#fridayflash: Devil's Dipstick

“Nana, Nana, can we use your fallen leaves to make a Halloween Scarecrow?” eight-year-old Dani begged running up the leaf-littered dirt driveway hauling a bright pink plastic rake in one hand and her best friend Olive in the other.

“Absolutely, kid!” I said setting my old green lawn rake against the side of the small barn we used for firewood.  “I think that’s a fine idea.  There’s a trunk of old clothing upstairs in the barn that you can use to dress your scarecrow and, as you can see, we have plenty of nice dry leaves.”

The two girls raced into the barn emerging minutes later with a pair of old red pajamas, green knitted socks, gray gloves, and a wide brimmed orange hunting hat.

“Grab a pumpkin from the garden to use for his head,” I said pointing toward our small patch of garden. “Please stay out of the cemetery,” I added, shivering as the afternoon sun glinted off a shiny new grave stone.  “There are plenty of leaves on our side of the fence.”

Hours later, I wiped my sudsy hands on my apron and stepped out into our spacious back yard to watch the girls add finishing touches to their new creation.  Dubbed “Monster-Hunter” by the girls because of his bright hat and clothing, the foreboding new decoration sat comfortably in Blair’s old green lawn chair by the mailbox holding an old hatchet in one glove and a jaunty orange trick or treat bag in the other.

“He’s hideous,” I said vaguely annoyed to see the creature sitting in Blair’s old chair. 

Where he used to wait for the mail.

I shook off that odd feeling of annoyance, glancing uneasily at that shiny grave stone behind me.  “Did you have to make him look so . . . um . . . so evil?”

“Sure we did! It’s almost Halloween,” Dani said.

“But why does he smell so bad?” Olive asked.

I moved in a little closer and detected an odor of purification that was bad enough to make my stomach lurch at little.

“Where did you get those leaves?” I asked a trifle shrilly.

Dani pointed to the fence surrounding the small cemetery behind the barn.  “We used those until we found those smelly red things growing by the fence.  Those smelled REALLY bad!  Olive, you don’t think any of those smelly things got IN him do you?”

“Maybe . . . because that’s what he smells like . . . eww gross!” she scrunched up her face and moved away from the scarecrow.

 “I’m going home now,” Olive stated backing away from my mailbox with a scowl. “Bye.”

 In a flurry of autumn leaves, she disappeared down the path.

“I should be going too, Nana,” Dani said sidling toward the path.  “Mom will be calling me in to dinner any time now.

“But . . . what about your scarecrow?” I stammered as she vanished down the path at a trot.  “Don’t you want him for your yard?”

But she was already gone leaving me standing in my leaf littered driveway staring at a smelly, ugly monstrosity that had no business existing.

“You used to say that about Blair.”

 The whispered words floated about my head – did I say them? Or think them?

Chilled, I wrapped an afghan from the porch around my shoulders and walked slowly over to the bare patch of dried grass by the fence. Five dark red stinkhorns nodded their smelly heads toward the newest grave stone perched on the other side of the fence.  I could see more of the vile mushrooms growing willy-nilly across the mound in front of Blair’s headstone.  “Devil’s dipsticks,” Blair had called those loathsome plants.  Evil rods pushing right up from hell surrounded by the smells of rotting things best not thought about by sane people.

But Blair wasn’t sane . . . was he?

Once again the whispered words floated about my head leaving me chilled and feeling slightly ill.  The putrefied stench of stink horns followed me into the house.  No matter how many times I washed my hands, I could not rid myself of that vile odor.

Fretfully, I tossed and turned in a clean bed that smelled vaguely of stinkhorn.  In my dreams Blair ranted and raved at the mailman for being four minutes late . . . raged over stinkhorns creeping into our yard from the graveyard next door . . . blustered about pets walking through our yard.  Slamming to reality, I sat bolt upright ready to see Blair standing in my doorway complaining about trick or treaters . . .

“Little shits . . . always looking for a handout!  I’ll give them a handout . . . I’LL GIVE THEM THE BACK OF MY HAND IF THEY BOTHER ME AGAIN.”

“Stop it, stop it, stop it.” I shrieked to the empty room around me.  “You’re dead . . . I know you’re dead because . . .”

Shaken, I made my way to the kitchen sink for a glass of water.  The bright moon showered hazy rays over our yard – no over MY yard – settling on the scarecrow by MY mailbox.  The glass threatened to slip from my hand and shatter over the wooden floor boards below.  My newest Halloween decoration had changed.  Cherry red stink horns sprouted haphazardly from the creature’s inner elbows, crotch, neck, and ankles.  The drawn on evil pumpkin face appeared to have melted into a wildly hideous caricature of my dead twin, Blair.

