Tag: horror

The Watcher

“Do you really believe in ghosts?”

“Have you ever seen one?”

“Were you scared?”

The questions shot towards Kate like bullets, the standing room only crowd in the amphitheater surging to life. She involuntarily winced against the wave of noise, then forced herself to stand still. Large crowds like this always made her nervous, so she searched the crowd until she found the familiar face she was looking for.

Kate kept her face pleasantly blank, standing at the podium as if she had all the time in the world, patient until finally the room grew silent once more. She smiled out at the crowd and in a quiet but confident voice began to weave her story.

“I can answer all of your questions with just one tale. I guess I must have been about nine when my parents moved into their dream house. I can remember thinking it was like a mansion, an old one but still in good condition and probably big enough to fit our previous house in twice over. My father kept crowing about how the place was a steal, he’d gotten it dirt cheap and though it needed a lot of work we were all so excited.

The house was technically a two-story with a basement but it had a half of a level on the 3rd floor, just big enough for a bedroom and playroom for me. It took a few weeks for us to finally get used to all of the noises the house made, especially at night, but finally it felt like home. As summer turned to fall I started to notice that it always felt like someone was following just behind me, the floors would creak in a strange delay two to three feet behind as I walked down the halls.

Then I began to get glimpses of something, just flashes of movement. No matter how fast I turned towards it, there was never anything there. Being more curious than scared it became a game for me, and I was determined to see whatever it was that was haunting our house. For I had become convinced the place was haunted, not in a bad, scary way but more of a kind of sad, lonely way.

My parents had been hard at work, fixing up the interior of the home and it was coming along nicely – new floors, an updated furnace, fresh paint. The outside and the yard were still a mess, giant overgrown bushes pushed against the walls of the house on all sides and the giant oak trees had branches that hung down low enough to scrape the roof when the wind blew hard enough. It didn’t bother me since I really wasn’t the outdoorsy type anyway but the noises sometimes freaked me out a bit since it sounded like an angry horde trying to find entry into the house.

As winter crept up on us, my room became uncomfortably cold. My dad spent a month’s worth of weekends trying to figure out why the furnace wasn’t heating correctly but everywhere else in the house was nice and toasty. Except for my room. Even with 4 or 5 extra blankets on the bed my breath would come out in vapory white clouds at night, so I’d burrow deeper under the covers until it would finally warm up enough for me to sleep.

Then for almost a week straight the wind howled so loud that between the bushes and trees scraping against the house and the bitter cold, I was on the verge of being sleep deprived. Finally a calm night hit, and I was asleep before I could even burrow deep enough under the blankets to cover my head. I startled awake to an intense scraping noise … and realized there was someone standing at the end of my bed. No, not someone, something. Not black, but a very dark gray. Staring at me. Not moving. For the first time I felt fear, but the figure didn’t really appear to be threatening. After a while it kind of reminded me of when my mom used to do that when I was sick. And I was so very sleepy that I drifted back off.

I woke up to snow and I was so excited I forgot all about my night-time visitor. Until I woke up in the middle of the night again to scraping noises and the figure at the end of the bed. I now got a sense that it was a woman, an older woman than my mom, and she kind of wavered back and forth like she was rocking a child in her arms. I watched her for a while but again, I didn’t really sense anything dangerous and after playing outside most of the day, I was exhausted so off to sleep I went.

The next night however, I had a nightmare. It was so vivid. There was a man standing at my window peering down at me with an awful, cold smile. He was all in black so I couldn’t make out his features but I could see that horrible smile and the giant knife he held in one hand. In the dream my bed was pushed up against the window and I had no curtains, so he was peering over the head of the bed and right down at me, only a few feet away. And suddenly my breath was vapors and I felt a weight on the bed. A ghostly grayish-white figure had crawled onto the end of my bed. It was impossibly heavy for being so transparent and this time it felt dangerous. It moved up the bed, straddling me, arms and legs on either side of my body, moving slowly like a cat stalking prey. The face was vaguely female but featureless except for the black holes for eyes. It stopped just above my head, pinning me in place as it stared at the window. Then its jaw dropped exposing a deathly black mouth, opening wider and wider …

And that’s when I woke myself and the rest of the house up with my screams. I screamed as my dad fumbled his way up the stairs, calling my name and cursing as he missed a step and cracked his shin. My mom was right behind him practically pushing him up the remaining steps so she could get to me and still I screamed. Once I calmed down and they realized I was fine and it was just a nightmare, we made our way to the kitchen for middle of the night hot chocolate. And even though I was a big girl, that night I slept huddled between my parents in their bed.

