Laura's Smile: Anthology of Horror Stories
Date: 2022-10-16 07:00:00+00:00
Description: Savor some bite-sized horror stories along with your candy this Halloween. This collection contains six haunting tales of witches, monsters, magical tunes, and black cats—everything a person needs to sit back and enjoy the Halloween spirit. Laura’s Smile— A prisoner about to get parole contemplates his bloody crimes. He’s ready to move on, but is his victim? Imaginary — The teen years are a time to leave the past behind. But some things refuse to be forgotten. After The Piper— When the piper’s song takes the world’s children, all that’s left for the rest of humanity is empty spaces. One man, h

Laura's Smile

And Other Terrifying Tales

Jesse Sprague

Copyright © 2022 Jesse Sprague

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Laura’s Smile

Imaginary

After the Piper

What Starts with a Black Cat…

Witch

Miles to Go

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Laura’s Smile

The worst nights plunge me into the dream, always the same dream. Picturesque, but somewhere under the layers, I always know, right from the start, that it is a nightmare. In this dream, I’m a teenage boy again and I step out the patio door onto the worn wooden deck. I drop my backpack at my feet. Heavy with books, it clunks down, and at the sound, Laura and her new boyfriend both look up at me.

There is a plum tree in Laura’s parents’ backyard, and the summer has been a hot one, so she rests under its laden branches with her boyfriend. The limbs sag from the weight of forgotten fruit, though the overripe plums also litter the grass. Laura sits in its shade, only her painted toes sticking out into the early September sun. Her brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail, falls in an untidy mess down her back. She wears his sweatshirt despite the heat, but I hardly notice because her smile outshines it all. An expression of pure joy that eclipses the sun. Inside, I scream at myself to look away. She lifts a hand and waves at me, motioning me over.

My eyes fasten on her smile, on the slight gap between her teeth, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes.

Next to Laura, he is a shadow, unimportant to the dream, though at the time I saw them under the tree, he seemed all-important to me. This boy who sat beside my Laura, held her hand, gave her his sweatshirt. He doesn’t matter at all; not even his death matters.

I smile back at her as my heart splinters into pieces. That happiness scalds me, and internally, I writhe under the weight of her joy.

A scream rips me from the familiar dream. On the bunk above me, my cellmate grumbles and turns over. The bunk’s creaking blends in a cacophony with my erratic heart. Her smile follows me from the dream, painting itself on the night. A smile she gave to me.

I feel her sometimes after the dream ends, watching me. She has not forgiven me, and I wonder if she enjoys seeing me rot.

I kick free of my blanket and roll off the bunk, turning to the wall where my drawing of her face stares back at me. Most of the face is vague, forgotten with time. But the smile is perfect, joyful, and it accuses me. Underneath the image are my words, printed as neatly as I could manage: Live for Laura. I fall on my knees and press my hands together in the only sort of prayer I know.

I can’t undo that night. Laura will see that eventually. I’ve come to terms with the extent of my guilt in my twenty years in prison. I’ve come to terms with my actions and the iron finality of them. I have to own them, and no recompense I make could ever undo what I took from her. I was only fifteen, and with a single hour, I defined my life, killed my future and hers. And his, but even though part of me knows that should hold weight, it never does. He meant nothing in life, and his death was just as forgettable. Only Laura’s absence matters, and she is gone.

But I am still here, and as I gasp, sucking air into my lungs, I repeat my familiar mantra to myself.

Earning back her smile is impossible and I deserve the torment of the dreams. Seeing the happy crinkle around her eyes and the joyous flash of white teeth, and knowing I’d destroyed it, was all the punishment that I needed. Every time she smiled, I knew I was only witnessing a reflection.

Whatever is left of Laura doesn’t smile. Hate is all that remains—a screaming echo of her death that follows me. But I know that when I get out tomorrow, Laura will see that I don’t need prison walls to punish me. She’ll see the torment I give myself is enough.

I didn’t have to kill her that night. I could have stopped with him.

With my knees digging into the cold concrete of my prison cell, I am perfectly aware that I cannot bring back that smile. She was just as young as I was back then, and I wonder what Laura would have become. The world will never know because we were only teenagers at the time, partially formed and ever so stupid. She’ll never become anything. But every day, I can live in her honor, try to do her memory proud. Is it possible I can someday compensate for that single act and meet her in heaven? No. That is beyond my reach, but perhaps I can earn a quiet peace.

When I catch my breath, I stand up again. My cellmate snores softly on his bunk. He’ll never be free. He was thirty-two when he raped and killed a woman. The age matters to me—he was already a man. If a man that age can overcome all he knows of goodness and commit such a deed, then there is something too dark inside of him to ever be brought into the light of day. I was tried as an adult, but I wasn’t one. Fifteen is different. Or I hope it is. I hope that there is good somewhere in me. Tomorrow, I will have a chance to find out. Parole is the brightest hope I have. They will release me in the morning. The time has finally come to enjoy a taste of freedom.

I was so young when I committed my crime; I’m a different man now. But I should try and be rested to greet the outside world for the first time in twenty years.

So I crawl back beneath the blanket. Laura’s smile never haunts me twice in an evening, so I close my eyes in peace. Sleep is foggy on my brain when a soft wind strokes my cheeks. Cold as graveyard wind. My first instinct is to turn away, but my body is heavy. A stench like meat left out too long in the heat swamps my nostrils.

“Joey,” she whispers. Her voice is hoarse and wet. More of a gurgle than a human tone, but still, I know her. I’ve felt her watching me so many times, but she’s never come so close. Never spoken or touched me.

Laura. I keep my eyes closed. I wonder if he is there too, and feel a familiar rage rise under my skin. Even with her dead, I can’t keep him away from Laura.

“I don’t want you to live for me,” she says. Hands slip under the blankets; fingers thin as bone stroke down my chest. “You touched me, Joey. Touched me.”

I did. My finger left a bloody smear on her cheek. Now I shiver at her touch as it moves over my belly, so intimate, so cold. Yet, I can’t bear to pull away from any type of tenderness from her. “I’m sorry, Laura.”

“I never felt it. Never even felt it. Did you like me better dead?”

I feel her touch as those bony fingers brush over my hip. Fear mingles with excitement. Anything she does, I have earned. I’ll let her. “I’m sorry, Laura. I can’t take back any of what I did.”

Her fingers grip me tightly, and something slimy and cold slides from my ear to my cheek. Against my will, my eyes open. Her mouth is next to mine, lipless and rotted. She grins, no longer a gap-toothed smile. One of her front teeth is missing. I feel a phantom pain in my knuckle, remembering the punch to her jaw that dislodged her tooth, sending it into her throat. Blood spurted from her mouth as she coughed and gagged.

“Sorry?” she gurgles. “I don’t want sorry.”

She isn’t there, can’t be there, but the fetid smell blocks out all reason. And my body responds to her touch in ways I don’t intend. Her flesh against me is spongey and slick.

