Tag: psychological

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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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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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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Second Chance

 

A blanket of white covered the neighborhood, courtesy of the first snowfall of winter.  The sky was just beginning to lighten, dawn steadily making her way beneath the horizon.  Tired, red-rimmed eyes peered out into the darkness, waiting for the first sign of life.  A circle of fog rhythmically spread and faded as the old woman, her forehead pressed against the cold pane of the window in her second-story bedroom, breathed in and out.  Her white hair, once thick and a gorgeous chestnut color, had thinned to the point where her skull was readily apparent.  What was once a voluptuous, flawless beauty was now a thin, wrinkled and sagging creature.

 

She stared off into the distance, not looking at the fresh carpet of snow, but seeing images from her past.  She had always been proud and independent, and more than a touch stubborn, and that much had remained the same.  Yellowed eyes flicked to the large digital readout emblazoning the current time onto her wall, and she sighed as she realized she still had at least an hour before the house would begin to stir.  With nothing else to occupy her thoughts, she returned to her inner scrutiny of her life.  She had a daughter, Paprika, that she loved more than life, and who had brought her much joy over the years.  Her house had been paid for decades earlier, and there was the escrow account which paid for all living expenses.  She had her family, her friends, her faith, a roof over her head, and had led a fairly prosperous life.  Still, there was a bitter, cold core at the center of her heart that time had not eased in the least.

 

A sudden movement in the darkness below shook her out of her reflections.  She strained her eyes, staring down the street, trying to detect what had caught her attention.  At the very end of the block a figure slowly moved into view, and the air grew heavy around her.  It was clothed in a black, hooded cloak that covered from head to toe, making it impossible to even guess whether the person was male or female.  The figure was walking in a direction that would lead them directly in front of her window, and she leaned closer trying to discern some clue as to the cloak-wearer’s identity.  As the figure neared her house, the woman jumped back as the window she had been leaning against was suddenly covered by a sheet of ice.  The old woman swept at the ice with her afghan, and when that didn’t work scraped at it with her fingernails.  By the time she had cleared a section large enough to see through, the figure had disappeared.

 

Then she heard the front door of the house creak open.  An ocean of fear washed over her as her breath was sucked from her chest, not even leaving enough wind to call out.  The carpeting in the hall softened the sound of the footsteps approaching her room at the top of the stairs but did not silence them completely.  Her eyes doubled in size as her bedroom door slowly swung open, and the figure in black glided into the room.  She sat, frozen in fear, as it came to a stop a few feet away.  Black-gloved hands appeared and swept up to remove the hood of the cloak.  Time seemed to stand still.  Where she had not had any breath at all moments earlier, she now found herself taking in too much air, as she began to hyperventilate.

 

The gloved hands swept back the hood, revealing a woman of unearthly beauty.  Waves of silver hair flowed down her back, reaching for the ground.  Skin the color of moonlight glowed around blue eyes deep enough to drown in.  Pearly white teeth gleamed in the darkness as the woman’s face softened into a smile, and the old lady’s fear had vanished before the smile was complete.

 

“Hello Avalon, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.  Would it be all right if I called you Ava?  That is what your friends call you, and we will be great friends, you and I.”

 

The words had drifted through the air, like dust motes in sunlight, and Ava found herself nodding to the vision without even thinking.

 

“Well then Ava, that makes things much more comfortable, shall we sit down?  We have much to discuss and you have little strength left.”

 

Ava collapsed back into the chair she had been occupying for the last few hours, and the stranger glided over and perched on the end of Ava’s bed.

 

Finally regaining at least a hint of her wits, Ava managed to ask three questions at once, without even forming a sentence, “Who . . .what . . . why are you . . .”

 

The woman grinned, revealing dimples that further softened her face.  “Let’s start with who, since that is the quickest to answer.  Your race has many names for me, but you may call me Geocor.”

 

Ava buried her head in her hands.  Her muffled voice came from between clenched fists.  “It’s my time to die, isn’t it?  That’s what you are – you’ve come to take me . . .” Nothing else could be understood as Ava broke into sobs that wracked her entire body.

 

Geocor was beside Ava in a heartbeat.  She stood beside the chair and pulled the shaking woman into an embrace, whispering into her ear.  “Shh, there now . . . Ava, calm yourself, please.  This is not your moment of death.  I am here to offer you an extraordinary opportunity.”

 

Ava peered through her clenched fingers; hope lit her eyes from within dampened by disbelief and skepticism.  “I’m not dead?”

 

Geocor held out her hands and, after a moment’s hesitation, Ava took them and allowed herself to be pulled out of her chair.  Geocor led Ava by the hand to her vanity, and together they stared into the large, ornate mirror there.  For a fleeting moment, the image staring back at Ava was herself, in her thirties, still full of dreams and hope, eyes filled with an unending curiosity and love of life.  The image blurred and when it came back into focus it showed Ava, beaten down by the passage of time.  Her eyes, though still filled with curiosity, had lost their love of life somewhere along the way.  Those curious eyes turned to the pale vision beside her, “You said something about an opportunity?”

