Patrick was dressed as a construction worker. He had overalls, a hardhat, work boots, and even a tool belt with a power drill in a holster. It wasn’t really a costume if you asked me. Dressing up as something you see every day isn’t what Halloween is supposed to be about. I was dressed as a faerie.
“That’s such a stupid costume! What’s the point of dressing up if you’re gonna be something ridiculous like that?”
“What’s so ridiculous about it?”
“You look like one of the Village People! You might as well stand next to a cop and an Indian and start doing the YMCA!”
“Yeah, well you’re the one who looks ridiculous. How many faeries do you know who walk around with a Louis Vuitton purse?”
“I am a fashion faerie, if you must know. I go around to all the poor slobs with no sense of style and I wave my magic wand and POOF! Instant trendy.”
“And the desperation to be trendy is a desirable quality on the planet you’re from?”
“You wouldn’t know style if it smacked you in the face, Fatrick.”
“Wooo. Fatrick. What a burn. Get this man some Aloe vera, stat!”
But I think that did burn him a bit. He was quiet for a few minutes and then when we passed a house with a bunch of toys in the yard, he took out his power drill and started drilling holes into some poor kid’s prized possessions.
“What are you doing!?” I hissed at him, trying to be quiet and furious at the same time. “That’s somebody’s toys!”
“This will teach ‘em to leave their mess all over the yard.”
“You’re such a jerk!”
He ignored me and punched his drill through the forehead of a Mr. Potato Head.
“Now he’s Mr. Potato Dead!” he muttered with a demented giggle.
I continued down the street, no longer wanting to be seen with him. A few minutes later he came hurrying up to me again, still laughing.
“Here. I brought you a souvenir.” He handed me a plastic Potato Head ear. “This is for all the times you say I never listen to you.”
“Hardy har. You’re such a jerk. That poor kid will be crying his eyes out when he sees what you did.”
“Did you see all the toys he had? He’s probably a spoiled little brat. He deserves it.”
“You don’t even know him!”
“This guy’s an ass too,” Patrick said in front of someone else’s house. And he drilled a hole through an expensive-looking fence.
“God! You’re such an idiot!” I told him, stomping ahead without him once more.
“You sounded like Napolean Dynamite just then!”
“Whatever. Why did mom make me take you to this stupid party anyway? It’s gonna be so lame. You’re an idiot. All your friends are idiots. The whole place will be full of holes by the end of it, and you’ll all finish out the night playing with yourselves over some stupid Megan Fox movie.”
“Megan Fox is hot!”
“Well if you meet her, you can wow her with your fabulous YMCA dance. Jack ass.”
And so we continued on in silence. The party was quite a ways away yet. We’d left early because we had to walk the whole way. Not only did mom insist on me escorting this little menace to his stupid Halloween party, she wouldn’t even give us a ride. I’d begged her for nearly half an hour, but she ignored me, dancing around the kitchen with her headphones in her ears listening to some stupid musical from the 1970s or something and icing Jack-o-lantern faces onto the cupcakes she’d baked. She was dressed as a witch. How appropriate.
“Mom! Please!”
“Let’s do the Time Warp again!” she sang to herself.
Patrick drilled his drill at me. “She can’t hear you, stupid. She’s in Rocky Horror Picture mode.”
“God! I hate this family!”
The trick-or-treaters were trickling out into the streets now. Ghosts, magicians, knights, pirates, and pokemons all started wandering up and down the streets in little groups. One kid was even dressed like Indiana Jones. He even had a whip and a toy gun on his belt. I wanted to grab the whip and give Patrick a few lashes with it. Too bad fashion faeries didn’t carry weapons of their own.
Oh yeah, and there were a whole lot of vampires. Vampires were everywhere. It was really pretty ridiculous. Was there a sale on stupid looking teeth and fake blood or something?
“I vant to suck you blood…” a little kid muttered as he walked past.
“You’ll have to suck it outta my arse, ya little bastard,” Patrick said.
“Oh my God! Can you be a civilized human being for just one day of your stupid life!? For even one hour?”
“No,” was all he said.
“You’re just a sad little jerk who’s mad at the world because you’re overweight and you can’t even get a girl to talk to you, so you gotta be an ass to everyone else!”