As I watched in pure terror, the gruesome distortion rose from the chair and looked right at me through the window.

My heart skipped a beat and this time the glass did shatter to the floor below.  The ghastly face moving eerily toward me wasn’t Blair!  It was . . . It was . . .

~ ~ ~

“Oh my goodness it’s Nana!” Dani said through tears and sobs.  “Why did she do it?  Why is she wearing our scarecrow’s clothes?  What happened to her face?”

The child’s mother shook her head sadly.  “Nana Beth is with Uncle Blair now.”

#fridayflash: Devil's Dipstick

#TuesdaySerial: Such A Fine Son (Part One)

Such A Fine Son
By
Louise Dragon


Wendy Wheeler’s flashlight cast a feeble glow through the darkness. The path, etched through the woods by the feet of hundreds of children, would eventually cross Main Street in Waterville. Town Crest Village, the housing project where Wendy lived, loomed behind her on the brink of Coca-Cola Ledge.


Wendy skipped lightly over tree roots and rocks, her thoughts already down on the streets with her friends. She loved the city streets; there was always some kind of excitement going on in town. If Ma only knew . . .


“Don’t ever take the path after dark, Honey,” Ma had said so many times.


“Heaven knows what perverts sleep in those woods. I shudder to think about it.”


But Wendy took the path many times after dark and had never encountered a soul. She usually giggled down the path with Sophie Freedman, but tonight her best friend was at choir rehearsal.


With Sophie along, Wendy had never noticed how quiet the path was, or how the tree branches seemed to reach out towards her as she skipped past. A vague feeling of alarm tugged at the tiny hairs on the back of Wendy’s neck just before her flashlight sputtered and died. She stopped dead on the murky Path. A faint breeze rattled tall branches overhead, like fingernails tapping. Wendy bit down hard on her lower lip.


Trying to rationalize her fear, she peered anxiously about in the gloom.


There! Did something move?


As she was about to sprint off like a frightened rabbit, the dark clouds above parted. The silver mottled moon beamed through a hexagon in the tree branches touching her surroundings with shimmer blight. Small white moths fluttering before her in the moonbeam eased Wendy’s thudding heartbeat. She let out a sharp caw of relief.


After a few hesitant steps, however, the clouds captured the moonlight plunging her once again into darkness. At the sudden eclipse, a tiny sound of fear escaped her lips making her jump involuntarily.


Up ahead on the path, the darkness seemed to boil and twitch.


The sharp snap of a twig.


A grunt.


There was definitely someone on the path. Visions of dirty street people flashed through Wendy’s mind. Old looking men wrapped in newspapers, their rheumy eyes peeking out to watch the streets.


“Heaven knows what perverts sleep in those woods. I shudder . . .
I shudder . . .” Ma’s words echoed into her fear. “Not after dark . . . perverts sleep in those woods . . . I shudder . . . I shudder . . .”


Wendy’s fear turned into blind panic as the snapping of twigs grew louder.


Blindly, she turned and bolted. Whoever was coming up the path, sounded big.


Heavy breathing and grunting noises thundered closer. Trees crackled and branches thrashed as the quaking footfalls closed in.


Something solid struck Wendy between the shoulder blades. The loud thud rang in her ears as she lost her footing and sprawled into a bed of crunchy leaves.


The clouds thinned, triggering a faded grayish light.


Wendy rolled over to face her attacker. The sight of the beast overwhelmed her young brain, crippling her mind and body: blue-gray eyes glassed over, lithe body sagged. Watching the scene as though from afar, Wendy Wheeler’s mind overloaded in its final attempt to shield her from the horror.


The beast, bear-like and slobbering, was no mere pervert. Thick dark fur covered most of its body. Claws, like mini daggers sprouted from almost human fingers. Yellow fangs coursed twin rivers of saliva over a heavily bearded chin. The creature’s chest and abdomen were leathery pink and strangely hairless ending in a massive erection. Huge dark sunken eyes held a look of madness as it roared and grabbed the prone girl.


Shaking her like a rag doll, the monster tore the clothes from her limp body.


With an inhuman animal lust it penetrated the girl. A single high shrill scream issued from her blue lips driving the attacker to a fevered frenzy of biting, clawing and thrusting. Evil seeds discharged, the monster stood and gazed down into Wendy’s wide blue-gray eyes. Tears and snot mixed with the girl’s blood and fell from the creature’s face leaving ragged pink dots on her naked flesh. Balefully, the thing raised its massive head to the moon and moaned with hopeless anguish.