We were awakened far too early by a loud thumping at the door. I shuffled into the kitchen, my mind picking over what happened last night, the dream, there was something gnawing at me about the whole thing. Then I heard my mother gasp and my father’s heavy footsteps as he grabbed his coat and ran out the front door. I tried to go into the front hall but my mother barred my path, arms crossed, face pale, and determined to keep me in the kitchen. While she was busy making coffee I edged over to the window. Red and blue lights reflected off the snow and men and women in various uniforms scurried around the neighborhood. I watched in shocked silence as a parade of sheet-covered figures were gently wheeled out a few houses down. Two larger ones and three small ones. Then I saw shadows as my father and a grim policeman came around the corner of the house, slowly walking back towards the front door.

My father’s face looked old and ashen, and his eyes were blank pools of disbelief. I caught a few sentences as they approached the window.

‘… the footprints are all around your house. It looks like he was trying to pry open that window in the back. We’ll have our guys photograph the scene and the tool marks on the window so please don’t disturb the area until they’re done. You didn’t hear anything or see anything unusual last night?’

‘No, I mean my daughter woke us all up in the middle of the night screaming, but that was from a nightmare,’ my dad answered.

‘Maybe she saw something, we should speak with her.’

‘That’s impossible,’ answered my father, ‘her room is on the third floor and on the opposite side of the house. There are no windows on this side, and no way she could have seen anything. She just had a bad dream.’

‘That bad dream may have saved your family’s life,’ the officer’s voice cracked at the end and I could tell that whatever had happened down the street was awful enough to have shaken this guy pretty badly.

‘My guess is that your daughter’s screams and the house lights coming on scared him away. He moved further down the street and broke in through a window there and …’

His voice trailed off and he and my father exchanged a long look.

I’d heard enough. ‘I’m going to my room,’ I told my mom. She just turned and nodded at me, her eyes red, holding the coffee cup protectively in front of her face.

When I got to my room, the figure was there, across the room, near the window. I walked towards it, stopping a few feet away. Now I could definitely tell it was a woman, grandma’ish, and she seemed timid, ready to flee.

‘You saved me, didn’t you?’ I asked quietly. ‘Me and my family.’

The figure nodded.

‘Thank you,’ I whispered and walked right up to her. Her figure seemed to solidify and I could finally see her face, a sweet, kind, gentle face.

And that’s how I met my first ghost,” Kate finished, stopping to drink from her water bottle. “And that’s all the time we have today, thank you all so much for coming out.” Her eyes found the face again, the pale glowing female hovering just above the crowd in the back.

“To answer your questions – yes, I really believe in ghosts. Yes, I have seen them. No, they do not scare me.” she paused and took a breath before finishing.

“People, on the other hand, scare the holy hell out of me.”

She reached down, grabbed her bag, and walked off the stage to thunderous applause.

Categories: Short Story Writing

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Sinking Rock Lake

He sighed as he watched the jeep go by, the girl’s long blonde hair snaking out the top, both of them yelling and laughing. Oblivious. Another young couple, ignoring all the warning signs, heading for the secluded, private section of the lake that had been closed off for decades. No matter how uninviting they made the road look, how many signs they put up, how many people disappeared each year from the area … still they came.

Hoping against hope that the tree they had downed across the road would make the couple turn around, he waited. When the jeep didn’t come back, he sighed again and called the ranger. Fifteen minutes later he had his truck bed loaded with large plastic bins, and a towing trailer attached. He didn’t acknowledge the three figures that materialized out of the tree line and approached his truck. The only sounds were the thumping of the truck doors opening and shutting.

They drove in silence until they reached the tree blocking the road. There were obvious ruts to the right where the jeep had gone up an embankment to get around the tree. He veered the truck to the left, passing through what seemed to be an impassable area covered in brush but was actually a hidden road.