“Wow! You shoulda dressed up as Sigmund Freud. You want me to tell you all about my mother too? Obviously you’ve got me all figured… out…”
He trailed off. He’d stopped walking. What now? I turned back and saw him standing on the sidewalk, staring through the wrought iron fence of some ramshackle old Victorian house. It was grey with black trimming. The second floor windows seemed to be scowling down at passers-by above a porch that sagged on each end, making it look like an angry frown. The lawn looked like it hadn’t been raked in about 200 years. To our right, an old metal sign creaked, swaying in the breeze above the gate: Trespassers Beware. And then in parenthesis below that was hand written, I ain’t kidding! The whole place looked abandoned, creepy, and old. Worse yet, it felt creepy and old too. And it was even scarier, now that it was almost totally dark. You could be sure no trick-or-treaters would be knocking on that door. Not even on the biggest triple-dog-mega-dare you could imagine. A second sign hung on the gate as well, one side of a cardboard box that said, Peddlers will be roasted alive! Keep out!”
“Come on, Patrick. What are you staring at? Let’s go!”
“Look. There on the window sill.”
I looked. Up on the saggy porch, to the left of the front door, the light was on in one of the windows. The window itself was open a bit and I could see what looked like a fresh-baked pie, steaming on the window sill.
“What about it? Come on! Let’s go!”
“It’s apple pie. Can’t you smell it?”
“Big deal. There’s gonna be all kinds of deserts at the party. Now can we just-”
“Wait here,” he said. And with a quick glance up and down the street, he ducked under the creaky sign and into the yard. The gate groaned far too loudly and then shut itself again with an irritated clang, as though it would have rather have been part of the fence so it wouldn’t have to be bothered with all that opening and closing nonsense.
“What are you DOING!?” I hissed at him again. This was much worse than drilling holes in some poor kid’s toys. Now he was messing with some apparently psychotic old bugger’s apple pie. He ignored me of course, tip-toeing across the crunching leaves toward the stairs. “Patrick!” I said, one last time, trying to get his attention. But he was zoned in on the pie. He apparently meant to steal it. I looked up and down the street again. There was a not a vampire or pokemon to be seen. It was like they’d all vanished. A cat darted from beneath a parked car across the street, scaring the hell out of me, but other than that, the area was deserted.
Patrick got to the front porch and crept towards the open window. When he got there he turned to grin at me one last time, and then he reached for the pie. But then he stopped as though distracted by something only he could hear. He stepped forward and leaned over to peek in the window.
“Patrick! Don’t!” I whispered, as loud as I could, but there was no way he could hear me from the street.
He leaned right over and was nearly sticking his head right in the window. He let out a startled squeaking noise and suddenly his whole body was yanked up off the ground and dragged into the house. It happened so quickly I’d nearly missed it between blinks. He was there one second. And then he was gone. His power drill was all that was left of him. It clattered to the porch floor with a couple of thumps and then all was quiet again. I stared, stunned, horrified. At first I thought I’d imagined it, but then the window dropped closed with a ka-chunk like a guillotine, the shade was pulled, and the light behind it went out.
“Patrick!” I screamed, when I finally realized he was really gone. “Somebody help me! Patrick!”
But nobody heard me. Nobody was around. Not even a cat.
After I gave up screaming for help, I ran to the front door and tried to look in all the windows. All was dark. I grabbed up the drill and ran to a neighbor’s house to bang on the door. Of course nobody answered. I ran back out into the street to flag down a car, but no cars came. Five minutes had passed, then ten, and there was no sign of anybody. Should I run all the way home and get my mom? Why had that idiot gone after that stupid pie in the first place?
I finally decided to try to get into the house myself and maybe try to rescue him. It was a ridiculous idea but I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. I was panicked about my brother being murdered by some lunatic old man with a pie fetish. I had to get him out of there. It was the only thought in my head.
The only entrance I found was in the back of the house. There was a back door but it was pad-locked. I used Patrick’s drill as a saw and cut through the wood around the lock. It was old and rotted anyway. The drill would also come in handy as a defensive weapon, if need be. This is what I told myself anyway.
The door swung open and I stepped into the darkness. I was apparently in a very old kitchen. I stood in the doorway, aiming the drill like a gun with both hands, waving it back and forth at every little skittering noise I heard in there.