A police siren wafting up through the tangle of trees brought the beast to a wary crouch.


From her broken body, the tortured blue-gray eyes of Wendy Wheeler watched the beast flee into the shadowy forest. With it went her soul.


Continued . . .

#TuesdaySerial: Such A Fine Son (Part One)

#fridayflash: Puzzling Pieces

Puzzling Pieces by Louise Dragon


“You killed him!” Dr. Lewis proclaimed.


“I had to defend myself,” I pointed out. “He would have surely hurt me.”


“You can’t know that,” the doctor said warily. “Why then did you dismember the entire body? Why did you line the pieces up so neatly across the bathroom vanity? What was the point of that?”


Some went down the toilet. My mind wandered briefly. Flushing . . . flushing . . . I can see those parts and those fingers scrabbling . . . try to get back up . . . trying to hurt me . . .


“You’re the doctor.” I breathed deeply -- trying to keep the sarcasm at bay while shaking off remembered images of terror. “Haven’t you told me time after time that I have some sort of compulsive disorder? That I can’t help lining things up in neat little rows? Desk drawers, book shelves, all neat and orderly . . . no extra pieces . . .” My voice trailed off.


“Obsessive compulsive disorder would not cause you to kill.” The doctor said. “Paranoid schizophrenia, may be a harsh diagnosis but after seeing those bloody power tools . . .” It was the doctor’s turn to trail off. He rolled his eyes back slightly and shuddered.


“Because of your age, you will be kept here in the state hospital,” Dr. Lewis told me. “No visitors, allowed -- although I believe that by now you’ve managed to kill off your entire family one by one.”


I looked at the green lizards capering across the faded yellow wallpaper and said nothing.


The lizards made nice orderly rows across the walls. Some of them had heads missing, or tails. Sometimes only half a lizard was visible and my mind wondered about the missing pieces of lizard . . .


NO EXTRA PIECES! Did I say that out loud? No, the doctor still droned on.


After he left I managed to remove all of the lizards with missing pieces, scrapping them off the walls until my fingers were raw and bloody. Once the room was tidy, I could relax.


~~~


In my dream the world is orderly. Everything is arranged in neat little rows. No dangling wires to trip you up. My brother’s fingers are cool and welcoming, not hot, and grabbing. In the dream there are no extra pieces hurting and taking. In the dream my family stands in neat rows across yellow fields of wallpaper and they are complete again – like a puzzle with no missing pieces.


~~~


Across the room in the stainless steel toilet where I flushed the incomplete lizards I hear them slithering up the sides of the bowl -- fumbling and scrabbling up the wet sides of the steel bowl. They should have washed away into the dark currents of the sewers below the city by now – all the extra pieces should be gone. I fear they wait inside the building’s old plumbing.

Could they wait inside the plumbing of all the buildings in the city?


Curled into a tight little ball at the foot of my iron cot I bite down hard on my lip to make sure I’m awake when I first hear the rustling under my sheets.
End


Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle

#fridayflash: Puzzling Pieces

Eyeland

Eyeland
By
Louise Dragon

With mounting sensations of dread I watched the spring rains gush over the Maine countryside—cropping the banks of the Rainbow River with each surge. Flooding became more eminent as the minutes ticked by.


Returning to my desk, I forced myself to concentrate on the briefs before me. My wife Marilyn had left for work an hour ago.


“Children have to learn, Gary, even if it’s raining.”


Worrying was my bag. I worried about Marilyn out during the flood watch, I worried about the river overstepping its banks and flowing into our living room.


I’d be worried about selling another house, or people watching me if it wasn’t raining.


Marilyn, forever scientific, never worried about anything.


“Nobody’s watching you,” she’d admonished me often, “why would anyone be watching you? Do you think you’re the center of everyone’s universe? Or possibly you’re slated to become the next alien abductee?”


Sarcasm was another of Marilyn’s traits.


As I glanced out at the turbulent waters, for about the tenth time, I felt familiar stress building behind my eyes.


What if our house washed away?


Where would we go? People would come and look. Complete strangers looking, watching.


It’s happened before, why back in ‘eighty-seven . . .


As if to punctuate my thoughts, an island drifted down the Rainbow River headed for shore at breakneck speed.


Islands don’t float, do they?


This one hovered about thirty feet offshore. It was quite large, about the size of a baseball diamond, and sported spindly growth, like pins and needles, over its surface.


