbehaving children? Soon after it all began, she yelled for security and I escorted myself out.

But I wasn’t finished with this woman. I could have reported her to her superior, but I knew how the government unions work and at the most she would have a minor blemish on a report that neither affected her pay nor her status. At these moments, Karen would have curbed my anger, touched my arm and whispered softly, easing the ebb and flow of adrenaline through my veins. But Karen was gone.

The following day I trailed the woman from the DMV’s parking lot to her residence. She drove an average car, never exceeding the speed limit. She lived in an average house in an average neighborhood. I was sure if I was to knock on the door there would be a husband and two kids.

Average. Except for her notorious rudeness, the woman was to the outside world, insignificant.

When I arrived home I plugged her license plate into a work database.

Her name. Ellen Thomas. Average.

I wondered if anyone would know what I was about to do. Would anyone even notice me? I was alone and seemingly invisible to the outside world. Only when I ordered something, took out my money and paid for something did anyone seem to notice. Of course, I wasn’t even sure yet. I had a motive and time. I’d have to let the rest run its course naturally. I was far from home and no one would have noticed me, except for Karen, but she was gone.

Insomnia struck again, but this night I was hard at work. I devised a plan, revised it and then ran it through my head more times than probably necessary. I figured the early morning would the best time to strike, but the urge nipped at my conscious. If it was going to happen, it would be tonight.

I found a plain black duffel bag and methodically placed an array of instruments I thought may be of use. By the time I was packed, showered and dressed, it was still too early, so I sat in an old stuffed chair Karen had wanted me to throw out. I sat far from the television, staring at the door. My leg involuntarily shook as I waited for the moment. Time slowed, but there was no rush. The time had to be right.

As I replayed the scene from the previous day, my anger multiplied and any apprehension that may have existed quickly disappeared. She had been curt and heartless, using her position beyond its scope. And I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time. Oh no. It wasn’t an outburst, an understandable error in judgment. This was who she was.

My heart began beating faster as time crawled by. I looked down at my watch. Only ten more minutes and I would be on my way, disguised and unnoticed.

Suddenly, below the apartment I could hear a noise. Then another. It sounded like footsteps on the stairs. Could the cops have finally come for me?

The footsteps continued until they stopped somewhere on my level. Now the cement floor absorbed most of the noise. Carefully, I placed the duffel bag on the ground in front of me and with the back of my feet slide it under the chair, hidden, but within reach.

There were more footsteps, each one growing in intensity. Finally, outside the door they stopped. A rustling of keys preceded a probing of the keyhole. The handle moved.

Slowly it began to turn, the internal mechanics weeping from the lack of lubrication.

And then it swung open.

It was Karen, smiling, “Hi, honey. Did you miss me?”

Say Goodbye - C.J. Miozzi

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:24:58 PDT

Dan scrambled to his feet. Disoriented from the fall, the teenager reached out into the darkness and touched the cold, stone tombstone he had tripped over. His heart raced -- his pulse throbbed in his temples.

"Mark," he whispered. "Mark. Where the hell are you?"

Dan spun about in the dim light of the crescent moon. Amidst the shadows, he spotted a small patch of grass illuminated by Mark's flashlight. The stocky teen kept low to the ground as he rushed over to the light. He looked around nervously, but couldn't perceive any movement in the large cemetery.

When he reached the flashlight, Dan saw Mark's prone form sprawled out on the grass beside it.

"Dude, come on, we got to get out of here." Dan nudged his friend with his foot. "That guard was right behind us. He can come around any minute."

Light fell upon the tombstones mere feet away from the two friends.

Dan dove into a mound of earth behind a tombstone.

The light scanned the area. "You punks aren't getting away this time," spoke the gruff voice of the night guard. "You're going straight to juvie, and your folks are going to pay for all those tombstones you kicked over." Footsteps shuffled closer through the grass.

Dan held his breath and squeezed his eyelids shut. Don't come this way, don't come this way, he pleaded in his mind.

The footsteps receded from earshot.

The teen mentally counted sixty seconds before letting out a deep breath. He rose to his feet and tried to brush moist soil off his new Philadelphia Eagles football jersey.

After ensuring the guard was nowhere in sight, Dan turned back to Mark, who still lay on the ground. As he squatted beside his friend, Dan held a finger near Mark's nostrils, and felt warm air pulse out.

Dammit, he thought. What if he's in a coma, or something?

The teen reached into his pocket and closed his hand on his cell phone. He took a deep breath as he formulated his plan. He'd call 911 and ask them to send an ambulance. He'd set his cell to play through his music tracks, and leave the cell with Mark, so that the paramedics could just head toward the source of the music. Then, he'd hop the fence out of the cemetery before anyone caught sight of him.

Dan pulled out his phone and flipped it open. The cell's light colored his green jersey in an eerie blue. A message popped up on the screen: "No reception."

"Having difficulty calling for help?"

Dan spun around with a start.

A tall, lanky man stood beside him.

Dan staggered back and shone the blue light in the man's gaunt face. "Dude, what the hell?" He passed the light over the man's body to ensure he wasn't wearing a guard uniform. "You scared the hell out of me. You don't… you can't just sneak up on people like that, man!"

The man's hawk-like face spread into a wide smile. He stared down at Dan with his pale eyes, one blue, the other grey. A milky film clouded the grey eye.

Unsettled, Dan broke eye contact. "Look man, my friend here is hurt. Can you stay with him while I go get help?"

The man ran a pasty hand through his long, thinning hair. "My name is Mareus."

Dan paused at the unexpected answer. "Whatever, man. Just stay here with my friend, okay?" He glanced around, but there was still no sign of the guard.

"I can't do that, Daniel."

Mention of his name snapped Dan's attention back to the man. "How do you know my name?"

"I am the soul collector." The milky eye stares straight through Dan.

"What?" Dan said, incredulous. "Are you some kind of mental case?" He noted Mareus' worn vest, his patched-up pants, his veiny arms. He's a hobo druggy.

With a sigh, Dan reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. "You want money? Here." He grabbed a twenty dollar bill, and offered it. "It's all I got. Just please, stay with my friend, and don't tell anyone that I was here."

"I hold the key to the next world." Mareus opened his loose leather vest.

Dan recoiled at the sight of an antique key embedded in the man's skeletal chest. Blue veins snaked away from the key, visible beneath the waxy flesh. Green light poured out of a gem that protruded from the circular bow of the key. The light throbbed, and within the gem, Dan saw swirling clouds and flashes of ghastly faces.

"Dude, what is that?" Dan pointed a quavering finger at the key.

"Say goodbye to your friend, Daniel." Mareus loomed forward, dwarfing the stocky teen.

"What? No!" pleaded Dan. "He's not dead; we can still help him!"

"It's time." Mareus stepped forward.

"No, please, look, he's still breathing! Just let me get an ambulance. I'll stay here with him; I don't care if I get sent to juvie." Frantic, Dan waved his cell around. Why can't I get a signal? I'm outdoors, in the middle of the city!

"You cannot help him." Mareus extended a gangly arm and closed his knobby fingers around Dan's wrist.

The teen almost lost his grip on his cell as he trembled at Mareus' touch.

Mareus guided Dan's hand. He shone the cell's light by the tombstone that Dan had tripped on.

Dan's blood ran cold.

A stocky teenage boy wearing a green football jersey lay still on the ground, his head split on the tombstone.

"Say goodbye."

The Couch Troll - Jeanna Tendean

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:22:35 PDT

The old man coughed and wheezed. His bones ached as he slowly climbed out of the flea-ridden, tattered bed. He hobbled into the living room, while holding his aching back. He moaned aloud, causing his dog, a shepherd-collie mix, to tweak his ears, but nothing more. “Ya lazy mutt.” The old man griped as he made his way to the beer and cigarette stained lazy boy. The wooden skeleton of the chair bulged through the trodden cotton, allowing the old man sturdy support as he eased down. He still couldn’t believe someone would throw out a good chair like this. Sure, it had its share of burns and a few stains, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d snag his pants or scratch himself on a few unruly wires or splinters snaking out, but other than that the chair was in great condition.

“Pansy wansys wantin’ somethin’ new every time they turn around,” he grumbled to no one in particular. “That’s why everyones’ in debt up to their frigholes,” he said, while glaring at the mutt. Besides food, utility bills, cigarettes, beer and soap, the old man hadn’t paid a cent for anything going on twenty years. That’s why he had a decent amount of cash hidden safely away underneath a particular floorboard in his bedroom. He had never entertained the idea of a bank account, for there was a price to pay when someone else counted your money. The old man lit a Boral cigarette and looked around admirably upon his second-hand furnished living room.

Everything that furnished his modest shack he’d found on the side of roads and at the city dump. And he prided himself at his ability to sniff out the best. He looked over at the newest couch. Loading that couch up in his truck had caused his back to sing soprano, but it was worth every note. It was the nicest piece he’d ever come across. No stains, no smells, no tears or cigarette burns: not even sagging cushions or upholstery. He couldn’t fathom why someone would just set it out at a Hannah home charity site. It was in the same condition as the couches down at Flannery’s Furniture, not that he’d ever bought one from that turd. But one day, he’d gone out for a stroll on the town’s square to look for dropped coins, and he stopped at the window and peered in at all the new couches. And he knew that sooner or later some of those couches would end up in his living room. And by the time they made their grand appearance in his home, the couches would be worth much more than what they were sitting in the swanky furniture store.

The old man stubbed out his cigarette and sat back in the groaning chair. He glanced at the couch again and chuckled, causing phlegm to lurch up his throat. He swallowed it down and chuckled harder. He has had his fair share of roadside couches, and half of his wealth he’d found inside them. Oh, the quarters, nickels and dimes lost by fools and more fools. He’d found dollar bills, five-dollar bills and one hundred dollars bills numerous times. He had even lucked up and found three diamond rings, a gold Rolex and a strand of genuine mother of pearls. Yes, over the years he’d found many riches inside the dark bowels of couches. He’d found pictures, and he kept those, too. He leaned up, reached under the coffee table and pulled out a 30 cal. ammo box he’d had since his stint in Vietnam, and positioned it between his legs. He gently unlatched the lock and looked inside. Smiling back at him was a snaggletooth grin from a child with a gapped up haircut, an elderly couple celebrating their 54th wedding anniversary, a wild punk-eyed teenager with blue hair and black nails, and there was even a lady with no legs, smoking a cigarette, perched on a bed. The old man wasn’t a thinker, wasn’t a philosopher, but he did, at times, question his motive for keeping the pictures of people he never knew, nor will. But when those complicated thoughts crossed his mind, he waved them away, just like a pesky fly.

He closed the steel box and pushed it back under the coffee table. The couch was beautiful, he thought and looked a little closer at the designs in the upholstery. With his head cocked in one direction, he saw Asian dragons blowing fire from their mouths, but when he looked from a different angle, all he saw were gold squiggly designs with a deep orange underlay. He didn’t know what fabric made up the upholstery. He’d never owned a couch so new, so expensive, but it felt like silk to the old man. And the couch had a smell, too. Not a bad one, rather musky and piney. Yes, he was lucky. The old man sat back, closed his eyes and laughed, because he knew, better than any moron, that he’d be a few coins richer in the morning…

The sun was up, but jaded by dark rain clouds. The old man sweated profusely after turning the couch, so the bottom faced outward. “Just like a woman positionin’ to give me her goods,” he said to the dog that snoozed on the floor and flicked an ear at the occasional flea. “Lazy mutt,” he said. “I don’t even know why I let your bag of bones stay around here.” The old man got onto his knees; they popped from the weight of his beer belly. He clicked his box cutter out as far as it would go. The old man had a set routine for this, having done this many times. He had learned that not all treasure was lost between and under the cushions. The good stuff fell deep down inside the dark bowels, because when people sat down, it widened the gap between the side and back walls of couches. He began to cut at one end and made a straight line to the other side of the under fabric. He dropped the box cutter on the floor and reached into the dark slit. He felt over thick metal coils and roughened pieces of wood, fingered the small nooks and crannies. As he neared the end, his heart sank. Nothing, nothing at all. “Sure as a dog’s got fleas, there’s gotta be somethin’ in here,” he said aloud. He frantically groped over every inch of the metal and wooden guts of the couch and finally struck pay dirt. It was round, a tad larger than a softball and smooth, but his fingers didn’t recognize its dynamics. He felt a hollow spot, and he prodded a finger into the round mystery, and slowly pulled it out into the clouded light of day.

It was a skull. A baby’s skull. He was sure of it. While in Vietnam, he’d seen many skulls, skulls from adults and babies, alike. It was toothless, with large round eye sockets. On top of the skull was a V-shape jagged slit where the baby’s skull had not fused together, yet. It didn’t have time. It looked alien to the old man. He dropped the skull on the hardwood floor, and it clanked, like porcelain smacking wood. He shook, while the hairs on his back and neck stood up. Its hollowed eyes gaped up at him. Fear surfed in his stomach. What should I do? The old man’s thoughts ran like a hamster on a wheel. If he called the police, they’d not only take the skull, but also the couch. They were a package deal. But he wanted the couch more than any other piece he’d found. It was a gem. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, uh huh, there’s no way on god’s green earth I’m giving this couch to a bunch of badge-totin’ Barney Fifes’,” the old man confirmed aloud. He picked up the baby’s skull and pushed up from the couch. He retrieved his box and locked the skull inside with the pictures. Not a picture box anymore, now it’s a steel coffin. The old man shivered at the unwanted thought. He maneuvered the couch right side up again and went to his chair, reclined back and thought about the skull. He wondered who the babe was and why someone would murder a newborn. He wasn’t a bleedin’ heart for no one, but hurting a baby crawled under his skin. It gave him the willies. He also felt a little guilty for not doing what he knew was right and moral; feelings he wasn’t accustomed to feeling. But the old man waved the complicated thoughts away, just like a pesky fly…

He had drifted off to sleep, but something roused him from a forgotten dream. He opened his eyes. Night had fallen, and the living room was dark. As he reached for the lamp switch, a voice sounded from the new couch.

“Don’t do that.” The voice was deep and melodic. The old man gasped and looked in the direction of the couch. The moonlight spilled in through a gap in the curtains, and he saw a silhouette sat on the couch. Panic seized the old man. “I’ll make this quick for the both of us. You’ve got something that belongs to me and I want it back – now.”

The old man reached further for the lamp switch but thought better of it, so he strained his eyes to see the stranger that rattled off a demand. “Who are you?”

“My name is Emos, and I want my skull back.”

The old man grabbed his chest and stuttered, “You’re -- you’re crazy, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ bout’.

“Sure you do, I watched you take it.” The old man was speechless. Fear shadowed his heart.

“Get outta my house,” the old man demanded. Emos laughed a husky laugh and said, “Give me the skull, and I’ll be more than willing to depart for my humble abode.”

“I ain’t got no skull, now get out of here.”

“The skull is mine, and you took it from my home,” the stranger hissed.

“I’ve never taken nothin’ from anybody’s house – I might be a lot of things, but one thing I ain’t is no thief. Everything I get, I get fair and square.” Though his vision had adjusted to the moonlight, darkness still swallowed the living room, and the old man couldn’t distinguish the features on the stranger’s face.

“The skull is in that steel box under your coffee table, is it not?” Emos asked. The old man’s heart beat harder, like eager hands on a bongo drum; he had been caught.

“What if it is? I didn’t steal it from your home. I found it in that there couch your sitting on.”

“Yes, I know, this couch is my home,” Emos explained.

The old man couldn’t believe his ears. “That couch is your home?”

“Yes, I live down inside the couch. I’m a couch troll.” It started deep down inside the old man’s stomach and slowly inched its way up into his chest and then into his throat. He couldn’t contain it any longer. He burst out laughing so hard he choked on his own phlegm. “That’s the craziest gobbledygook I’ve heard in my whole life. You need help, boy.” The old man laughed, wheezed, and then coughed again, until he thought he would croak. Relief swept over him. Somebody who thought of his self as a couch troll was nuttier than a tin-house rat. “Go on, boy, get outta here, I won’t tell a soul,” the old man chuckled. He grasped the lamp switch between his thumb and index finger, but let go when the stranger said, “There are couch trolls in many couches, and this is my couch.”

The old man rolled his eyes in the darkness and said, “Uh huh, if you live down in that couch, then I piss silver and shit gold. I mean, how could you fit? A human can’t survive inside a couch, for Christ sake,” the old man said and snickered.

“I’m not human. And when we trolls burrow down in a couch, the couch expands inside, and it expands for everything we snatch. And there is plenty of room. You humans think you lose your precious possessions down in couches, but you never lose them. We reach up and snatch them,” Emos explained. “In fact, the lady who had the couch before you always folded her laundry sitting right where I am now. She would leave it stacked up nice and neat, while she pulled lint from socks and went about putting it in the trash. And when she’d walk out of the room, I’d reach up and snatch what I wanted – a sock, underwear, tee-shirts. After a while, she realized she was losing her clothes in the couch, so she stopped laying her laundry here. In fact, she stopped laying everything on this couch after her baby went missing. Oh, I’ve snatched some wonderful things – you name it, I’ve snatched it. You know, when you ponder on it, you and me are a lot alike. We both troll for possessions that aren’t quite ours.”

The old man’s smile completely vanished, along with his relief, and fear replaced his amusement. This guy is nuts, a grade-A, number one fruit-friggin’ loop. “Listen to me,” the old man pleaded, “I have found a lot of couches in my day and have found some really nice stuff down inside – even money, but I have never seen hide nor hair of a couch troll. Why now, after all these years?” the old man asked, although he didn’t know why. He learned a long time ago that you couldn’t reason with insanity.

“Perhaps you’ve only acquired abandoned couches. We move, too. A couch doesn’t last forever, so we move on to another couch when ours start falling apart. Sometimes, we move for the simple fact we’re bored. And when we move we leave everything we’ve snatched behind. We don’t take anything with us. Good for you, huh?” Emos grinned. “When I do move on, I’ll be sure to leave the skull behind, and it’s yours for the snatching. But as you can see, I still reside inside, and the skull is mine. I consider myself a patient troll, but even I have my limit.”

Emos clasped his hands together and said through clenched teeth, “If you don’t give the skull back, I’ll snatch your skull.” Sweat popped out on the old man’s forehead and armpits. He’d seen many basket cases in Nam, but this guy took the cake and crammed it down his throat. He shouted the first thing that came to mind. “I’m gonna blow a hole between your friggin’ eyes! You got five seconds to get the hell outta my house, an--.” The old man felt a swarm of fluttering moths in his chest. Blood coursed hotly through his veins, and his heartbeat pounded in his ears. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. The old man had never felt this way before; it terrified him. Was it a heart attack or a stroke? No, it wasn’t, he realized, after a few moments. It was panic. Minutes passed, while he desperately tried to calm himself. After his heartbeat slowed and his eardrums stopped banging, finally, he opened his eyes. He looked towards the couch and switched on the lamp. The stranger was gone. The old man looked at the front door; it was ajar. He clutched his chest, cautiously got up, and stumbled to the door. He walked out onto his front porch; his eyes scanned his front yard. He saw nothing, except a dense patch of fog draped lazily on the trees. All was quiet and still, except for a band of frogs crooning to the night. He closed and locked the door and looked at the mutt on the floor, who flicked its ear at the occasional flea. “A lot of good you do, ya son of bitch.” He retrieved the ammo box, slowly unlatched the lock and looked inside. The skull stared back at him with hollow eyes. “Couch troll, my ass,” the old man scoffed. But as much as the he hated to admit it, he was scared. How did that loon know the skull was in the box? He had to have been looking through the window, the old man reasoned with himself. Adrenaline conquered his panic, and he paced back and forth in the living room, staring at the steel box. He couldn’t keep the skull now, since that fruitcake had been spying on him. He’d take the skull to the police station and tell them he found it on the side of the road, because he still wanted the couch. He just didn’t want the skull in his possession now that he’d met Mr. Mentally Insane. So if he did come back, the old man could tell him the police had it, to go harass them. He lifted the skull from the ammo box, put it in a plastic bag and walked out into the quiet night towards his pick-up truck.

He was relieved to be back home; his eyes burned from exhaustion. After five hours of questioning, answering and lying, the old man wanted nothing more than to fall into a deep sleep. He looked around the living room, but didn’t see his dog. He whistled through his horse-sized false teeth, but the dog didn’t come. “Lazy mutt,” the old man grumbled. He glanced at the clock. 3:48 a.m. What a night. He’d never thought in all his seventy-two years of living that he would’ve experienced madness like this. Crazier than the Vietnam War. The old man thought and yawned. He sat down on the new couch and rubbed his callused hand over its silky upholstery. He decided to sleep there. But first, he retrieved his 45. from his bedroom, and then he reached behind the couch to close the curtains up tight, if by some chance the couch troll, no, window troll, more like it, decided to come back and peek in at him. Laughing, the old man stripped down to his underwear, lay down on the couch, and placed the gun on his chest. The soft fabric was cool against his weathered skin. It was more than comfortable: it was heaven. He felt like he was lying on a silken cloud. Man, what a find. Damn, if he wasn’t the luckiest son of a bitch, he didn’t know who was. As he rubbed his heavy eyes, a six-fingered claw with sharpened yellowed talons snaked up between the cushions of the couch and snatched the old man, twisting and screaming, down inside the darkness.

The workers loaded the couch onto the flatbed truck and climbed inside the cab. “That’s a nice couch.” “Yeah, it is. Ya want it? It’ll just sit at the dump if you don’t.” “Sure. Me and the ole’ lady’s been wanting a newer couch since the baby came along.” The workers stopped at the man’s house and hauled the couch into the living room. “Oh wow,” a lady, carrying a newborn baby, cried. “It’s the prettiest couch I’ve ever laid my eyes on.” “Glad you like it, sweetie, but I have to get back to work – got to finish cleaning out that ole’ man’s house.” They kissed goodbye, and the lady sat down on the new couch. She rubbed her hand over its soft upholstery. Was it dragon patterns, or just squiggly designs? She wasn’t sure. The microwave beeped from the kitchen, so she got up, and gently laid the baby on the couch. And the old man down inside looked at his lazy mutt, while rubbing his yellowed talon claws together, waiting for the perfect moment…

Horror House - Richard McLaren

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:18:47 PDT

The problems started for Frankie Maegre on the fourteenth of December, 1994. It was a normal night, just before Christmas and all the neighbors were in good spirits. Christmas light adorned most of the houses on the estate, and Christmas songs were being merrily blasted out from many a passing car. Ice was laid thick on the road, and the bright glow of the many streetlights illuminated the whole road like a runway. Not that Frankie could see any of this. He never went outside, especially at Christmas.