The ranger met them at the end of the path, the somber look on his face telling him all he needed to know. The men exchanged grim looks. Though they’d done this dozens of times, it took its toll. They waited. About 15 minutes later they heard the first scream. The female. Then the male. Bloodcurdling, desperate screams that seemed to last a lifetime. Finally they died down to hoarse, guttural moans ending abruptly with a large splash. Silence washed over the woods.

They waited another 30 minutes before carefully approaching the only clearing that bordered the lake in this area. The destruction was breathtaking. Slowly and silently they began their work, the ranger keeping an intent watch over the lake. It took almost two hours to clean up the mess, get the Jeep on the trailer, and all the belongings into the plastic bins. Every now and then there would be a small splash and the group would freeze.

There was really no need, according to the rules and rites passed down through generations, the creature only attacked those who willfully ignored the warnings and approached the entry to its underwater lair. Still, it was unnerving being this close.

Once they were done the ranger gave a slight nod and began walking back up the trail towards his cabin. The others returned to the truck. The final duty was his and his alone. He shoveled dirt and sand and rocks until there wasn’t a spot of blood or gore left visible in the area. Once he was satisfied he leaned tiredly against the shovel, looking out at the water. About 40 feet out the glassy surface began to ripple and a lone tentacle broke the surface. Tendrils trailed from it, lined with razor sharp hooks and claws, almost like it was wearing strings of barbed wire. It lazily shook back and forth in a horrific mock wave before gliding back under the water.

Shivering he turned away, throwing the shovel over his shoulder and trudging back to his truck. They still had to get rid of the car and belongings before he could go home, shower, and try to drown today’s events with whiskey. He needed to rest while he could. Summer was almost upon them and that was their busy season.

Categories: Short Story Writing

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The Black Panther That Wasn’t

 

When I was twelve, I looked forward to the summer because it meant my first time joining my cousins in spending a month with my Cherokee grandmother in the backwoods of Arkansas, near the Louisiana line. Originally from Oklahoma, that entire side of the family had relocated to a small, rural area where they could work the land and escape what they called the commercialization of the tribe.

She had a few hundred acres but other than the housing area, a farming area, and an RV trail to a fully stocked natural pond, the rest of the property was so densely covered with pine trees that the kids didn’t dare venture off the beaten path too far.

I was the only one out of my cousins that had left the fold. My mom married a man in the Air Force, which meant I spent most of my childhood traveling the world. I was considered the black sheep of the kids. I had not been been raised in the ways of our tradition so I caught a lot of teasing, mostly good natured.

My grandmother loved having us all there, she always joked that it was free labor to work her crops – fields of green peas, carrots, and corn. We didn’t mind because it made camping out by the pond and night swimming a real treat. Of course we had to be careful of snakes and chiggers and critters and such.

Near the end of my visit we had worked particularly hard, picking the crops and getting them ready for market in record time. It meant our work for the summer was done and it was almost time for us to go home … and back to school. We decided to spend our entire last weekend camping at the pond, since I was being picked up the next Thursday. We loaded up the four-wheelers and took off. We fished, and cooked what we caught (well, the older cousins did) and we played in the pond almost the entire day. After a full day of sun and fun we all decided to crash and get an early start the next day.

To this day I’m not really sure what woke me but I was wide awake and I had to pee. I snuck out of the girl’s tent as quietly as I could (according to my cousins I was as loud as a bull in a china shop when I walked) but when I stood up outside the tent I froze in place. About 40 feet away, standing at the edge of the water, were two glowing yellow eyes, staring directly at me. There was enough of a breeze to ripple the water and the moonlight danced, illuminating a very large, very still black panther.

I’d heard stories, heck we’d even told stories around the campfire this summer, but I’d never seen one before, none of us had. This was like sighting a Bigfoot! It tilted its head, first one way, then the other. I quietly whispered, “Hey, guys, you gotta see this. Hey, wake up.” The cat’s ears perked up at the sound of my voice and it took a step towards me. That’s when I noticed something odd, it didn’t have a tail and it moved … funny. Awkward, not at all like a cat would normally gracefully slink.