“Stop,” I say.

“Stop?” Laura laughs, and in it, I hear my own voice echo back at me and an echo of her cry from all those years ago. I can’t see the park or her boyfriend’s crumpled corpse. I can’t see Laura’s dress, half ripped down the side, her brunette hair dirty and tangled with leaves. There was nothing but a bit of moonlight to see her by. But I can hear us both, just as we sounded—her whimpers, my heavy breath.

“Stop, please,” she pleaded. “Joey! Joey what are you doing? Stop, please stop.”

“Shut up,” I hissed at her.

“I don’t understand. Stop… Oh god.”

Then the undead Laura stops laughing, her rotted tongue poking out where her tooth should be.

“I’m better than that now,” I say. “I was a stupid kid then, and what I did was unforgivable. But that’s not all I am. I’m trying to be better for you, to live in your honor.”

“There’s only one thing I want from you, and it’s not for you to live.”

I shove her, but she is stronger after death. She holds me down, and even as I hear her finger bones snap, I can’t so much as budge her. She laughs and black saliva drips onto my face. I gag and turn on my side. And then she is gone. Next to my head is a hunting knife.

I pick it up reverently. A gift from Laura. The knife shines in the sallow light, and I stretch a finger toward the gleam. The steel burns cold, far colder than the room around me. Even in the dim light, I recognize the blade.

Ten years ago, I bought this same weapon. Meant for hunting, it had a comforting weight, unlike that of my parent’s kitchen knives or the military knives my uncle kept in a locked cabinet. The hulking size impressed me at fifteen, made the selection seem destined, a sign I was acting out some sort of divine will, not just a deluded teenage urge.

I slide a fingertip down the edge, half-expecting her blood to coat my skin, drip down my wrists. Half dried blood is sticky; I recall that, like honey coating my flesh… but the only blood I draw is a warm, wet trickle. Laura’s gift seems to drink the liquid, leaving the blade pristine.

My finger lifts to my mouth and the sharp metallic taste brings a flood of memories—her blood spurting up, spraying into my eyes, my nose, and my mouth. My hand falls away, and I grin. For a moment, I could walk on air.

Does she want me to open my veins? Could it be that my blood will pay the price, earn her forgiveness? I am willing to devote the rest of my life to honoring her, but I am aware nothing can bring her back. If my death can earn me true clemency…

I recall her blood warming my thighs as I plunged the blade through the hand she used to shield her face and then again into her chest.

I lift the blade to my throat. Fitting use for a hunting knife, a quick pressure across the throat and the animal dies. Cold steel settles against the hollow of my neck. My eyes close, and I take in a deep breath. Her deathly stench still lingers in the air, abrasive and angry.

My grip tightens.

My cellmate lets loose a loud rattling snore, and my eyes fly open to the dreary cell and the picture of Laura’s smile on the wall.

No. My death will solve nothing. It would not balance the scales. I’ve already wasted one life. Wasting another isn’t the answer. That is why I’d tried so hard for parole. The best way to earn my soul back is to live. And in the morning, I’ll finally receive that boon. I’ll be granted my freedom. But if Laura wants me to suffer, perhaps parole isn’t the answer either.

I stand and pivot, staring my grizzled cellmate in the face. I lift the knife and hold it over his neck. So simple; I kill him, and I’ll never get out. And I’d be taking out a fiend. The world doesn’t need men like him. My grin broadens thinking of the deluge of blood, thinking of how his hands would rise to his neck, trying to hold the life inside him. Power runs in me, and I am a god. Life and death are mine.

Again, the blade drops. No, the deed means nothing if I enjoy killing. Would I have enjoyed it…? No. It is only thoughts of earning Laura’s forgiveness that are confusing me. I’m not a killer. This is just a mistake.

I’m not a killer.

I am getting out tomorrow, and I am sure Laura would understand, I can’t be caught with a hunting knife. I lift her gift a third time with the intent of planting it under my cellmate’s pillow.

Instead, light hits the blade, and I hear the gruff voice of a guard through the bars. The flashlight he holds is blinding and focused directly on me… me and the knife I’m holding. He’s shouting something at me, but I can’t hear it over Laura’s laughter. I drop the knife. By the time it hits the ground, it isn’t a hunting knife anymore but a large, bulky shiv. I turn to the wall, pressing my palms against it.

I’m never getting out.

Laura smiles brightly from the drawing on the wall. And I hear her hiss, “Tomorrow I will be free.”

Imaginary

My yellowed fingernails bite into the headboard. The bone-hard tips screech as frayed splinters erupt from the wood. Yet when I glance at the damage I’ve caused, the surface is unmarred except for where one of my nails broke and embedded itself into the wood. As I watch, that too disappears, though the raw tip of my finger remains, the quick oozing.

The bed jiggles under me as the girl kicks off a boot, holding out her leg as if to be sure the footwear is gone. My Jimmy’s eyes fasten on her revealed skin. She’s tempting him on purpose, and I want to rip the leg off. Neither of them would find her mortal flesh so impressive then.

“Slut.” I sweep out one long arm—the scaly skin a mottled gray, though once, when Jimmy still curled beside me and shared his fears, my skin was an alluring translucent blue. “I drove away the tall king’s vampire horde by ripping the heart from the leader’s chest. I could do that to you!”

The slut doesn’t turn. She doesn’t hear me. With a flick of her dark hair and a giggle at Jimmy, she unties her other boot. She brays again. Her laugh scrapes my inner ears until I lift a hand to check if they are bleeding.

I snarl as her laugh goes on. “He’s not that funny, slut. Jimmy! Jimmy, she’s a liar. Don’t listen to her.”

She tosses the second boot to the ground. Jimmy’s arm hooks around her waist, and like a rag doll, she flops backwards on the bed. He leans in and whispers something to her.

“Jimmy,” I say, “get rid of her—she can’t scare the monsters away.”

He doesn’t seem to hear me. Instead, he leans in and kisses the slut.

I howl to no effect and lower myself to threats. “In fact, more creatures will come just to feast upon her. We should dangle her from the window as bait.”

The two of them show no response to me. Jimmy’s fingers sneak up her front, under her shirt, and she shoves his hand back. Despite this slight rebuttal, she keeps a grip on the back of his head, anchoring my Jimmy to her mouth.

There was a time when Jimmy heeded my warnings. I’m the expert on monsters, and my magic can keep him safe. He’s forgotten that. It has been a long time coming, but it started years ago when he removed the hand-painted “No Monsters Allowed” sign from the wall by his bed.

In the ensorcelled keepsake’s place hangs a poster of a voluptuous woman. Her teeth aren’t sharp, and rather than lovely scales like mine, she’s exposed an indecent amount of tender flesh. I’ve endured her in silence.

But this living, breathing slut is a new low.

Jimmy slips his hand between her thighs, and she pushes it away.