“Patrick!” I whispered again. But I heard no reply, only my own breathing. I stepped forward. The door thumped closed behind me. There was a hallway in front of me, leading away into even thicker darkness than was in the dreary old kitchen. I called to him again, a little louder, but there was still no reply. Finally I stepped forward, heading into the hall. I had to find that front room he’d been dragged into. And if I had to drill the drill through the old bastard’s head, so be it. I was ready. I just had to save my brother.
I made my way down the hallway purely by feel. It was pitch black. There was light behind me in the kitchen, and a very dim light ahead of me, but the hall itself was as black as a coffin. The floor creaked. The skittering noises rustled in the walls. I stepped forward again and bumped into something… an end table. I went around it and made my way toward the light of the front room.
I went through the doorway and saw the window with the blinds pulled down. “Patrick? Are you in here?” No answer. And then I took a step forward again, and my foot squished into something soft and slimy. I slipped in it and fell sideways into some sort of chair. I bumped off of that and landed on the floor. The drill slipped from my hand and jostled away across the floor. My hand had slapped into the gooey mess on the rug. It was still warm and wet and sticky, and my first thought was that it was Patrick’s guts. The old psycho had already ripped him to shreds with an axe or something. I yanked my hand up in a panic and began frantically wiping it off. And then I smelled it and realized what it really was. It was apple pie.
I needed some sort of light. Then I remembered there was a lamp in this room when we’d first stopped in front of the house. I crossed the room and felt around for it. I found it and fumbled for the switch. It clicked on and the room was suddenly bathed in pale, brownish colored light. I spun around and saw only furniture—chairs, bookshelves, a table, an old foot-pedal sewing machine. There was a crackling electrical sound and the smell of burnt copper. The light flickered a bit, as though it would go out, but then it steadied again. My heart pounded, terrified of being plunged back into darkness. I scanned frantically around for the drill, but it was nowhere to be seen. Had it gone under the old couch? Had it clattered over into the hallway? I couldn’t see it anywhere.
“Patrick?” I called. And then I saw a rat dart across the floor out in the hallway and I nearly jumped out of my own skin. It was all teeth and hair and little beady eyes, and it was so quick it was almost a flash.
I slowly walked to the hallway again and looked out into the darkness. To the right was the front door and the stairs leading up to the second floor. To the left was the kitchen where I’d come from, and a small door that apparently led down into the cellar. A cellar. Uhg. It was the last place I wanted to be, but probably the first place a maniac would take someone they’d just kidnapped off of their front porch. If I was going to find Patrick, I was pretty sure I’d find him down there. But now I didn’t even have my drill.
There was an umbrella stand next to the front door. I pulled an old one out of it. It had a pointy metal end on it, and a curved wooden handle. It looked to be about ten thousand years old and probably hadn’t been open since Noah’s flood, but it was something to hold onto anyway. It was nice and heavy. I headed for the stairs. But when I got there, the light in the living room started flickering again. Then it went out for nearly a whole second. I turned back toward the living room, wondering if I’d have to go back there and turn it on again. It came back on its own but then went out again, this time for nearly ten seconds.
“Oh God, please…” I whispered in the dark. There was an electric crackle again, and the light came back on finally. I turned back toward the cellar again, and screamed. I was looking up into a hideously wrinkled and deformed old face with pale greenish skin, a fat, beak-shaped nose, and a long bulbous chin. It was not a man at all. It was a woman. Two powerful hands grabbed my arms before I could turn to flee. I screamed again, looking up into her face. Her teeth were rotted and random, like a row of brown and reddish headstones on a purple graveyard. Her hair was clumped and matted like the straw of a black and white broom. Her eyes were shiny wet black beads in her head. She hissed at me like an angry cat and a low rumbling growl rose in her throat. That was all the horror I could stand. I yanked one arm back reflexively and jabbed the umbrella at her face. The long metal point stabbed right into her eye and cold black goo squirted out, splashing across my neck. I screamed again, expecting her to collapse in a heap, but she held on, still grinning, still staring into my very soul with her one remaining eye. And then she began laughing. She threw her head back and cackled a long and sickening laugh. And when she stopped laughing again, she gave me a fierce glare, reached behind her back, and clobbered me with Patrick’s drill.
Everything went black, even blacker than it already was.