A man and his dog walked past his house and garden. If the walker was puzzled by the closed windows and curtains, without any sign of life or seasonal cheer, he made no indication of it. But who would, after all, everyone knew Frankie Maegre, and most tended to stay away. He was a peaceful, yet quite man, and no one minded his quietness, nor did they seem it to be odd. He was just a lonely old man.

At seventy-something years old, Frankie was by far the oldest person on the estate, with the other residents tending to be young couples in their late twenties. As he sat there, watching the television behind his closed curtains, the grey of his fringe hung low over his face, and the wrinkles in his skin, already well defined, were already mapping out his look for the remainder of his life. He signed. Turned off the TV. Stood up, reached for his crutches. He had been in Vietnam, and his left leg had been so badly burned in a napalm attack that it had to be removed. He had used the same pair of crutches since he left Vietnam, all those years ago.

The dog stopped by his lawn ran round the back of his house, following the garden.. It began to dig; it needed to go to the toilet. Its owner yawned followed the dog slowly, and then picked up a pooper scooper from inside his front pocket pocket. A few seconds after he looked up again, he was already reaching in his pocket for his mobile phone, and dialing on the keypad the number nine, nine, nine.

What his beloved spot had dug up was, what appeared to be, the part of a human head. When the police arrived, it was fully exposed and revealed to be a severed head. The rest of the body was never found, but judging by the partially rotting face, it had belonged to a young girl, aged between seventeen and twenty. She had had long brown hair, and had been exceptionally beautiful. She was also from an Asian background, or as it was later identified as, Vietnamese.

Frankie was immediately called upon for questioning, but it appears that he had heard the police sirens and ran. They found tire tracks on the opposite side of the house to the body, which backed onto a piece of farm land. The police were exceptionally worried as the tire tracks were going in the general direction of the city of Manchester, not a place for an old murderer.

Some followed in hot pursuit. He had been gone only twenty minutes, and he was restricted to the speed limits on the very busy roads around the area, leading to Manchester. The police were not.

The rest went inside his house. There was nothing unusual about the inside, but upon further investigation a trapdoor was found, underneath the television set. This led to the houses basement, which seemed to have been built by Maegre himself. Inside was a truly horrific site. Huge steel barrels that contained alcohol and a mixture of at least twenty human torsos were found. On the walls were hung several bodies, hung with hugs like disfigured ornaments. It appeared as if meagre had raped the corpses on many occasions, over several years. All of the corpses were old. They were all well preserved, so we can only deduce that they all spent some time in the alcohol. There was a table, with a corpse on it, which seemed to be in the middle of an operation of some sort. Her skull had been broken into with a hammer, and the table was stained with multiple batches of blood.

There was one particular thing. All of the girls were Vietnamese. When the garden was dug up, they found as many as thirty heads, limbs and other entrails. These were his used up and useless corpses, but it was the internal corpses that were getting his attention.

I have already mentioned that he had been in ‘Nam. What was kept more secret by the soldiers at the time was the brutality and sexual violence that most of them committed against the local Vietnamese women. Maegre took it another stage further. He had killed what had appeared to be over fifty women, and after the war was over, facing the concept of being unable to commit the murders any more, took the bodies that he had stashed in the thick jungle (he was noted to be a gifted navigational aid) and had taken them, via private boat, slowly back to England. And that is where he remained. Nearly fifty years of butchering, both on and off the battlefield, now refined to the confines of his home. Now, years later, his acts had been quite literally, unearthed.

A manhunt was soon launched. It did not take long to find him. There are few options for someone over the age of seventy with one leg, and was found in a Manchester red light district the following night. It is possible that he wanted to kill the girl; she was after all, Asian, although this is merely speculation.

He was arrested for thirty four murders, as there were thirty four identifiably separate bodies. He was taken to court, and was given the sentence of life for each account of murder, totaling to 680 years, with no chance of parole or appeal. This sentence was to be spent in Broadmoor prison for the criminally insane. It is noted that upon hearing the sentence, he swore loudly at the judge, and when the restraining officer attempted to intervene, he bit him in the neck, nearly severing the main artery. There seemed to be little point of adding one account of attempted murder to his list of offenses, but he insisted it was, giving him a new total of 690 years behind bars.

To be very honest, we will never know the true number of the pile of corpses that were victims of Frankie Maegre, although it is certain to be over fifty. As the bodies were never found in Vietnam, they were never traced back to England. He took the real number to his grave.

In late 1996, Maegre was himself killed, by another inmate. He was stabbed with a handmade weapon, a piece of metal roughly resembling a screw driver that had been smuggled in to the prison from outside. Supplier unknown.

Buried in the usual fashion, in an unmarked grave at Broadmoor cemetery. Only his brother, the priest and a few journalists appeared, and the piece was never actually published in any paper. It seemed as if the world had lost its interests in psychopaths. The name Frankie meagre has been erased from history, without a single breath of his name has been uttered.

The entire estate where he lived was razed to the ground, with a new industrial park now sitting on the site were so many horrors took place. Maybe there are more bodies that reside there, waiting to be discovered in a future generation. Pity, they wont be able to find a word about the man who was once known as the ‘butcher of ‘Nam’, or his private little horror house.

Death Town - Linnea Clayton

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:17:15 PDT

Sometimes dead is good in the eyes of the inhuman people. In the middle of the metro, death lies everywhere, people dying and I witness everything.

Demons down the stairs, I have no where to, and then I see my friend the albino man and he helped me go outside and I was free for now.

Then I look in to the albino mans eyes and they turn red, then all of a sudden he tries to kill me.

Then I go back to the metro and I befriended a demon named Yuri, he was the only good demon there.

Then after the metro starts shaking and then I start to scream, and maggots start coming out of my skin eating me alive and I don’t know what to?

Then I took a knife to my chest and I start to kill my self, then all of a sudden I became a nasty demon as well.

I started killing other people and I was eating them alive because I had a very bad demonic craving for human flesh. And other people around me started to see that I ate other human people alive with a passion. Then I see I’m on the news and the police are looking for me, but they know they can’t kill a demon.

As days pass by my hunger for human flesh really got worse and I’m a demonic inhuman girl in a human world. Now I’m known as the Red-eyed lady an evil demon girl with a bad craving for human flesh.

Then later on I looked in one of my old mirrors and what I saw in my reflection was really cool my hair turned black and my eyes blood red. I’m a 16 teen year old demon girl eating rotten human flesh.

Then the next day in the metro I see these other demons that are just like me so I decided to become there friends.

The loved me so much I started to notice I was there queen as well. And they started giving me dead bodies on platters and I started to eat them and feed them to the demons of the metro. Them all of a sudden I see a human come in the metro them I ordered the demons to bring him to me. But when they did I took the human man and held him by his neck and I bit some of his flesh, then I tore him apart and he was dead.

As days pass by, and I get stronger, people on the earth were dying out because of me.

As I walk down the street in earth, I noticed I was killing so much, I started to cry blood. As I was still walking, all of a sudden I was a bright light shining in my face, telling me to stop my evil ways.

So I did for now at least. Then the earth started looking alive again and the human started to live in peace.

Then a month later it was all the same I started turning evil again.

Then eating my demonic flesh but I didn’t die I noticed my can regenerate myself. And I ate started to chew on the other demons and they regenerated themselves as well.

The next day I and my demon friends had maggots for dinner. It was so tasty because it smelt and tasted like rotten human flesh.

As years went by and I got older, and now I’m 20 years old, still the Red-eyed lady killing people.

Since I’m twenty years old I will have a demonic party, for all my demon friends. We would play an evil little game. First we trap human on the dance floor in the middle of the party. And when the music stops

We all eat them alive

The game was fun because, I hated humans because they killed are kind back in 1800 hundred when we were very weak. And then the party ended with dead bodies every where.

Then the next day I did my usual, I brushed my teeth and I killed people and ate them alive.

So later on I was walking in the metro and I finally, met a mixed inhuman called the Korn bird.

I fell in love with him because he had an evil twisted heart just like mine. When I married him, he became the king of the demons. And I loved him so with my decomposing bleeding heart.

Since I’m twenty years old I went to demon high school, it was so much fun because at my age I still love to go hyper on the school bus.

I hated human’s everyday; sometimes I would cry blood again down my face, because I wanted them to die so bad, that I had my demon friends eat them alive.

I was happy as well that I had another party to celebrate the death of the human race, most of them at least.

Late at night I started hearing voices in my head to stop eating people alive because I was turning into a monster!

I didn’t care I ignored the voices in my head and I kept on eating rotten human flesh.

Then I walk down the street and I saw all my demon friends eat all the humans in Montreal, and I was proud of them that they knew I was there queen.

I realized the police finally found me, so I gave myself in and I went to jail and I saw lots of human people to eat. And then I escaped out of jails and I ate the cops alive.

And then I took over the world, and I thought no one can stop me, but I was wrong and god got rid of my evil ways, and I thanked him and I became a good inhuman girl in a human world. And I learned to like human as well. And I never ate human flesh ever again.

He Came Back - Mike Burleson

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:14:52 PDT

The creature is born of the fetid swamp.

From the muck and mire, it rises to life, created from decay, rot, and strange gases that rise from the noxious fauna. It is a brute, an unthinking, unfeeling man-thing. It drags itself from the bog like some monstrous heap. It is bulky massive. The stench of the thing drives all in the woods before it.

Something drives it onward, from its putrid lair and the mass of trees and clinging ivy. A forest creature dives swiftly by. Impossibly fast, it reaches out a mossy, vine-covered appendage, snaring the animal, and dragging it to hits gaping maw.

The beast forges ahead, soon leaving the swamp far behind. It comes upon a smooth, hard trail that is unfamiliar to its simple mind. It is different from the moist softness of the forest.

Further down the path it sees, or rather senses, a glow further on. From a structure off the smooth trail, something bright glares at it, taunting it, as if beckoning. The creature is annoyed.

The deformed mass turns toward the yellow thing that calls to it. It will consume this irritation!

A new sensation is felt, coming from inside the structure. It is voices, muffled and indiscernible. It also will be consumed.

As the beast draws nearer, the stinging becomes intense. It hurries. It feels anger.

The little girl finishes putting away the plates and pulls the drain plug. She stares blankly as the whirlpool of dishwater disappears down the sink. She finally pulls herself away, turns off the kitchen light, and enters the living room where her mother reclines on a couch.

After preparing a modest supper, the mother had sat with her, barely touching the meal, and finally retiring to the couch. It is the same each night.

The girls leans against the arm of the sofa, and gently caresses her mother’s long tangled hair, once beautiful, now uncared for. Still pretty, though, she thinks, but the eyes are swollen from crying, her face drawn from worry.

"I finished the dishes, Mom."

The mother only stares unhearing into space.

She tries again, leaning her frail body against the woman.

" Would you like some tea, mother?"

Still no response. The girl feels her own tears welling up and she hugs her mother tightly.

"I miss Daddy, too!"

Her sorrow is quickly forgotten as the room implodes around them.

Something massive and decaying flows in, bringing with it disgust, and choking, smothering vapors. It opens it cavernous mouth, but it emits no sound. There is only the clamor of the screaming women.

The mother awakes from her stupor. Grasping the child as if a toy, she seeks some avenue of escape. The mass bars her way, its appendages groping for her as clinging vines or tangled limbs. The woman and her child are cutoff, without hope.

The stinging is now intense and very bothersome to the beast. It must destroy! With its arms thrashing wildly, it gropes for the shiny annoyance, and connects with a lamp. The brightness is crushed instantly but a new pain flares into the putrid mass.

Sparks fly from the crushed lamp. The monster’s bizarre gaseous form ignites. The brightness flows over the creatures’ limbs, devouring it.

The beast from the swamp sees the irony: it is consumed by that which it would have consumed.

Next Morning

What remains of the monster is pulled from the still smoldering rubble. A pile of charred human bones is found in the debris. On the burnt finger is found a blackened wedding ring, which is given to the mother, who begins to weep uncontrollably.

"It was Daddy wasn’t it Mother?" the girl at her side exclaims. "He walked into the swamp and didn’t come back, till now!"

The Death Maze - Sam Samantha

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:12:36 PDT

It was the night of Halloween in Louisiana, everyone was excited, and people were all busy decorating, buying costumes, setting up attractions and parties. Holly and her best friend Kate was at holly’s house making cup cakes, Holly and Kate were both 8 years old and Halloween was their favourite season.

"Tonight is the night." Squeaked Holly,

"Year I can’t wait." Laughed Kate,

"Finished, c’mon lets go get changed." Said Holly.

Holly dressed up as witch and Kate dressed up as a clown. They head out the house to go to the annual Halloween maze, it is always so fun, and it is huge. The race started, everyone raced in hoping to get out first, Holly and Kate would have known the way now, but they changed every year to make it fair, so off they went giggling and screaming at the decorations inside the maze.

Ten minutes later it had gotten dark and most of the children had not made it, Holly and Kate were still full of spirit though, there was screams occasionally piercing their ears and howls with other sound effects. As Holly and Kate sprinted down another corridor Holly had arrived at a t junction but Kate had disappeared. Poor Holly was devastated, she looked around but Kate was gone, Holly was terrified walking the maze by herself, but what scared her most was she could no longer hear anyone scream, it was like she was the only one left.

She had been walking around aimlessly for 20 minutes, when a killer clown jumped out on her, she did not think it was real but it grabbed her tightly around the throat and started to strangle her, Holly could not escape, the clown looked evilly into her eyes then started to tighten his grip, chocking, holly soon died.

Everything went silent, so soon a search party was sent into the maze to recover the lost children, but all was recovered was dead, skinned bodies.

The maze was soon flooded with cops and paramedics, parents were all crying together with sleazy paparazzi trying to make a fortune out of the story.

With all this going on how could the killer escape. But he had one advantage, a costume on Halloween evening, so he ran out of the busy maze unnoticed, into the curios crowd that had gathered. And that was it, he was free, he walked back to his apartment and took all his clown makeup off, he could not wait till next Halloween.

A YEAR LATER...

Halloween had come again; he had already planned what he was going to do. He just loved killing children; he wanted to have some fun skinning them again. So he rented a building, and put a vampire costume on. He was going to attract trick or treating kids buy filling the building with sweets, and soon enough children started coming and helping themselves, once there was about five children, he grabbed them and stuffed them into his truck. They were all about ten years old, and in his apartment, he had his fun skinning them alive individually, blood dripped everywhere, good job he wanted to move anyway.

Once all the bodies were skinned, he dragged them back into his truck and took them into the post office, put a stamp on them, and left them on the floor. He made a dash, another successful Halloween evening completed. He pushed open his apartment door to find a dozen policemen pointing their guns up to his head, before he could think he made a run for the elevator, he had a plan. Once the elevator was at the top, he ran down the stairs only until he was out of sight, it was a long shot, but he hoped they would go down the elevator. He was wrong, they came dashing after him, he was going too fast and tripped, he broke his neck.

"It’s a trip to the hospital, then jail for life for you." Shouted the policeman,

And so, they took him away for his future in jail.

Tragedy - Josh Nicosia

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:31:46 PST

I – Village

I heard their wretched cries approaching and knew I could give no adequate recourse. The feminine of their group had entered our village before; leaving tears to stream down the face of my brother’s widowed bride. How she prayed for them to take her and spare her child, but they would not. They knew their purpose and would not be dissuaded by the laments of a mere human. Their laughter filled the woods as they left with their child-acquisition. My brother’s widowed bride spoke not again and within days we found her battered corpse at the foot of the highest tree in our village. She had climbed to the top only to throw herself down. The tree branches are strong and did not break as her body bashed against them on the way to her self-made demise.

We threw her body into the woods as the sun beat down with its mocking lightness. The faces of those left living in the village wore a strange look of pity and jealousy. Pity for the woman whose husband and child were taken; jealous of the peace-in-death they knew she was now experiencing. But what if there is no peace in death? Those we hide against in the moon’s light seem not living or dead. They exist and that is all. As mortals our time is precious. The Myths have no need to justify their time and/or existence. They belong to the world that is theirs. Their justification is in their very presence.

When it was only my child left in the village, I knew the feminine of their group would return seeking my child’s life. They come from the castle where the King allowed them entry into our world through his foolish act of opening the Gates. The castle is home now not to a human King, but to an un-dead one. The feminine of their group scour the barren land for food to appease their master’s sick taste. The children are all but gone; my child remains for as long as they allow.

A few of the headstrong men decided to take action and have not been seen since leaving the village; it is certain they will not return. The woods we once hunted in have become where we are now hunted. The Myths shape our miserable lives to their whim. We are all equal now in this new world created. Humans are what we are: flesh, blood, bone, and Spirit. The first three they can take away, but the Spirit…

I fear my wife has lost faith. She knows what waits for us and isn’t able to cope with its dim reality. She is but skin and bones, trying unsuccessfully to nurse the child that will soon be taken from us. If he were not taken – if by some chance we were allowed to remain a family – I know it would not matter. We shall all starve before our next birthday. Our child shall starve before his first birthday.

Madness and despair shape the daylight hours. The village of friends and family has become the village of the uncompassionate and distraught. To try and comprehend the fate we have been given is too much weight upon the mind. As Faith is lost, so is humanity. As the Spirit gives in, so will the mind. I pray for the strength of my heart. I pray for the sanity of my wife. I pray for a quick death for our son.

They are approaching. The darkness of night is their time. From all sides they emerge. From above they descend. From one home to the next they search. I can see their pale, winged forms as they sniff the air with crude smiles formed upon their red lips.

They are coming! They know what prize we hide. My beloved wife holds our child close to her bosom. I know this is the final event that will break her apart. Will her fate be the same as the widowed bride of my brother? Outside the door I hear their feminine whispers. The door opens and naked before me stand those who are to take my precious son. My beloved kisses her child one last time. Her sobs are too heavy for me not to join in. Our son is in the hands of destiny. A new destiny for all the young: To be fed to the leader of these filthy creations.

Wings beat hard against the ground and then elevate to the highest clouds to soar off to the castle; the castle that allowed the Myths to enter this world: The castle that is now the abode of the dead.

II – Loss

As I feared, the loss of our son has proved too much for my beloved to handle. For too many nights she has not slept, and in daylight she does nothing other than stare at the tree line of the woods no one dare to enter. On an afternoon where sleep forcibly took hold of her body, I heard her lips speak words her dreaming mind created. She spoke of revenge in shallow whispers, adding desperation to the already desperate tone of her voice. Venom I knew not possible was emanating from my beloved, a separation of Spirit and heart was occurring before my very eyes. When she awoke I begged her to speak to me of her dream, but silence spoke more than any words uttered could have.

A chasm formed between us, but my love in no way waned. I looked upon her as I always had. Love for her is what my world was, is, and forever shall be. I massage her stiff shoulders when she allows me to touch her, and even in those moments of closeness her body is not with me. Her mind is off somewhere: I want to bring it back; but I fear my beloved does not want to be brought back from the misery into which she has entered. I feel the only thing she now wants is that which she cannot have: our child.

They entered the village again last night and, finding there were no children left, attacked a few of the old and then departed as quickly as they came. The elderly lie bleeding and unattended to. We stayed in our homes watching them die, to afraid to exit and give assistance. Come morning they will finish their transformation only to be destroyed by the sunlight. Why do they not kill and only maim? Why do they spread their disease to those who do not know how to handle it? So many times we have had to lock our doors to those who were infected. Slowly they transformed and grew more violent. With the sunlight they cease to be; victims of a curse brought on by the cursed.

I search these morning hours for my one true love. She is not here and I know now her dream-speak was that of self-prophesy. What evil has befallen my beloved’s once pure heart? For now she is one of them; not cursed, but hunter of the hunting. She is mortal, but for how long? I stand on the edge of the woods and look in. The sunlight shows normalcy; how extravagantly inappropriate. My beloved has left the village to go in search of our child! How far will she make it and to what end?

I glance at the village – starved, lonely, destroyed – nothing is left here for me. My child and bride have gone. To be with them again is all I wish. To hold my beloved’s hand for one-second more before my life’s end is all I ask. To gaze upon my child’s smile…

But alas, it is too much to hope for in this new world created. What is love in a world of lies? No! I will not let them take that from me. I will not let the Myths take away that which is human, that which is my Spirit, my love, my family. I will not let emptiness claim me in the name of solitude. To stay in this village would be to wait for my own end. To enter these woods would be to summon my Spirit’s strength. What fate lies waiting does not matter. The fate I chose for myself is what counts. Better to choose my own end than to allow someone else to.

III – Woods

Sunlight, a bitter reminder of the old days, shines down uncaring. The woods appear the same as always, save for the absence of creatures scurrying to and fro. The animals who remain stay as hidden as the humans try to. The leaves crushed under my feet seem as much apart of the curse as the air I breathe. To turn back now would be for naught, for I would not reach the village by nightfall. The fear I hold in going forward is the same I feel towards returning back from whence I came.

The sun begins its descent; can I still appreciate the beauty of nature? I must, for love is apart of human nature, which is apart of all. The sun sends color spraying across the low hanging clouds and for a moment I feel my beloved is with me watching this beautiful sight. Wherever she is, I know she is not admiring this beauty as I am. Her thoughts have disconnected form the past realities; her mind taken in her pursuit of revenge and appeasement. My only hope is that she will turn back to me. If I am to perish in this night’s arrival, I wish that she were her to fall with me. Together we could go to the other world where our son is waiting for us.

The moon signals for the Myths to emerge from their daytime slumber. With the final rays of the sun come the final glimpse of what once was. Darkness sets quick. Lit only by the pale moon, I feel life start to emerge around me. But it is not life that I sense. The cold breeze I feel does not disturb the leaves at my feet. If this be not a wind I feel, then what?

Despair enters my mind. These are the ones who couldn’t fight. These are the ones who lost what is human to them, only to be forced to stay in the state in which they died. Those Without Life circle me, calling on me to share the life I posses. They seek to drain me of what they no longer possess. But I have barely enough will and strength to support my own Spirit. To try and share with these wanderers of the nether world would only make me one of them. My Spirit is mine and not to be shared…even if I could…

With loneliness and longing they call out to me. Transparent forms traveling in a directionless mass. I quicken my steps to be rid of these apparitions but they are as much apart of the night as the fear in my heart. How they vex me! Upon my knees I pray for their deliverance from the anguished state they are in. Feeling my positive intentions only encourages them more. They see my willingness to help as a sign that I can help…but I can’t.