 

Geocor’s eyes shown with delight, “You were always so strong in spirit, Ava.  I’m glad to see that hasn’t changed.  Yes, I am here to offer you an opportunity.  For many years I have watched you, and my heart has ached for you.  It has always been clear how much you love your family and friends.  You have a kind heart, but it is also a closed heart, for you shut down a piece of yourself many moons ago.”

 

Ava’s eyes glistened with tears as Geocor continued.  “I am here to give you a choice, a chance to rewrite your life.  I have limited powers, but power enough to send you back in time and give you the chance to change one major event, or decision if you will.”

 

Ava, her knees feeling quite weak again suddenly, walked in a daze back to her chair by the window.  Collapsing into it, she stared out the window in a trance, everything else forgotten, as her mind traveled back in time to the one event that changed her life forever.

 

She was thirty years old and completely at peace with her life, except for the fact that she had been told she would never have children.  She found pleasures in the simple things, curling up on the couch and reading a good book, or sitting in front of the fireplace on cold days sipping her coffee.  Anything that she could do at home she lived for, she was a homebody and was never more content than when she was puttering around the house.  One night her friends had surprised her by showing up on her doorstep and informing her, with a stubbornness to match her own, that she would be going out with them tonight and they were not taking no for an answer.  Caving in to the inevitable, she had felt a thrill of excitement as they helped her pick out an outfit, and within an hour they were headed for the club.

 

Her friends went out quite often and had enough friends that worked the door and the bars spread throughout the club that getting in was no problem and every other drink was free.  She had paced herself, knowing full well that she couldn’t handle much alcohol because she had built up no tolerance for it.  The girls moved in a pack from area to area, for this club had 5 “mini-bars” inside and offered everything from Techno to Country to Karaoke, dancing here and there but mainly staying together and having a great time.

 

Then she had spotted him, walking right towards her.  He was tall, 6’1″, with midnight-black hair, forest-green eyes, and lips slightly chapped from a nervous habit of licking them, yet still immensely kissable.  He had walked up to her at the bar, introduced himself as Hayden, and shyly asked her to dance.  They had danced all night long, and Ava found herself closing the bar down for the first time in years.  When the lights came on at 2 a.m., Hayden had asked her if she would accompany him to breakfast, and not wanting the night to end, she had agreed as long as her friends could come too (safety was always an issue).  After breakfast they stood in the parking lot and talked until the sun came up.  They were inseparable from that point on.

 

Within a year, Ava discovered she was pregnant, and Hayden seemed as happy about this as she was.  They got a house together and began planning for a life together with a child.  And that was where things went wrong.  The pregnancy was a very difficult one, and 5 months into it Hayden seemed to be gone all the time, leaving her alone to deal with the nausea, decorating, and other duties.  He traveled with his job and seemed to be gone more often each month.  Finally, it came to a head two days before Christmas, with Ava six months pregnant.

 

Hayden’s twenty-two-year-old girlfriend called the house to inform Ava that Hayden would not be returning home and asked Ava to pack all his things up so that they could pick them up in the next week.

 

Ava remembered the absolute devastation to this day, of waddling into the kitchen and trying to pour a glass of water.  With tears pouring down her face, hands shaking so violently that the glass slipped from her fingers.  As the glass hit the floor and shattered into a million pieces, so had her heart.  Within hours she had packed every bit of his clothing and placed it beside the house for them to pick up.  She then sat down to figure out how she was going to make it with a child, on her own.

 

She called her mother, who came over immediately trying hard to hide her absolute hatred for this man who had done this horrible thing to her daughter and grandchild.  Between them they decided to move into a house together so that Ava would have a support system in place and her mother would be able to spend unlimited time with her one, and only, grandchild.  Paprika was born, a healthy and beautiful baby girl, and that was the last time her father saw her.  He never came around again.

 

Over the years Ava would hear from friends how he had cheated on the latest conquest, and already moved in with the new woman.  Each time Ava’s heart would grow a little colder.  She had never dated again; never let a man get close to her heart.  Instead, she had concentrated all her love and energy on her family and friends.

 

Geocor cleared her throat, bringing Ava out of the past and back to the present.  “Have you made up your mind what you will do, Ava?”

 

Ava, on impulse, jumped out of the chair and strode across the floor to Geocor.  “Yes, I have.  I know what moment I would like to go back to and change.”

 

Geocor reached down and held both hands, turning them both back towards the mirror.  “Okay, Ava, I need you to close your eyes and concentrate on the moment you want to return to.”