And it was moving towards me. It had taken a few more steps. Losing my nerve, I yelled at my cousins to wake up, and that’s when the cat opened up its mouth and screamed at me. Literally it sounded like a woman screaming bloody murder. My cousins shot out of the tents and all came to the same abrupt stop that I had. My oldest cousin sucked in his breath and said one word, a word that sent the other cousins scurrying into the largest tent, dragging me with them.

Skinwalker.

He backed towards our tent, chanting something over and over, looking at the ground in front of the creature, never directly meeting its eyes. The creature screamed over and over until I thought I would lose my mind. The older cousins all joined in the chant, and eventually everyone was chanting but me, since I had no idea what they were saying. We heard the cat growl right outside of the tent and then it circled us, too many times to count, sometimes growling, sometimes screaming. Finally the dawn came and with one last snarl and scream, the panther sounds diminished as it moved away from our tent. When we were sure it was really gone we loaded up as fast as we could and headed back home.

My oldest cousin took me by the arm and sat me in front of my grandmother, then he asked me to tell them both what had happened before I woke everyone. When I recounted my tale my grandmother gasped in horror and rattled off questions, did you look at it? Did you meet its eyes? Did you speak with it? I admitted I had looked at it but I told them I never spoke to it. My grandmother hugged me tightly and for some reason that scared me worse than anything else that had happened. She seemed so sad, like she was saying goodbye to me.

She called in the rest of the family and for the next two days there was a constant stream of chanting as some ancient ritual was carried out with me at the center. I switched between terrified and bored as the hours crawled by and I vaguely remember sleeping … a lot. Occasionally at night we would hear the woman’s scream trailing out from the forest but I never saw the skinwalker again. I also never visited my grandmother’s place again. I wasn’t allowed back.

For the past thirty years I’ve been to so many funerals as one by one my mom’s side of the family died off to accidents, natural causes, and what seemed abysmally bad luck. No children have been born. When I’ve asked about it I’ve just been told that that’s the way it is. So I’ve gone on with my life, moving across the country and settling down in a mountainous area near the west coast. I married, but it didn’t take. No kids for me either. And now, today, I’ve just received the news that my youngest cousin has passed. I’m all that’s left.

As I hang up the phone, I walk outside to stand on my balcony. My closest neighbor is a few miles away and I love this place so much, the nature, the quiet, the peace. The moon is just starting to climb into the sky when I hear it. The screaming followed by snarls and growls as something hurtles towards me from the dark.

 

 

Categories: Short Story Writing

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Escape

 

Branches clawed at her arms and face, leaving drops of morning dew as they took her blood in trade. Her chest was on fire, her breaths ragged and short. When a bird screeched above her she dove towards the base of the closest tree. She whimpered as its call echoed through the woods, picked up and repeated by others until the forest canopy was alive with sound.

She desperately searched the area, crawling through the mud and leaves, digging and tunneling under limbs until she had her entire body nestled close to the trunk of a large bush, still whimpering and panting. The caws and screeches grew in volume, almost deafening, and closer. Too close. She clamped her hands over her mouth, trying not to breathe, listening intently.

The ground beneath her shook as something heavy landed nearby, then another, and another and the forest fell silent. She tried desperately to remain quiet, still her shaking body, drawing in quick breaths through her fingers, her eyes darting and searching for any sign of movement. Tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving a clean pink trail through the grime and dirt covering her face.

How did it come to this? Yesterday life was normal, boring even. She was jogging, earbuds in, music blaring, her biggest worry what to eat when she got home. Then everything went black and when she finally came to and opened her eyes, the world had gone insane. She found herself in a cage within a row of cages, each one holding a bedraggled and blood-covered, cowering woman. And then she saw them.

The humanoid creatures were over 6 feet tall with midnight black gleaming feathers, human-sized raven-like heads with cruel charcoal colored beaks. It just wasn’t possible. Her mind kept screaming that at her, all through the night and into the next day.

When one of the creatures opened her cage this morning, she shot at its legs like a bullet, knocking it off balance. She didn’t stop running, though she could hear the other women screaming for her to release them. She’d get out, then she’d send help back. It was their only chance. Her only chance.