I know not what they are or what they will become; possibly this and only this will be their un-life. I must not spend too much energy trying to help those who have no hope. For I have hope, and to stay amongst these restless wanderers will only drain that which I need to move forward. I cannot block my ears from their cries, but to block my heart will have to be enough. Will my son be damned to this fate, or will his soul ascend to its proper place? Will my wife become one of these tortured apparitions?

My wife…my beloved. Darkness has set on her also. Do those who surround me surround her? Will she notice the despair that permeates from this group, or is her heart too broken to break as mine is? Those Without Life, the ghosts of humankind, must be ignored while on my search. My child I know I will not find; my wife…I fear how I will find her and in what state she will be in. Keep walking and shut down the desire to help those who cannot be helped. It is not on me to provide for all that are immersed in this terrible time, it is my accepted quest to help the only one I feel I can help, and who in turn will help me. Together with love is how we should spend whatever time is left for us.

I feel that in her quest, my beloved has allowed them to win. The anger and savagery they produce in her are just as bad as any physical torture that can be had. Without infecting her physically, the Myths have stripped away the human that is my beloved, leaving only a shell holding hatred, loathing, and contempt. And what if I find her safe and she does not look upon me the same? The light in her eyes has drained over time; what light, if any, shall they hold now?

Oh, Those Without Life are having their way with me. My hope is waning in the face of their desolation. I must steel my reserve and push forward through them. They will not bother if they know there is nothing to take. To stay positive is my only hope, and in turn possibly the best gift I can give to these pitied poltergeists. Although they might not appreciate it, my living human Spirit is a testament to what they were. I realize they are not against me, only for themselves; as I am for my beloved.

Passing through brush, I feel them leaving me. Even in death, the unsatisfied shall not persevere; reaming unsatisfied as if to justify their existence. Or maybe my Spirit did have an effect. Perhaps they left me be because they know I am much like them, or soon will be much like them. But I will not be like them! I will pass when it is my time. I will not stay attached to the world, stubbornly trying to change that which cannot and will not ever change. I may give my life, but I will not give my death.

IV – Graveyard

The misery of death seems not so in times such as these. I break free of the woods to find myself at the sight of my village’s graveyard. A body has not been buried here for as long as I can remember, the dead instead being left in the woods for the night creatures to partake upon. Fourth row back I find my father’s grave. The stone is aged by the forces of nature; making the epitaph hard to read. Visions of my father’s funeral recall nothing of the graveyard in which I now stand. The sunny day we buried my father is a childhood memory I usually keep hidden. Now, kneeling before my father’s grave, I’m glad he is in the safety of the ground and not above in the world as it is now.

It is almost as if I can hear my father’s voice calling out to me. I fight back a tear as the fantasy voice continues its lament. Graves surrounding my father’s are empty; dug up or dug out of, I do not know.

In the woods! I hear labored breathing; a wheeze mixed with guttural hunger. Did my beloved stop at her parent’s graves as she passed through? Did she hear the cries from the other side and the creatures in the woods? My father’s voice, it seems so real. It is as if I hear it coming from below. Beneath my knees, below the dirt…

The horror! A hand, the hand of my father’s, reaches out of the ground to lock its fingers around my ankle. I am frozen in fright as my father breaks through the dirt to face his child once again. His voice, what despair it holds as he calls my name and looks upon me with sightless eyes. I move away, but his grip on me is strong. I pull him free from the dirt that has imprisoned him. To his feet he arises! I, on my knees, break down and let the tears flow. My father moves towards me. I realize he wants what Those Without Life want – what I cannot provide. I scurry away but am unable to take my eyes off him. An unseen open grave swallows me in. I fall and land hard six feet below. On my back I look up at the stars and the moon; they are as they always were, yet they now belong to something that never was.

My father stands above me looking down. If he enters this grave with me I fear I will lose my sanity. Against my back I feel not dirt, but the hard wood of a coffin. My father releases an anguished cry and I realize where I lie: in my mother’s grave. Quickly I’m up and out of the hole, standing on the opposite side of my father. I felt no presence of my mother and am relieved that she has not been forced to become as my father now is.

The graves that are not emptied begin to. Hands break free through the dirt, quickly followed by head, neck, torso, and legs. They move towards me with hunger in their lifeless eyes. The creatures in the woods can still be heard, and I wonder if their intent is the same as the Undead standing before me.

My Mother! My once beautiful mother who I hoped was resting peacefully in her grave. I see know that she has been watching me. Against the tree line she stands bathed in shadow. She doesn’t move towards me as the others do, but looks upon me with a seemingly indifferent air.

They move towards me slowly; my father leading the group, my mother staying behind. I can easily run past them, but I feel I must take in this spectacle for as long as I can. This group of once-humans is not the enemy. They do only what they feel they must. Not out of spite or anger do they wish to destroy me, but out of an unquenchable hunger that drives them mindless towards their goal.

The creatures in the forest seem to be coming closer. I sidestep the slow moving Undead and step towards the back of the graveyard as the first of the hyenas exits the woods.

Hyenas with exposed teeth growl and circle the Undead, corralling them into the center of the graveyard. I feel I must run, but am unable to. My presence is ignored and anticipation and curiosity as to what might happen next forces my legs to stay still and my eyes to stay fixed upon whatever horror might occur. My father and mother stand close together, but neither acknowledges the other’s presence. The hyenas have the small group of Undead surrounded; is their fear in the eyes of the Undead?

What are these creatures I see emerging from the woods? They stand as men but are nothing human. Burned, deformed skin covers their naked bodies. Dark eyes set in excited faces expose the hungered state they are in. The Undead moan as the hyenas slowly back away. The creatures are quick to attack and I realize these are the Eaters Of The Undead.

The feeding frenzy before me is sickening. The Eaters tear at the Undead in a savage joy the likes of which I have never seen. A clawed hand pushes its way into my father’s chest only to pull out the heart of the man who raised me. My mothers neck is bitten so ferociously that it can no longer support her head.

The Undead are reduced to a pile of bone and gore as the Eaters Of The Undead feed themselves to the point of gluttony. My fathers dead eyes fall upon me as his head is thrown aside. I stare at the face I haven’t seen in years and will never see again. Will my eyes fall upon my child in the same way? Or will my child’s eyes fall upon me in the same way?

The Eaters Of The Undead have had their fill and are returning back into the woods. The hyenas quickly pounce upon what is left of the Undead. How their teeth cut through bone so easily I do not know. What is left of my mother is devoured with casual acceptance by these animals who have found their place amongst the Myths. The pack finishes and I am thankful to be spared of another sickening second.

Why! Why must it come to this? In the village I am sure they are experiencing their own laborious night, but why could I not be there now with my beloved? What did she hope to accomplish by leaving me? I, who love her so and wish only for her best. What could I have done differently to make her stay? What pain could I have ceased in order to break her from her deranged pursuit of our child? But it is not deranged for a mother to go after her child; even if she realizes the futility of her actions.

And what of my action? Is it futile? Am I setting myself up to find my beloved in a state of…No! I will not think the worst. Doing nothing is futile. I search for my beloved as my beloved searches for our child. Which quest stands more of a chance of success…it does not matter. To try is to do. To do is to accomplish something, anything, while in the face of unrelenting reality.

As I stand above what remains of my parents, I feel accomplishment already. I was here to witness my parent’s second passing. Hopefully, for their sake, a permanent one.

V – Abandoned Village

I am lost in thought and direction. By the grace of some divine hand I find the first traces of the approaching morning sun. I am weary and look forward to the sleep that only the safety of pure daylight can provide. A break in the trees ahead provides even more elation. A village! With smoke rising from chimneys! The smoke of cooking and food; the smoke of human occupancy. I quicken my pace, anxious to again be amongst my own.

Standing in the center of town with the dawn’s light on my back, I find no human lives within this once-human place. The crude jewelry scattered about shows me who now dwells in this place. Behind those closed doors and hidden from the sun, the Large Ones sleep.

I have heard stories of the Large Ones, as I have heard stories of all the Myths that have been released. Never have I seen half of that which has been spoken of, therefore I know not which parts of the stories are true.

There is movement inside the homes. They are not asleep. A large pit filled with burning embers means there must be some food I can take. Disgusting! That they would chose to kill and eat the Eaters of the Undead is too much for my empty stomach to handle. If I had eaten one bite of food within the past days I surly would be expelling what little was left in my stomach. Thankfully the Large Ones have caught some hyenas as well. Cooked meat is exactly what I crave after running like an animal through the night.

They are exciting the houses! They can barely squeeze through the doorways and I am thankful for the time it gives me to run. They have my scent and curses on me if they don’t run as fast as the wind. Almost had me! Their size makes them clumsy in this thick forest. If I can keep at a good pace for a while I’ll be in the clear. If only I could’ve had one more bite of food, I would have the energy needed to put some good distance between them and me.

My head is bleeding. I can feel it wetting my hair and dripping down my back. I felt the impact this time: they’re throwing rocks. Shoulder is in pain and my arm is tingling. I can still run but the headshot is making my vision blur. I fear my blood loss is rapidly draining me of energy. To the hip! My left leg is slowly becoming useless. Rocks landing all around! Tree stumps crash on all sides and I feel that I will not survive if I am hit by one of the bigger objects being thrown.

Silence fills my ears. I feel only the beating of my heart. I run yet I don’t know how. My beloved, where is she? Did she pass this village of brutality? I won’t believe she won’t survive. As my love for her will pull me through, her love for our child will pull her through. But the fate of our child is known! That’s what weighs on my heart most of all. My beloved entered the impossible, so I must do the same for her. No! This is not impossible! As I am alive, so shall she be. Our child, a defenseless infant, is no more, but we shall not succumb to the evil.

I can’t breath and it forces me to open my eyes. The stench that emanates from the mouths of the Large Ones is putrid. The hand around my throat seems to be deciding whether or not to pop my head off. My feet dangle above the ground and if he doesn’t put me down soon I will suffocate. The rest of the Large Ones appear from the woods. My vision is blurring and I’m relived to feel the grip loosening. Thrown to the hard rock next to the river, I look up at the group. Laughter like I’ve never heard comes from their rank mouths.

My body is badly hurt. The rocks shredded layers of skin and I’m unable to tell if my head has stopped bleeding. The river is flowing steady and down stream I can see it breaks into rapids. The Large One is swinging his foot back and as he brings it forward I can’t help but think that I’m about to be kicked the hardest I’ve ever been kicked.

…Momentary unconsciousness…the frigid water is waking me up and shocking my body. I tumble in the first set of rapids and know the Large Ones have cast me aside. The rocks smash me from every angle. If I can try and float on my back I might have a chance. The water is getting a little shallower; I can almost catch my footing. My leg! The rocks seem designed to cut and shred. One more hit to the face…

VI – Death

On the edge – feet in water – body on land. Are my eyes open? Or is what I’m seeing not…the sky is clear. Heartbeat weak. My beloved…our child…

Owls of pure white float above me. Their wings extended, riding on a wind that I cannot feel. They stay in perfect form. Coming closer. Dropping down so close that I could touch them if I was able to move my arm. Between them a light forms. The white of their bellies is nothing to the white materializing in the air between where they float. Water fills my mouth, coming from my stomach. I feel as though I’m drowning.

Not her! Anyone but her! I beg, send the Myths upon me, but keep this Truth away. Her white robe doth flow just as they said it would. Her beauty is unmatched by any human. Please, don’t allow me to admire for too long, I do not wish to be taken by her now.

The sword! She has the sword of choice! It is not my time, but why must she tempt? I will not ask for it! I am not defeated! My body will move, my Will shall move it! Yes, she is beautiful; I will not deny myself that. Look at how perfect her gaze is. She understands my pain. Has she seen my beloved? Has she tempted my beloved? My beloved! Death is certain; life is not. If my beloved has passed then I will see her there. If she is alive…do I doubt that she is? Must get up. Expel the water in my lungs. Sit up.

The owls fly higher and I see no trace of what was just between them.

VII – Lake

The water is clear. I know where it leads and feel it is the safest route to the castle. With luck I reach the lake with sunlight to spare. To soak my aching body and cleanse my tempered mind is all I wish for the moment. Colder than expected, but it sooths. I could stay here for the night, just floating and staring at the stars. What beautiful sounds the water makes under the breeze, I can almost make music out of what I hear. Yes, I hear voices singing. How heavenly, how divine they are as they sing their glorious chorus.

My beloved! I see her! Out in the middle of the lake she waits for me, if only I could swim faster, if only I wasn’t injured….but how can this be? Two of my beloveds, singing to me from the center of this…my eyes are deceiving me. As I swim, with nothingness below my feet, three of my beloveds appear before me!

How could I not have known? The daylight is a devil also. The Myths have left no stone unturned. Will they use nothing to destroy me? And to what end? What could Those Who Sing possibly gain for playing their cruel hoax on me. To lure me with beautiful melodies and wishes pulled from my psyche is a crime amongst crimes. And their goal is simply to drown me in a fit of ecstasy. That is what gives them pleasure. They can tell I’m not falling as easily as some others may have. I know reality even when reality’s definition has been redefined. The stories have been told about these seductress’, and to ignore them is to make them go away.

I must swim back to the shore. They are changing to their natural form. I can’t look; I must swim. Keep my back to them. Oh, their voices! The sun sets and I wish not to go back into the woods. I would let them sing to me forever if only I didn’t have to…what beauty they possess. White-haired; glowing green eyes – three of them – one more beautiful than the next. I’ll just swim closer to get one last look before I leave. The night will be cold and these harmonious sounds will keep me company. They sing to me alone. So beautiful, so white…as white as the owls!

Harbingers of death and destruction; you three are nothing! I must swim back to shore for my beloved waits for me! My beloved is safe and sound and I must find her in the same fashion.

Yes, the shore! I can’t look back. I must take the long way around the lake. They must not deter my quest. I will have to transverse the mountain in the daylight, which means I must find a place of security for the night.

VIII – Cave

The dark of night falls too quick. But what does it matter when the light of day proves to hold no tranquility. The mountain cannot – will not – be traveled over in the dark. What lies waiting at its top I do not know, and I wish not to find out under the pale moon’s glow. But this cave, how am I to feel comfortable in its darkened drafts? Is there no other place for me to rest my head far enough away from the voices of Those Who Sing. I must enter and give myself to whatever fate the rock and dirt tunnel holds.

It is empty! Alas, good luck may still shine down upon me time and again. I have reached the end of the cave to find myself alone and grateful. The wind is picking up force outside and I can hear the rain begin to fall. Thank-you for this night’s respite. A drip from the ceiling falls in precise monotony to the floor at my feet. I am alone with this forming pool of rain, which, like I, has found its way into the safety of the cave.

Push aside some rocks and find a flat level of dirt to rest my weary head. The ache in my body is surpassed only by the ache in my heart. What loneliness I find on my search for my beloved! The longing, the yearning; why must it all be so?

Movement! Above me, something rouses me from my half-sleep. All is dark, save for the palest of moonlight that enters through the same tiny crevasse that allows the rain to drip ever so slightly. The ceiling is not a ceiling! Awakening slowly above me are bats; suddenly I feel not so alone. The sounds they make would once have made my skin crawl, but now I welcome them and the company they provide.

Do not leave the cave, my friends! Stay with me ‘till the morn. But they must leave. Their ways of the night predate the Myths and I am jealous of the way these hairy, wide-eyed creatures continue on with their old ways. If I could carry on with my old ways…

IX – Mountain

The bats return to their perch above me. The morning sun approaches and I am thankful for my night’s rest. I wish to stay here in the darkness with my winged friends, but I know what lies before is what is important. I must leave this community of old and travel through the new. The sun is bright; I shield my eyes. The last squeaks and cries of the bats fade away as I leave the mouth of the cave and begin up the side of the mountain.

Of all the stories referring to the Myths there is one that is told in a slightly deferent way. When usually the stories are told as warning, the stories of Those Who Fly Atop The Mountain are told in awe. I could travel around the base of this gigantic obstacle, but on my way to the castle I feel it important to take in the sight that so few Humans have seen. The sun beats down hot and sweat drips from every available pore on my body. If only it would rain, then I could drink some of the water I so desperately need.

Hours have passed and if I don’t reach the summit soon I fear I will turn around and give up my side-quest. Through the clouds I pass and…Yes! I see the top! Only a few more ledges to conquer and I will reach the summit. I see not the Myths I hope to find, but the story says they will appear to those who wait.

The clearing at the top is flat; before me I see the starved wolves. Pity onto them! The old lie withered and dying, the young already dead. Those who would be the leaders stare at me too weak too attack; too weak too acknowledge the food source I could be.

Never in my life did I think I would be able to approach a pack of wolves as I am doing now. So soft is their fur, so weak is their Spirit. I understand their plight and am reminded of my village’s plunge into despair. No food means no life sustained. The dead cubs…what tortures hath befallen us all?

There! I see them approach! The wolves sit with me, and I with them, as we watch the approach of the soaring, scaled forms of Those Who Fly Atop The Mountain. They are as large and as glorious as the stories have told. They feed on nothing and live only to fly free above the lands. Fire shoots from their mouths ever so often, but they stay at heights too high for the fire to do any damage. I wrap my arms around the wolves who are cuddling close to me. I see now the beauty that is the motivation for my quest. I feel now the warmth and togetherness that waits for me in my beloved’s arms. I feel the grief in these wolves that is my beloved’s grief.

Oh, scaled ones, continue your flight for all time, unfazed by what might happen on the ground. Stay free in the air and away from the misery unfolding below. Wolves, I pray for thee, as I feel you pray for me.

X – Evil

All that keeps me from my beloved is the trees and the night. The mountain blends in with the rest of that which is behind me as the sun sets and the moon begins its night pass. Something is different. I fear not the dark, but what emanates from it. Something is approaching yet I hear and see nothing. I can only feel the presence. A chill passes through my body. My thoughts, they are clouding over. My quest…what is it? Where am I going and why am I out here in this forsaken land risking my life? It comes closer, ever closer still. I cannot fight whatever it is. I know not how to fight, or what to fight for. So cold and…so alone…

It is on top of me, I feel its weight. It crushes my heart. My heart? Do I still feel? What do I feel for? Love! My beloved! Remove this weight and disband this dread! I must stand as human and fight with the only weapon I have: my Spirit. But it is so cold in its grip. My legs shake and my mind…

Those Without Life, please, not now. When I am losing a battle against the Evil these formless wanderers appear! They call to me but there is nothing for me to provide them. The Evil takes hold of my mind if I drop my defense for even a moment. I can do nothing to help these restless souls without endangering myself. I will not succumb! My Will shall not succumb. One foot in front of the other, that is how I shall reach my beloved.

But what is this? A graveyard, a sight I wish not to see. I must keep walking before…No, not now, not here. They are rising from their silent slumber. They smell my flesh and it arouses them so. Dirt lines their fingernails as they dig themselves out of the ground. Lifeless eyes stare upon me and I am thankful for their slow movements. I can escape these pathetic bodies without much effort. But the Evil, it catches me when I forget to defend. It is the real enemy here, not the restless Spirits or the Undead looking to feed. The Evil tests me as no other can. Others will only distract me, and then the Evil will see its opportunity to claim my soul.

The hyenas! How can they sniff out the undead so quickly? I can’t bear to watch. The hyenas surround them and the movement in the woods signals me as to what will happen next. The Eaters Of The Undead! How glad I am that they pay me no mind. They are quick and I could not escape their hunt should it be turned on me. Savages! The undead are torn limbless and devoured. The hyenas quickly consume the scraps that fall. Nature will always find its way.

The Evil…Those Without Life…they drain me so…must stay focused and continue on.

Footsteps, heavy and fast they approach. The Eaters Of The Undead know whom approaches, and judging by the fear in their monster eyes, I can only assume it is those who eat the Eaters Of The Undead: The Large Ones. Trees are knocked aside as the Large Ones club their way towards the Eaters Of The Undead. I cannot tell what is corpse of human and what is corpse of nonhuman. The Large Ones swing wildly; tearing apart all who stand in their way. The Eaters Of The Undead are falling in pieces to the ground. The hyenas have run off and I am doing the same. The Large Ones have proven that they have no want for me, so I have no need to stay and witness the gore unfolding. The Evil will stay where the violence is and the Those Without Life are not following. What terror I feel!

XI – Moat

Can it be? Yes, the castle is within sight. I can barely make out its broken form, but I see it just the same. Daylight is far off, yet I cannot wait to enter and find my beloved. Since she is not out here, she must be inside that wretched tomb of monstrous filth. I quicken my pace and come within full sight of the stone structure. Silence…like none I have ever known.

The drawbridge is destroyed. My feet stand on land’s edge, my eyes look down into the murky depths of the moat that is blocking my entrance to the castle. I see that something is circling within the sickly thick water. Two somethings! What are they and what will they do to me if I enter this water with them? If? When I enter!

How cold it is against my skin. Just a quick swim to the other side and then I can find my beloved. Tightly I’m grabbed! So tight is their grip as they suck me under. I feel my bones will break if a scant bit more pressure is applied. I feel no teeth bite down upon me, so what can these foul water creatures want from me? To simply snuff out my life can’t possibly be their aim. But how am I to know what their desire is? They swim in circles for all-time, how must that be? What kind of life is theirs? To kill me would be to do something. To spare me would give them no joy, this I can tell. So tight…too tight. Underwater I can’t breath. They will not let me go.

The light…the white! I see it above the water. Not now! Not while I am so close! The owls float above the water, between them forms the Truth I wish not to see. Light is fading from my eyes. Vision is blurring under this dark, rank water. The tip of her sword drops below the surface. The choice is again mine to make: Life or Death. But now it seems I can’t fight, so how am I to choose.

I am released. I float to the top of the water and quickly pull my self onto the land. The castle door is at my back, yet Death stays floating above the water. She is not here to give me a choice. She is tempting Those Who Live In Water. The two creatures huddle close under her blade. They choose not the life they are given. To circle to no end is not their fate, they choose the sword of Death. They choose to exit this world of monotony and enter whatever waits for them on the other side. The owls fly high and Death disappears.

I must stand and enter the finale of my quest.

XII – Castle

Those Who Drink Blood have claimed their home in this once majestic place. I see and hear nothing to make me believe I am not alone. Through these halls I find no one. The first floor appears desolate, but wait, through large glass doors I can see what once was used as a room for throwing balls and dinners fit for a king; now I see bodies lying in darkness.