---
I woke in a cage hung from the ceiling in the cellar. My eyes were blurry at first, but I smelled fire. I glanced over toward the only light source. There was a great cauldron in a fireplace with a fire crackling underneath. There on a table next to the fireplace was Patrick. He was tied. He was gagged. He was still breathing, but he was not awake. There was blood and pie smeared on his coveralls. He was bleeding from a gash on his forehead. So was I.
“Patrick! Patrick, wake up!”
“He can’t hear you, dear,” the sound of a dozen hissing snakes said from beside me. My head snapped left and I saw her sitting there, on an old gnarled wooden throne that looked like it was made from tortured trees. Her right eye was still gone, and the wound oozed black blood down her cheek, but she didn’t seem to be in any pain.
“Who are you?” I said. “You can’t do this to us! You have to let us go! The police-”
“Are you afraid, my dear?” her voice rasped again. “You need to be very afraid for the spell to work. Your fear gives it power, you see. Your fear charges the crystal, for me. The crystal cannot suck the soul from your flesh until it is fully charged, and I do so need that dear sweet soul. I’m getting so terribly, terribly old, you see. So be a dear and give in to your fear, and I shall end your misery.”
“You can’t do this to us! I-”
And as I felt a flash of fear bubble up in my guts, I noticed a dim flicker in the crystal hanging from the ceiling.
“See? See there?” she pointed at it with a crooked finger. “Once that crystal stops flickering, you’re mine! Go, be afraid! Be terrified! Give in to fear! I’ve been living on rats and birds and cats and toads so long, but as you can see, they’ve deformed me quite a bit. But a sweet succulent soul like yours is exactly what I need to be beautiful and comely once again, and then I shall be able to lure whomever I wish into the cage. I’ll keep the comely ones, such as yourself, for the crystal, but fat and ugly ones like him go into the stew.”
The cauldron was steaming a bit now, heated by the fire beneath it. It was large, big enough for a child to hide inside perhaps, if any children were foolish enough to wander into this God forsaken house as we had.
“Please! Let us go and we won’t tell anyone about this. I promise! We’ll just run away and never return.”
She got up off the throne and shuffled over to the side of the cage, leering at me with her one good eye as though I’d insulted her.
“That’s what they all say, dear. So say they all, when death is near.”
Then she shuffled over and tapped at the crystal with a gnarled looking fingernail and turned to glare at me once again.
“Still dark, yes. But it is powerful enough. I shall try the incantation a little early. Sometimes it works before things get messy.”
Messy? What was she planning to do to us? My fear flared up again and the crystal flickered a bit. She smiled a malicious grin and nodded, wringing her hands together.
“That’s right. There you go. It’ll all be over before you know…”
I decided to try my best to control my fear. If that weird little crystal got stronger the more I was afraid, I’d better not give in to it. What was the happiest thought I could possibly think of? I couldn’t think of anything. All I could think of was Patrick drilling holes in some poor kid’s toys.
The old crone approached me, holding a small leather bag she’d lifted from a shelf by the fire. She began chanting out a demented little rhyme at me as she slowly shuffled around and around the cage, jabbing at me with the pointy tip of her old wooden cane.
“O-wem, O-witch.
I’ve got you, bitch.
I need your soul
to scratch an itch.
Give in to fear
the end is near
shed one last tear
give one last twitch.
O-wem, O-witch
I’ve got you, bitch.
Your life and mine
shall make a switch
Then you shall die,
but I’ll be fine…
O-wem, O-witch
I damn you, bitch
Your soul is mine.”
Her voice was like a hissing leak of poison from an old iron pipe, and each time she jabbed at me, I jumped a bit, and the crystal glowed a little hotter.
Control! Control! I screamed at myself.
“You really should go as a pirate this Halloween,” I said. “Just throw a patch over that eye of yours and off you go.”
And the flickering suddenly ceased, much to the old woman’s furious dismay. She growled at me again, leering at me out of her good eye. And then another cold, calculating grin spread across the cemetery of her mouth. She lifted the bag from her chest, pulled the draw strings open and dumped its contents over the cage. It spilled through the bars above me, down over my head and into my hair, down the back of my shirt and all over my legs. What was it? Pepper? Black sand? What the hell was it? I lifted my arm to look and she suddenly threw her head back, cackling horribly again.
Spiders! I was covered in tiny baby spiders! Thousands of them. They were in my hair, in my shirt, crawling into my ears, and up my nose. I screamed like I’d been stabbed through the heart, slapping myself all over my head and face in a desperate panic. I flipped and flopped and writhed in the cage like a worm on a hot pan.