She’d run through the dark, bouncing off rocky walls, disoriented, chasing a tiny ray of light in the distance. The light grew bigger, brighter and she burst out of the opening into the forest. And now she was trapped again. Not a cage, but a bush, surrounded by those … things. A faint noise caught her attention, familiar but what was it? It was a car, a vehicle, growing fainter as it drove away. There must be a road nearby. She was going to make it out and she was going to help those girls. Time to make a break for …

She screamed and fought wildly as she was yanked from the bush, dangling in the air inches away from its face and then the world went dark one last time.

 

 

Categories: Short Story Writing

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The Vulture

 

 

Do you like scary movies?  I used to love them.  I don’t mean those slasher flicks they have now, I’m talking the classics.  The movies that scared you more by what they didn’t show, than what they did.  For instance the original Jaws – can you honestly tell me that after seeing that movie you never had a moment of total panic, even years later?  Well I’ll admit it.  Even now I could be swimming in a lake, treading water, and a current will touch my foot and all of a sudden I just know that lurking deep beneath me is a giant shark, gliding up from the depths, opening that cavern full of razors he calls a mouth – ah even thinking about it gives me the chills.  Anyway, like I was saying, I used to love them . . . until the night I saw the vulture for the first time.

 

All the self-inflicted terror of my earlier years was no comparison to what I felt after the birth of my son, Christian.  I would lay awake at night, scaring the bejeebers out of myself by imagining the most horrible things.  When he was a baby it was SIDS, RSV, asthma, and a million other things that my over-active mind imagined, and I found the only way to calm myself would be to sneak in to look at him … closely . . . to ensure he was still breathing.

 

When he hit 3 my nightmares changed to fear of falling accidents (that little daredevil had no fear, climbing up the highest thing he could reach and then leaping off as if to prove he could fly), pedophiles, or mistreatment by other kids that would permanently scar him.  Did I mention I had a very active imagination?  I kept the monitor turned up high at night so I could hear the slightest noise, and there were times when a simple burp would come through loud enough to knock me off my bed.

 

One night I woke up at 3:30 a.m., with no idea what had interrupted my slumber.  From habit I decided to go check on Christian.  He was very proud of himself for getting a “big-boy bed”, and enjoyed using every inch of that twin mattress.  That night he was lying sideways, curled up against the side rail which kept him from tumbling off onto the floor during his nightly gymnastics routine.  Then my eyes drifted up towards the headboard, and I almost lost control of my bladder.  Perched there, staring holes through me with beady black soulless eyes, was an enormous vulture.  It had to be at least 3′ high and it was more than black, it was an anti-color – the color of a black hole, or the door to hell.

 

My brain refused to accept what it was seeing at first, and I must have blinked a thousand times in less than a minute, hoping this apparition would disappear, but it remained.  The vulture continued to eye me as my protective instincts kicked in and I started towards it.  I grabbed one of Christian’s plastic golf clubs, hoping it would withstand the hit I was about to give.  The bird never moved as I approached, but as I reared back to swing the club its beak cracked open into a malicious grin.  Before I could begin the swing the bird just popped out of existence.  Badly shaken I rested my weight on the club for a moment before my knees gave out and I collapsed to the ground.  Dripping with sweat I crawled into bed with my son, and slept no more that night.

 

A week went by with no further encounters, and I had just about convinced myself I had imagined the entire episode when it repeated itself.  This time, however, the club was only inches away before the bird disappeared and the resounding crack against the wall woke up Christian.  He seemed to take his mommy standing over his bed with a plastic golf club in stride, and went right back to sleep.  Once again, I joined him, glaring at the headboard until the sun finally came up.

 

This went on for a month, with no real pattern.  The vulture would be there one night, gone for a few days, back again for two nights in a row, and on and on.  During the day I researched everything I could find on supernatural, vultures, ghosts, premonitions, anything I could get my hands on.  I knew vultures were scavengers, and fed on dead flesh before I started.  The only thing I truly learned from my research was that I was utterly alone; there was no precedent for what I was going through.