I tried to go back to work, but the island drew me to the back door repeatedly. Against my better judgment, I walked along the Rainbow’s shore in my yellow slicker trying to get a better look at the island. As the rain turned to a drizzling patter on my face, I decided that with the flooding possibilities dropping: I could probably row over and check it out.


But what if . . .


The “Tom Sawyer” hidden inside me took over, shoving Gary Denton—shy, mild mannered Real Estate Agent, to the back of the boat.


I should be working, but the island loomed before me.


Like an amusement park waiting for patrons, it was silent and ominous with little tendrils of ground fog rising toward the swollen sky. Not an expert rower, I counted on the current to help with the work and wasn’t disappointed.


Oh, hell, I’ll just explore it quickly and then go back to work.


I knew the rain could pick up anytime and wash the island away, so I wasn’t planning to stay long.


A ribbon of sand, three feet wide, circled the island. Fifty yards along, I picked up a path leading into tangles of brush in the island’s center. A nugget of worry slid down my spine like an ice cube. Where were the animals and birds? Not a twitter of sound could be heard. The island seemed clean, no dried leaves, no insects; the branches and brambles had a waxy feel, almost synthetic.


When I reached the center I was surprised by a cabin, tucked neatly away in the brush. It held an air of newness as if it had grown there: not your everyday Maine shack.


Could someone live here?
Continued in my next post

Eyeland

V I S I T O R S -- DownStream – Part 1

V I S I T O R S -- Downstream -- Part 1

DownStream
By
Louise Dragon

Alice tossed and turned. Ghastly images flitted across her brain and crouched on the edges of her mind, like children playing hide 'n seek. In light of recent events, sleep was becoming a dreaded chore, but Alice's waking hours were even worse: much worse.

Listening to Joanna and Duncan at recent town meetings had been mere confirmation for Alice. She'd known all along that something was in town.
 
She'd known, because Alice knew things.

It wasn't an enjoyable gift and she'd always kept it well hidden--fearing ridicule and hostility from small-minded neighbors. Once, just once, Alice had tried to use her gift to help the police locate a missing child . . .

But that was in the past, a different time, different town, and a lifetime ago. One thing that Alice had learned from her experience, however, was that despite what she was supposed to teach the children, police aren't always our friends . . .

Best not to dwell on the past. In truth, Alice had a difficult time trusting anyone and everyone. That was why she'd purchased her cute little house at the bottom of the dead end street known as Wooded Gully. Her job, as third grade teacher, was a mere fifteen minute walk through the woods to the elementary school playground beyond. Other than fellow teachers, Alice spent her days talking with eight-year-olds. Why little Melanie Thomas had been in Alice's class until . . .

"I heard my dad say that when he found them, they were all black and charred, like burnt toast," little Nate Birdsong bragged to a circle of wide-eyed children in the playground.

"Where?" piped up little Crystal Rogers.

"I know where," said Eddy Parker.

Frowning, Nate bellowed. "You don't know everything just cause you live up there on Wooded Hill by the Thomas place. Let me tell the story."

"Well just cause your father's the sheriff, it don't mean that you know everything either," Eddy said. "They were right there--in their house."

Eddy looked around the circle from one shock-filled face to another as if expecting some negative noises.

"I looked in the window. There they were all laying--like they were just sleeping, you know--on a big pile of leaves in their living room."

"Leaves?" little Crystal questioned, wrinkling her pug nose. "Leaves in their living room?"
"Yup, black leaves like maybe they all got burnt up together," Eddy said.

"Cept the leaves where there before. I seen 'em a couple days before the Sheriff came and looked in at the dead Thomases. Seen that mean old man raking them out of the house before, too."

Carefully listening around the edges of that strange little conversation, Alice heard the children talk about how Melanie's uncle -- that awful, mean old Man -- was missing; only his gun had been found half-submerged in the shallows of Black Lake. According to little Nate Birdsong, bullets had been fired from the gun and Mr. Long's car had been all shot up, like gangsters had gotten him.

"There now, that'll be enough of that, Nate Birdsong," Alice had said, her voice shaking slightly as she broke up the morbid circle. "You'll be giving this class nightmares for sure."

Continued in my next post.

V I S I T O R S -- DownStream – Part 1

Clubhouse, part 1

Clubhouse, part 1

by Louise Dragon

Not last night, but the night before.

There came a mighty knocking at the clubhouse door.

The preacher’s daughter

Wants to come in.

Mary, Mary,

What a sin!

Open the door and

                                             Let . . . her . . .

                                     IN! ! !