“Jimmy!” My legs hang over the side of the bed, thin and semi-translucent. The glowing skin of my glory days has faded leaving a murky shadow. Tattered remnants of my magic gown hang in strips over me, ripped by my claws and teeth. “Jimmy, please.”

The slurping of their mouths renders my voice inaudible. I am too quiet now. I couldn’t thunder to scare off the purple beast of Yender, even if it came. My skin is too dull to blind the crag monster if it came back. I hunker down, listening to their spit exchanges.

She’s the real demon—the only monster to beat me and steal my Jimmy. Others like me, the so-called imaginary horde, move on when their children grow. I cannot. I’ve always sworn to Jimmy that if any beast got to him, I’d get him back. That’s what I need to do.

I slither along the bed post, heading toward the floor, dragging my useless tail behind me. The light streams through my extremities, showing the dull striped pattern of Jimmy’s coverlet. Where have his Spider-Man blankets gone? Every change is symptomatic of the same problem. Jimmy has forgotten what matters. She has blinded him.

With one last look at her—the whore beast—I slip into the darkness under the bed. I will beat her. Time constrains her, not me. The shadows have strength. Jimmy used to understand. I cackle and score my nails on the underside of the bed.

“Did you hear that, James?” The slut sits up, one foot dangling in front of my face.

My hand shoots out toward her ankle. I’ll drag her under and consume her pretty, deceitful face. Jimmy will remember monsters then.

Claws that were once iron-strong pass through her flesh like vapor. Her skin is unmarked.

“Someday,” I say, “the dark will have fed me enough—you’ll be mine, slut. I’ll just wait here, under the bed.”

Goosebumps lift on her skin, and her legs draw up. Her fear satisfies me, for now.

After the Piper

Coffee waits in the kitchen. Every morning at six a.m., the coffee pot clicks on. The sink is full of dirty dishes and the room stinks. Something’s growing in there. I don’t care.

I scratch at the three days’ growth of stubble on my face. It itches like hell, but I won’t bother shaving. I’ve never grown a beard before, partially because Tamera didn’t enjoy kissing a furry face. But mostly, I need the new growth. The stubble makes me appear older. I used to laugh when I got asked if my ID was fake. Now, seeing a face that could belong to a teenager in the mirror is unbearable.

Today marks the sixth week since the Piper. I wonder if society will start up again. Prospects are dreary. My nightmares get worse every night, and every morning the world outside my window degrades further. Car alarms blare on the city streets below. No one will shut them off.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. They meant to solve a problem and didn’t understand what the cost would be. I’d say the powers that be couldn’t have known, but they could have. The scientists certainly should have. There is always a price.

I sip my coffee and sit at the kitchen table in the only chair I haven’t upended onto the linoleum. The liquid scalds my taste buds. I take another sip immediately and scorch my throat. I close my eyes and try to pretend that any moment Tamera will come in and kiss my cheek. My mind fails me, instead calling up the dream that has yet to leave me since waking.

Peach, red and mottled blue, the balloons floated up into a cloudy sky. They rose—up, up, up. From each balloon hung a fleshy cord with flapping appendages. Uncountable quantities of them crossed the expanse of heaven.

As the inflated orbs danced to a sourceless music, my waking body, clutching at the coffee, struggled to disengage—even watching the maggots writhe in the sink would be better than what comes next in my dream. I focus my eyes on the kitchen’s cheery yellow walls, but I cannot escape that final image.

In my mind, the balloons burst. There isn’t a portion of me, body or soul, that doesn’t drip red.

Every morning for the past six weeks, I woke with this image smeared across my eyes. At least I never wake up groggy—which defeats any real purpose of the coffee.

I finish my cup in one painful gulp and pour a second as justification for brewing the pot. I always brew the pot. My hands haven’t accepted that she will never return. My traitorous hands, who don’t understand that it’s all over, always make coffee for two.

I made the coffee. Tamera made the bed. That was how it worked.

Tamera. I glance to the arch that leads out into the living room and the open door to our bedroom. The bed is unmade.

This cup lasts longer as I sip it, staring ahead of me at the camera on the table. Scattered across the floor of the room, photos taunt me. The night after the Piper, I developed the raw film, and then I lined the prints up on the table. The colors and composition couldn’t be faulted. The flaw was the subject matter. Tamera saw them too. I thought she had passed out until she spoke.

“You’re sick, Lucien… those are disgusting,” she said. Her breath reeked of alcohol and her nightshirt was buttoned wrong, so the jagged edges fell to different places on her brown thighs.

“There has to be an answer.” I don’t even know what I meant. It was like I was searching for evidence that the pictures were fake. That these images I’d taken myself were photoshopped.

“There’s blood on your cheek.” Tamera ran her thumb along my face then spun on her heel, nearly losing her balance. She ran to the bathroom, and I heard her puking. I passed out on the table, my cheek on a photograph.

I should have burned the negatives, protected her from them.

Since that day, I avoid looking at them, but every time my foot slips on one of the slick photographs, there is no hiding.

A to-go cup filled with coffee and I’m out the front door of our apartment. Tamera bought the mug for me, and cartoon Christmas trees dance over its plastic surface.

The lights flicker in the hallway. The power grid is still up. Someone, somewhere, must still be going to work. I can’t help but think worse will come before anything gets better. It’s not one of those travesties where you can say “the damage is done; let us move on and heal” or some tripe like that.

There is no healing.

Two doors down to the right, there is a hole in the door perfectly sized for the muzzle of a shotgun to peer out. I can’t help glancing. I shouldn’t. The Whittakers get nervous, and it’s possible I’ll get my head blown off for looking. The shotgun is always cocked and ready.

“Just me, Mr. Whittaker.” I give a half wave. It could be his wife behind that muzzle.

“You just keep moving, Lucien. You just keep moving.” It’s Mr. Whittaker’s voice.

I keep moving. When I reach the stairs and descend the two flights to street level, I feel a momentary freedom on the sidewalk with my silly mug.

The coffee is hot, and the autumn air on my face and bare arms is colder than I anticipated. Blue skies misled me into expecting warmth. Not today.

A piece of cellophane cavorts by on the breeze, making me think of tumbleweed in old Western films. Tamera would have grabbed it and stuffed it in the nearest trash bin. Gone on a tirade about how we were poisoning our world. If I’d ever cared, I certainly don’t now.

I walk toward the park and beyond, to the bridge. I have not been to the bridge since the morning six weeks ago when the modern world, with its bells and whistles, ceased. All humanity had built and acclimated too was carried away by a jaunty tune on the wind.

I can hear the song now as if the fibers of the city absorbed the sound. Or maybe it is only my ears that drank in the noise and now cannot dispel it.

The morning of the Piper, Tamera had to go to work. I didn’t mind a Saturday to myself and took advantage by exploring with my camera. In the past, I’d had great luck with that. Some of the best work came while I wandered.

Bolstered only by coffee, I allow myself to remember.