“Ho ho! Ho ho! Look at that crystal glow!” she said, in between gasps for breath, and more hideously sadistic laughter.
I forced myself to calm once again, though I could feel the things crawling all over me. They were dropping to the floor by the hundreds but I was still covered in them. I whipped off one of my faerie wings and started beating at the bars of the cage, and at my head and shoulders.
“I sure hope at least one of these things are radio active,” I said, between screams. “Cause I’m gonna turn into a superhero and kick your frickin’ ass!” I kicked at her through the bars of the cage and knocked her back into that throne of hers. She fell with a crunch and I think she broke something. Her laughing stopped all at once and she glared at me again. I took a quick glance at the crystal again, still flicking spiders away, and she restarted the incantation. It was still only flickering, but it was much, much brighter now.
“O-wem, O-witch, O-wem, O-witch, your soul is mine. I’ve got you, bitch…” She went through the entire chant once more but nothing happened when she was done. She tapped at the crystal again. “Not long now,” she said, giggling. “I think though, that it’s time to wake your fat little friend.” She drew an old pair of shears from a nearby table and hobbled towards him. “Wake up. Wake up, fatty Patty. I’ve got something here that will drive you batty.”
She walked right up to him, lifted one limp hand from the table and snipped his little finger off. He lurched to life, suddenly screaming into the gag. His eyes flashed open wildly and he yanked and kicked at the ropes that restrained him. I watched in horror but then shut my eyes tightly when I saw the crystal pulsing more steadily. Patrick was screaming helplessly into his gag, and the old crone rapped him hard on the head with her cane.
“Quiet, you! You squeal like a pig!”
Then she took a nibble of the finger she’d cut off of him and spat, disgusted.
“This one’s been playing with himself! Foul swine!”
And she snipped off another finger as punishment. Patrick thrashed wildly again and blood spurted from his wounds, then he fell into piteous sobbing. The old hag threw his fingers into the cauldron, which was now simmering steadily.
“Disgusting!” she said again. “Luckily I’m not the one who eats it.”
Then she busied herself with dicing carrots, turnips, and potatoes with an old dagger she’d pulled from yet another shelf. It was a heavy old iron thing, but it was apparently razor sharp. She handled it deftly in her withered old fingers too. When Patrick kept kicking and screaming behind her, she turned and lopped off another two fingers from his other hand with a quick downward chop and flipped them into the stew with the tip of the dagger. “Keep you silent, I say again! Your squealing’s like a knife in my brain!”
Then she turned back to the vegetables and I got busy yanking and kicking at the old wooden bars of the cage. Patrick’s muffled screams covered the noise I made, but it seemed to be no use. The most I could do was bend one of the bars slightly outward at the bottom. It wasn’t even enough to get a leg through. I kept at it though. A bend would eventually become a break. Something was irritating my hip as I kicked and kicked, but I hardly noticed it. I was watching the old hag, and the crystal, and trying to control my fear.
She got all her chopping done, and I’d still kicked only enough away to get an ankle through. I gave up, exhausted, cut, and scraped up. I reached into my pocket to find the source of the irritation. There was the little plastic ear Patrick had given me. I squeezed it in my fist, fearing it would soon be all I had left to remember him by. Then the old buzzard turned back to the crystal to check its progress.
“Still so dull. What a shame. I guess we’ll need a tougher game.” She hobbled over to me and I flinched, readying myself for whatever cruel scare she had for me next.
“Well,” I said. “If the next game is an ugly contest then you definitely win.”
“I was beautiful once,” she answered. “Four hundred years ago, I was the most beautiful prostitute in the city of London. Even the lords coveted evenings with me. But I was abused as well. Men are such pigs, you see. The slightest insult to their precious little manhoods, even a giggle, and they’ll shove your face into a kettle of boiling stew. And then, all your beauty, all your fame is gone in an instant. I was hideous after that, a face to frighten children and make babies cry. But that’s when I met Daenna. She taught me the secret to healing, to immortality. She showed me how I could restore all my beauty as good as new. And all it costs is the soul of a pretty young maiden. Maidens are getting harder and harder to come by these days though. As you can see, I’ve waited a very long time…”
She didn’t notice the section of the bars I’d kicked away. I think maybe she was long gone out of her mind, bat shit crazy maybe a hundred years before I was even born. She seemed to be paying more attention to the crystal than anything else. She kept glancing up at it as she talked, waiting for its flicker to steady.