                                                                             . . . A child’s tune for skipping rope

~~~

It was Tommy and Wayne and me who first found the clubhouse buried beneath a ton of pucker brush and killer vines behind the old Farnums Cemetery out on Notch Hill Road. Later, Tommy and Wayne would swear on a crossed heart that it was just them two who found it, but I was there!

I was there and I saw it all.

It was the summer of 1962, and back then big tough twelve-year-old boys simply didn’t hang out with ten-year-old girls without a good reason — no matter that I was almost as big and probably a scrap tougher than either one of those two shitheaps.

Reverend William Furman Senior had just started preaching out at the Notch Hill Church and old Reverend Willy made up a small playground behind the church so that neighborhood kids would have a place to play that summer.

It was just an old swing set and basketball hoop, but hey—in Farnums—there just weren’t too many neat places to hang out. Some folks like Tommy’s mother, thought it wasn’t too swell to have the playground so close to that old cemetery. I can still hear Sylvia Raymer (Tommy’s mother) whining about it to Reverend Willy, after church one Sunday. “I think it’s positively morbid the way you allow those youngsters free reign around here, Reverend Furman. Honestly, you of all people could show a little more respect for the dead!”

“Now Sylvie, the kids need a place to play in this town. Having them here just brings them closer to the Lord in my book,” Reverend Willy said, still pumping various hands although Sylvia had a big knot started in his line. I wanted to laugh because I could see Tommy struggling behind her. His skinny face with its jug-handle ears was about the color of the red stripe on those new Keds he was forever bragging about. I could see him trying to move her along, but with Mrs. Raymer standing stoutly, a lot like Curly Howard in a dress, and Tommy measuring about the size of Dennis The Menace, I knew Sylvia wasn’t going anywhere until she was darn good and ready! To myself, I whispered a prayer of thanks that my folks were fairly normal and not the whining type.

Anyway, kids started hanging around the new playground when school let out that summer. I’ll always remember the day we found that clubhouse.

Oh, Lord, will I ever be able to forget it?

I was shooting marbles with Tommy Raymer and Wayne Marcos that day; either they thought I was easy prey or Wayne was right about Tommy having a crush on my older sister, Molly.

Ann Delany, Jennifer Livsey, and Stephanie Nichols were skipping rope over by the swings and annoying us with their stupid little skipping songs and chants.

“Hey, why don’t you go home and do that?” Wayne yelled to the rope skippers.

“It’s a free country, last I knew,” Stephanie hollered back.

“Not last night,”

skippety, skip,

“but the night before . . .”

The rope skipping songs got louder after that, so we decided to move over to the cemetery on the other side of the church to finish our game in peace. Wayne was a little nervous about playing in the cemetery until Tommy mentioned something about the ghosts not bothering with no pansy-assed goody-goody like Waynie-pooh anyhow. Next time I looked, Wayne had followed us on over.

I was up by five of Tommy’s cat’s eyes and one or two of his whiteys and would have probably cleaned up if old man Lipinsky, the church caretaker, hadn’t stopped by to gab. Armand Lipinsky also doubled as the town drunk; he had a couple of older teen-aged sons who were always in some kind of trouble. Old man Lipinski was so bent up, he reminded me of Quassimoto, he smelled like our bathroom medicine cabinet — a toss up between Listerine and Vicks-Vapo-Rub.
 Walking by with a rusty pair of lawn clippers, he paused and hoisted his baggy seated rump onto a wide gravestone to watch our game.

“Sure is nice to see kids playing around here again,” the geezer said hawking a wad of phlegm into a wrinkled blue bandanna. He stopped to examine the spit — as though he expected to find diamond dust in there — before stuffing the rag into a torn back pocket.

Wayne, still a mite jumpy, looked up at the old bird. “There was a playground here before?”

“Naw, Reverend Willy, he thought that one up. But back a couple — five -- six years, maybe, Mary used to play out here wid her cats. Had herself a little playhouse out yonder behind that scrub brush. Poor little thing’d play out here all by her lonesome, day in and day out. Nothin but cats to keep her comp’ny.”

Lipinski had our attention now, and he knew it. Slow as mole-asses he toiled out that old bandanna and honked his red-veined nose into it. After peeking inside for more treasures, the old man stuffed the rag home again and gazed maddeningly out across the gravestones.

Continued in my next post

Clubhouse, part 1

Caretaker (part 1)

Enter this yawning doorway with speculation. Beyond it is another world -- a world of expression and a world of vision. You're intersecting into a realm of darkness and soul, a kingdom of imagination and illusion. You're about to enter my peculiar neighborhood of what scares you.