***

Six weeks ago, I paused at the park, which was sparsely populated. There are cities where the tail-end of summer means prime park conditions. Not here. The day was sweltering already, with hours until midday. The children didn’t seem bothered by the heat. Their parents, however, slumped on benches and hovered in every little patch of shade.

Glad I didn’t have a child to drag me out into the sun, I stopped to watch in the shade of a tree. I suppose most of the adults must have promised the day before. My mom was perpetually talking about how important it is not to break promises to children.

That was before she got sick. The last time I had spoken to her, she barely remembered her name. That’s why my sister became involved with the project she did. A revolutionary way to alter the human brain chemistry using airborne nanotech. A way to help Mom, to stop aging.

I didn’t observe too long. People get fidgety when an adult man sans kid stands watching their children. The camera didn’t help. Though my baby face made it a little better.

Next to the park were a series of stores. I wandered across the street to them. Nothing caught my eye, but I snapped a few pictures of a street vendor making balloon animals. A flurry of multicolored balloons floated above to call attention to his location. I took shots of those with their bright colors juxtaposed to the slate buildings.

My cell beeped in my pocket, and I pulled it out and glanced at a text from my sister. We lived in different cities, and previously I’d heard from her on holidays or when she was bringing my nephew to visit. But once she got involved with this drug test the government was funding, she contacted me all the time.

Testing today. Dr Weldon is pissed. Had to proceed despite the risks. Tax dollars, you know. We don’t have endless funds. Wish us luck.

I considered responding but didn’t. A year before, they’d been testing the drug on rats. Puffing the gas into their cages. My sister joined when they did their first human trials. Everything went well. She even pushed to get mom admitted. So I didn’t know what sort of testing would make her feel guilty or get the scientists worried.

I began to think the walk was a bad idea. My T-shirt clung to my clammy skin. It wasn’t yet time to give up. I was there, and I might as well try to make use of my morning. That was when I turned toward the bridge.

✽✽✽

What a difference six weeks makes.

The bridge used to be a pedestrian crossing over a heavily trafficked road. There is never traffic now and no pedestrians either. I miss the rush of traffic, especially at night. Odd what things you miss; I can’t sleep without the noises. The background sounds are all wrong now. Instead of loud party-goers and wind off windshields, there’s weeping in the dark hours of the night. Instead of Tamera’s soft snores and the occasional twitching of her hand, I have the periodic shattering glass. The stench of piss comes from the bathroom, and I can’t I escape the odor in the streets.

It’s all different now. That bridge was where I was standing when they released that gas they’d tested on rats and the elderly. Someday, they’ll have a clever name for what happened, but for now no one says anything clever. No one says anything at all.

But we have an informal name for the event. Everyone whispers about the day the Piper came.

The graffiti on the bridge has multiplied, but the poster for the suicide helpline is long gone.

✽✽✽

The helpline poster, covered in clichés and a black phone number, reminded me I had to take Tamera to her AA meeting. I’d have to make sure and finish everything up in time to drive out and get her. Sometimes having only one car was a pain, but hey, that’s what you get on an artist’s salary. Plus, going with her showed my support, and I was at a loss for other ways to do that.

When I stepped out onto the bridge, the rush of traffic below made my head heavy and my knees scream at my weight, as if it was predestined that at any moment, I would hurtle down. The image of falling was morbid, but I couldn’t quell the idea before the illusory crunch of my bones and the metallic scent of blood filled my nostrils.

Coming across the bridge, in air rippling with heat, was a young mother and a toddler. The boy tottered with the unstable gait that made watching any child of that age an anxiety-ridden experience. It also brought up a swell of pride in my chest, as if I had anything to do with his great triumph of staying upright. The two composed a picture worthy of any artist. She looked fresh despite the heat and beamed at her son. It was an expression of contentment and adoration and left no room for petty concerns like the weather. The child, in his turn, kept looking back, as if afraid his mother would disappear, and on finding her there, he glowed with joy.

My hands itched to photograph them—an itch I didn’t deny. I snapped several pictures in succession, and then fumbled for my business card as the woman stiffened. Better to introduce myself before the anger surfaced.

The chance never came.

The music started. It was exhilarating, and my blood pumped in my veins as if it was trying to dance along. The sound swept over me, undeniable as a tidal wave. The danger hid in those waves and none of us recognized it until we were drowning in the onslaught.

***

It is nonsense that the adults didn’t hear. We stopped to listen to the piping same as the kids. We just couldn’t follow.

There is a once-upon-a-time about a piper who arrives in a town that is tormented with rat problems. When the people cannot pay him for ridding them of the rats, the piper lures away the children with his song. I think of this story often.

It is not a fairy tale per se, as it is based on an actual event. It has a real location, a town called Hamelin, from which children disappeared. Over centuries of time, the tale warped, and who’s to say which parts are factual. But something happened in that town.

I shiver, but it is not the cold of the deepening autumn. Could the pipers have been the same? Perhaps that long-ago event was humanity’s warning. If so, we failed to heed. I digress. I was explaining that day out on the bridge.

I wish I had my camera to filter the memories.

✽✽✽

The little boy clamped his hands to his ears and screamed. Other cries echoed from behind me, but that one toddler in front of me held my rapt attention. His tiny feet planted on the bridge, his fingers digging into the skin around his ears, his mouth open farther than any human mouth should open.

His scream didn’t last long. The skin of his face cracked and oozed as his flesh ballooned. Skin came away on his fingertips as he clawed. Now, his mother shrieked. His hands fell to his sides and, for an instant, he was a horrific bobble-head doll.

My eyes slammed shut. My fingers, with a will of their own, snapped pictures.

Behind my eyelids, I imagined the multicolored balloons that decorated the street vendor’s display breaking free and flying up to cover the sky. In my mind, the boy floated up over the side of the bridge, as if to follow the balloons or to drift with the last of the fading song. There was a sound which I am at a loss to describe. Bone splintered; flesh tore. Something wet struck me in the face.

Despite a desperate wish to keep my eyes shut, they opened. The mother cradled her headless son’s body in her arms. Her eyes, oh God, I still see them—all white and unblinking. She stared at the park. No movement reflected in the pinpoints of her pupils.

I refused to turn and look, not even with the camera between me and the world.

Her face remained turned to the park even as her body pivoted to the edge of the bridge. It was not until her elbow struck the rail that those eyes moved back to the corpse in her arms.

I stepped forward, one hand extended. “No!”

His body went over first. It didn’t float.

She followed him with no hesitation.

I turned and saw the park. As the mother on the bridge had, I knew that nothing would ever be the same. The playground was a gaudy red, and small bodies were slumped on slides and beneath swings. One girl still hung from the climbing ropes; her limbs thrown outwards and tangled in the lines.

My hands and my camera took more pictures. I had no part in that. I did, however, look through the lens.