“But you should have seen the stew we made of that tiny-peckered lord, my dear. Oh it was a work, I tell you. Daenna and I somehow managed to remove his entire skeleton without even killing him. Well, the skull and spine we had to leave of course, but the rest of him… you should have seen the look in his eyes when we showed him his own shin bones. Perhaps I’ll do the same thing to fatty patty.”
“Are you gonna keep on babbling, you ugly old whore? I’ve got a party I’ve gotta get to.”
She didn’t seem bothered by my insult at all, and that kinda scared me a little more.
“Do you know who the stew is for, you insolent little brat? Do you know what makes the magic work? Do you know who gets to feast on your unspoiled flesh after I’ve torn out your soul? Here, let me show you.”
She turned the cage around and faced me toward the back wall of the cellar. There was a waist-high door set in the brick with tiny slit windows in it. It looked like a furnace of some sort. Something glowed from between the slits. Then she shuffled over and began turning a crank on the wall. The door began lifting. Inside, there was what looked like a glowing bear, except it wasn’t a bear. It was bald like a man, with muscles like a man, but it was glowing like hot coals. It had the head of a dog, with horns like a bull, and claws like an eagle’s talons. Its eyes were nearly white-hot fires as it stared up at me. It lunged, and I screamed, but its neck was yanked back by an incredibly thick chain. It snarled, and growled and spat glowing dribbles of molten rock that sizzled into the stone floor when they hit.
“Still trying to resist the fear, child?” the hag said to me. “This is a demon-dog, a Bär-geist. It’s one of the smallest horrors that exist in the hell you’re going to after your soul is drained of its essence. You see, hell is real. It’s oh, so real, and I’m sending you there in my stead. It’s how I’ve managed to survive so long, you see, by appeasing these hounds with much tastier morsels than myself. Now are you ready to scream for me? Ready to finish charging the crystal so I can take your soul? It’s nearly done now. Just a few more screams…”
I fought it with everything I had. But one scream managed to escape me when the dog-thing lunged again. The chains held though, and I simply turned away, grabbing the bars and refusing to look. I looked at Patrick instead. He was glaring at the dog with wild-eyed terror.
“Well, then,” the old hag said. “I’ll just have to finish preparing my stew.” And she walked up and suddenly, carelessly slit my brother’s throat with the dagger. Blood gushed out in a deep red fountain. I stared in terrified shock, but did not scream. The stone brightened anyway. It was pure terror that charged it, not just screams. My brother was laying there bleeding to death, and there was nothing I could do about it, and my soul’s screams were charging the crystal that would steal my soul and make the old hag new again.
She saw the crystal brightening and she threw her head back, cackling her cold cruel soulless laughter. I was shocked. I was horrified. I was helpless. My only weapon was a plastic ear. I threw it at her in a pathetic attempt at retaliation and it spun through the air between us. Her mouth was wide open, gasping for breath to below out another cackle and the ear dropped right down into her throat. Her laughter was cut off. Her hands went to her neck. She twisted and gasped, thrashing left and right, knocking a stool over, scattering instruments of torture this way and that. And then she slipped on my brother’s blood and fell sideways, crashing into the now boiling cauldron and smacking her head on the hearth. The cauldron teetered a moment, and then slopped a great splash of its stew over its rim, splattering her face with the boiling brew. Not a squeak escaped her. She couldn’t even breathe. She thrashed wildly though and in her crazed panic, she grabbed a flaming log from the fire and threw it at me in a pathetic attempt at retaliation. I ducked and it hit the top of the cage, setting the rope holding it to the ceiling ablaze. More stew slopped over the edge of the pot and splashed across her face, melting her flesh away until part of her skull was showing. Still she kicked and thrashed, refusing to die. And then the cage I was in fell. Weakened by my kicking, an entire section of the bars snapped away and it only took one more kick to free myself. I found myself lying on the cold stone floor looking up at the crystal hanging from the ceiling. It was now glowing steadily. The witch’s own terror had completed the charge.
I got to my feet and walked over to what was left of the hag on the floor and pointed at her.
“O-Wem, O-Witch, I’ve got you, bitch. Your soul is mine, O-wem, O-witch!”