 

Then the vulture started appearing two or three nights in a row before taking a day off.  Within 3 months the evil creature was perching every single night.  By this time I had become convinced that the bird was a harbinger of death.  He was warning me that something was going to happen to my son.  Finally, on my son’s 4th birthday, the vulture appeared during the day.  That day I took an extended leave from work and pulled my son out of daycare.  I was not going to let anything happen to my beautiful baby boy.  Christian thought it was great fun at first, he had me home all day and my undivided attention.

 

I began making lists of anything that could possibly happen to my son.  I refused to let him go outside, in case someone jumped the fence and took him or a car lost control and crashed through.  Then I began to be afraid to drive anywhere with him because of accidents.  I grew afraid to order take-out, in case someone had poisoned the food or the delivery person was actually a serial killer.  I stopped answering the door at all, afraid of who, or what, might be on the other side.  And still the vulture appeared, more frequently, all through the day and night.  Interestingly enough, Christian couldn’t see the bird, but he always knew when it was present.  He would immediately be at my side, peering around the room from behind my leg.

 

I called all my family and friends and told them that Christian and I were going on an extended trip with some money I had come into, in hopes that people would stop beating on the door.  I stopped my mail, because I was afraid to take Christian with me to the mailbox, but more terrified of leaving him in the house by himself.

 

I found myself lying beside Christian on the couch in the living room one day, thinking to myself that maybe I should just end it for both of us.  At least that way we could go together and I could make sure he didn’t suffer.  The vulture was roosting on the back of the couch, not a foot away from me, and I could feel the evil projecting from the bird in tidal waves.  I looked down at my son, my handsome little boy.  He had the most beautiful eyelashes, long enough that even most supermodels would have killed for them, and deep green eyes, with gold flecks radiating out from the center.

 

And then I really looked at him.  His skin had grown pale, from lack of sun.  His little ribs were visible through his shirt, from lack of food.  His hair hung down in his face, not having been cut in months.  There were deep red marks under his eyes, and his cheeks were starting to sink in.  Over the last few days he had lost all energy, barely moving from the couch at all.  He was dying.

 

All of a sudden I was furious.  I mean angry enough to take on a whole football team of serial killers and kick butt and take names.  I thought I had been protecting my son, but I was not letting him live.  He was being deprived of friends, fun, and family and all because of this damn BIRD!

 

I jumped off the couch with my fists clenched and my face blood-red and I looked at that vulture.  I stared him down until he was the first to look away.  And then I woke up my son.  I told Christian to go to his room and get dressed, because he and mommy were going out.  We were going to get a Happy Meal and then we were going to the park.  When we got done there we were going to the grocery store and I was going to stock the house back up and make him anything he wanted for dinner, and we were going right now.

 

The vulture puffed up to twice his size as Christian rushed passed him to get dressed.  Then it opened its wings and a twinge of fear shot through me in spite of the anger.  The wings stretched out past both ends of the couch, and when the vulture started flapping it was like being caught in a tornado.  It opened its beak and emitted a sound like a thousand fingernails scraping a chalk board.  The sound roared through me and I clapped my hands over my ears as the pain drove me to my knees.  I fought back to a standing position, keeping that vision of what this bird, and as a result I, had done to my son.  I fought the wind, and I fought the pain, and I looked through the eyes of the demon and did not back down.  Then I heard it, faint at first, but growing with each heartbeat.  A trilling that was vaguely familiar, and that beat back the pain the vulture was inflicting.  My heart grew stronger, my resolve didn’t waver.

 

That’s when the vulture leapt into the air and shot towards me.  I heard the tinkle of broken glass, saw a flash of red, and before the vulture could reach me it had reared back emitting a shriek.  The vulture looked almost human for a second, its face registering complete shock and a tinge of fear.  For a second it looked as if the vulture would try again, and that’s when the robin flew down and landed on my shoulder.  The vulture’s black eyes radiated a lifetime of hatred at the little bird, who sat there calmly, head cocked to one side as if to say, “Are you still here?”  The vulture vanished with a scream of pure rage, and I never saw it again except for my worst nightmares.

 

The robin remained for another moment, and a river of warmth spread through me filled with hope, faith, and love.  It hopped off my shoulder and bounced over to the window.  For a split second, with the sun shining in behind it, I had an impression of a large winged glowing figure, superimposed behind the little bird.  Then it disappeared.