Human victims, I fear…my beloved! Could she be amongst this fallen group? I turn over the first body and find these are not humans at all. The heads have been severed, the mouths sewn shut. In their chests have been plunged wooden stakes. Scattered on the floor around me, Those Who Drink Blood lie slain.

Could this be the work of my beloved? This savagery, this violence; I cannot picture my wife, the mother of my child, my beloved, acting in such a way as to leave these killers viciously destroyed. I must leave these victims of…

Staircase leading down. A fire burns in a fireplace, take a torch from the wall and light it. Down the stairs I travel slowly. It curves in a never ending arc; circling down, circling down, circling down. She might be down here…I do not know. To find her is to look everywhere.

Dungeon filled with sights I wish not to be seeing. What tortures were done on these sick devices? What pleasure did the hand that turned the wheels (making this instrument of pain work) find? Who slipped the latch and let the blades drop? What victims were made in this den of perversion? Victims of the king, and now I see there is someone in there. This unused room by the Myths contains now only one tortured human. His crown doesn’t shine as it once did, and to say he is living is to state an uncertainty. I fear getting too close, for I know not what I will find waiting for me in his stare. Yet I must free him if he is still alive! I must get close enough to see if his Spirit is still of this…no, it is not. I have to look away, to pity him would be to great and futile an act. He is gone; flesh and hunger are all that remain.

Back up the stairs and through the ballroom. I can almost hear the music that was once played in here. It’s as if it echoes in time; a memory of gaiety and joviality. I step over these decapitated victims of possibly my beloved’s hands and feel her presence.

My beloved! Even through this dreaded stone I can feel her with me. She is calling out to me not in voice but in heart. Staircase to the second floor is worn out; the carpet rips under my feet. Endless hallways meet innumerable doorways. Where can she be? Where are Those Who Drink Blood?

The third floor hallway is filled with them. It looks as though they were brought here and piled up. A pile of heads sits next to a pile of bodies. The mouths are all sewn shut, the eyes lids left open. The heads that are facing my direction seem to be begging me for help. To walk passed them would be to crawl over them. So disgusting the carpet is. The stench of these hacked horrors is so putrid. They are warm to the touch. I must make my way over them and…oh, the blood I must now wear: How it stains the skin!

Stairs leading up. The roof is gone and I can see the stars shine. The moon is full, how beautiful a sight. I find myself overlooking the woods. This side of the castle has been destroyed. There is carpet under my feet, but no walls around me, no ceiling above. Behind me, the top of the castle points high into the air.

A child crying? In the tower…I hear a child crying! I must muster of all my strength to climb up the side of the castle. Onto the stone my fingers are pressed tight. I have come this far not to be dissuaded. I pass a window and see another pile of decapitated Myths. The top window ledge is just within my reach. If I were to fall right now, surely I would meet my end.

XIII – Tragedy

From the top of the tower can be seen all…all of which I wish not to see. The crying child is mine, yet no longer the same. My beloved, she looks upon me with eyes no longer her own. In her arms she holds what once was ours.

Tragedy upon tragedy! She has not been successful.

In her slaying of Those Who Drink Blood she was inadvertently infected. The child was already lost to us! She found nothing of which she sought! Revenge…unsatisfying revenge! That is all she found here.

She comes towards me not as a lover, but as a killer. She wishes to feed on me, and I wish to wrap her in my arms. But it is not she! This is not my beloved! What is left of her I do not know, but this creature before me is not…but it is she…of course it is. And that is our child lying on the floor. Yes, wrap your arms around me! Sink your teeth into my neck! Do with me what you will in this foul and beautiful world we now live in…

Reaper: The Beginning - Amanda M Holt

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:30:08 PST

Chapter One:

The first time that I turned into the Dark Thing, I was as terrified of the transformation as I was of my attackers.

That evening had begun normally enough: I had just left my place of employment, and without more than a thought, chose to take a shortcut home by walking through Lincoln Park. At night. Crossing the park at night was something my mother would have scolded me for, but I was far too bold to have heeded her warnings, and chose instead to brush them off as mere motherly paranoia.

She was always paranoid about one thing or another. Always worried, usually without reason. And besides - it was the Suburbs, for God’s sake. Nothing ever really happened here…

I didn’t fear the things that my mother did. I didn’t believe in things that went bump in the night. Nothing bad had ever happened to me in the park - and this route was, after all, the quickest way home from my part time job at Bo’s Ice Cream Parlor.

In my innocence, I didn’t think that anything bad would happen to me, so long as I stuck to the lit paths that cut Lincoln Park into its sections. I knew the park well, from my day-time travels, and could see no harm in cutting through – I had done so many times before without a single unpleasant incident. It was a better option, I thought, than walking the several blocks around the park, so yes, I dared that night to cross Ol’ Lincoln, sticking to those well-lit paths as best I could – just as I had done on countless other evenings.

Nothing bad had ever happened to me there…

But on that cold October night, I would not be so lucky.

I heard the three men well before I saw them.

“Now there’s a sweet piece of ass if ever I saw one,” one of them hissed, in my general direction.

“I’ve been craving a piece like that all night.” Said another man, from the same place as his unseen companion.

Being the only ‘piece of ass’ that I could see in the park that night, I would have been stupid not to assume that he had been talking about me. Were they talking about me? I wasn’t completely certain of it, but there was no one else around, so I began to walk faster, hoping that my footsteps would carry me further away from their voices.

My nervous breaths came faster, forming little clouds of mist in the cold night air.

“Me too, thug” said another of the men, from the darkness of the park, beyond the path, somewhere ahead of me, and to my left. I glanced nervously to the left of my field of vision, looking for the owners of the gruff voices and crude words.

It was then that I saw the three of them, walking towards me from the shadows of the park, blocking my way along the path.

“I gotta get laid, dog.” Said the black one of the three, his dark eyes making me feel awkward as his glance swept me from head to toe. “’Fo I lose my mind.”

In hindsight, it was then that I probably should have run. Run as far and as fast away from those men as my slender young legs could have carried me.

I was only fifteen – I didn’t imagine that they were going to act on their obscene words.

But I should have known that my youth wasn’t something that would have swayed them from their obscene ideas, their sick and twisted cause. If society’s warnings were anything to go by, my tender age would only have encouraged them to act out their lascivious ideas.

Sick perverts loved young girls, isn’t that what every mother – especially mine – liked to warn?

Mother, it seemed, had been right.

Hindsight being what it is, I know now that I should never have cut through the park after dark. Not even in this “nice” part of town. Certainly not at night.

Not that night…

But instead, there I was, in my pink polyester Bo’s Ice Cream Parlor uniform, my nametag “Samantha B.” flashing in the late October moonlight like a beacon that could draw the crude men nearer.

“What do you think, boys?” The tall black one asked of the others, as though taking a vote.

“She’ll do.” Said the heavyset one in the middle, leering at me as he twisted the hairs of his long goatee with a plump tattooed hand. His stare was unmistakably set on me: he meant me.

They were talking about me: there was no longer any doubt in my mind.

My heart began to pound more quickly in my chest. It was then that I began to feel a strange crawling sensation under my skin, a tingling that started out innocently enough, but quickly became almost painful, almost like I was being burned. It started in my chest, near where my heart had begun to pound.

It was unlike anything I had ever felt before…

Was this what it was like to be terrified?

“Pussy is pussy,” agreed the youngest of the three, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen, and looked as cocaine pale as the moon was, overhead, in the dark night sky. “Good enough for me.”

“So long as I get to stick my dick in some part of her,” the fat one said, approaching me from the left, closing in the distance between us. “She’ll do just fine.”

“You said it,” the tall black one remarked, advancing towards me from the right.

The threat was set. They were poised to attack. The tension between us could have been cut with a knife. There would be a breaking point, I was sure of it. I knew that the moment I ran, they would run after me. I couldn’t think, and could barely breathe – my fear was caught in my chest, holding me captive as my heart pounded like a bird trying to escape the trappings of my own ribcage.

All the while, that strange burning sensation continued to scorch my heart, my chest, my skin…

As the three men closed in on me, I began to retreat, walking as briskly backwards as my quivering legs would allow. Why did my legs feel so weak? And why was my skin crawling so? I wanted to turn and run, but my fear wouldn’t let me take my eyes off of them… I wouldn’t dare take my eyes off of them.

How could this be happening to me? What had I done to them to deserve this?

“Mind you, she’s not as pretty as the last one we fucked and cut,” said the tallest of my assailants, the man with the darkest complexion, and even darker intentions.

Fucked and cut?

Fucked and cut? Now, I was really afraid. “Fucked” sounded bad enough. I was only fifteen, but I knew what that meant, that it implied sex with me that I did not want. At that age, I barely knew what the implications of sex meant – but I knew that their intentions implied rape.

And as for “cut”, well “cut” was far worse a fate...

Cut what? And cut where? My skin continued to itch, continued to burn…

“She’s not half bad though,” the black one decided, as an after thought.

The gap between him and the youngest one was the widest. It was there that I was going to attempt my escape, if any, in their direction. I tried to dash past him, but the dark skinned man intercepted me from the right, scaring me into the direction of his two cohorts.

“Not as young as the last one, either,” the youngest of them agreed, closing in on my right. His light colored eyes gleamed at me with a cold hatred that I could not name.

“Or as feisty.” Laughed the heaviest of my assailants, his plump hand striking out of mid air to grab me by the arm. Heavier than me, and far stronger, he used his leverage of my arm to throw me to the ground - with little effort on his part, I fell so hard that the wind was knocked out of me. “They rarely ever put up a fight. It’s fucking pathetic. Even animals put up more fight than these little girls do.”

As I began to crawl backwards, away from them, my pants dampened by the wet fall leaves, I felt as though I were flush with fever, my skin feeling as if it really were burning. It was beginning to itch like Hell, too, leaving me to feel as though I had been bitten by an army of fire ants, all over my young body. It was maddening, this trial by fire: how would I survive such torment.

My fear was disorienting, and my situation seemed desperate enough – however, as the three men fell upon me, they sealed not only my fate, but their own.

Six hands tore at my clothing. Six hands held me to the ground. Six hands shredded the polyester pants from my hips, and ripped my white cotton panties from my virgin mound.

Six hands exposed my young chest to the cold October night, and tore at the supple female flesh that they found there.

“Samantha B.”, said the fat man, tossing aside my name tag as though it were a piece of litter. “Samantha B., I’m gonna fuck you first, you see, because it’s my turn to go first, ain’t that right Jason?”

Six hands were bruising, mistreating me in the most horrid of ways, pinching my young nipples, squeezing my young breasts – breasts that had never before been touched by a man, not even by a doctor. Six hands held me by wrist and ankle to the ground, six hands continued to violate flesh, seeking access to my most private of places.

“That’s right, Carl.” The black one said. “Then me, then Baby Boy. This time.”

I cried out for help, and one hand struck me across the mouth, split my lip and drew my blood, and I tasted it, like copper pennies, on my tongue. It was Carl who had struck me, and who was now reaching out to grab me by the ponytail of my long, dark hair.

“But is she a virgin, I wonder,” the fat man mused, his tattooed hand twisting my hair painfully. “Or a little tramp like some of those others?”

He reached down with his free hand to answer his own question, but that hand froze above the place of my virginity, as I heard him gasp in shock.

“What the fuck?” Carl breathed, withdrawing his hand from my groin, where the burning and itching sensation had become almost as bad as that across my chest.

“What is it?” The black one wanted to know, “What’s the fucking hold up? Take your turn!”

“She’s got black shit on her pussy – it’s like dirt or something.” The fat bastard who attacked me sent his hand back to investigate. “It feels like leather.”

My skin continued to itch and burn, becoming worse in my fingers than it was in my virgin mound, a spreading, burning, tingling itch beneath my fingernails. There was a twinge of firey pain beneath my nails: I felt as though scratching something may be the only way to alleviate it.

This maddening, burning itch!

“It’s fucking spreading, man!” Baby Boy sounded disgusted, and let go of my leg in revulsion.

Even in the dim light, I too could see what he was talking about. There was a patch of something dark plastered against my groin, spreading up to my abdomen, covering the insides of my pale white thighs. At first, I thought it was soil. Dirt from the ground.

But dirt didn’t move of its own accord, like this did.

“Fuck man, it’s on her chest too,” Jason noted, backing away, repulsed.

I followed their stares to the patch of darkness that had appeared on the middle of my chest, itching where it spread, across my young breasts. The itching, the burning, was worse where the darkness had appeared, and was thickening, covering me with its skin-like coating. While I was glad for its sudden appearance, its protection of my modesty, I was horrified by its abnormal nature, its unknown origin.

What the Hell was it? What was happening to me?

“Oh my God,” the young one’s voice had dropped to a whisper of awe. His pale face was marked with fear.

“What’s happening to me?” I asked aloud, fearfully, as though they might know the answer. I was as terrified of this strange transformation as they were shocked by it. The young one backed away, as did the fat one, releasing my left hand in the process.

My fingertips began to itch, and it worsened until even the nails beds themselves felt as though they had caught on fire. The burning sensation was so intense!

The black man, Jason, released my right hand, out of disgust that it too had become affected. “This shit’s all over her.”

Right before my eyes, my fingertips turned dark and gleamed as if I had dipped them in used motor oil. The darkness spread down my fingers to my palm, the back of my hand, my wrist, my forearms, covering them with the same black barrier of some organic looking material.

From the tips of my fingers, where my nails should have been, points had formed – first, as long and narrow as a cat’s claws, then, as long as fork tines, then longer. Much longer, until they became like the blades of butter knives. And then longer…

The fat man recoiled, his eyes large with horror. “What the fuck-“

I could barely believe my eyes. What was happening to me?

“I say we cut her and get the fuck out of here,” the young one was fearful, and fast on his feet. No sooner had he said the words, than was he on the run, retreating into the shadows of the park.

The black stuff all but covered me – thankfully, the painful itching was beginning to subside… There was something insectile about the way that my fingers now looked, something reptilian about the scale-like patterns that covered their dark skin…

I opened and closed my hands in front of me, reveling at what they had become – the most distal joints of my fingers were now long black blades with thin, sharp edges.

At least they weren’t itching anymore…

And the men – the men weren’t touching me anymore…

The Dark Thing almost covered me entirely, but for my face and hair, a second skin unto my own. I felt it creep up my neck, as far as my jaw, my hairline, my ears. This entirely alien experience was – strangely enough – beginning to feel somehow natural, somehow right.

“Cut her?” Jason stood up, and was soon on the run, heading in the direction from which they had come. “Fuck that, nigger – I’m not touching her - did you see that shit?”

The fat man with the tattoos was the last to leave, doing up the front zipper of his pants as he ran.

They left me alone in the shadows, to the Dark Thing that was spreading its last few inches to cover my entire body, even the soles of my feet, still within their shoes. In the near total quiet, as their footfalls subsided, I found my situation absurd.

Some tough guys they were… How quickly they had run at the first sign of trouble!

It was then that the fury came over me.

How dare they attack me – ambush and surround me – me a fucking teenaged girl.

They had harbored rape and other violence in their mind.

Now, suddenly, I had revenge in mine.

I no longer felt shaky in the legs, or otherwise weak of limb.

As I stood up, I felt strong – stronger, perhaps, than I had ever been in my life.

I felt like chasing them down, one by one, and ending their miserable lives.

I felt angry – angrier than I had ever been at anyone for any reason in my entire life.

How dare they try to violate me? How dare they?

How fucking dare they!

I saw the flicker of the fat man’s basketball jersey in the dim light – he was the straggler of the three, and nearest me. Without a further moment’s hesitation, I decided to act on my impulses.

I began to chase him.

I ran with the cold autumn wind in my ears, feeling as though I had never run faster, or with more certain footing, in my entire life. The shadows of the park seemed of no concern somehow – my night vision was clearer, more accurate than it had been just minutes before. I could see in the dark now almost as well as I could see along the lit paths.

What was happening to me? What was this Dark Thing?

I would, of course, have much time to deliberate over these questions later…

For the moment, I didn’t need questions answered: I needed revenge.

In fact, I wanted more to do more than just exact revenge.

I wanted… justice.

Not only for me, but for every other woman or girl they had ever assaulted. Their own bragging told me that this had not been their first time, preying on women together, but by God, it would be their last.

I would see to it.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, exactly, but by God, I’d see them dead.

The night air was cold against my unprotected face, but I paid it no notice as I chased down the brutes who had attacked me. I gained distance on the fat man quickly, besting his paces with long strides of my own. I had a newfound strength of limb that I found incredible, a feeling, almost, of invincibility, as my muscles worked in sync, in harmony to catch up to him.

Closing in on the fat man, only a few paces now behind him, I knew that if I leaped, I would be upon him… and so I leapt, jumping unto his back, forcing him to the ground with my momentum. He grunted as we fell to the wet gravel of the path, me on his back, him on his fat belly.

Without much more than a thought, I buried the strange claws that had formed at my fingertips deep into his throat. It was like slicing a hot knife through butter, so sharp were the edges of my talons…

I tore the flesh of his throat free, so that I nearly severed his head with the blow. With my newly enhanced night vision, I saw the wide arcs of warm blood washing the ground, soaking the dead fall leaves with each fresh spurt. His blood looked almost black in the dark, and from that dark blood came wisps of steam that rose skyward in the cool night air…

He did not spurt for long, but then, I didn’t wait long to watch. I knew that he was a dead – or dying – man, what with his throat ripped like that.

Somehow, I knew that I had done the right thing… and in my head came the strangest vision, like a memory of a dream – a collage of images of the women that he had attacked in the past, racing through my mind like leaves scattered by a windstorm.

How many women had there been? Too many to count, from the visions that swept through my mind. Some raped, some just murdered in cold blood – others raped and murdered. More than twenty victims for sure... There were even men and children among them.

I held my new hands up before my eyes, marveling at the dark red blood that glistened on the sharp edges of my new fingers. The blood, strangely enough, began to disappear, and somehow, I knew where it was going. It was seeping into me, feeding the second skin that covered me, making it – and me – even stronger.

I found it disturbing that I didn’t feel the slightest amount of remorse.

I had just killed a man.

And I didn’t feel remorse.

I found that odd.

I thought that I should have cared. That I should have cared enough to want to stop there, with the blood – the death - of one criminal. But, thinking of his many victims, something drove me on to pursue his companions. It felt like a deep seeded urge of some sort. A strange stirring from within me. A calling... Yes, it was a calling for the blood of these evil men that drove me on.

That and my fury. Fury drove me on…

I could almost swear that I smelled them… Instinctively, I seemed to know what direction my other two assailants were heading in. More than just a hunch or an educated guess, it was something of a ‘gut’ feeling, coming from somewhere primitive and dark inside of me.

Suddenly, I trusted my instincts, as I had never trusted them before.

In a moment, I was on my feet, and on the run again, a huntress, fueled by the need for evil blood, drawn by its scent.

By its call.

I veered left, heading in the direction my newfound instincts lead me.

Could I hear him running, or was I just imagining things? No – that was heavy breathing I heard… and footsteps. The footsteps of a guilty man. The tall black man.

Jason.

I saw him, crossing a lit path a hundred yards in front of me. He slowed his gait, and turned his head towards me, as though sensing danger. He saw me, approaching from the shadows, and was shocked to discover that I was quickly gaining on him. His eyes widened as he realized that I was pursuing him; they looked like twin white orbs beckoning me to the kill.

Yes, I was following him.

Hunting him.

The fearful expression on his face made him look as though he was seeing a ghost but it was he – not I – who was as good as dead.

“Holy fuck!” Jason yelled, from where he ran ahead of me.

I tackled the tall man just as I had tackled his heavyset friend, to the cold and unforgiving ground. But as we fell, my momentum carried us to the side, and as we hit the damp ground, he had a clear advantage, and was atop me in an instant, straddling me, pulling back a fist to strike at me.

His advantage didn’t last long.

In a swift assault, I buried the eight inches of my newly extended fingers knuckle deep into his belly, and he froze mid-swing, too shocked to follow through. I left my hands there, buried deep in his soft center, letting my second skin feed from him, from the blood that pulsed from his bowels in a steady deluge.

“You crazy bitch,” Jason swore, trying desperately to pull my hands out of his bloodied belly, but to no avail.

We both knew that I had won. He was a dead man talking shit: a last show of bravado before his curtains closed for good.

As the Dark Thing that covered me fed greedily from him, images of his victims filled my head, much as they had with his fat accomplice. The images were like flashes from the scenes of a movie, inside the recesses of my mind. I sat up, and with strength now superior to his, pushed him off of me, and he fell to the ground, clutching his abdomen.

“It troubles me to think of how many more girls there might have been,” I told him, “If I – if we – hadn’t stopped you tonight.”

I said ‘we’, treating the second skin – the mysterious Dark Thing - as a second entity. I couldn’t have done these things, exacted justice without it after all. Wherever it had come from, whatever it was, one thing was for certain: it could be deadly.

A pool of dark blood was forming around the fallen man, and his breathing all but stopped. He was finished. Over the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears, I could hear the footfalls of my third attacker, the young one. He wasn’t far away. And… he had stopped running.

The fool.

He wouldn’t even see me coming.

He must have felt safe, in the street beyond the park, must have felt comforted by the lights there, by the people nearby. I rose from the side of the fallen black man, and ran after Baby Boy, catching up to him with an uncanny, almost unfaltering sprint. I had never run so fast in my life, as the Dark Thing helped me to make efficient use of my legs, arms, heart, lungs, conducting them like a symphony of blood, tendon, and muscle.

Baby Boy was in a dark alley, a few hundred yards away, his back turned towards me. Then he was a car’s length away… then an arm’s length. He must have heard me, because he turned towards me as I took the last few steps, closing in the distance between us.

Before I even saw his pale face again, I lashed out at him, clumsily, hungry for more bloodshed, and my long unnatural new nails glanced off of his neck, drawing blood in a shallow wound.

This time, it was not a finishing blow.

“Did you really believe your actions would go unpunished?” I asked, furious with him, wanting to tear him to pieces, now that I had the ability, now that I could.

He clutched his neck with his hand, trying to staunch the blood flow. Crimson poured between his fingers as he backed away from me, young eyes wide with fear.

“Please – don’t hurt me.”

Looking at my right hand, I willed my claws to grow shorter, and I was pleased to see that the second skin seemed to respond to my wishes. My fingernails were again as long as fork tines, then cat’s claws… then much like my own fingers.

“Your victims… did they beg for mercy?” I asked him, my smile one of pure menace. “Did their pleas fall on deaf ears?”