 

Ava closed her eyes and concentrated so hard that furrows appeared above her eyes.  Geocor began chanting in a strange, fluid language.  In the distance a rhythmic drumming began, growing in sound until Ava couldn’t even hear her heartbeat anymore.  The drums became so loud that Ava felt her teeth shaking with each beat, and her heart was now beating in time to the rhythm.

 

Suddenly a hand grabbed her shoulder and Ava screamed and flung open her eyes.  Her friend jumped about a foot off the floor, “Good Lord Ava, are you okay?  You’ve been gone so long I came to check on you.  You were just standing in front of the mirror with your eyes closed, and now you look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

 

Ava looked into the mirror, taking in her dark hair and minimal wrinkles.  The drums were still pounding away, and Ava realized it was the bass from the music being played in the club.  Her friend was still looking at her with concern, so Ava flashed one of her ready smiles and headed back out into the club.  She positioned herself at the bar, knowing in a few minutes Hayden would be approaching her.

 

Sure enough, there he came.  God, she had forgotten how handsome he truly was.  With each step he took, Ava’s mind flashed through the years ahead, reliving every moment in exquisite detail.  Finally, there he was.  Her heart was beating so loudly she could hear it over the music as he shyly smiled down at her.

 

“Hi, my name is Hayden.  Would you . . . is it possible . . . will you dance with me?”

 

An eternity passed in a second as Ava stared up at Hayden, until she gave her answer, “Hello Hayden.  My name is Avalon, but you can call me Ava.  And yes, I’d love to dance with you.”

 

Suddenly time stopped, everyone froze in place but Ava, and silence descended across the room.  Geocor popped into view a few feet away, and it was obvious she was agitated.

 

“What are you doing, Ava?!?  I thought you came back to change things.  Are you really going to let this man . . . “ Her face shriveled up in distaste at the word, and she glared at the stationary figure as she continued, “. . . this man break your heart all over again?”  Geocor’s tirade continued for a few more minutes before she started to calm down.  Finally, looking exhausted, drained, and completely bewildered, Geocor looked into Ava’s strong face and simply said, “Why?”

 

Ava’s eyes welled up with tears, but a broad smile split her face.  “I can answer your question with one word . . . Paprika!”  Geocor was about to break in, but Ava silenced her with a gesture.  “Please hear me out.  I have no intention of squandering the chance you have given me.”  Geocor’s mouth was working furiously, but no sound came out as Ava continued, “You say you’ve watched over me for years, but you evidently do not know me.  Although, at first, my intention was to tell Hayden to take a flying leap, by doing so I would lose my daughter.  Also, I have no idea how else it might change my life – better or worse?  Regardless, there is one thing I know for certain, changing the course of your life by changing a milestone event is inherently dangerous.  I do plan on making some changes this time around, but they will be personal changes.”

 

Geocor’s mouth stopped moving, and her head cocked a little to the side.  “Personal changes?”

 

“Yes, personal changes.  I can’t change the fact that I fall in love with Hayden and have Paprika, because it’s an integral part of who I am.”  Ava stepped closer to Geocor, earnestly trying to put her thoughts and feelings into words this unearthly creature could understand.

 

“What I can change is my reaction to it.  Instead of locking down my heart and being so afraid of getting hurt again that I don’t allow myself to love, I will be open and receptive to the idea that there is a man out there worthy of my attention.  I may not find him, and I will probably not actively look for him, but I will not turn him away if he appears.   I don’t know how else to say it . . . ”

 

Geocor’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she stared into the face of this proud, stubborn, bewildering human.  She couldn’t help but admire Ava and realized her view of humans in general had been profoundly changed by this encounter.

 

“Ava, while I do not completely understand what you’re saying, I will leave you in peace to change what you will.”

 

Ava returned to Hayden’s side as Geocor faded and the last thing she heard her say was, “I’ll be watching . . .” before the music roared back into existence and Hayden took her hand.

 

 

* * *

 

Ava woke in the middle of the night, unsure what had roused her.  She got out of bed, draped on her housecoat, and padded across the room to her favorite chair by the window.  She realized that winter had made itself known as she stared out at the first snowfall of the season.   The blanket of white was oddly comforting, and she found herself pressing her forehead against the window, eyes swallowing in the scene before her.

 

A sound behind her caused her to start, and then she laughed at herself for being so silly when the second snore came.  You’re getting old, old girl, she thought to herself as she walked over to look lovingly down at her husband.  She still couldn’t believe how lucky she was, for not only had this man given her thirty years of unending love, he had also adopted her daughter, Paprika, giving her the father she would never have known otherwise.

 

She leaned over and kissed him gently, whispering, “Thank you, my love, for being the man I didn’t think existed.”  She shed her housecoat and crawled back into bed.  He rolled over and wrapped his arms around her as she drifted back to sleep with a smile on her face.

 

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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