 

That was sixteen years ago.  Christian is now in college, and I am so proud of him.  I don’t get to see him as much as I’d like, but I understand that he has his own life to live.  I’m sitting at the kitchen table.  I was drinking coffee while reading the paper, but now I’m just reading the same article over and over, my heart racing.

 

Vulture or Victim

 

Koreen Reynolds was arrested this morning at her home.  Authorities were called to the scene by a worried relative who hadn’t seen her or her four year old son, Lee, in weeks.  Police finally kicked in the door after an hour of trying to talk the woman out of the house.  Upon entering the residence police found the woman curled up into a corner of the living room, rocking the body of her dead son.  The cause of death has not been officially released, but a medical source revealed that the child had been smothered, and had apparently been dead for days.  Ms. Reynolds has told authorities that she killed her son to keep “the vulture from getting him.”  When questioned further, Ms. Reynolds revealed that she has supposedly been “haunted by a ghostly vulture, intent on causing her son pain.”  Her story is that she killed her son so he wouldn’t have to suffer.  Ms. Reynolds has been remanded to a state mental institution for testing and diagnosis.  Friends of the Reynolds’ are shocked.  They describe Ms. Reynolds as a, “. . . loving, caring mother.  She loved her son more than life itself.  I can’t believe she would ever intentionally harm him.”

 

Now I know I’m not alone, and my heart aches for this woman I do not know.  If only she had found the strength to stop and realize that you can’t protect your child from everything.  Sometimes they just have to get out there and fall from the monkey bars, leap off the rope into the lake, or deal with bullies.  It’s part of growing up, and they have to have the bad as well as the good in order to be able to function as an adult.

 

More than anything, I wish she had been strong enough to see the robin.

Categories: Short Story Writing

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Théoden’s Revenge

 

Blaze pinched her finger and thumb so tightly across the bridge of her nose that the back of her eyelids erupted with stars. While not helping ease her headache, it did provide a welcome distraction from the arguing relatives behind her. Blaze’s full name was Blazely Theodora Kennington, which she refused to answer to and was one more item in a long list of the reasons she disliked her family so.

 

It was Christmas Eve and Blaze, having caught up on all her current case paperwork, was contemplating any means of escaping the house which seemed to have shrunk with the influx of family members. She was shaken out of her reverie by the harsh tone of her cell phone. She snatched it up so greedily she nearly sliced her ear off.

 

The voice on the other end was one that never failed to work up her curiosity. With a Private Investigator this could be a dangerous thing, but in the 3 years since the first phone call Blaze had never been able to determine the identity of her unknown benefactor. The voice phoned, gave her the details of a case, and offered her a fee based on the difficulty he perceived. The next day the money was placed in her account (traveling through so many banks in so many countries that it was impossible to track) and was hers to keep regardless of whether she solved the offered case. Although, to be fair, she did solve more cases than not.

 

Today the voice informed her that 5 year-old Alisha Farrington had been kidnapped from her home that morning by an especially vicious predator named Vilius Mann. Mann had broken through a roadblock, cut across country, and disappeared with girl into the Théoden Woods.

 

Blaze felt her blood quicken and her flesh turn cold at the mention of the Théoden Woods. She would have taken the case for free just for the chance to investigate the area responsible for hundreds of folklore tales and legends. Her conscience, unaffected by this thrill, betrayed her by forcing her to ask why she was needed if this much information was available. Less than enlightened by the voice’s rejoinder that she was the only person who could enter the woods and retrieve the girl safely, Blaze nevertheless began preparing for the journey.

 

Less than an hour later she found herself a few miles away from where the voice had told her she must enter. She had always followed his instructions explicitly in the past, and as they had never led her astray or caused harm she saw no reason to stop now. She parked a hundred yards out, scaled the fence, and entered the tree line at the northernmost edge of the woods. Dressed completely in black as she was, Blaze’s figure was lost to sight within a few steps of entry. Dusk was fast approaching and Blaze, however curious she was about the area, had no intention of being here after dark.