The following work of dark science fiction will appear here – in its entirety -- in daily installments . . . for the next four days. I hope you enjoy it.

Caretaker (part 1)

“You’re treating the street people like pets,” Everett said as he watched his new girlfriend pack squares of leftover lasagna into a foil lined cardboard box.

“Just because you’re studying psychology, doesn’t mean you need to search for hidden motives behind a simple act of human kindness.” Polly pointed out. “I’m merely taking leftovers to some hungry people. If more of us helped out, perhaps we wouldn’t have street people.”

“Now hold on there,” Everett said helping Polly with her parka.

“I’ve lived in the city my whole life and street people have always been here.

Bag ladies and bums: they like their lifestyle — no taxes, no rules, and no worries.”

“What about food?” Polly asked punching the elevator down button. “Or warm clothing, or shelter? Things that you and I take for granted. Are you telling me that you believe street people actually enjoy this way of life?”

A swirl of snowy air ruffled Polly’s dark curls as she stepped outside the building. Everett zipped his jacket to his chin and stuffed his hands into warm pockets before answering.

“My grandmother used to tell us that street people not only enjoyed being street people, but that they actually chose this type of existence.”

Polly’s black boots slowed on the snowy walk and she turned her solemn brown eyes to Everett. “Why on earth would she think that?”

“Grandma was always afraid of the street people. She used to tell us stories about them. I think, so that we’d be afraid too. Afraid enough to stay away from Sluggards.”

“Sluggards?”

“That’s what Grandma called the street people. She used to tell us that the Sluggards were actually aliens that came here into the cities of the world to observe us — you know — study our lifestyle so that they could infiltrate our planet better when the time came. Isn’t that crazy? Grandma sure could spin a yarn.”

Continued in my next post


The New York Times' Book of New York: Stories of the People, the Streets, and the Life of the City Past and Present

Caretaker (part 1)

The Essence (1)

I’ve promised more fiction so follow along with me now into the shadowed mystery of my written words. Join me in a disturbing little tale of eeriness that I call:

The Essence

I crouched quietly in the darkest corner of the room, knowing she would appear. It was summertime. Warm dry breezes wafted the curtains gently. Neighborhood noises barked an occasional protest to the night. Ghostly shadows of an old black and white horror movie danced across silvery-white walls. Movie sounds, mere whispers, hovered scarcely within earshot. The buttery aroma of popcorn lingered like incense in our comfortable old living room.
As my chin bobbed gently against my chest, the apparition loomed out of the shadows. My breath whooshed out with a soft hiss. She didn’t glance in my direction.
The angelic vision glided by me with apparent purpose.

I’ve seen her before.

I’ve always marveled at her beauty. Long dark hair fell like midnight waves across her shoulders. Raven curls swirled softly around her cherub’s face. Large green doll-like eyes stared straight ahead. Her long white nightgown billowed behind her as her bare feet whispered over the carpet.
I watched with curious wonder as she floated from room to room. She stopped occasionally to pick up a knick-knack or bright object, and ran her fingers over its contours, as if blind, before gently replacing the object. She always returned the items to different locations -- not where she’d found them. Sporadically her pale lips opened and closed and she whispered uncertainly. The words were sometimes garbled and had no meaning. At times they were perfectly clear but out of context.
Fear prickled my neck like a mohair sweater when the woman walked. I’ve thought about speaking to her. I’m curious about why she haunts my house on quiet summer nights. I wonder about her strange whisperings and even stranger wanderings.

Continued in my next post

More Creepy Fiction

The Essence (1)

Secret Eyes (1)

True Boyer and I were friends the minute we both plunked our butts on Mrs. Randal’s dunce bench together in the second grade.
Not that we’re stupid or anything; True had this annoying habit of questioning adult logic that Mrs. Randal didn’t care much for and I happened to back him up that day, which I’ve been doing ever since. True had a knack for asking questions that drove adults crazy.
I once heard his foster mother, Mrs. Mister, say; “the boy was born with a question mark in his mouth.”
This came after True grilled her on why she had married John Mister if it meant going through life called either Mrs. Mister, or Hester Mister. How he managed to ask those questions with a perfectly straight face, I’ll never know. Mrs. Mister had haughtily suggested that a boy named True shouldn’t be throwing stones at glass houses, or something like that. True had smiled, and shrugged, and given me one of those yellow-eyed looks that said, “you see, Bernie, adults don’t know everything.”