Two long spikes of the glistening black organic material were now, at my will, growing from the backsides of my hands, like scalpels, then, as long as bread knives. They looked like something that might be found on a carnivorous insect, and I knew they would be as sharp as razors, since I willed them so. I was able to transform through my willpower, through imagination alone.

“Tell me,” I demanded, “Did they beg for their lives just as you’re doing now?”

I willed the weapon of my left hand to grow strong and hard as I punched into the flesh of his shoulder, burrowing deep with the jagged spike, pinning him to the brick wall that he had backed into.

“Did they?” I demanded, above the scream of agony that was his answer.

I was pleased by that – the Dark Thing was sustained by his anguish, was fed by his blood. Images of his victims flooded my mind, and, I was surprised to see that despite his young age, he had scores of more victims than his acquaintances.

“Please… God… don’t…” His young face was streaked with tears, terrified eyes beseeching me, begging me not to do my worst. I thought of his young age, and then I thought of my own. Who was the greater evil, at this point: him or me?

There was no point in prolonging this drama. His screams might have drawn the attention of Good Samaritans who may have called the police.

With the outpouring of his blood came the knowledge of his crimes, and those secrets filled me with fury.

Baby Boy was only a few years older than me, yet so many innocents had died at his hands.

So many…

“All of the things that you have done… they’re beyond evil.” I seethed, twisting the blade of my hand in his shoulder.

He howled with pain. “Please…”

“End of the show, fucker – it’s curtains for you.” I pulled my left hand out of his shoulder and, crossing the two blades under his chin, much like a lethal pair of scissors, I drew my forearms apart and up, cutting deep through his neck, turning him into a human Pez dispenser.

His blood washed over me, covering my chest, my arms, feeding the Dark Thing whose hunger for the blood of the wicked seemed to know no limit, no bounds on this, the night of its birth.

The young thug’s body fell against me, and I let it drop to the concrete, unimpeded. I didn’t care who found this vermin first – the rats or the cops – it made no difference to me. My job was over. I had done my part, had exacted revenge and answered the call of the Dark Thing, the call for the blood of the guilty.

Justice was served.

And it wouldn’t be the last time…

HORRORVILLE, USA - Dallas Releford

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:27:30 PST

Twenty hours after they were married in a church in Blanchester, Ohio, Danny Lansford and his new wife—the former beauty queen of Blanchester High School—found themselves driving toward the Southern Coast of Maine where they planned to spend their honeymoon.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you gave it up,” Patricia asked as hot August wind blew across her creamy white skin and tossed her long brown hair into her face. Her blue eyes were almost the same color as the autumn sky. “I mean, you have written sixteen novels and haven’t sold one.”

“So,” Danny Lansford said as he steered the forest green Mustang convertible toward their destination, the colorful autumn glamour of Maine. “It’ll happen. It takes time, you know. It also takes a lot of understanding on the part of the new bride.” Traffic was not heavy as they neared the New York State line. Relaxing a little, he tried to enjoy the cool autumn air, the colorful leaves and the spectacular blue sky.

“Yeah, and unless you’re a famous, money-making author, they won’t even talk to you much less read your book. Danny, I’m just worried about our future. How can we be happy if we have to worry about where our next meal is coming from?”

“We’ll do fine,” he said trying to comfort her. “I have a job and I’m sure my short stories and my novels will sell. It’s just a matter of getting the right agent.”

Patricia pulled her hand away and sulked. Resting her elbow on the door, staring away from him at the fields and forests, she finally asked, “Do you really call a nine dollar an hour security guard job a career? Danny, that won’t even pay the rent. I mean, I’m willing to give you a chance, but we have to live until something starts to sell.”

“I thought we agreed that I would try writing for five years and then if I—”

Her anger flared up and she lashed out at him before she realized what she was saying. “Damn it, Danny. Don’t you grasp what you’re saying? You don’t realize what a mess we’re in. My parents financed our wedding and I’m paying for the honeymoon out of my own pocket. The rent on our apartment will be due in another month. Oh, Danny, why can’t you see? Why don’t you ever listen to me, or anyone else, for that matter?”

“I do listen,” he said as they crossed over into New York. “I’m a good writer. Your uncle told you that.”

“As a writer, he also told me that the chances of getting published these days are pretty slim. The only thing you write is horror. The chances of a new horror writer making it are unlikely. Why can’t you write romances, or something?”

“For the same reason you like to watch those old horror movies, you like horror, especially the old black and white movies. Horror is what I know and like.”

“Yeah, but you have to remember that not everyone likes what we like. Today’s kids are entirely different than the previous generation.”

“Are they?” he asked. “Horror movies are still popular. People love to be scared.”

She turned her head and looked at him. Why had she married him? About the only thing they had in common was they both liked horror. She had even read all his manuscripts. He was good, but not as good as his super-ego told him he was. Danny Lansford was anything except an ordinary guy. His short blonde hair and his sparkling blue eyes had dazzled her from the first moment she saw him. While the other girls thought he was weird, she thought he was just wonderful. Even back then she thought he might have some potential as a writer. However, he never seemed to improve his writing skills and she wondered if he would ever really make it. Studying his broad shoulders, his massive chest and his handsome face out of the corner of her eye, she knew the reason she had married him. She had married him because she loved him. Patricia knew that she would have to take him as he was, or not at all. “Okay, Danny. I get the picture. Let’s just drop it, okay? How many more states do we have to cross until we get to Maine?”

Scratching his chin as he took an exit that would put them on a more direct route, he thought for a moment before saying, “Well, we are in New York so that means we have to cross Vermont and New Hampshire before we are in Maine.”

“Are you sure we have hotel reservations once we get there?” Knowing how forgetful he was, she tried to cover all the possible things that could go wrong. However, where Danny was concerned, just covering his mistakes took most of her time.

“Of course,” he said. “I made them myself two weeks ago. Why do you worry all the time? Relax and enjoy the scenery.”

“I worry when my husband forgets to purchase a wedding gift for me,” she said. “Things like that worry me quite a lot.”

Embarrassed, he took her hand in his and smiled at her hoping she would forget his unintentional blunder. “I promised you I would buy you a gift just as soon as I get enough money, now didn’t I?”

“Of course,” she said. “When you sell your first book, you can buy me a new Jaguar.”

They both laughed. When the tension faded away, Patricia felt the warm afternoon sun pleasant as it touched her face and she felt her eyes grow heavy. In a few minutes all the sounds around her vanished and she slept.

“Wake up,” a voice said as a hand gently tugged at her shoulder. “We’re in Vermont and you’re missing all the sights.” Rubbing her eyes, she sat up and through blurry eyes couldn’t tell the difference between Pennsylvania and Vermont.

“Why didn’t you just let me sleep,” she said. “When I wake up, I want to see the Atlantic Ocean from my bedroom window.”

“Another few hours and we’ll be there,” Danny promised. “We’ll be in Maine in about thirty minutes. Would you like to stop and eat somewhere?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m hungry.”

Every restaurant or diner they passed had something wrong with it. It was too crowded, too small or they didn’t serve the kind of food Danny liked. By the time he made up his mind to stop, they had crossed over into Maine. Pulling off the road into the parking lot of a family restaurant that didn’t seem to be too crowded, too small or too large, they got out of the car and stood looking at tall thunderheads with dark bottoms that were being pushed up into the light blue sky.

“Going to storm,” Danny said as they walked toward the entrance. “Maybe we can get to the coast before it hits. I hate driving in the rain.”

“Do you know how to get there?” she asked remembering that he couldn’t even read a map and preferred to find his way by reading the road signs.

“Sure,” he said. “I got it all right up here.” He pointed toward the top of his head and laughed as they stepped across the threshold and stood facing a smiling clerk at the desk.

“That’s probably the only thing you got up there,” Patricia commented as the clerk showed them to a table by the window. “Well, as soon as we’re finished, I’m marching over to that gas station and getting us a bona fide road map. What do you think of that, Daniel Boone?”

“Wasting your time,” he said. “Why get something we’ll never use?”

“Because I know you. You couldn’t find your ass with the Hubble Telescope if someone pointed it for you.”

“Now, is that any way to treat your husband?”

“Wait until you’re married to me for a while. I’ll straighten you out, yet.”

Knowing she was teasing, he hoped, they ordered their lunch and talked about horror movies until the food was finally served. The restaurant wasn’t crowded and only a few guests occupied the tables and booths around them. Danny made funny faces at her trying to pump cheer into her, told her jokes about his grandfather, whom she had never met, and finally smiled when she laughed at how his grandfather had fallen off a horse while trying to teach Danny how to ride.

“Was he hurt, your grandfather, I mean?”

“That old bird? Of course he wasn’t hurt. That old man could land in a bed of nails and not get a prick. My grandfather fought in World War II. Capturing a German machine gun nest single-handedly, he held off the rest of the enemy until help arrived. That’s not all, either. When he was a kid, he used to walk twenty miles a day.”

“Is he still living?”

“Of course,” Danny replied. “You’re going to meet him too.”

“Where? Why didn’t you tell me about him before this?”

“There were so many other things to talk about,” he said. “I forgot. He lives in Maine and we’re going to visit him while we’re up here.”

“Danny. Why are you always pulling these things on me?”

“Why? Don’t you want to meet my grandfather?”

“Of course I want to meet him. I just wish you would give me a little warning so I know what I’m getting into.”

“Don’t you like to be surprised?”

“Sure I do, but this isn’t the kind of surprise that most women like. We prefer nice gifts and things like that, occasionally.”

“Well, I have another nice surprise for you. It’s sort of a late wedding gift.”

“What is it? I hope it’s not a horse or something like that,” Patricia said shooting a warning look at him.

“Oh, nothing like that,” he promised. “You’ll like it though. You’ll also like my grandfather. He likes horror and science fiction movies as much as you do.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “Does the entire family like horror?”

“No. My mother hates it. She says that the blood and gore is too much for her. My father likes some horror shows although he normally watches football.”

“At least somebody is normal in this family. How did you get started writing horror?”

“I read a lot of science fiction, fantasy and horror when I was a teenager,” he said.

“I think you’re still a teenager who hasn’t grown up,” she accused. “But I love you anyway. Who knows? Maybe you will be famous one day and we can have a house in Maine or somewhere.”

“You bet,” he said taking a bite of food. The steak was good, the baked potato was excellent and as he washed it down with red wine, he glanced at the window. Droplets of water were splattering against the windowpanes. “It’s in my blood.”

“Just a passing rain cloud,” she said. “I guess I should be more supportive, and I try to be, but I’m just so worried that something will go wrong.”

“You have to have more confidence in me and my work,” he reminded her. “We’ll make it. We just have to watch our money.”

She looked at him and then at the window. “What kind of work did your grandfather do? Is he rich?”

“He was an actor and he has a little money, I guess. He owns a mansion in Southern Maine, near the coast.”

“Great,” Patricia said. “What was his stage name? Did he use his real name?”

“Boris Nicholas,” he told her. “He only played in a few movies during the thirties and forties. You rarely see them on TCM or any other movie channel. He was really a good actor. A lot of people said he looked too much like Boris Karloff.”

“Really? What kind of movies did he make?”

“Horror movies,” Danny said and continued eating. Patricia realized she wouldn’t get any more information out of him while he was eating so she tackled her own plate with a new gusto. After the long trip, she was hungrier than she thought.

After paying the bill at the counter on their way out, they stepped out into the cool afternoon as fluffy clouds with dark bottoms sailed across the sky like phantom pirate ships. The thunderheads had grown darker and moved up higher. As they got into the convertible, a few raindrops peppered the windshield.

“Well, I guess we better put the top down, just in case,” Danny said opening the door and getting out. She helped him put the top down and then they drove out of the lot and onto the road.

“Danny, stop at that Speedway. I forgot to get a map.”

“Aw, do we have to?”

“You bet we do,” she said. “I don’t trust your sense of direction.”

Reluctantly, Danny pulled into the lot and parked near one of the gas pumps. “Guess we may as well fill it,” he said. “While you get your map, I’ll take care of that. Actually, all we have to do is to take US 202 to Augusta and then to the coast. What could be simpler than that?”

“Your mind,” she said hurrying away before he could answer. “And your personality.”

As they drove northeast toward Augusta, dark clouds dropped closer to the ground and the sun disappeared. Gusts of wind whipped walls of rain on the car and all around them. Darkness descended and Danny turned on the headlights. Other cars coming in the opposite direction did the same. As the wipers worked full force to keep the windshield clear, Danny struggled to find the road. The last thing he wanted to do was to kiss a guardrail.

“Maybe we better find shelter until this blows over,” Patricia suggested. “This could conjure up a tornado or something. I don’t like the horizontal winds.”

“You might be right,” Danny said. “I’ll see if I can find an exit where there are hotels.”

“I can’t believe it,” she replied staring at him.

“What?”

“You finally admitted I’m right and you’re taking me seriously.”

“This wind and rain is serious,” he said. “I don’t want to get caught out here on this interstate with a storm pounding us. There’s an exit up ahead. There must be a place there where we can find shelter.”

Driving through blinding sheets of cascading rain and gusty wind, he took the off ramp and ended up at a stop sign. The road in front of them left him two options, left or right. He could not read the signs telling him which direction would take them to Augusta. “Well? You have the map,” he said. “Tell me which way to go. Personally, I think we need to go right.”

“Which exit is this?” Patricia stared at the map. In the darkness of the harrowing storm, she could hardly see which road was which. “I think we go to the left,” she finally replied. “It circles back toward Augusta, if this is the same exit I’m looking at.”

“Great,” he replied. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

As soon as he turned left, he became concerned when he didn’t see any lights that would indicate service stations, hotels or any other accommodations for travelers that were usually near exit ramps. “Are you sure?” The rain was so thick that he couldn’t see any signs or buildings on the side of the road. It was all he could do to see the centerline that was quickly becoming a lake.

“I think so,” she said. “Let’s drive for a little while and see if we find anything.”

“Okay,” he replied. “You are the navigator with the map.” He knew that if he had said they should go left that she would have told him to go right. That was the way her mind worked.

The storm raged as lightning flashed, winds howled high above them like a banshee and tree limbs cracked and snapped. Thunder roared and Danny wished that he had stayed at the restaurant until the storm passed. Realizing that it was too late, he drove into the storm as best as he could.

“I don’t like this,” Patricia said. “Maybe if we took one of the side roads, we could find a farm or a house?”

“I doubt it,” Danny said. “I can hardly see the fence posts on the side of the road. Anything beyond that is invisible.”

Patricia was becoming scared and concerned. Storms had terrified her when she was a little girl. Now she was out in the middle of a serious one that could do them harm and delay their trip. Watching both sides of the road, she gazed in every direction trying to see lights, electric lines or anything that would indicate they were near other humans, except she could see nothing but walls of water, leaves, twigs and other debris sailing through the air.

Finally, they came to a stop sign. Danny hesitated for a moment until he was sure that it was a four-way stop. The signs on the posts were unreadable. “Which way?” he asked not sure if she knew where they were or if maybe she could read the signs.

“I don’t know,” Patricia admitted. “Why don’t you get out and look at the signs?”

“Are you joking? I mean, with all that garbage blowing around out there? No thanks. I don’t want a tree branch sticking out of my ears. I think we should go right. That should take us back toward Augusta.”

“Maybe you are right,” she said. “I think we have been going too far north. If we go right then that should take us toward the interstate highways.”

Without saying anything, he turned right and discovered that they were headed right into the worst of the storm. “Keep your eyes open for anything that even looks like a house,” he said. “It’s going to get much worse than this.”

“Great,” Patricia said. “I thought it was bad enough when we were back there.”

“We were on the edge of the storm,” Danny said. “Now, we’re in the middle of it.”

They drove for more than an hour at a speed that almost put him to sleep. At times, he couldn’t even see the road. When he became so drowsy he could hardly drive, the storm died almost as suddenly as it had appeared leaving the surface of the road wet, the trees soaked and limbs down all over the place. When dark clouds finally gave way to the sun again they found themselves surrounded on both sides of the road by high trees. “We were lucky we didn’t run into one of those limbs,” Danny told her. “And, we’re lucky one hasn’t blocked our way, yet.” Rolling his window down, he sucked in as much of the fresh air as he could. He always liked the freshness of the air after a good rain.

As they drove over a low hill, he regretted even thinking about such a possibility. “Damn,” he said as he shoved down on the brakes bringing the Mustang to a halt just in time to prevent crashing into a giant tree that blocked their path. Pushing his door open, he jumped out of the Mustang and walked to the front looking at the huge tree. It was across the road and there wasn’t any way around it. Hearing a noise near him, he turned around and looked at Patricia. “No,” he said anticipating her next question. “I can’t move it and we can’t get around it.”

“We got two choices,” she said, “go back or wait for a road crew.”

“Are you crazy? This is not Cincinnati. They just don’t patrol around in trucks with six men and a chainsaw out here. That’s what it will take to remove that tree and it might be days before they find it. We’ll have to go back to the intersection and take another route.”

Patricia groaned and didn’t say anything. At the intersection later, they sat looking at each other trying to decide which way to go. “If we go left we’ll go back to where we originally were,” Patricia said. “We could take the interstate north and get to Augusta a little after dark.”

“That would take too long,” he complained. “We’ll go right and continue the way we were going. Eventually, we’ll come to another intersection where we can get to our destination.”

Patricia slammed the map on the dash and looked dejected. Pouting, she said, “Do what you want to do. I guess that is as good as any other way.”

Ignoring her, he headed back north again. Tall trees lined both sides of the road and they never met any other travelers. After an hour, Patricia became worried. “Where are we? Why haven’t we seen anyone or any houses? Danny, I think we have come too far. Let’s turn around and go back.”

“Back to where, Patricia? There has to be a house around here somewhere.”

“You never listen, do you? We’re lost, Danny and you know it.”

“We’re not lost,” he said. “We’re headed northeast and the interstate is somewhere to the east of us.”

“That is lost,” she said. “We haven’t seen a house, a person or a car in the last two hours.”

“Maine is a big state,” he said. “We’ll find our way. Just be patient.”

“You’re just like your father, stubborn and convinced that you know everything,” she said. “Let’s turn around before we run out of gas or have an accident out here where we can’t get help.”

Danny glimpsed a flash of light as the sun struck something on the side of the road partially hidden by bushes. “What is that?” he asked turning toward Patricia. “Do you see it?”

Patricia looked at where he was pointing. “A large sign of some kind,” she said. “That’s the first indication of civilization I’ve seen for a long time. Slow down so I can read it.”

As the Mustang approached the sign, Danny stopped and sat staring at a long metal sign that was about the size of the Mustang.

“Horrorville, USA,” Patricia whispered. “Population, two hundred and thirty six. Is this a joke? I’ve never heard of a town of that name?”

“Just a small town,” Danny said. “There are thousands of them. Some have funny names. They do it to attract attention.”

“Well, this one should most certainly make the ten o’clock news. It says they have gas and food.”

“We better stop and get something to eat,” Danny said putting the car in Drive again. “Maybe they can tell us how to get to Augusta.”

“You mean Danny Lansford is actually going to ask someone for directions?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I just want to confirm that where we are headed is the right direction, that’s all.”

“Danny, I have a weird feeling about this. Why can’t we turn back?”

“We need gas and we need food, that’s why.”

Perturbed, she started to protest when she saw another sign. “Horrorville, USA,” she said. “Population, 238. Danny, that’s strange. The other sign said—”

“Just a coincidence,” he assured her. “Just relax. How could they know we are here and how many of us just arrived? You’re becoming paranoid, Patricia. You need rest. Maybe we should get a hotel room and stay all night. Get a fresh start tomorrow.”

“Not a chance,” she said. “I want to be on the Maine coast before it gets dark.”

Danny didn’t argue. Long shadows stretched across the road and he felt as if some of them might be alive. Glancing from side to side, he could not keep his eyes on the road. Danny knew that something was watching him. As he peeked into the darkness of the forest to his right, he caught a glimpse of something running across the road in front of him. Instinctively, his foot slammed down on the brake bringing the vehicle to a screaming halt as his eyes found what he had seen. A large black cat, more humongous than he had ever seen before, stood watching them as they got out of the car and stood watching it. Reaching out and taking Patricia’s hand, he squeezed it and asked, “Are you okay?”

Shivering, she couldn’t take her eyes from the cat. “Let’s go back, Danny. I don’t like this?”

“We can’t,” he reminded her. “We don’t have enough gas.”

The cat grew tired of looking at them and disappeared into the forest.

“Did you see its eyes?”

“Yes,” Danny answered. “What about them?”

“Evil,” she said. “I never saw cat’s with eyes so … deathly.”

“Just cat eyes,” he said. “After all, this is Horrorville.”

Patricia didn’t answer as they drove on. Dark clouds hung above the trees blocking out the sun as they stopped at the top of a hill. In the distance, the landscape had changed from forest to a mixture of large meadows and trees. The road, now graveled, wound through the hills, valleys and trees. Cows and other animals could be seen in some of the meadows. The dark clouds now hugged the horizon. A small town could be seen in the valley below.

“That must be Horrorville,” Danny said. “Let’s get going.”

The sun disappeared behind dark clouds as they drove along the gravel road. Cornfields, the cornstalks dead and dying, were on both sides of the road. Patricia screamed and grabbed Danny’s arm as he stopped the car almost skidding off the road on the loose gravel. “What is it?” he asked.

Pointing at four crosses on top of a hill above them, she spoke with a trembling voice. “Are those bodies on those crosses? Why are they in the middle of a cornfield? Is it real?”

“I don’t think so,” Danny assured her. “Halloween is only a couple of days away and they are probably just decorations. Calm down, Babe. Nothing to worry about.” Still, he wondered as he studied the bodies that were dressed in dark clothing. They sure looked as real as anything he had ever seen.

Patricia settled back into her seat as they drove forward. She never took her eyes from them as they drove away. Patricia was sure she saw one of them move. Someone was watching her. Someone had been watching them since they stopped at the first sign. She was sure of it.

Danny stopped the car just before they drove into town and studied the street ahead of them. The town looked pretty much like any small town they had seen in Ohio and the Midwest. White wooden frame houses lined both sides of the street. Danny noticed a barbershop, a hardware store, a movie theater—something he hadn’t seen in a long time—and a gas station. “Looks normal to me,” he said. “Let’s get gas and something to eat. What do you say about that?”

“I don’t like it,” Patricia said. “I don’t like this place at all.”

“What is it you don’t like?”

“It’s eerie,” she said. “Where’s the church?”