 

Blaze tracked through the forest, nerves taut, senses hyper-aware, gun drawn as taught at the academy. She tracked for 30 minutes before she found the first signs of her quarry. It appeared from the tracks that Mann was forcing Alisha to walk in front of him at a very quick pace, as evidenced by the numerous areas where the little girl had lost her footing and fallen. Blaze’s lips tightened in anger, she was quite aware of what baser humans were capable of doing to innocent children, having been an investigator of child cases for over eight years.

 

With a sense of urgency now, Blaze started through the clearing before her. Her steps faltered, and then stopped, as she became aware of the complete silence enveloping her. Not a bird song or insect noise could be heard and Blaze found the vacuum of noise unnerving. As she approached the center of the clearing she realized the trees at the other end were blurring and becoming indistinct. Blaze cursed as she realized she must have lost track of time and dark was drawing near.

 

Suddenly the sound of a slap pierced the silence, followed by a wail of pain that echoed through the air around her. Blaze’s rage boiled up, threatening to overwhelm her. She closed her eyes and took slow, deep breaths trying to regain her composure. Acting without thinking would be of no help to herself or Alisha. A breeze touched her face and she could hear the leaves rustling around her. When she opened her eyes she found her vision was blurry and distorted. Incoherent thoughts raced through her mind and with horror she recognized the start of another episode. Her last thoughts before losing consciousness were of saving Alisha, this little girl she had never met yet still knew well.

 

Images pierced the darkness of her mind, strange because the perspective was from so high. Tree-tops passed by and birds took flight in fright as she ventured further through the forest. A faint weeping reached her ears and anger boiled to the surface again as she hurried towards the sound. Rounding a corner she caught her first sight of her prey, and stopped to take in the circumstances.

 

Mann, a short, pudgy, balding man with an average face housing ice-blue eyes, was in the process of shedding his clothes. Crumpled at the base of a tree was Alisha, a small slender form with tear tracks rushing down the red hand print emblazoned on her cheek. Blaze crept closer as Mann continued to undress, muttering constantly to himself as Alisha continued to weep. Oblivious to her presence, Blaze was able to come directly behind the man without his notice. Mann suddenly sensed something and Blaze froze in place as he whirled around. His eyes passed over her several times without recognition as he surveyed his surroundings. Mann, seeming to believe everything was as it should be, turned and started towards the terrified girl.

 

Blaze’s rage took control and she reached down (down?) and plucked up the now-terrified man, whose last coherent thought was bewilderment over how he had so seriously lost control over this situation, and carried him away from Alisha. The tranquil night was split with the predator’s screams of horror, and then pain, as he found himself battered against tree trunks like a rag doll. His screams were finally silenced when his body could stand the abuse no longer and limbs were severed from the body. The harsh breathing and guttural sounds of rage finally diminished as Blaze once again sought to control her anger.

 

As Blaze slowly regained consciousness she pressed her hand against her back, which was quite sore and felt as if someone were poking her in the middle of her spine with a bat. As her eyes focused, and awareness of her surroundings set in, she realized the bat was a knot in the tree trunk she was leaning against. A loud sniffle by her ear caused her to shoot straight to her feet, a move she regretted instantly as every joint in her body screamed protest. Alisha looked up at her with a trace of hero-worship and complete trust. Blaze spun around in a circle (eliciting yet more groans from her battered body) trying to look everywhere at once, but Mann was nowhere in evidence.

 

Blaze picked up the frail little girl and carried her towards where she thought the forest might end, watching warily for any sign of the whereabouts of the predator. Her natural good humor resurfaced as she realized Mann had not had time to physically ruin the girl, and although she would probably have nightmares for years to come, a full healing was possible. Alisha wrapped her arms around Blaze’s neck and placed her cheek with the rapidly fading hand mark against her shoulder and promptly went to sleep. Within a few hundred yards Blaze found the edge of the forest, and stepped out into the moonlit night to find her car directly in front of her.

 

Blaze lay the sleeping form of Alisha on the back seat and called the authorities to inform them of their location. This task done, Blaze stared towards the trees and tried to fathom what had just occurred. A warm and peaceful feeling enveloped her as she stepped back towards the forest. With a final look back at the slumbering girl who would now be safe, Blaze re-entered the woods. After all, holidays should be spent with family.

 

Categories: Short Story Writing

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