True always maintained that his missing parents had named him “True” because they expected him to get to the bottom of things. All he really knew about them was that they’d abandoned him in a church when he was two days old. True used to speculate that they had been famous artists dying of AIDS who had tried to leave him a message with his unique name.


Continued in the next post

Poster Art Page

Secret Eyes (1)

Carillon Beauty (part 1)

“Good God, Gwen, don’t you ever wear anything that isn’t gray? You need to put a little color into your life,” Cynthia Guthrie greeted her daughter at the front door.
“Why, Mother, so people will look at me?”
“You’re a beautiful person. When will you start thinking like one?” petite, blonde Cynthia said, sorting through the mail.
“Maybe when you start looking at me,” Gwen said to her Barbie Doll mother.
Cynthia glanced up sharply, “Spending your money on every beauty ad you read in the magazines is doing nothing but making us poorer.” She shoved a bright pink box into Gwen’s twisted hands. “Carillon Beauty? Another overnight remedy? Another miracle treatment? More like another disappointment. When will you learn, Gwen?”
“Look at me, Mother. Does that answer your question?”
Cynthia sighed, “Physical beauty isn’t everything. You’re beautiful on the
inside. The work you do in the Children’s Ward—the hours that you spend at the Homeless Shelter—you’re a kind, giving person. I’m proud of you, I love you just the way you are.”
But too often Gwen had seen it. That look in her mother’s eyes. That look screamed “how could someone who looks like me, have a child this ugly?”
Gwen, clutching her newest beauty aid, hurried past the telltale hall mirror to her room. Her mother would never understand. No one who looked like her mother had ever felt the pain of loneliness that rode on Gwen’s shoulders like a heavy, woolen cloak.
Carillon Beauty. Musical beauty. Gwen had seen the ad on television, had heard a few chords of the sweet elixir. At the time, she had to have it; she was positive that this time it would work where all the others had failed.

Continued in the next post.


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Carillon Beauty (part 1)

Seed of Evil

Devoted Reader,

Does violence beget violence? I suggest that maybe watching violent films, playing violent games, or reading violent novels may give one enough of a violence “fix” to get through the day. If that doesn’t work try the daily news! The world (and your own back yard) can be a violent place. Should some of that violence be censored? If you think about little kids (twelve and under) absolutely. Kids have enough to worry about just surviving peer pressure. They certainly don’t need a shot of extra violence on top of that! For your average Jane and Joe Middleclass, however, fictional violence may be more of a blessing than a plague.
Hopefully, the words below will give a few of us our Violence Fix for today. I call this delightful little tale . . .

Seed of Evil

The instant Claudia slipped backwards off the windowsill, she sensed the hundreds of feet of open space beneath her. What a rush!
The point of no return. The perfect ending to her life.
In her mind’s eye, Claudia pictured the devastation left behind as her body plummeted to destruction.
Her children, once beautiful sweet little babies, now slept the deepest sleep of all. How could she have known they’d become nagging and whiny? They drove her to it. Never giving her a moment’s peace. She felt no remorse. She had to do it. They had spied on her . . . watched as she buried the ice pick into their father over and over again.
Cried. Actually cried for him. How ungrateful. Didn’t they know she had done them a favor? Didn’t they know that she had to do it . . . he had found out about some of the others.
Once the necessary deeds were done she had thought about relocating and starting over; then she heard the sirens. Somebody had called 911.
No other way out now.
They’d never take her alive. The sidewalk rushed up and took Claudia’s life, but not before the evil seed planted behind her left ear had a chance to burst forth and bury itself in a female spectator. The spectator scratched at an itchy place behind her left ear and thought: What a beautiful way to die.

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Seed of Evil

Alma (part 1)

Devoted Reader,
Halloween, to me, is more of a feeling than a holiday. The chills and thrills that I get from watching those old horror movies flit across my television screen just make me feel alive! Call me twisted if you must but I just know that there are many other horror fans out there like me who shiver at the thought of all the cool horror stuff spewing from our televisions at this particular time of year.
It was my love of watching old horror movies, reading scary mystery books, and never missing my favorite science fiction television shows that spurred me towards at little ultra creative writing of my own.
This story is somewhat longer and will be entered here in two installments. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow to see how the story ends . . . Alma would really like that!