Danny looked at her wondering how she could always come up with something that he never noticed or wasn’t worried about. “What? Well, maybe it’s on down the street or something.”

“Yeah,” Patricia said. “You don’t really expect Horrorville to have a church, do you?”

“I hadn’t given it much consideration,” he said. “Let’s get gas.”

“Let’s get gas and get the hell out of here,” Patricia insisted. “This place reminds me of a crypt. Where are all the people?”

Ignoring her again, he drove down the street and drove into the service station. Parking near a pump, he looked toward the office wondering if they had service. Disappointed when he noticed that the pumps were self-service, he felt an anxious tug on his arm. Patricia moved closer to him with her eyes wide and her lips trembling. What was wrong with her now? Had she seen Casper the Friendly Ghost? “What is it?” he asked.

He followed her gaze as she turned her head away from him. The gas station only had two pumps. They were parked on the side that gave them an unobstructed view of the garage. Three men were working on an old rusty truck. One of them was dressed in a brown dirty, oily mechanic’s uniform. Danny felt his heart pump cold blood when he realized that the man was Lon Chaney Jr. The other two men looked vaguely familiar, too.

“Now, will you believe me?” Patricia looked at him with her face the color of alabaster and her eyes as large as blue marbles. Her hands were trembling. “Let’s go, Danny. Get us out of here.” She cringed when the big man—who had been doing something under the hood of the truck—stood up and stared at them. “That’s … the man is Lon Chaney Jr. In case you don’t know, he’s dead. The other two are character actors that played in old horror movies. They’re dead too, Danny.”

“Nonsense,” Danny said calmly as he realized what was happening. “They’re just actors dressed up for the part. Their makeup is great. This is a show town. Don’t you get it, Patricia? This is a tourist town. Maine is a tourist state.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said patting her shoulder. “Now let’s get the gas and get something to eat.”

Danny got out and waved at the three men. They glared at him, managed to smile and went back to what they had been doing. Patricia stayed in the car. After pumping the gas, he went inside and paid the clerk who looked a lot like a werewolf. He was glad that Patricia hadn’t seen him. Monsters own this damn town, he said as he got back into the car.

“The restaurant is over there,” she said. “Maybe I’ll feel better with a full stomach.”

“I’m sure you will,” Danny said trying to encourage her to be happy. “Dinner is on me.”

Patricia forced a smile. Someone was still watching them. She could feel their cold eyes and could feel cold hands on her bare neck.

Parking in front of the restaurant, they got out and walked through the door. A young woman with skin as pale as snow, dark hair and deep brown eyes stood at the counter. “May I help you?”

“A table by the window for two,” Danny said glancing at the empty dining room. The day was dark and the room was gloomy even though several lighted candles were placed on each table. The candles reminded him of a religious celebration in a centuries-old church.

“Follow me,” she said. “The waitress will be with you in a moment to take your order.”

Leaving them sitting at the table, she walked back to the counter as another woman appeared from the kitchen down the hall from the counter. She had long black hair, a pallid face, unblinking black eyes and an alluring figure. She wore a black dress that barely covered her sumptuous breasts as well as her alluring legs. As she approached, he felt Patricia kick his leg.

Danny looked up at her when she stood above them and felt his mind go numb as his heart raced. Trying not to stare at her was as hard as not staring at her breasts.

“What can I get for you guys?” The woman looked familiar to Patricia. “We have a special if you’re undecided.”

Patricia felt a cold chill drift slowly down her spine and cold hands tug at her heart. “What is the special?” she finally managed to say.

The woman smiled and twisted her hips as she spoke. She fixed her eyes on Danny. “Well, let’s see now. Our special is really special, do you know what I mean? Everybody, I mean simply everybody likes our special. I don’t see how you can pass it up. Everybody likes fried frog legs, lizard legs, turtle eggs and Polk dipped in flower and fried. For desert, we have fish eyes baked in cherry sauce. Don’t that sound good, Honey.” Her eyes were still fixed on Danny.

“Uh, we just dropped in for something light,” he said. “Could you get us some black coffee, fried chicken and a couple of pieces of apple pie? Do you have that?”

“Why sure, sweetheart,” she said. “What do you think we are? We have the best for everybody. Are you folks just passing through or are you here for the big show tonight?”

“No offense meant,” Patricia said. “The special just sounds a little, uh, rich for us, that’s all. We’re on our honeymoon. We just stopped in long enough to get gas and something to eat.”

“No offense taken, honey,” the woman said. “My name’s Elsa and I’ll get your meal for you. Meantime, I’ll bring you some fresh water unless you want something else. We have some cold rabbit blood and tomato juice that tastes pretty good. Of course, it has a little stronger stuff mixed in with it. Do you know what I mean? It has a kick to it.”

“No thanks,” Patricia said. “Water will be fine. What kind of show did you say that was?”

“Why, didn’t you know about the show? Well, I thought everybody knew about the weekly film festival here in Horrorville. Every Friday night we show the best of the old movies introduced by the original stars. Now, I ask you, honey, where else could you get a deal like that, huh?”

“I guess you can’t,” Patricia said. “Did you say the original actors?”

“Of course, Honey. The original actors and you can’t find that anywhere.”

“I guess not,” Patricia said deciding not to pursue the issue any further. She wasn’t sure she wanted answers to the questions she wanted to ask. As the woman walked away, Patricia turned to Danny when she was sure Elsa couldn’t hear them. “Do you know who that is?”

“Elsa,” Danny said. “What is wrong with her? She just dresses a little funny.”

“A little? Danny, that’s Elsa Lanchester, the woman that played Frankenstein’s bride. She died before I was born.”

“You could be mistaken,” he reminded her. “She could be an actress just playing her character.”

“You heard her, Danny. She said that the original actors introduced the old movies. Very few of the old actors are still alive. Something isn’t right here and I want to leave after we eat.”

“Sure, we can leave, but don’t you want to stay and see the movie. I bet it might be the Mummy or the Wolf Man. You know how much you like them.”

“I have all those DVDs. All I want to do is go to the coast.”

“Okay. We’ll leave as soon as we eat. I promise.”

Elsa stood by the counter talking to the young girl showing her legs and her well-formed body. About halfway through their meal, while Danny glanced too frequently at Elsa—a fact that Patricia took quick notice of—the front door opened and two tall characters walked in talking loudly. Patricia had her back to them. Hearing their voices, she turned around, looked at them and wished she hadn’t. Frankenstein and Dracula were talking to Elsa. Patricia wanted to crawl under the table when Elsa led them toward their table. Frankie lumbered across the wooden floor like a tank driving up a wooden sidewalk on an old western set.

“Got some friends you should meet,” Elsa said smiling. Dark circles were under eyes that stared at Patricia. Patricia couldn’t see any life in them.

Patricia shook hands with Frankenstein and then with Dracula who said, “Good evening, miss. Nice to meet you.” Patricia looked at the three people knowing she had just touched the hands of two dead men. “We came over to invite you to the show tonight. It is most enjoyable and we would love to have you come see us.”

“We have an appointment on the coast,” Patricia told them. “We have to be there before dark.”

“Oh, yes, the darkness. Such a joyful time of the day,” Dracula said. “We insist you stay the night and tomorrow will be a better day for your journey. I have heard you are a loyal and trusted fan. You will be most happy here.”

“Yes,” Elsa said. “Your husband tells us that you truly love the old horror films. He says that you are a loyal fan and that you are obsessed by our work.”

Puzzled, horrified, Patricia looked at Danny for an answer. “When did my husband tell you this? I’m not obsessed with anything, never,” she said. “Danny, what is going on here?”

Danny smiled at her and for the first time, she was terribly afraid of him. There was something about Danny that she hadn’t seen in him before. His eyes were red and his teeth were longer, sharper. Or, was it just her imagination?

“I told you I had a present for you,” Danny said. “I could think of nothing better than bringing you to a place where you can meet all your favorite actors, see all your special films and live among the people that made it all possible. What more could the wife of a vampire want?”

Putting her hands to her face, her eyes wide with terror, she attempted to understand what he had said. A scream was lodged in her throat and cold hands massaged her neck as she looked around her. The monsters were real and her husband was one of them. “What do you mean? Danny, how can you do this to me? What do you want from me?”

“I guess I owe you an explanation,” he said. “My family has always been blessed with being vampires, of the new generation, of course. This is our home, not the Maine Coast. The storm had me worried there for a while. Nonetheless, I found my home. The younger vampires have to go out in the world and marry. We bring our wives here to live with us. Once I have made passionate love to you, dear, you’ll be one of us. This is a special place, you see, that exists between this world and another dimension—another universe, you might say—and we managed to bring in some great talent to keep us entertained. You’ll be mine for eternity. Well, how do you like your wedding present? Please be reminded that you don’t have to worry about running out of horror to keep you entertained. We have everything here in this town and the surrounding area. We have spiders, snakes, scorpions and every now and then we bring a human or two here to help with our entertainment. Those bodies you saw on the crosses were crucified humans that didn’t like our little town so we introduced them to a more painful exit from our society. You will never be bored here, Patricia. I hope you like your present.”

Patricia felt her legs become numb, her heart beat faster and she felt like someone had dropped her naked into a barrel of ice water. As darkness developed around her, she knew that she couldn’t hide in the darkness forever. Eventually, she would have to face him, face the horror and madness that was now part of her life. As she felt pain in her neck from his sharp fangs, she wanted to scream except she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Even in the darkness, he was reaching out for her, enticing her to come to him and she wondered how long she could resist him. Even though she knew he would win, she would stay in the darkness for as long as she could. After all, she was now a child of the darkness, a creature that lived in the darkness and lived by its rules. She was a vampire.

Search Amazon.com for Dallas Releford

The Masked Artiste - Zill

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:25:27 PST

In 2003 there was a highly unusual occurrence that exclaimed the people of Mexico city, It happened (on the 23rd of February) in a dark, dark evening when there was a power cut throughout the whole city.

Along side the city, there was a little peaceful village with nothing much happening in it. Until that day.

Reports were coming in simultaneously. “The amounts of deaths are increasing rapidly”. But why? Some police officers went down with their fully loaded polished shotguns, whilst aiming their torches at the suspicious areas. The villagers were terrified as they hid in their basements watching the officers merge into the shadow of darkness from the small hole in the wall.

Mr Rodriguez was a small greedy man who really, only cares about himself but it isn’t all his fault because his parents brought him up with that sort of lifestyle. The short but sinister man lived with his family in one of the microscopic houses. He decided that he was going to hide in the basement. So he was hiding in the big old basement looking through his holed wall. It’s a bit obvious that Mr Rodriguez couldn’t see through the hole 2 feet above him so he had to step on the loose, rusty pipes which heated his bedroom. He thought that he shouldn’t let any of his 3 innocent kids have a working radiator in their room because he didn’t have one when he was a young bullied kid.

His first kid was called Sparrow – it is because his mother loved birds and the sparrow is her most desired one. Sparrow at that time was 19 and great in all areas of science. He was an “A star” student. He used to revise all day because he wanted to prove to his younger brothers that if you work hard in life then what you desired is what you will deserve.

The second boy was called James – that’s the name that the boys grandma recommended and its also his great grandfathers name; James’ grandfather was a lucky man. James at that time was at an age of 13. But unlike his brother; James was interested in joining the army. So even though Sparrow was bored of it he listened to his brother bragging on about how good he would use his weaponry if he had some or he’d just constantly keep talking about what weapon does what! He was also incredibly interested in Area 51.

The third kid was called Will – because the boy was outstandingly good looking. When the boy grew up he had a great interest in cars but especially in Barley Hayvidsons. At the age of 9 he knew the name of nearly all land vehicles that were mass produced. Like his brother James; Will never stopped informing his much older brother Sparrow about motorcycles and which ones are the best.

When Mr Rodriguez and his family were glaring outside they saw nothing but darkness, it was as if somebody had thrown a jet black cloth over the village. But finally Mr Rodriguez’s 3rd son spotted one of the police officers and so he shouted right in his mum’s hairy ear and pointed to the officer. Unfortunately for Will; he got a slap so hard that his mum could have slapped him into another nationality!

Boof! Something hit the ground heavy and hard so the family stared in a frightening shock! A few minutes went by but nothing happened. Then suddenly it looked as if the officer had been yanked into the darkness. There was silence all round. It was so tense that not even a breath could have been allowed to be inhaled. But the pain was too bad for the child to stay silent and so a cold tear drop fell to the stained floor. Splash! Mr Rodriguez turned around and at the precise moment he was turning round to strangle his child there was a fleshy tear sound that echoed from the park. Everywhere, everything, every building was black except the officer! He was scarlet red. And so was Mr Rodriguez’s face when he turned around. It was splattered. It was frightening. It was blood. The family gasped and screamed.

But Mr Rodriguez didn’t know what was wrong so from the fear of the looks on his children’s faces he fell of the pipes and they broke. They broke so easily that it was like bending a paper straw. But the steam started to leak, suddenly a gigantic screeching sound was recognized by the mother. It wasn’t physically possible to make such a loud sound. That couldn’t possibly be true because that means…

The non-human sound heard from the attic petrified Mr Rodriguez and his family so they slowly and lightly tiptoed towards the storage under the stairs and hid there. After about a minute of hiding, a big clash was heard and they thought it was as if someone fell down through the fibreglass heating to the second floor. In actual fact they were close, it wasn’t someone, it was something! Those thoughts scared the family into praying for help as they were quite a religious group. After the family started reading through the mum’s pocket bible, the mother herself started crying and Mr Rodriguez shut the book because it was just making her concentrate more about what could it be; or more importantly what’s going to happen to them and how. Dramatically some slushy, gooey steps sounds started to take place on the stairs coming down from the second floor to the first floor. So whatever it was, it was close. It was also getting closer and closer and closer until they were being very uncomfortably scared. James had to shift to the left because there was some sort of hot sizzling liquid pouring from the top of the old rotting cupboard. The next thing the family heard were creeks coming from the steps of the basement. What was it? The reverberation was coming closer and closer until… CREEK! The rusted hinge door of the compact cupboard opened in a corrupt fashion. But what was outside? Nothing could be seen. It was pitch black.

They all huddled together excluding the Sparrow because they couldn’t find him. Unsurprisingly Mr Rodriguez didn’t care about him because he would almost certainly be dead so he decides to care about the living rather than the dead. Swiftly, Mr Rodriguez got a touch on his larger shoulder and when he looked up with anxiety he…

A few years passed on and it was the year 2009 April the 18th, the mother of the sons and her two alive kids were in quite a doubt when they saw some sort of darkness forming outside of their double glazing windows right in front of their very own eyes. They hid in the basement with a radio to see if the war of the anonymous mercenaries would be over. When they hid in the cupboard they were hiding in the same cupboard as the last event, they were hoping that the things wouldn’t have memorized the area they hid in and so they wouldn’t take anymore of the family away! But when the things came down again then the phobia was in full swing. Desolately James disappeared in a blink. Once again, the mother was completely secure.

Then again a few more years flew by until 2020 November 18th, The Will son was coming home to check if his mother was in tip top condition but because he was in such a rush he collided into a motorbike on the motorway. His body had been run over several times before the police found him twisted and tangled in his own body parts. When the police department rang up the old mother she was devastated. Then she was about to faint but she stayed confident as she has learned to do so in the last two decades. Then what she saw or even more accurate: what she didn’t see next was an even more horrifying fact to add to her son’s death. Darkness. She couldn’t handle it any more so she gave herself up and walked eyes closed forward. Disappearing into the mist of darkness. Falling into the shadow of anxiety. FLASH! A huge bright light was shining from the west heading towards the old mother.

It was a young tall guy with a mask on. Driving down with his 1992 Barley Hayvidson motorcycle at full speed. He started slowing down when he was approaching the old lady. But he wasn’t going to stop. He picked her up with his big muscled left arm and physically threw her on to the back of his bike. The young fellow dropped by the local weapon store to buy a football sized black gas filled hedgehog grenade that he will be able to use on the things. He dropped the old lady off at the store and paid the store manager a wealthy fee to take care of her, and so he agreed. The young lad set off with his grenade and zoomed towards the darkness! He found it and went straight into it. One minute went by. He didn’t come out. But then, out of the blue he re-appeared with no grenade in his hand. He quickly told everybody he could see, to take cover. There was a gigantic explosion that took place. The darkness was decreasing. The war had finished!

He started to head back to the old mother. He walked up to her and she thanked him very much. Then the artiste of alienology took of his ski mask. It was Sparrow!

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Ghost of the Alps - Ashley Van Elswyk

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:23:33 PST

Carole Gosteli was on her way to her great-great grandfather’s cabin right beside the Alps, which was a dangerous place to live in her opinion. Think of all the avalanche danger! It was one of the oldest cabins in the town, built in 1743.It was always passed down from one Gosteli to the other, up until her father died. It had five rooms, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a parlor, and a newly added bathroom. But first she would have to get some food, unless she wanted to dine on thirty year old bread and cheese. She jokingly gagged at the thought.

She turned to the woman next to her on the road. “Excuse me ma’am, but do you know where the food store is?” Carole asked. “Of course I do!” the woman snapped “See the sign that says Supply Store? Head towards that!” “Thank you, I guess” mumbled Carole. At the supply store she got fresh food, enough to last her the 2 weeks she was here. Carole then got into her car and drove off to the old cabin.

She shivered when she got in. It was freezing! She flicked on the lights and turned on the heater. As Carole opened the cupboards to put away the groceries, a group of rats jumped out and ran off. She made a mental note to set up traps later on. Carole quickly finished putting away the food and her things.

She went into the parlor to sit down, and get the fire going, when she noticed a bookcase filled with her family’s diaries. She decided to read a bit of her great-great grandfather’s diary. So Carole scanned the shelves and found a diary labeled “Markus Gosteli”. She opened it at the very back. It was a habit of hers, to see what happens at the end of a book. She found his last entry.

December 16, 1853, Swiss Alps: “I have not been able to write for a few days now I have been so busy, but I will write down what happened as best as I can. As you know, my wife, Aurelie, has been mad for quite some time, and has recently been murdering all our family members that visit us. Well, last night, Aurelie got up, grabbed a knife, lantern, and gun, and walked out the door in only her white nightgown. Afraid that she would harm some one, I called after her, but then I saw she was not heading for the village, but for the mountains. I grabbed my warmest coat and boots, and hers to, and ran after her, but by then she was at the top of one of the lowest cliffs on the mountain, still a good 30 meters high. Suddenly, I heard a gunshot and she fell. As I raced to my dear Aurelie, I already knew she was dead. She had committed suicide. But tonight I saw a white, bloodstained figure in the storms…”

There it stopped. Carole was glad of that to, for it had been a frightening entry. She decided that a good night’s sleep would be best for her. Carole changed, washed, and climbed into bed, but she could not get the last part of the entry out of her head.

“Get a hold of yourself Carole, it’s not real. It was probably just the snow blowing in the wind he saw, and he probably imagined the stains” she scolded herself.

“Though,” she thought “It’s strange that he saw a figure that night, then died three days later. I guess it must have been the shock of his own imagining and the grief that killed him. Poor guy.”

So she went to the window to see the view, and to convince herself that there was nothing to be scared of, when suddenly she saw a lantern light, held by a white figure, coming towards her cabin. Confused, Carole shook her head and looked again. It was still heading towards her cabin. Carole was very frightened, and for a moment, she thought it was the ghost, but then she decided it was someone from the village. But as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared.

Carole ran to the front door and locked it, along with the back door, cellar door, and all the windows. Then she dove back into bed and had a restless night.

The next night she was jumpier than usual, as she brushed her teeth and got ready for bed. She locked all the doors and the windows again, and the shutters. She tried to convince herself that it was because there were a lot of people that she didn’t know, and even if there was nothing here, she didn’t want to be robbed. “Or killed” she thought a moment later.

As she was drawing the curtains of her bedroom window she saw the figure in white again she froze immediately, paralyzed with a strange sense off fear. The figure started to walk towards the cabin, very slowly, making the suspense unbearable, like in a horror movie.

“It’s just my imagination…just my imagination…it’s not real…not real…not real…” Carole whispered frantically, trying to calm down and see the logic of this. But she still couldn’t move, as if she had been drugged, for the figure had her under its terrifying spell.

As it got closer, she saw a large bloodstain, as though it were painted on the figures chest. Unwillingly, as if she were a puppet, Carole felt herself being pulled closer to the window, just as the figure rushed up to it. She could now clearly see its face, and it terrified her to the highest degree. She could see the bloodshot, wild eyes, the stringy black hair blowing in the howling winds, the too thin body, in the too large nightgown, and most clearly, the dagger in one boney hand, and an old-fashioned gun in the other.

The woman lifted her ghostly head up to the sky, and started to scream. It was soul piercing, it felt like it had almost shattered Caroles head into a million pieces. Thankfully all it did was break the spell she was under, and immediately fell to the ground, trying to cover her ears with anything she could find. Her hands, her robe, her pillows, and thick wool blankets, all they seemed to do was make the shrieks louder. She looked up to the window, saw the figure look down upon her and laugh at her pain, then disappear.

The screaming stopped, and silence was heavy in the air. All Carole could hear was her frantic panting breathe. It was a miracle she could hear at all! “Dear god…oh dear god…I’m alive…I’m alive…” she whispered to herself, still in shock. So old Markus was right, the ghost did exist, and it was her own great-great grandmother.

She suddenly remembered the diary entry date, and what she thought that night. “If he died two nights after he saw the ghost the first night, that means he saw her three times, and the third night he saw her he…wait, I saw the ghost that night and this night, so that means, tomorrow will be the third night…I’ve got to get out of here as soon as possible!”

The next morning saw her on the earliest flight back to Canada, where she reunited with her mother and fiancé. She never told them why she came back early, and locked all the doors and windows at night.

A year later, she and her new husband had their first child. Twenty-five years later, that child had a baby girl named Erika, who would eventually, return to a certain cabin in the Alps…

December 16, 2004 Swiss Alps, Switzerland

Erika Martin was on her way to her Grandma Caroles homeland, Switzerland, for her birthday trip. Having just turned twenty-five, she wanted to get away from it all.

She also found out from her mom, that they had an old family cabin that now belonged to her. She was fascinated, and decided, instead of wasting money on an expensive hotel; why not stay at the old cabin? It was historic, interesting, right on the edge of the Alps, and would also save her some money.

She got to the old cabin, at around 5:00 pm. She unpacked her stuff, and took a look around. It was very duty, but with a good cleaning, it would be good as new!