I went with my camera up to my eye as an intermediary between me and the bloodbath. It wasn’t just children I found dead: cars crashed and stacked, one upon the other, in a carnage of metal, still bodies within.

***

Suicide was common in the first few days. It became more common.

You see, there is no relief. The music played briefly. The sound was only a hallucination caused by the gas, but it played everywhere. Every country, every province, every home, every forest and out over the oceans. Not one child escaped the melody. In a world where everyone is grieving, there are no more suicide watches. No more supportive families making casseroles. Just fear that the guy next to you suffers worse PTSD than you.

The Whittakers, for instance; two of their three children died that day. The oldest, a seventeen-year-old girl, is walled up in the apartment. People aren’t rational, and stories of horrible things happening to those who survived riding the cusp of childhood run rampant. It’s why I grew this damn beard; so no one would suspect I was anywhere near being a child. I understand why her parents point that gun at me. They are the lucky ones. They have something left.

The gas was meant to help the brains of the elderly retain their youth—meant to buy us immortality. My sister, so intimately involved in the project, outlived her son by only a few hours, but not before leaving me a voice message. She hadn’t known, she said, but she should have. Her “sorry” means very little. The other scientists involved have all quietly disappeared—perhaps a torch-wielding horde came to exact vengeance.

Part of me likes to think so.

Now, my photos show a world I don’t know. I called the suicide helpline one night. No answer. Each of us is alone in this, and all we can do is fight our way through it.

Even before I left the house this morning, I made a decision. It’s why I chose the stupid cup Tamera gave me. The cup reminds me of better times. I refuse to look at those misguided pictures and see only those last moments.

***

She was already drunk, with a half-empty bottle in her grip. I doubt she could have unlocked the door. Luckily, I hadn’t the mind to lock it. She stumbled in, tears smeared with something darker across her cheek. She looked at me, and without a word, she took another long drink.

“Turns out they didn’t need me at work, Hun.” Her sleek black hair dripped out of the ponytail she’d clipped it in that morning. She didn’t bother wiping it out of her eyes.

“Tamera,” I said, because what do you say? What do you say to your wife after all the children have exploded? They decorated the world like so much confetti, and there is nothing you can say to that.

“Skipping the meeting, too.” She laughed, a hollow, uncontrolled sound.

I had no comfort to give. But my mind found a focal point. Something other than the tragedy to grip. It had been years since I’d found the last of the booze hidden around the house. Years since the screaming arguments that nearly split us up.

“Tamera, put the bottle down.”

“No,” she replied and drank again. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Matters to me,” I said.

“Screw you, Lucien. I can’t… I can’t just compartmentalize this.” Disjointed, like a broken doll, she slumped there in the entry. Her dark skin blotchy. “My drinking is the least of our problems.”

My legs shook under me, but I moved toward her. Maybe if I could just hold her, we could support each other so neither of us fell under the weight.

She held up her free arm, holding me off. “I’m gunna drink. I’m gunna pass out and tomorrow none of this will have happened. Peachy-keen?”

It wasn’t. We couldn’t avoid this. Morning would not wash the truth away. But if I was going to survive till morning, I couldn’t watch her crumble, watch her fall back into the vices that had almost torn us apart before. I left the room.

✽✽✽

She died the next day, an accident. The other driver was probably as drunk as Tamera. I should have burned those pictures and embraced her. Held onto her as she shoved me away, like a child pushes at their mother in the middle of a fit. Held her until she held me back.

My coffee is cold.

The park looks better now. The little bodies are gone, and everything has been washed away by rain. How hard would it be to find a skull fragment in the grass?

The world will go on. Eventually. They’ll have to start a new calendar. Not years after Christ, no, not that. Years after the Piper. But not for me. I can’t take the dream another night.

What did we promise to pay the piper all that time ago? Surely there is nothing we wouldn’t have paid to avoid this. We will pay. We will pay. The Piper is gone, and it is too late. What good are riches; what good are toys? What’s the point of any of it now?

“I love you, Tamera,” I whisper to the sky.

When I reach the bridge, I approach the place the mother had stood, climb onto the railing and look at the empty road. My eyes close, and I imagine my body is a black cord. Slowly, I become a red balloon. I float off the railing. I fly up, up, up, and away.

What Starts with a Black Cat…

The current mess all started with a black cat. My black cat.

You see, Joe and I are scientists and we’ve worked together on the portal since Joe came up with the idea in grad school. I fell in love with his lopsided grin and his impulsive pursuit of his interests. He fell in love with my willingness to bend rules, to see my goal as the most important thing. We’ve always agreed on our work mission—the ability to instantly transport matter across space. But we have never agreed about other things: Joe believes in the institution of marriage, I don’t. Joe’s superstitious, I think that’s stupid. Joe doesn’t believe in God, I do. Joe hated my cat, and I loved Midnight.

The only thing Joe really loved was the machine—his baby.

So a few months back, when Joe tested our transport device on Midnight, I couldn’t see anything past the rage.

For context, Joe and I had sent his car keys through the machine hundreds of times without mishap, but then the damn thing killed my cat. Transporting matter from the projector to the receiver had a quality of ease that misled us into believing that living matter would be equally unaffected by the transition. We both thought it stood a good chance of working. That’s why I didn’t protest when Joe suggested transporting living matter through his baby.

We got the okay to try our device with lab rats.

I was a bit worried because living matter is different. God blessed living beings with souls. In sending matter through the transmitter to the receiver, we were breaking the original object down to components parts and rebuilding it… but could the machine reinsert the soul? Science doesn’t understand enough to be able to answer that. Joe wasn’t worried.

He didn’t tell me he’d be using Midnight.

I recall standing in the sterilized chamber where the receiver, or exit portal, sat and watching the machine, waiting for the test subject to come through. The machine was powered up, a shining screen of energy filled in the metal arch of the “doorway” portion of the receiver. This doorway was where things came out after they were loaded into the transmitter two rooms over.

Our lab was three rooms, the transmitter room, the receiver room, and a glass-walled observation room between the two. There were no doorways between the rooms directly. Rather, each room had a doorway leading out into a common hallway. I couldn’t see over to Joe in the transmitter room from where I was; I could barely see anything beyond the tinted glass of the observation room that stood between us. I had no way of knowing he wasn’t loading some white lab rat into the portal. Not until that sleek black body came through.

And Midnight did come through. He flopped out as if someone had tossed him. But just from the loose, uncoordinated way his joints moved, I knew he was dead. I picked up his tiny body and cradled him, tears wetting my cheeks.

Joe came in to check and found me on my knees, Midnight pressed to my chest. Joe made a disappointed sound.

“He’s dead!” I accused.

“It’ll work next time. We just need to find what went wrong,” Joe said, not even glancing at Midnight. He didn’t even see my tears; he was already off to check the data.

I knelt there, holding my oldest friend, and seething.

That was the moment that this morning’s travesty really started. If I’d reacted differently or if Joe had shown an ounce of remorse… everything would have been different.