I call this tale . . .

Alma (part 1)

“Hey, Mom, who’s this,” Holly yelled, waving an oval picture frame at me from across the attic.
Could it be, I thought squinting through the flurries of dust motes Holly’s waving had created. Alma, my God, I hadn’t let myself think about Alma in years. I could feel a pulse throbbing above my right eye as I snatched the picture from my daughter for a better look. The sweet little girl in the picture had large blue eyes and masses of curly blonde hair tied back with an aqua ribbon.
“It’s Alma,” I whispered, more to myself than to Holly. “My sister Alma.”
(Born with a caul over her face!)
“I have an Aunt Alma,” Holly asked, wrinkling her pug nose.
“No, Honey, Alma died long ago.”
“How come I never knew about her?” twelve-year old Holly questioned, hands on slim hips.
“Alma was . . . different. Our family never talked about her much. Come on, now let’s get Grandma’s attic cleaned out. The couple that bought this house would like to move in next week.”
“Why is her nose bleeding?” Holly was still studying the picture.
“Her nose isn’t bleeding, Honey.” I started folding up old clothes and sorting them into boxes.
“Holly, would you start over there in Grandpa’s corner? All those tools and jars of nails are going to the church. Can you pack them up in these boxes for me?’ I handed her two cardboard boxes.
“Mom, her nose IS bleeding.”
“No,” I said stubbornly. My hands trembled.
“Mo-om, look. It’s blood. Why take a picture of someone with a bloody nose?”
I didn’t want to look.
“Mom, what’s wrong? Why are you wiping your hands like that?” Holly’s voice took on a high, fearful whine. Without thinking, I was scrubbing my hands across the old clothes.
I struggled to pull myself together for her sake.
“Nothing’s wrong, Honey. I’m fine, really. Just brushing off the cobwebs.”
(Blood on my hands—under my nails. Alma’s nose bleeding?)
A gust of wind whirled through the dust motes and hit the attic door, slamming it shut with a crash.
“I’m scared,” Holly whined. “Can we go home now?”
(Excellent idea. Let’s get the hell out of here.)
I hastily wiped my hands one last time on one of Dad’s old spaghetti strap tee-shirts. “I think we’ve done enough for today,” I tried to keep my voice from shaking. “What say we go for ice cream and finish this tomorrow?”
Holly was already yanking at the door. Her wide blue eyes—
(Like Alma’s)
turned back to me, straining and stricken with fear. “The door won’t open,” she said in a panicky whisper. We’re locked in!”
“Don’t be silly. It’s probably just stuck.”
But the door wouldn’t open.

(continued in next installment)

Alma (part 1)

A Precious Stone

Are you ready to read a cool scary story? It is, after all, nine days until Halloween. I’m going to post one of my personal favorites – This was written by me in 1995, the time period of my life (midlife crisis) that I decided I would be a writer of Creepy Fiction . . . Please come with me now, as we explore the depths of my wickedness . . . I call this tale . . . A Precious Stone

“It’s past midnight, Cindy. Can’t this wait until morning?”
Dull granite dust shadowed Cynthia’s gray, haggard features. “Go to bed, Mother. You’re interfering.”
“But . . .”
“Go to bed, Mother.”
“How can I sleep with you down here? Every rap of that hammer grates on my nerves.”
“I have to finish. I have to finish it for me.”
“What then? What do you think will happen, Cindy? How much power
does that chisel have?”
“This is something I have to do.” Cynthia explained. “It should be of no concern to you.”
“You are my concern,” her mother said. “You’re sick. Knowing you’re down here in this damp basement . . . seeing you obsessed with this job—I care about you . . . not this . . . this outrageous thing you’re creating.”
“This thing, Mother? This thing will be my last and greatest triumph, my epitaph.”
Cynthia’s mother sighed, shivered, and hugged her arms closer to her body. She watched a trickle of ground water seep down in the corner of the stone foundation. “You haven’t eaten today. Can I bring you some hot soup?”
Cynthia’s thin face never left her work. Bony fingers clutching hammer and chisel continued to move spasmodically across drab gray granite. “No, I’m not hungry.”
“A sweater then, let me get you a sweater, it’s too cold and damp for you down here in your condition.”
Cynthia ignored her.
“Cindy,” her mother said, reaching for a thin moving arm. “My God,
you’re freezing. You’re as cold as . . .”
“As what, Mother?” Cynthia asked jerking her arm from her mother’s grasp and finally turning to face her.
Cynthia’s mother stepped back. Her daughter’s face, gray and hollow-eyed, appeared carved from the very same granite that she used for her work.
“I only . . .”
“You only want to keep me alive? Well you’re too late, Mother. I died. I died an hour ago.”
“But . . . but . . .”
“Why am I still moving? Still working? Determination, Mother.
Something you taught me long ago. I made gravestones for a living. For other people. I couldn’t bear to let go of this one until I finished. Look at it. The detail. The beauty.
"Let me go, Mother. It's time to let me go now."

A Precious Stone