As she went into the living room (or that’s what it seemed to be) she saw an open book on the table. she knew her grandma had stayed here once, and assumed that she had forgotten to put it away when she left. “That’s a strange looking book…oh! It’s a diary!” she exclaimed. She read the open page, with immense curiosity.

“Strange old man…poor guy was hallucinating, or he wouldn’t have seen this. Sad though, ‘bout what happened to his wife” Erika said to herself.

She then looked at her watch, and decided it was time to hit the sack. As she was about to get into the bed, she decided that she wanted the curtains closed.

But when she was at the window, she saw a strange, white figure in the storm, coming towards the cabin…

Time Killing - Mikey Pugs

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:20:10 PST

It was a dim and dismal day in the eastern mountain region of Pennsylvania. All alone and out in a rural area lived a man, he was a middle aged man with lots of time on his hands, a loner, so he began to think. Was his thinking normal, or was his thinking psychotic?

The man was Laze, and as the sun set for the evening he headed up the mountain towards town. While driving he began to chew on the inside of his cheek. He had a taste for blood, and he also loved to watch himself bleed. He would often cut himself open with his pocket knife and watch himself bleed. Time can be really hard on some people, and Laze was no exception.

On his way down the main drag in town he looked around. He drove over to the skate park where the local children would play. It was mainly young men skating, and the girls would watch as they spoke on their cell phones to friends and family.

This night would be different for Laze then any other night. You see Laze was tired of watching himself bleed so he had a plan. Was his plan murder, or was it humane? Well it first turned out that Laze was just looking for a friend to talk to. Someone he could share his day with and talk about life. When you go on like Laze and have no one to speak with from day to day you grow lonely like a hermit, and you become recluse. This night would turn out to be a night that Laze and the rest of the community would never ever forget!

Laze was parked near the skate park, and he began to watch the young boys skate in the park. They were doing tricks and jumping off the wooden ramps and Laze went into a zoned out state of mind. His blood pressure began to rise and his forehead grew moist with fresh sweat. He thought for a bit and then opened his jeep door and slammed it shut causing the teenagers to look his way!

One of the kids began to speak with another about Laze, he pointed out that this strange and bearded looking dirty man was watching them. Laze started up his jeep and left to drive around the corner and think about what he wanted to do? As he drove around the block he stopped at the near by stop sign and again zoned out only to be brought to by the sound of a horn honking from the police cruiser behind him. He suddenly put on his signal and began to turn right and he watched his mirror as the police cruiser turned left going in the opposite direction. As Laze neared the skate park again he stopped to clean off his passengers side seat. Was he making room for a passenger, or was there private documents on the seat he didn't want anyone to see as they neared his vehicle?

He began to drive up to the skaters as they happened to be leaving the park. As he drove up he then stopped and said to the one young teenage girl, "Excuse me young lady, aren't you Fester's daughter?"

The girl named Ann replied, "Yes I am, but who are you?"

Laze began to tell Ann that he was good friends with her father and knew him all his life! He also said that her father had an emergency and that the reason for him staring earlier at her and her friends was because he was supposed to come and pick her up.

Ann was surprised. "Well, ah, okay... I guess that would be alright being that I have so far to walk."

Laze smiled and said, "No problem, that is why your father asked me to come and take you home!"

So Ann said good bye to her friend's and then walked over and hopped into Lazes' old Jeep Cherokee.

They began to drive, and the radio was on low pumping out old fashioned blue grass music.

Once Laze began to approach Ann's house she said, "It's right up here then!"

Laze again began to zone out as he drove, driving right passed Ann's house and he was brought back to reality by her yelling, "Hey, I thought you knew where we were going? You just drove right past our house!"

Laze said to Ann, "Well I have to go by my place first to get some money I promised your mother." He then extended his hand to Ann. "Oh, by the way, the name is Laze."

Ann kind of scared extended her sweaty palm and said, "Nice to meet you, lets just hurry up so that I can get home."

Laze smiled and shook her hand and began the trip up the mountain.

As they left town Ann began to think to herself that she never seen Laze around and never heard of her parent's talking about him or his family. She started to get worried as they left the small town of Creamville and headed up the dark and dreary mountain further and further into the woods. When they finally reached the top of the mountain Laze turned left and then pulled off the road.

Ann asked him, "What are you doing now?"

He replied, "I am just getting out to pee quick and then putting a chew in, and then we will be down to my place and back in town before you know it."

Ann relaxed then, just sitting there staring out the side window looking into the dark and creepy woods where only a few years ago she remembered 3 girls from the next town over were murdered.

After a short while Laze jumped back in and then spit one last time out his door and then he slammed it shut.

Ann noticed a white and dirty rope sticking out of Laze's pocket. She said nothing as the old jeep began to creep back on the road and travel down the mountain. They approached Laze house and he stopped to check his mail box. He then pulled up around the back of the house and the only light was an old arc light.

Ann noticed a barn type building with no doors and no light inside! She asked Laze, "Do you have horses or any other animals?"

Laze said, "Just an old dog named Dusty, but he lives in the house with me."

The jeep then came to a stop, the old engine sputtered as it came to a halt. Then Laze opened his creaky door and began to cough as he got out.

Ann mentioned, "It's very dark out here and getting cold, and my mother will be worried, and I hope my dad is okay!"

Laze ignored her as he slammed his door and walked around the back of the old jeep.

Just as he got to the passengers side door he stopped as a car drove by and honked the horn. Laze mumbled to himself in disgust as he was a loner and kept to himself. He also realized that even though his house sat back off the road, the neighbors could see him at night when he was under the arc light. Laze took out his chew and began to spit and cough. Then pulled the rope from his pocket and opened up the passengers side door.

Ann got very scared, but she just looked into Laze's evil looking eyes and said nothing.

He asked her to get out, and explained the rope was to walk Dusty around the property.

She then breathed a sigh of relief.

As they approached the porch Laze all of a sudden snapped, it was like a piece of his brain popped! He grabbed Ann and covered her mouth as he began to tie her up!

Ann screamed but it did no good, and she shook and tried to free herself but Laze was too strong. He tied her hands behind her back and then threw her on the ground and began to tie up her feet.

He laughed out loud in a horrible and psychotic manner. He also told Ann if she made one sound he would cut her head off, and he then pulled out his pocket knife. He stopped in thought, he wasn't sure what to do next, even though he thought of this day for years and years he never thought he would have what it took to carry this out.

There was an old rag in his pants that he took out and shoved in Ann's mouth. She began to cry, and then Laze got up and grabbed her by her long blond hair and pulled her towards the barn! She kicked and screamed but it did no good. The years that Laze spent underground working in the near by coal mines made him strong.

As they approached the barn Laze grunted as he struggled to find the trap door that was an old fall out shelter in case anything happened. Laze was prepared for the worst, his schizophrenic personality drove him to do many things that a normal sane person would consider odd.

Then he found the door and pulled it up. Ann noticed in shear terror the stench coming from the hole. As Laze picked her up by her hair again and threw her down in the hole she went through several cob webs and then hit the cold dirt ground hard! Laze walked down the wooden planks drawing the door closed as he approached the bottom. Then he reached around and pulled a string which turned on a little old dim light.

Ann began to tremble as the light spread she noticed some big rats! Also she noticed what she thought was causing the stench, a dead deer with a hole in its side that the rats had been chewing on. She screamed in pure terror, nothing came out, except laughter in the background coming from Laze. He got up and walked over to the corner and came back with an ax! Ann curled up and prepared for the worst, thoughts were racing through her head of her parents, and her friends, also why she had gotten in the old jeep in the first place. None of this mattered now, Laze had her alone and he was going to release years of depression and anger on Ann.

Showing no mercy, Laze raised his hands above his head with the ax shining off the dim light. Ann began to move her eyes all around the room in terror, and she noticed the rats eating the deer from the inside out. Thoughts were racing very fast, she wondered if the rats would be eating her soon, or if Laze would change his mind as he held the ax above his head in a crazed psychotic laughter!

Then without warning Laze began to scream aloud, "Ahhh, you dirty little whore, I am going to make you suffer like I have suffered after all these years! your father is fine, but that bastard fired me years ago, and now you are going to pay for what he did to me!"

It turns out that Ann's father Bill was Lazes' supervisor in the old meat packing plant in town. After years in the mines Laze began to have trouble breathing from all the coal dirt, so he took a job cleaning up at the local meat packing plant.

Ann was totally defenseless as she screamed in terror, nothing was coming out though because of the rag in her mouth. Without any second thoughts, Laze swung the ax and chopped off Ann's foot! The blood began to flow as Ann passed out. Laze went to a knee and then reached down and began to touch the blood. He smelled it and thought of the days spent alone, cutting himself, the pain, the anger, and everything else. He then tasted Ann's blood, and again repeated this.

Ann suddenly awoke and was breathing very heavily. What she didn't know is that her foot was totally chopped off. The rats then came towards her foot, they began to chew and squeal. Fighting over the foot, Laze groaned at them and began to swing the ax at them as Ann watched in pain and terror. He then raised the ax again and suddenly he heard a noise out side.

He quickly turned off the light and whispered to Ann, "If you make one sound I will chop off your head."

She remained silent, but in pain and was bleeding profusely.

The lights coming up the drive way began to shine towards the barn, and then they went out. Laze slowly climbed up the old splintered wooden planks and slowly open the old trap door. What he seen would shock him.

It was Ann's father Bill, it turns out one of her friends called Ann's house looking for her and when her mother Andrea told her friend she wasn't home the friend noted that she had gotten in an old rusty colored jeep with a middle aged bearded man. Ann's mother knew right away it was the crazed psychotic Laze that her husband fired years ago and spoke of from time to time. She then ran into the living room and told Bill, and he immediately grabbed his car keys and headed out of town for Lazes' house! He knew the talk around town of Laze, and he was very worried.

Just as he began to get out of the car Laze quietly closed the trap door and slid an old cement block on it, and then he walked in the dark towards Bill.

Bill heard a noise and spotted Laze coming out of the barn. He said, "Hey, where the hell is my daughter, tell me now or I am calling the police!"

Laze laughed and said, "Go ahead you son of a bitch, try to call them!"

Laze knew that there was no cell phone service over the mountain on his property. As he approached Ann's father her father noticed blood on his hands and pants. He then turned and started to rush to get back into the car as Laze grabbed him from behind and threw him to the ground.

Then out of no where came screams, "Help, I am down here, help me please!" Ann had apparently gotten the old greasy rag out of her mouth and once again she could be heard!

The two men began to fight, Laze punched Bill in the face repeatedly knocking out his teeth! The blood began to run from Bill's mouth, and again seeing the blood Laze zoned out.

This was Bill's chance, he noticed Laze was not all together with reality. Bill kicked Laze in the groin area and right away Laze fell to the ground and moaned. Bill tried to get up but the repeated blows to the head caused him to become dizzy and very sick. As he went to get up Laze having the super human psychotic strength he did, punched Bill in the head, and then the throat.

Bill began to gasp for air, then Laze reached into his dirty and bloody pants pocket and pulled out his pocket knife. He opened it up and raised it in the air and then stabbed Bill in the chest area! Bill began to scream in terror, his life flashed before him, he noticed the dark moonless sky, he noticed Lazes' psychotic facial expression, and then he noticed a foul odor. Laze stabbed him again in the stomach, Bill began to bleed profusely!

Looking down on Bill then Laze stuck his finger's in Bill's open stomach wound and began to taste his blood.

Bill thought for sure it was the end, he would never see his wife again, his friends, family, and then he suddenly thought of Ann.

As Laze continued to watch Bill bleed and taste his blood he felt a real sharp pain in his back. Bill had already passed out in pain, losing blood profusely! Laze began to feel light headed and he noticed the pain coming from his back was an ax wound.

In the scuffle Ann managed to free herself and grabbed the old bloody ax and hobbled up the old wooden planks in a fight for her life. Just as she reached the top she pushed and knew something was weighing the door down. As she pushed, the old trap door would open only a few inches and then go closed on her. She placed the ax between the open trap door and the barn floor and used it to pry the door open. She then crept towards the noise behind the car noting it was her father's car under the dim arc light.

Ann approached a zoned out Laze and then lifted the ax in terror with all her strength and slammed it down into the middle of Lazes' back! The blow was enough to knock the wind out of his old dusty coal filled lungs. He gasped for air, and then he fell onto Bill who then awoke.

Ann went over to her father, she was bleeding very badly as her foot was missing. She noted to herself how badly her father was bleeding from the head and chest areas.

Her father said, "Help me get this maniac off me sweetie so we can go for help!"

Ann then pulled with all her might and her father pushed in pain as Laze turned over on his side, the ax stopping him from rolling over completely. She helped her father up as they tried to make for the car which was near by.

As they approached the driver's side door Ann asked her father if he was well enough to drive?

Bill replied, "Just get me in the car so we can get the hell out of here, quickly Ann!"

Just as Ann reached for her father's arm to push him in the car, she was suddenly ripped backwards.

Laze was once again showing his anger and disgust for Bill, all those years of sitting in his house, cutting himself because he was an outcast. The psychotic episode gave him incredible strength. Ann hit the ground hard and was almost knocked unconscious.

He grabbed Bill and yanked him out of the car! He then jumped on Bill and stuck his finger's in Bill's stomach, then he began to push and stuck his whole fist in Bill's stomach. He reached deep in anger and madness and pulled out Bill's insides. Bill slowly passed out and his life began to slip away.

Laze got up with the ax still in his back and picked up Ann by the throat. She tried to scream again, but seeing her father lying on the ground now dead her strength faded. In Ann's mind she was going to die for sure, she just wanted it to be quick. Laze pulled her by the neck, her leg bleeding from the missing foot and now the dirt began to stick to her open wound, she passed out.

When Ann finally awoke there was light coming through the crack in the trap door. She immediately knew she was once again in the hole beneath the barn floor. As she looked down one of the rats was chewing on her leg, she stared, it was painless for Ann now. She was obviously in shock, her wounded leg numb, her life ripped away, trapped in the dark dirty hole.

Then out of no where she heard footsteps in the barn, and then she heard a sound that she had not forgotten, and would never forget the rest of her life; A cough, and then, psychotic laughter!

Ann began to scream in shear terror, and then she too began to laugh hysterically as she went insane.

At last finally a lonely, psychotic, recluse had something to do with his time.

Imaginary Friends - Yolanda Jackson

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:18:20 PST

Chapter One

Everyone had or has imaginary friends; what do yours tell you to do? Well, I’ll tell you about my friends. Back in the 1980's, I was living the worthless life of an abused child, one that society doesn’t care about. I was what they called poor white trash; my father was nowhere around and my mother was a whore and drug addict. Every night she would bring different men into the house, hoping to score enough money for a hit, and most of the time she would sell me to them. I was raped, beaten and molested, but she didn’t care; my innocence was making her rich. Instead of the men asking for her, they’d asked for me. Yes, I tried to fight back, but the men were too strong for me. I called out for my mother, but she ignored my pleas; she sat in the room and smoked her cocaine as the men had their way with me. She never came to check on me; she didn’t know if I was alive or dead before she set up another john. I begged her not to sell me anymore, but she didn’t care, that cocaine was more important to her than I was.

While the men were having their way with me; I began to blackout and go into a world that I called my own. I had to step out of reality in order to keep the little bit of life I had left in me. When my mother saw that selling me was a great idea, the best thing that had ever happened to her, she continued to do it more and more. I tried to run away, but was always caught. My mother began to lock me in the old cellar; it was damp and creepy, there was no light, no windows and every day was the same as night. I was afraid, I began to scream; the dark frightened me so terribly that I would wet my pants. No matter how often I wanted to stop from going to the bathroom on myself, I couldn’t. The fear was so deep; I could feel it in my bones. I begged my mother that I would do whatever she wanted, that I would be a good girl, but she never answered me; she left me in the basement for days, weeks, months.

The men would come down with a kerosene lamp and do their business with me. I got so sick of the abuse and the rapes that I began to talk to myself. I was trying to convince myself that it would be okay, that one day my mother would love me and make everything all right, but that day never came. I waited patiently; I closed my eyes and prayed for a miracle, and yet the miracle never came, it was always ‘in the works’.

I sat in the corner of the dark, damp cold cellar, crying my eyes out, wanting to be set free, wanting to be back upstairs with my mother. I was so afraid that I began to make up imaginary friends, a group of people that would love and protect me, a group of friends that would never let anything happen to me. As I sat there, the first friend I created was Johnny. He was a white guy with really blonde hair; dressed like a cowboy and always toted a gun in each of his holsters. Johnny was a cool cat that always told jokes, very sarcastic ones, and smoked the hell out of some cigarettes; he loved Marlboros. Even though it was dark, I could still see the creation of my friend in my mind, and I would stare into his blue eyes, like a damsel in distress, and hope that Johnny would save me.

Then my little fantasy would be over, and I’d come back to reality. But, when the memories of the rapes and abuse got to be too much for me to handle, I’d make Johnny appear in my mind to help me, and then he’d disappear. Until one day, or night, I never could tell because I was locked in the fucking cold dark cellar, sitting there fully awake, I began to smell cigarette smoke! At first I thought I was still in my fantasy world, but I wasn’t; I remembered waking myself from my fantasy. Then I got scared; could Johnny really be alive? Could I have the power to raise my thoughts from the dead? Could my fantasy come to life?

Well, it did! While sitting in the corner, I could feel the soft clouds of smoke grace my face, and from a distance I could see a red light in the background. I was afraid and began to move around in the dark, trying to make my imaginary friend go away. I covered my eyes with my hands; when suddenly I felt a soft touch pull my hair. I was so afraid to turn around; I kept my eyes closed and counted to ten, hoping that whatever I had created would go away. But it didn’t; it came closer and closer, until I was forced to open my eyes.

I screamed as I saw this figment of my imagination come to life. I screamed and screamed, but no one could hear me; there was a party going on upstairs and the music was too loud. I screamed so much that I lost my voice, and Johnny just stood in the corner, smoking his cigarettes, laughing at me.

"Dude, chill out," he said.

But, I was in a state of shock; I had just been fucking scared shitless because my imagination had come to life, and this shit was scary. It took hours for me to calm down, but when I did, Johnny was still standing in the corner, only this time he was playing with his gun, twirling and spinning it around his fingers like a toy. He glowed in the dark and I got a better look at his face; he was perfect, just like I had created him, but his blue eyes glowed a faint red and that was disturbing. Nevertheless, I was happy to know that I had a friend to be with me and chase out the bad guys. Johnny pulled out a deck of old cards, I could tell that they had been used before, from the wear on the back of the cards, and in the light of his glow, we played go fish and memory match.

Johnny always let me win; he was the perfect man, he was the father I could only dream of having. He was also a great storyteller; he told me of back in the old days how he used to rob banks and could outrun the sheriff of the town, and of days spent sleeping on the open range and getting run off the land by the owners. These stories, to me, were very comforting and relaxing. For the first time in months, I was able to fall off asleep without a care in the world; for the first time I was not afraid to sleep alone, the cellar never frightened me anymore. Johnny was here to save me and protect me from all the evil men that had hurt me.

I could see him pacing the floor at night, he was talking with someone, but I couldn’t see who that was. I didn’t care, I was happy to have peace of mind and my own bodyguard, but I was concerned that Johnny was talking to someone or something, and whatever it was, it was a heated conversation. All I could see were Johnny’s lips moving and he kept looking back over his shoulder at me. I overlooked his mischievous ways and began to drift off to sleep, for the first time in a long time I could close my eyes without the fear of finding a strange man on top of me. With Johnny there, I was completely safe, nothing could hurt me ever again. Johnny was my hero, he was always there, but seemed occupied, as if something else required his attention. But, I didn’t mind, as long as I got peace and quiet.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming down the cellar stairs. A voice shouted out, "You little bitch, where are you? Come and play with daddy."

I quickly ran behind Johnny to protect me and he didn’t let me down.

Out of the darkness, Johnny approached the john and said, "Now, that's no way to treat a young lady."

For a minute, I didn’t think that the two would be able to see each other; after all, Johnny was just my imagination. But, something strange happened, they could both see each other, and the john became very afraid.

"Who the hell are you? I paid for her first," shouted the john at Johnny.

"Well, I’m her new best friend; and your worst nightmare," said Johnny.

The john pushed Johnny out of the way and headed toward me, groping my chest and private parts. Out of the blue, Johnny began to shoot his gun at the john over and over again; it seemed like Johnny was never going to stop. Finally, I went over and prevented him from putting another bullet in the john. At first, I was a little terrified, but it served that john right; I was young enough to be his daughter and he was paying my mother to sell me to him. From the glow off of Johnny, I could see the blood splatters all over the cellar walls, I could see the guy’s head full of bullet holes and his eyes rolled back and facing the heavens.

For once in my life, I felt so powerful and unafraid. Johnny loved it too, he began to kiss and caress his gun; then he took his old handkerchief and wiped the bloodstains off. Johnny wanted to do it again, he wanted to kill, he loved the idea of killing. I told him that we had to get to the top of the stairs and escape, but he seemed reluctant to go up there. I let him know that it would be all right; then he confided in me that when grown ups are around; kids tend to forget about their imaginary friends.

I said, "Oh no, not me I’d never forget about you, I love you!"

Johnny just smiled, giving me a soft peck on the cheek and held my hands; his eyes began to turn red again, and although it frightened me, I pretended it didn’t exist because I wanted him around, the first man in my life that never wanted anything from me. Johnny was the perfect gentleman and I was willing to overlook his faults. My gut was telling me that something was wrong, but for whatever reason, I ignored my gut feeling and began to enjoy the pleasure of revenge.

Before we went upstairs, Johnny told me that we had to get at least four more friends. He let me know that I had the power to conjure up anything I wanted, and in order for me to be totally safe I had to kill all of those evil people upstairs, and all throughout the world. At first it didn’t sound right, especially when his eyes began to glow red again. When Johnny saw me thinking too hard, he reminded me how he had protected me, and how, if I had many more imaginary friends, I could be protected for life. The offer sounded good, and I jumped on board; besides, what could go wrong with just a few more imaginary friends? Not only would I be safe, but I could help other abused children that were in the same situation. So, for about an hour, I conjured up images of the perfect friends that I’d want to save and protect me.

First, I closed my eyes and said, "Samson, come forward."

And, he did. I could hear his huge footsteps in the background. I slowly opened my eyes, and saw my imagination come to live. Samson was a huge black gorilla, at least nine feet tall and over a ton. He had the biggest brown eyes, and his coat was so soft; I just ran up and hugged him tightly. At first, he didn’t move or make any loving motions toward me, but then Johnny spoke up.