Throughout college, Joe had said that Midnight was rotten luck. Holding my cat’s body, I heard those words echoing in my mind. Then I went back further. When we first started living together in grad school, he had complained incessantly that every time Midnight passed him something went wrong. Joe had blamed the loss of a week’s worth of his typed dissertation on Midnight’s malevolence.

There was no malevolence. Midnight was a just a curious kitty who liked to walk on keyboards. It wasn’t his fault that Joe forgot to save his document.

And Midnight had been in perfect health. The machine seemed to have reassembled him perfectly, yet he was dead, empty. I couldn’t help thinking I’d been right, and the machine just didn’t know how to handle God’s greatest creation—the soul. Holding that cooling body, I decided Joe was secretly glad his “baby” murdered my cat.

That’s what comes with dating a superstitious guy. He hates your black cat and hangs horseshoes everywhere. I never could understand how a genius who spent his life serving science could believe that stuff; the again Joe felt about the same about the idea of god and the little cross necklace I wore to special occasions.

In that moment, with Midnight in my arms, I wanted to hurt Joe, you see, to strike back. But the only thing Joe really cared about was the machine.

Please don’t think I’m trying to shake responsibility. I’m as guilty as Joe. We made so many mistakes, some intentional and some accidental.

The miscalculations that led to Midnight’s demise weren’t the problem that led to our current conundrum. The mess could not have existed without Joe’s baby or his penchant to break rules. I’d like to say he is at fault, but it is just as much my response to Midnight’s death that led to disaster.

You see, I had to teach Joe a lesson.

When I came to work this morning, the dilemma I faced originated from a quirk of fate—a bit of luck, if you will. But... we can’t talk about this morning quite yet.

The long slide to today’s disaster started a few months ago with Midnight’s death. But the bunny was the point of no return. We picked up the cancer-ridden rodent for testing last week—on its last legs, they said. Joe wanted to “make its final moments count.” He had high hopes that he’d fixed the problem that killed Midnight. I was still so very angry with him. Pissed enough to sabotage the experiment.

I put the little beast through the transporter while Joe waited at the receiver.

God, Joe was ecstatic when that fluff ball came out alive. His life’s work was bearing fruit. But as the bunny writhed about and tried to bite Joe’s hands, as its beady little eyes shone with an evil glint so unlike the rheumy stare it had had before, I felt a cold terror. Joe danced around, holding the newly bright-eyed rabbit and naming the cursed thing Lucky. He didn’t see the irony, even when Lucky died two hours later. Lucky’s demise wasn’t due to our machine, but to cancer. X-rays showed no damage from the transport.

Lucky had lived for only a couple hours, but he had lived. Joe was happy. I was scared. Scared enough… so I never told Joe the truth.

Convinced of the machine’s abilities, Joe pressed for human testing. I suffered with nightmares of Lucky’s eyes glowing above me in the dark, but I wasn’t actually worried about human testing. I knew there was no way Joe would get the okay. He didn’t and for a few months, he just sat around the house with his newest creepy good luck charm: Lucky’s foot on a chain. I thought I was in the clear. Joe would never know my sin. I thought we’d do more research and make the transport safe.

Not Joe.

And that brings us up to the current problem. I walked into the observation room this morning to see Joe standing in front of the transmitter. I knew what he was doing as soon as I saw his fingers on his keyring, thumbing that lucky rabbit’s foot. He was going to step into the damn thing himself.

Joe flipped the switch.

Why hadn’t I told him?

“Joe!” I yelled and pounded on the glass separating the observation from the transmitter room.

He must have heard me because he looked up and grinned, that silly lopsided grin. The machine was powered up behind him. I shook my head emphatically and motioned for him to stop. Joe gave me a mock salute and turned toward the blue rippling doorway. I slammed my hands against the glass one last time before bolting for the door into the hallway.

In the hallway, my only view was through the small window in the door leading into the transmitter room. When Joe stepped through, I pivoted toward the receiving chamber door instead, gripped the handle, then paused, heart pounding, looking through that door’s small window. Seconds later, he tumbled to the cold, sterile floor. I opened the door to the receiving chamber.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he’d be alive. I burst in. His body slumped on the floor. My dash across the room ended abruptly when I saw that damn rabbit’s foot twitching and clawing at the ground.

Only when the foot stopped moving could I force my way to Joe. I choked back a sob. Blubbering would do no good. His death was my fault. I should have told him. You see, Lucky came out of the machine alive, allright, but he’d died in my hands before he ever passed through the transmitter.

I don’t know what possessed me to toss the limp body into the blue energy field. Midnight’s death was part of it, but not all. By contaminating the experiment—I’d tanked my life’s work and Joe’s, so surely there was more than just a black cat involved. The point is, living matter never passed from one end of the machine to the other alive. Dead matter came through reanimated.

I glanced at the rabbit’s foot attached to Joe’s belt. Whatever animated it froze me in my tracks. As much as I needed to get to Joe, I couldn’t with that thing moving. But its movement gave me another idea. If I could get to Joe in time, he didn’t have to stay dead. Four minutes. I had four minutes until Joe would start to suffer brain damage. Maybe I would have thought better of shoving him through if I took the time to consider the ramifications. But I didn’t have time.

Once the foot stopped moving, I ran to Joe. No heartbeat.

I hooked my hands under Joe’s arms and lugged him into the transmitter room. I stopped to stare at the blue ripple of energy. That was the issue—the damn machine didn’t know how to interpret life energy. It couldn’t process souls. Somehow, I hypothesized, if a soul were stuck there, wherever “there” was, it could maybe hitch a ride back out.

Maybe Joe’s soul could find its way back to his body.

Leaving Joe stuck in the in-between wasn’t an option.

There was no time to be passive.

As I said, no time. I hauled Joe up to the portal, his jeans rasping over the floor. Then I shoved his torso through, followed by a heave to send his legs. I didn’t run to the hallway immediately. There was a horrible feeling in my gut. But this was no different from any other type of resuscitation. Right? I took a deep breath and hurried into the hall, peering through the window in the receiver room’s door.

Joe’s body rested on the ground just in front of the receiver. Was it relief I felt that he wasn’t moving? But then he twitched. His fingers flexed and his hands slid across the tile floor. He started to crawl, to drag himself with his arms. His legs remained immobile behind him. It was like he didn’t know how to use the body yet. He pulled himself to his feet against the wall, and I watched as he tested out his legs.

The lucky rabbit's foot dangled from his belt, twitching. Why hadn’t I removed the cursed thing?

Then Joe turned to me and smiled. A wide, wicked grin, showing his teeth right up to the gums. That wasn’t Joe. His eyes were different, not in a visible way, but I could tell. They were empty of anything human. Something else was behind his eyes; something ancient and hungry.