There was a flash of light and something seemed to be yanked right out of the old figure on the floor. The light itself was screaming as it zipped through the room and into the crystal. Just then the hell hound snapped free from his chains and lunged at the body on the floor. It dove into the flesh in the same way the light had come out of it and moments later the figure exploded into a puff of dry ashes. Both the dog and the hag were gone. The little plastic ear remained though, laying half buried in the dust.
I lifted the crystal from its little hook on the ceiling. It was swirling and pulsing with light now. I held it by its chain, not touching it and walked over to my brother, who was gasping his last choking breaths. I laid it on his chest and the light seemed to be soaked up by him, like his skin was a sponge. Suddenly, his wounds began to close, his breath steadied. New fingers grew out of the stumps at his knuckles, and even the cut on his forehead mended. I took the dagger and cut his bindings.
“Wha… what happened?” he mumbled, opening his eyes. “The pain is gone.”
“Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!”
The flaming log had lit part of a wooden support beam on fire, and the blaze was now crawling up toward the wood of ceiling. Patrick shook his head, rubbed at his throat, and then sat up. He held up his hand and wiggled his fingers. They were brand new.
“Come on!” I said, even louder, heading toward the stairs.
“Wait!” he told me. “Look!”
There was an old chest at the back of the cave where the dog had been chained up.
“There’s no time! Let’s go!”
But Patrick wouldn’t listen. He never listened to me. He ran into the little cave and began trying to drag the chest out. “It’s too heavy! Help me!”
And since I knew he wouldn’t listen to me anyway, I decided I’d better just help him. I grabbed the handle on one side and he grabbed the other. We lifted it and carried it to the stairs. The flames were spreading across the ceiling now. The smoke was getting thick.
“Heave!” he said. We heaved, and thirty seconds later we got it to the top of the stairs and slammed the cellar door. “We’re rich! We’re rich!” he giggled dementedly. He was pretty damn happy for someone who’d just gotten their throat slit five minutes earlier.
“You don’t even know what’s in here?”
“Why else would she hide a chest in a cave with a devil dog?” he asked. “Total security!”
He snatched up the drill from the hallway floor and buzzed it through the ancient-looking lock. He flipped the lid open and we saw a near mountain of gold coins, gems, jewels, necklaces, crowns, and fat stacks of cash from nearly every era of modern history. There was a very old dress too, thin and faded, on one side of the pile. And on top of it was an ancient painting of a beautiful-looking victorian woman. The caption read: Madam Patricia Wemwick, October 31, 1609.
“You think that’s her?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. And there was a far away look in his eye for a moment.
A billow of smoke wafted from under the cellar door and the hallway was getting hotter. I slammed the lid shut again.
“Come on! Let’s get this thing out of here!”
“Don’t go that way,” Patrick said. “The front door is double bolted.”
“How do you know?” I demanded, dropping my side of the heavy chest again.
“I have no idea.”
We staggered out the back door and down the lane behind the house. We were halfway home before we heard the fire truck sirens screaming down the street.
We heard the next day that the place was completely destroyed. Even the chimney had collapsed. The police reported no victims of the fire and no eye witnesses as to who may have started it. The neighbors were not sorry to see it go, so there wasn’t much of an investigation.
We hid the chest in our own basement and lived pretty happily ever after, carefully buying ourselves things now and then so as not to arouse any suspicions as to where we’d come by the wealth. Not even Mom asked us any questions when that Christmas we got her a brand new iPod, fully loaded with nothing but show tunes from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Other than that, things were pretty much the same, except of course for my morbid phobia of spiders, and Patrick’s aversion to apple pie.
The End
Oh, and PS. We replaced all the little kid’s toys with brand new ones, and Patrick even paid for the repairs to the old man’s fence. So I guess maybe things are a little different after all.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Baby Boy
They’d dressed Jake in a high-collared tuxedo, and even wrapped his neck in a white scarf, nearly up to his chin, but you could still see the stitches on the left side of his neck where the animal that got him had been at his throat. Christine had asked for a closed casket funeral, but they’d somehow convinced her that the beautiful boy looked so peaceful, lying there like he was merely asleep. The animal had been at his neck but had left his face intact. Let’s enjoy it one last time.
Console, console, console. They all blathered at her incessantly about how they understood, how they would be there for her if there was anything she needed. But she heard the whispers too.