"Yo, Samson, you big ape, give the little girl a hug."

Suddenly Samson warmed up and hugged me with his huge paw-like hands. That was the softest coat I had ever felt. But, as I was excited to meet another one of my imaginary friends, Johnny was pushing me to make more.

He kept on telling me, "We need at least two more."

So, then I conjured up Emily. She was very spooky, her skin was a pale ashen color, and she looked as if she’d been dead for years! She was really skinny and limber, the same age as I was, but she was a little shy; her long black hair covered one side of her face. I finally built up enough nerve to approach her.

I called out, "Emily!"

She just stood there like a zombie, slowly moving in an awkward fashion. Her legs and arms looked as if they were broken, but that was just the way she moved and walked; like an animal on all fours. Finally, when I called to her again, she answered with saliva coming out of her mouth. I went over and hugged her, but I could feel the evil coming from inside her. Something just wasn’t right, but I wanted to be free so bad that I once again overlooked all of the common sense that Jesus had given me.

And, last but not least, I created an old man named Walter. I liked to call him Sir Walter; he was nicely dressed, always in a white tux, and with dark shades on. He was at least seventy years old and carried an old wooden cane. I loved Walter’s silver hair and I made him to help me keep the others in line. But, what was disturbing about Walter was that he had no eyes, and worms lived in the socket. These worms were Walter’s friend; he wouldn’t let me take them out, he loved those worms like pets.

Once I had all of my friends together in one room, they began to whisper to each other, as if they had known one another for years. I told them to stop it; I didn’t like being left out. They all apologized in sneaky voices, but I was just glad that they had; for once someone said that they were sorry for something they’d done to me. Now it was time to take revenge on my mother and all of her friends. We walked up the cellar steps like a big bad gang.

After Samson tore down the locked door, for the first time in my life, I had all the confidence I needed. Once I made it to the top, I could hear the loud music, and I could smell the drugs in the air. Anyone who wasn’t having sex was snorting cocaine.

"Lil girl, go back in your cave," shouted one of my mother's friends.

I became very angry and told Emily to scare the daylights out of her. I watched as Emily crawled on top of her. As the girl began to scream, Emily put her entire hand down the girl’s throat and ripped out her vocal cords. Blood went everywhere. The music was so loud that no one could hear her. Even though it was a bit gross, I loved it. I began to enjoy someone else’s pain, the same way they had enjoyed mine.

Now it was payback time. I ordered Samson to go through the house and smash anything he wanted, kill as many as he saw fit. He was happy; a big smile came over his face. He began to pound his chest and bellowed with a loud roar, I had to cover my ears because it was so loud. Off Samson went, smashing everything in the house, putting huge holes in the walls. I could hear the people screaming and falling over each other, most of them thought they had a buzz from the cocaine, but little did they know that it was real. Many of them began to run, but Samson threw them against the walls like rag dolls. I could see people flying through the air; everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I was guarded by my four friends, I was untouchable.

Samson went through the house like a whirlwind, ripping electric cords out of sockets, tearing down ceiling fans, and knocking over television sets. No one was safe in the house, and that was the way I liked it; because I was never safe in my own home, no one else should be either. I saw Samson pick up one man and break him in two, his body’s top half went one way and the bottom the other. I watched as Samson pulled out his spine and threw it against the wall.

Then, as one man tried to escape, Walter tripped him with his cane so Samson could catch him. The more the people screamed, the more pleasure I got from watching their deaths. For the first time in my life, I was in control; no one would be able to hurt me again. While Samson was destroying the house, and Emily scared people, I sent Johnny to execute as many people as he wanted. His eyes lit up, and before I could say go, Johnny was gone. I could hear the gunshots in the air, the sounds of dead bodies plunging to the floor and the wicked laugh of Johnny. I didn’t care; I wanted to let him have all the fun he wanted.

Walter stayed constantly by my side, nagging me about how we had to clean up and get rid of the bodies. He was more the mother hen, making sure we all did what we were suppose to. Blood was everywhere; one wall looked as if someone had painted it red from all of the blood splatters. Then, as Walter was giving me my chore list, I heard my mother's voice, she was begging for her life. She was in the kitchen on her knees asking Johnny to forgive her, begging and pleading for her worthless life. She turned and looked at me, as if I was supposed to help her; after all she had done to me, she wanted me to save her.

"You have to be kidding," I said.

But she continued to beg. I then had the brightest idea; I called for Samson to come into the kitchen. When he showed up, I told him to make a hole in the wall and stick my mother in it. Johnny tied her hands and legs, and then I called Emily to tear out her voice. Emily came quickly, stuffed her hand into my mother's throat and ripped out her vocal cords. I could see my mother tremble as she held onto her throat, blood beginning to fill her airways, and I watched her slowly die, but that was not the end to her torture. I had the walls of the house sealed up.

All through the night, the five of us placed the dead bodies in the walls, and to make sure they didn’t stink, we wrapped them in sheets with sweet smelling incense. For two days, we cleaned the house and hid the bodies in the walls, until the house was like new. There were no signs of there ever being any killings or even someone living there. I was very proud of what I had done, the world was now a safer place with my mother and her friends gone, but there was lots more to do; there were many more children like me to saved.

I felt like an agent of revenge, making all the wrongs right. Not one day went by that I was regretful, I wasn’t sorry that my mother was dead, she deserved everything she got. She left me to suffer at the hands of her friends, now I hoped she was in hell suffering too. As days and weeks went by, I was having a blast with my imaginary friends. Walter would cook and Samson would eat most of the food. We sat at the table like a family; I even took them outside to play. Johnny loved the rural outdoors; he said it reminded him of his old west days.

I’d play with my friends, and children would laugh and call me a freak as they passed by; it seemed no one could see my friends but me. The children would run away from me or walk on the other side of the street. I didn’t care, I loved the world I was in; somehow my mind didn’t conform to reality, I was always in a dream. One day, the children were coming home from school and Samson and I were playing in the front yard.

One kid yelled out, "You fucking freak!"

Something inside of me just snapped. I told Samson to go and get that kid. He wasted no time charging after the kid like a wild animal. Finally, I could see the fear on the kid's face; the boy turned pure white. I laughed hysterically, I couldn’t stop; it seemed so funny to me, even when Samson bit off his head with one chop. Blood spurted everywhere, and because we were in a rural town, there was no one around. I watched as Samson swallowed the boy's head and then regurgitate it back up, that was so cool to me. The boy's body kept walking on its own, and I let it walk for hours in the back yard. As the blood drained from the neck we even played ring around the neck to see who could get three of their rings around it as the body walked without a head. Of course, Johnny won, followed by Emily. We had a blast, until there was a knock on the door. Samson grabbed the child and placed his body in the cellar and put its head in the outdoor septic tank.

I let Walter answer the door, because he was the only one suitable, most of us had blood all over our clothes and hands. At the door stood the sheriff; he asked questions about a missing boy. Walter played it smooth, he denied everything, he’d never seen a child, and told the officer that no children stopped at this house because of his sick daughter, that every child in the area was afraid of her.

The officer agreed and said, "How true you are."

Walter gave him a fake smile and the officer went on his way; he was one of those dumb officers that never paid attention to his surroundings. Because, if he had, he would have noticed the bloody handprints on the side of the house where he was standing, less than a foot away from him. I began to laugh, law enforcement was a joke, and we could go on killing for years without anyone ever noticing anything. As the police officer pulled away, I suddenly saw him stop the car, as if he was going to turn around. I began to get a little worried; then he got out of the car to shut the trunk, he had accidentally left it open and it was flapping in the wind.

I smiled and said to myself, What a stupid cop. Then I went on my way, cleaning the blood from the side of the house, and then retrieved the boy's body from the cellar.

Suddenly, Johnny said, "What is your name, and what shall we call you?"

For a second, I paused and realized that my mother never took the time to teach me my name; I was always called "hey you", "asshole" or "bitch". I had no answer for Johnny. I was so sad to realize that I didn’t have a name. I quickly ran into my mother's bedroom and began to search for anything about who I was, where I was born, or who I really belonged to. I found nothing, not even a baby picture, no diaries; nothing related to my birth, until I went to the back of her closet and pulled out a yellow envelope. On it was written "my worst nightmare". I opened it, and inside were pictures all tore up into tiny little pieces, with a note saying that she’d never wanted me, she wanted to kill me, but her heart wouldn’t let her do it. So, to take revenge on her heart, she’d abuse me until the pain she felt from being raped by her father was gone.

My mother was raped by her own father and I was the product of that! I guessed that's what led her to prostitution and drugs. The letter went on to say that she tried many times to kill me, whether it was holding my head underwater or kicking me down the stairs when I was younger, but for some reason I wouldn’t die. I was like a black omen to my mother; she hated every fiber of my being. One thing she mentioned that was strange was that every time she tried to kill me, a bright white light would appear. I asked Walter what that meant, and he told me it was them trying to protect me. They needed me alive so they could stay alive. He said that every abused or neglected child was so badly damaged mentally that they formed imaginary friends like him, Johnny, Emily and Samson. Without an abused child, or a mentally disturbed person, they would also die. Well, I promised Walter that I wouldn’t let them die, I would never leave them.

Emily crawled on the bed next to me. "How about we name you baby doll?"

"I like it," I said to Emily.

She smiled and crawled back off of the bed. I ran to the stove and burned all of my mother's papers; I was upset and angry that she hadn’t cared enough for me to even take the time to give me a name. But, who cared, I had my imaginary friends and that’s all that mattered. I was something to them, and they were something to me. Then Johnny came into the kitchen with excitement on his face, even as I finished burning the letters.

"Men are at the door with a few women, and they are calling out for your mother."

I quickly ran to the window and took a peak; they were nothing more than my mother's crack friends and her johns. I told Walter to get the door, and then move so that they couldn’t see him. He did so and then vanished through the walls. I could still see his outline; I knew that he was there watching and protecting me. My mother's crack friends came in, they smelled like booze and their clothing was filthy; all of them gave off a terrible odor. They came in, stumbling and making themselves at home.

"Where’s that sweet young thing of yours?" shouted one of the johns.

He was talking about me. I had watched as this man raped me over and over, while my mother stood and watched. I told Emily to go and scare the shit out of him. She crawled toward him with her cripple-like body. I watched as she caressed his penis. He loved it; he never looked down to see who was doing it.

"You like that, baby?" said Emily.

"Oh, yes I do!" said the john.

When he finally looked down, he saw Emily's ghost-like appearance and he began to scream, he screamed so hard that his vocal cords burst in his throat and he began to drown in his own blood. Then Emily ripped his penis out and took it to the bathroom to flush it down the toilet. The john shivered in pain, he couldn’t talk; he felt what I was feeling back when he was raping me and I couldn’t scream or I would be beaten or raped even harder.

I ordered Samson to place the body in the walls of the house. He wasted no time picking up the john, who was still alive, and pushed him into the opening in the walls. I saw the john screaming, begging for my help; it felt good not being the powerless one, it felt good to see someone else beg me for mercy. Finally, I was getting my revenge; I couldn’t wait any longer on the Lord, I had to take matters into my own hands.

Then I ordered Emily into the next bedroom, where some more of my mother’s girl friends were having a ball smoking a line of crack. I sat by the door in the hallway thinking, do I really want to kill them or not? I saw the way they wasted their lives, smoking balls of crack one after the other. I came to the decision that I would let them go, but when I came into the room and asked them to leave, they laughed at me over and over again. The laughter was so wicked that it pierced my heart, for some reason I just couldn’t take the laughter any more, and it hit my emotions so hard that I began to sweat. Beads of sweat ran down my face, the palms of my hands became wet; soon I had the urge to kill them both. I ordered Johnny to kill them, he loved shooting his gun, and he loved killing, this was a piece of cake for him.

Johnny jumped on the bed and began to pump the ladies’ bodies with bullets. I watched as they tried to leave and were blocked at the doorway by Emily and Walter, they loved to see death themselves, but the bullet noise was too much for my ears, I had to leave the room. From the kitchen, I could hear the ladies screaming and calling out for help, but there was no one to help them, they were way out in the country where houses were far apart. This was hillbilly country. I could hear Samson cracking the bodies of the ladies, getting them ready to be put into the walls.

Walter and I had a ritual; we would bathe the dead bodies, and embalm them like the Egyptians did their dead. To me, this was funny and exciting at the same time. One by one, Samson crushed the bones until they couldn’t be crushed anymore, and then handed the dead over to Walter and me. We prepared a special bath, Emily cleaned up the blood; sometimes I would catch her licking the walls that were covered with blood, and I would have to spank her like a little child. But, we were a family, I was the head of the household and in charge; we ate as a family, we laughed as a family, but most importantly we lived happily like a family.

After the house was clean from all of the killings, I noticed that we were running out of food. Feeding four people and Samson was starting to be a strain, but ultimately, I didn’t mind; they were my protectors and I was in charge of taking care of them. So, I told them we would go to the store and shop. First of all, I had a little money that my mother had left behind, and the store was just a small corner market that operated on credit. Walter drove the raggedy old pickup trunk that one of the johns had left behind, and off we went. For the first time in months, I was leaving the house; the sun looked so bright and the sky was so clear. I felt relaxed and happy; I had everything a girl could want, all the way to the store I kept my head out the window like a dog, wanting to see everything.

My life finally seemed to make a little sense, I was happy and so were my imaginary friends, but the more I kept them around, the more they became real. I noticed this when Walter stopped for gas; it seemed as if people could see him, but not the others.

When I asked why that was, all Walter could say was, "One at a time."

So I accepted that and thought to myself, I’ll have a real family in a few more months, every one of my friends will be alive and live among the living.

Well, we made it to the store and we began to pick out our favorite foods. Emily loved jelly; I got her every kind imaginable. We got tons of bread and meat for Samson, noodles and pancakes for Johnny and all Walter liked was tea and soups. I was like a kid in a candy store; I got everything that I ever wanted, candies and all.

"Not too much, you’ll get a bellyache," said Walter.

Suddenly, the owner came over and said, "Who are you talking too?"

I said, "None of your damn business!"

The owner grabbed me by my shirt collar, and suddenly Emily and Samson attacked him. Samson broke his neck while Emily pulled out his heart and stuffed him into a freezer. I thought it was hilarious, but it was time to go before someone saw us. We quickly filled up the truck with all the food we could fit; we had at least five shopping carts of food.

"Wheeeeeeeee, that was a rush," proclaimed Johnny.

He was happy, and so was everyone else; it was as if we had just robbed a bank. Samson wanted to take the body home, but it was too much baggage. I told him that next time we would. Then Samson smiled and was happy again. I reached into a shopping bag and pulled out a carton of milk. As I was drinking from it, I noticed that a reward was posted for the missing child that we’d killed. I just laughed and showed it to everyone. After everyone got a sip of the milk, we threw the carton out the window, not caring about what we’d done. Why should we care when no one ever cared about us?

Once we were almost home, we saw a massive search party looking for the same child that we’d killed. Searchers were handing out flyers and newspaper clipping with pictures and a reward. We took the flyer like we cared and once down the road we balled it up and threw it out the window. I began to laugh hysterically, for some reason this shit was funny to me. That boy would have been an evil person and I’d saved society from his reign.

As soon as we got home, we unloaded our loot. We were like wild dogs, we wanted to eat everything first, until Walter, who I called ‘mother hen’, told us only to eat a little so we wouldn’t get a bellyache. We all pretended to listen, and as soon as he turned his back, we were pigging out. Emily took a whole jar of strawberry jelly and ran off to her hiding spot. I was glad to see her happy, she was like the sister I’d never had. Samson ate the raw meat, which was totally gross and disgusting, but I just loved him, so no matter how gross or strange it was, I overlooked most of what he and my other three friends did, because I was once considered strange and unlovable.

And yet, they all loved me. All that night we pigged out and had a blast; we ate ice cream and watched cartoons. It was like having a day that everything went well. My life was perfect, I didn’t care about anything anymore; I was my own person.

Don't work in night shift - Hari Nambiar

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:14:31 PST

Working in a software company in Bangalore sometimes I have to extend late in the night. I joined the company 6 months back and I was happy with the remuneration and work life .The Company building was constructed on top of an old graveyard few years back. Being a small company usually you won’t find employees working late at night or during early hours. My office was located at the 6th floor of a building.

During one of such days I was working on my computer. I was working on a project that I had to submit the next day. The clock ticked 1 AM. Working for past 17 hours I was feeling little drowsy. Not sure what happened next, maybe I blacked out or was it a dream. It was a bizarre feeling; it was as if my whole body was floating. Not sure what caused this .Was it the strange voice that was coming from the washroom or was it the weird smell. It was as if something was burning. Then I heard that voice once again. The voice had a magnetic effect on me. It was as if, somebody was calling my soul.

Then everything stopped .There was no sound at all. I could hear the noise of open tap water from the washroom. Yes indeed I was going towards the washroom. The door of the washroom was slightly opened. I moved little further, taking each step with caution. Didn't know what lay behind that door. The smell in the air was exhilarating. I was standing inches away from the door know, moving my hand judiciously towards the door knob. It took a life time to hold the door knob. That’s when I felt the hand on my shoulders .Someone was trying to awaken me. It was the office boy chandru.

I opened my eyes fully awake. Looked at him for a few seconds .I wasn't sure what is real and what is not. I grabbed my bag and started to move towards the exit of my office, swiped the access card and took the stairs. With each step I took I could hear the echo .There was no else here. It was around 02:30 am. The air outside was still as if everything has stopped. I was so scared that I would have soiled my pants .Reached the 4th floor.

Suddenly I heard a noise. Was someone coming up the stairs .I peeped and didn't see anyone down below. Most of the building lights were switched off at this hour and I could hardly see what was happening below the stairs. But I could hear someone was indeed coming up. That's when I saw the shadow. It was a big shadow of a woman. I could see the outline of her body in the shadow. All this was happening so fast that I didn't realize that I was soaked in sweat. Her head was held low probably touching her chin and she looked old. I could see her. She was almost few inches away from me.

She was wearing old Victorian clothing and was walking towards me slowly .I tried to move I couldn’t, tried to scream I couldn't. I couldn't even cry .I was helpless. She was standing an inch away from me. I didn't know what was going to happen next, a thousand thoughts went through my brain. I wished I was somewhere else. On spur of moment she lifted her head. She was all white, had dark clack eyes. She screamed at her maximum .I closed my eyes and thought this is it, I am going to die. There was no noise for the next 2 minutes .I opened my eyes, but there was no one there. I composed myself and started crying like a kid. Started walking slowly towards basement in the building .I boarded by car and left.

It was around 03:30 AM in the morning, the roads were clear, there wasn't much traffic. I drove the vehicle slowly .I was still in shock. Did a see a ghost/spirit or whatever you call it .Was this for real. I wanted to bang the vehicle to a tree just to make sure that its real. But if it was real who was she and how did she disappear. I had thousand questions on my mind. I wanted to see my wife and kids for the last time. You think about important things in life in times like these. I raised the speed and was driving at around 80 Km/h. I didn't see the tempo lorry coming towards me .Hey it was coming the wrong direction. The vehicle was few meters away from me .Moments before the collision my whole life pictured in front me.

I woke up after few hours. I was in a small town .People were talking in strange tongue and they looked poor and were wearing plain clothing .I tried to speak with a passerby , but he didn't notice me .I tried with many people , but no one cared. All the people were walking towards a hill. On top of the hill there was a new Victorian bungalow. It was beautiful 2 storey building and looked marvelous from distance. I walked along with other people. I reached near the house and noticed that all the people were standing outside the gate. On the wall on the gate were the words" William Clay worth Governor ESTD 1802 ". The name sounded familiar. There was strange howl coming from inside the house. It was the howl of a wolf. The people outside the gate were praying. From a distance I could see a well dressed white man and his lady standing outside the house .There were speaking with a older white gentleman.

What year is this? I am the only person in shirt and trousers. Two police constables in horse came towards me and asked me

“Stop there. Who are you and what are you doing near Clayworth estate"

I replied "Not sure .I am not from here and I don't know how I got here “

At this they laughed and one fellow slapped me. I fell on the ground bleeding .I got up and told them that I really don't know what is going on. They kicked me once again and left. One wise person from the crowd offered me some water and asked me.

"Don't you really know how you reached here? Who are you sir.

I said “My name is Karan Desai. I work in a company in Palace road Bangalore"

He replied “Hmm There is a palace nearby. But we don't call it palace road. The British have given names to roads. You talk strange and are wearing strange clothing.

I said Please help me understand what's going on.'

He said “The daughter of William Clayworth was sick. She is possessed by the ancient spirit .The only way to get rid of the spirit from her body is to do a puja.The Puja can be done only by head Pujari from the local temple. We are here to convince Mr. Clayworth that we can get rid of the bad spirit. But he isn't ready to listen. Not sure what to do. Once we get the spirit under our control, it can’t cause any problems for the next 200 years.

I asked him "What year is this”

He replied in sardonic tone “Well the Clayworth bungalow was constructed 8 years back and if the inscription on the gate is correct, and then it is 1810 .I don’t care much about the English year. “

There were too many thoughts going on my mind right now. If what he is saying is correct, some things made sense. But was it a dream or is it reality. He was still talking about the Puja that needs to be done. From the distance we could see a young lady in blood stained dress running towards the hills. She was screaming and it was a frightening scene.Mr Clayworth along with few constables ran behind her. Few people who were witnessing the spectacle behind the gate followed them at a safe distance. The last thing we saw her body falling from the far away cliff.

I heard the voice of someone calling me. I woke up and saw an old beggar in soiled shirt and panama standing in front of me.

He asked “What happened. Are you ok.

I got up and realized that I had met with an accident. It was a dream after all. The car was badly damaged in the crash and I was bleeding from the head. I asked him the direction to the nearest auto stand. Walking towards the auto stand I checked my pocket and felt something odd inside my left pocket. It was a picture of a young white lady .Signed below the painting was the name “Victoria Clayworth ". It was the same lady I saw in my dream and in the company stairs few hours back, though she looked old. Talking about time I didn't know what the time was.

05:00 am

I reached the auto stand and told him to take me to the nearest hospital. I discussed the entire story with my wife after sometime. She laughed at the whole thing .Thinking about the whole thing right now I really don't know if it was a dream or reality. Did I see spirits in the company stairs .There are many questions that are unanswered?

I am happy to be alive after the accident.