When Joe came lurching out the door, his jaw hanging agape, I locked myself in the transmitter room. But something looked out of Joe’s empty eyes as the creature pounded on the window. After a few minutes of slamming himself into the glass, Joe seemed to think better of his strategy and thumped into the observation room. He pressed buttons on the access panel to the machine and then turned to gaze at me with the same mad smile he’d risen with. He gave me a little wave.

I covered my mouth, holding in a scream and backed away. My back hit the transmitter.

Joe walked, this time with some grace, out of the observation room and headed into the receiver room. I could only see a shadow of him when I pressed my face against the tinted glass, but it looked like he was inspecting the receiver. He attempted to turn it on.

When it didn’t do what he wished, he smashed a fist against it and let out a horrible roar.

With that distant cry of anger echoing in my ears, I turned to the transmitter. Whatever Joe was now, his interest in the machine couldn’t be good. Nor could his amazing rate of comprehension. I picked up a folding chair from the corner and smashed it against the transmitter’s frame. I smashed it again and again until the chair was bent in my hands. Then I wrenched open a panel and started pulling wires loose. Shocks sang through my hands, but I ignored them.

Over the next hour, I dismantled the machine. Joe screamed at the door to the room and pounded against the glass, angrily. When I finished, I crashed to the floor and sat there watching him rage.

Eventually, Joe howled and ran down the hall toward the exit.

Unfortunately, if my current luck held, whatever was in Joe would be able to access Joe’s Memories build another transmitter. And it’s not just Joe— there are more of those entities waiting out there in the in-between. I can’t explain how I know, but I saw it in his dead eyes. There must be countless numbers of them just waiting to get into our world. In the end, the only lucky one was Midnight—he lived a good life and died peacefully. I doubt I will have that option.

Now I have one question left. Why did I assume it would be Joe’s soul waiting in there for a vessel? Why would I ever presume to know what lingered in that in-between place?

Do you believe in God? Because now would be a good time to pray.

Witch

There’s a witch under my bed.

She has always been there.

It is not so bad.

As long as I stop myself from hanging so much as a finger over the edge of the bed, she can’t pull me under. I wonder if she would eat my eyes first, so I couldn’t see her. She is ugly and being seen must make her uncomfortable. But I think she’d want to observe my horror as she dragged me down into her world. Into the dark. Would a fingernail snap off as I clawed the carpet, remain behind like a whisper of the girl who once was?

When I was younger, she used to reach up over the edge of the mattress. I would lay straight as rigor mortis in the center of the bed, praying her yellowed fingernails didn’t reach me. Sometimes, I feared she’d realize she could simply use those razor nails to dig through the center of the mattress. On those nights, I’d sob, holding my fist in my mouth so she couldn’t hear me. I’d tuck my shoulders in tight to my body, trying to make myself thinner.

She’d never slide through the bed.

There are rules to follow.

She is not that bad.

Now I’m older, married, tied to life with thick wool strands, not the silken thread of childhood fancy. The witch doesn’t reach up anymore. That would be rude, and her manners are impeccable. After all, there is someone else in the bed now, and that changes everything. The marital bed is sacred, even if my husband’s snores would cover any sound the witch made.

My bladder’s not so good since giving birth—one of those things the flow of time changes. And sometimes I must creep out of bed at night to the bathroom. I step gingerly, hoping the witch has drifted off or gotten bored and moved on to another home. Each time, I expect her fingers to wrap around my ankle and pull me down. She’d suck me under, with me clutching the covers like an anchor. Our bedspread isn’t even tucked in. It would just follow me to the floor. The trip to the bathroom is hazardous.

I always make it back to bed.

Perhaps the witch lets me.

She feels bad for me.

Time drinks my vigor, sucking the brown from my hair, loosening the flesh of my upper arms. Age eats me slowly, and every year, I am more tired. My dreams fade further back, beaten by time and logic. And the witch giggles. Her teeth could only rend me for a moment in time… but this aging death has decades yet to go.

She is ancient, my witch, but has a secret that keeps her away from death. I wonder if I, too, would make her choice—if I would trade all pretense of morality for freedom from the dark door of death. The thought never stays, for surely, I could not, would not, drag children into hell and eat their succulent flesh. It is only the clock blinking that feeds me these thoughts, and the steady cackle of my witch.

There’s a witch under my bed.

She has always been there.

She says it’s not bad.

Miles to Go

An unrelenting ache pounded just below the stump of Daria’s knee. She twisted on the bed to accommodate the phantom pain.

Rain drummed against the gutter outside Daria’s window. Little floods spewed in a rhythm from the drainpipe into the loose dirt beside her small cement patio. The trees surrounding her lawn were nothing more than shadows in the blackness.

The house was still brand new. She didn’t have curtains for the glass door that lead to the patio and yard from the house’s single bedroom. Nor had she and her husband built any additions to allow her to navigate swiftly. Reliant on her crutch to get anywhere, it took twice as long as it should to traverse the room.

Between the storm, the newness of the house’s shadows, and their only neighbor being a beady-eyed farmer called Old Man Dwin, ingrained terrors shifted in the dark. Nor did it help that Tan liked to antagonize their neighbor by bringing his other lovers to the ancient farmer’s hayloft.

The day Daria and Tan moved in, she’d read a book in the car while Tan took their emo real-estate agent Greg for a tryst in the hay loft on the neighboring property. After a while, a shift in the light had caused her to look up from the pages. And in the doorway of the rickety building stood Dwin, watching Daria’s husband and Greg, pitchfork in his gnarled hands and a twisted smile on his face.

But Old Man Dwin wasn’t out on their lawn in the rain. No one was out there. That was the point of a little house in the woods. It gave her and Tan somewhere where there was no “them” to watch.

No one to watch as Daria’s crutch got stuck in mud and she fell down. In the city, she always felt like a fool on parade. Ever since the accident, every person who passed looked. She hated the pity, hated how visible she was despite everyone trying not to look at her.

Old Man Dwin wasn’t looking at her. Even when they passed him in town, he only had lecherous eyes for Tan.

“The night has eyes,” Tan said, throwing his six-foot frame over the queen bed. He wore a towel around his waist, and his short hair remained wet from the shower.

Daria touched the stump where her leg had been, fingers shying from the puckered flesh.

The house—their house, their new start—berated her with the tap-tap of rain.

“How is it you still look like some college stud?” Daria asked, ignoring both the rain and her husband’s drama queen statement. Yet the water drummed through her words like the ticking of a clock keeping time, or a bomb waiting to go off. She stared at the wedding ring on her finger—flesh pouching out the sides.

“Well, for starters, I don’t bring wine and cookies to bed.” He winced at the carelessness of his words, but they were said.

No, you bring everything else to bed. The thought wasn’t fair, so she kept it unspoken. That had always been their arrangement. An open marriage had never bothered her when she was equally capable of finding alternate partners.

Over the past year, things just slid. First, she lost the leg in the accident, then gained a dress size and lost her job. She looked fifty though she was only forty. But Tan hadn’t changed a hair—identical to that twenty-six-year-old bartender he had been when she was in law school.

He was all she had, and the more she squeezed to hold on, the more he struggled free.

“Sorry, Dar, you know I think—”

“Cut the shit,” she said, not wanting lies about how beautiful he still thought she was. Or about how things would get better. She wasn’t a lizard. Human legs didn’t grow back, and without that, nothing got better. “You going out tonight?”

“You could come. We used to do this together. A trip to town, pick up a couple of cute farm girls… maybe some dumb, hulky cowboy...”

“No. I’d just spoil your night.” Those kids pity me. They don’t want to come home with me. Tan, stay with me, please.

“I want you to come.” His warm brown eyes fastened on her, his lashes fanning out—the eyes of an angel. She’d always thought so.

“Go, Tan. Have fun. Maybe next time.” Please stay.

Tan heaved an exaggerated sigh and flopped over onto his side. But when she didn’t engage, he got up and strode to the closet.

“I want my wife back,” he said. “The one who danced on car roofs in the rain.”

“Can’t dance.”

“You don’t need two legs to dance. I’ll hold you.”

Daria turned her face to the pillow and snuggled into the blankets, trying to disappear.

Fifteen minutes later, his engine roared. Daria turned to stone in the soft bedding. The rain’s tinkle lulled her into a fitful sleep. As always, she dreamed of that night, the searing pain in her thigh, and Tan’s yells mingled with other screams.

✽✽✽

“Help!”

The cry pierced her sleep, and at first Daria thought it was her own. An imagined pain jabbed out from her missing thigh. But as sleep cleared and her own calls faded in her mind, the scream continued and was soon joined by a thump as a body slammed into the glass patio door.

A girl, blonde and covered in blood, flailed her fists at the window. Mascara ran down her cheeks and added to the ghoulishness of her smeared red lipstick and the rain-thinned blood on her lower face. She projected a garish brilliance in the lamplight.

Daria fumbled free of the sheets and grabbed her crutch. The girl pounded on the glass, leaving vivid prints on the surface. Her foot hitting the cold floor, Daria hobbled around the edge of the bed toward the window and the terrified girl. The night was black and impenetrable. Anything could lurk out there.

Shit, shit, shit. Daria glanced back at her nightstand, where she kept a small handgun. But at the rate she moved, she didn’t have time to turn around. The desperate girl might break the glass or turn and run away. Daria clomped over to the window and flipped the lock open.

“Help! Oh God, help!” The woman’s voice came out shrill. A front tooth was missing in her quivering jaw. Blood seeped from between her lips.

Not more than eighteen. Just a kid.

Daria’s heart thudded inside her. She wrenched the door open and peered into the void, half-expecting Old Man Dwin’s leering face to show like the moon from the trees or…

No. Deal with this.

The girl shoved in beside her, nearly knocking Daria down. She had to regain her balance and replace her crutch before her hands hit the cool glass and slammed the door closed. The girl screamed again behind her.

This can’t be happening. Not in my house.

She flipped the lock and for a moment waited by the window, green eyes staring out, then she gripped the crutch and made her way toward the bedside table.

“What’s your name?” Daria asked the girl. Clump, clump went the crutch, making Daria lurch with each step.

The screaming quieted.

“Name?” Daria gritted her teeth, as she moved another painfully slow yard.

“Sicily.”

“Well, Sicily, there’s a gun in that drawer. I’m going to get it. Tell me what happened, so I’m prepared. I see a lot of blood but you’re relatively unharmed.”

“He hit me… Oh God.”

Useless. “Is he armed? Do you know him?”

“A… a… knife. Don’t know him, no… just met him.”

“Anyone else out there?”

“My friend!” Sicily’s face contorted, preparing another scream.

Daria opened the bedside drawer and slipped her hand inside. She nodded at Sicily, willing her to stay calm.

“He stabbed her… I… I think she’s dead.”

Daria picked up the gun and loaded the chamber of the old pistol. She’d always liked its weight, and now it grounded her. Breath drove from her body and brought the fear-haunted air back in.

A wet thud hit the window, leaving a scarlet streak.

Daria pulled the safety on the gun and turned just in time for something else to hit the window. A clump of hair, scalp still attached. The bloodied hair stuck to the glass and slid in slow motion to the ground, where it lay quivering in the pounding rain like a small rodent.

Hand trembling, Daria raised the gun. She hadn’t shot in a long time. Not since her accident.

Sicily’s eyes widened, and she pointed at the window. A drenched form stepped into the light, grinning.

Daria fired. The recoil ran up her arm, making her stumble back, but a glow spread inside her as her finger released.

Sicily’s head jerked to the side, and a small blood splatter flicked against the wall. Daria tightened her finger again and another bullet burst from the chamber. This time, she caught the girl in the chest. Sicily twitched and slumped to the ground. Her long silver-painted nails moved on the carpet, as if trying to pull herself away.

Tan gave a gentle knock on the glass with his knuckles. Daria pursed her lips, annoyed, and crossed the room to unlock the door.

“You brought her here!” Daria set one hand on her hip. “You had me terrified! I kept picturing Old Man Dwin out there… You know better than to bring a kill home.”

Tan gave a fake pout. “She was a present for you. You wouldn’t come out to play, love. Ever since that bitch got you with her knife, you’ve been in this funk. I didn’t know what else to do. I told you, Dar, I want my wife back.”

Daria bit her lip.

“I’ll clean it all up myself.” He grinned.  That boyish grin on his angelic face, which she found irresistible. “And what’s the point of a secluded home if we never use it?”

“Old Man Dwin is close enough to be suspicious of the gunshots.” Daria leaned against Tan, not caring that rain and blood drenched his clothes, hair, and skin. She believed him now—she could dance. The rhythm surged inside her, the desire.

“We’ll say we were shooting at coyotes.”

“Or,” Daria said, her fingers moving over his firm chest, “let’s go up to that barn and distract him. With how loud the rain is pounding, I could sneak up behind him. Plant a little physical evidence on the body. Who wouldn’t buy that the creepy old freak killed them?”

“Best yet, we’d get to watch the investigation. A frame up… Daria, you’ve never been sexier.”

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” she said, planting a kiss on his chest.

“Exactly what I’ve been saying, Dar. We made promises to each other… and it’s not time to give up yet. Not by a long shot.”

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Is a review.

Enjoyed the book? As an independant female author, reviews are my lifeline. They are how readers find new books and decide what is right for them. Without your help, other readers may never find me!

So go on Amazon and/or Goodreads and say what you like, what you didn't like, or anything else you feel. Even just leaving a star rating can help!

Books By this author

Aspect Wars

Bone River

5th City Chronicles

Beneath 5th City
Project Eo
Red Angel

The Drambish Contaminate Series

Spider's Kiss
Spider's Gambit
Spider's Choice

Anthologies

Love in the Wreckage
Monster's Movies & Mayhem
Once Upon Now