“Honestly! Who lets a five year old wander around alone in the woods?”
“It wasn’t the woods. It was a park.”
“He was found in the woods near the park. They think he was dragged there after he was… killed.”
“It gets dark early in October. He should have been home.”
“Shhhh. She’ll hear you.”
“He loved that park… The poor dear.”
She’d let him play in the park a little late, while she was preparing supper. She’d assumed he was with friends. All his friends had gone home though, leaving him there alone to ride the slide a few more times, to swing on the swings a little while longer, to climb, to run, to be alive.
By the time she’d gone out looking for him, it was after dark. The park was deserted. She’d felt sick with worry, but even then, she’d assumed he’d just gone over to a friend’s house. She tried all his friend’s houses though, and nobody knew where he was. Then she went back to the park, calling for him, and eventually screaming for him. Then she’d called the police.
Now she was at his funeral. Now they were going to bury her baby. She felt the screams rising again from deep inside her, but they were buried somehow. They had her on so many tranquilizers she could barely walk, and the screams were still rising from deep down inside her. The pain wasn’t gone. The pain hadn’t been killed. It had just been buried. She could still hear the screams, very deep down. The pain was a monster that would live forever.
Console, console, and more console. And then it was over. She was in a limousine again, driving to the cemetery, near the woods where he’d been found, near the park where he had loved to play. It seemed appropriate they whispered, that he be buried near the park he loved so much. But Christine couldn’t imagine he’d want to be anywhere near where the thing had got him. She kept this thought buried though, just like the screams.
The police never did find the thing that had gotten him. Some of them had even suggested he’d fallen and torn his throat open on a branch, or a jagged stone. Nobody had seen or heard anything. There were no footprints, fingerprints, defensive wounds, or DNA of any kind to suggest he’d been attacked by a human. There weren’t even any recent animal tracks, just the body of a boy with half his throat torn away. He’d bled to death, but they hadn’t found very much blood at the scene, which led them to believe that he was moved from where he’d been killed, possibly by an animal. The evidence just didn’t add up. The clothes weren’t muddied or scratched as they would have been if the boy had been dragged. It was almost as if something had torn his throat out, exactly where it had killed him, and then simply taken the blood away somewhere.
The police had vowed to get to the bottom of it. But Jake was still being lowered into the ground. What difference did it make who or what had killed him?
---
The screaming resumed later that afternoon, when the tranquilizers wore off. She refused to take any more of them. She didn’t like dodging the pain of her boy’s death. It felt wrong. It felt like betrayal. She would bear the pain of his death, just as she’d borne the pain of his birth. She would wait in agony, screaming as she allowed the pain to ravish through her soul, tearing pieces of it away as the minutes passed into hours. She re-lived every moment of his life, from the first time she’d held him, feeling him softly suckling at her breast, to the last time she’d kissed him goodnight, and everything in between. And she remembered every single time she’d ever scolded and screamed at him too, and the times she’d let him cry all alone because she was too busy to worry about every little issue he had. The what- ifs and if-onlys, stabbed at her like a sadistic mob, blaming her, accusing her, trying to murder her for her guilt, but somehow her soul refused to die. All she could do was lie there screaming, hating her own soul for not dying like it deserved to.
She woke on the floor of his bedroom, not even realizing she’d gone in there, or when she had fallen asleep. It was night now. The October wind moaned through the trees outside his window. His little nightlight glowed for no one. His fish swam aimlessly in the aquarium on the dresser beside his bed. A board game was set up but not played on the floor in the middle of the room—Chutes and Ladders. The blue token was on square four and the red one was on square one. One die was on a number one, and the other had rolled a three.
“Play with me, momma! It’s your turn!”
“I’m busy now, Jake. Why don’t you go play with your friends at the park instead?”
Christine picked up the dice and rolled a seven. She moved the red token to the seven square and then lay sobbing on the floor while she waited for Jake to take his turn. Then her sister Pam was there, trying to hug her, to console her again, trying to lead her from the room, but she refused.
“No! I will not leave this room! I will not! I will stay in here until the pain kills me! I need it to kill me!”
And then Pam was crying, and Christine didn’t know why. Pam had never had a son ripped from her soul. What could possibly be upsetting her?
“I won’t let this grief kill you, Chrissy. I loved Jakey too, and he wouldn’t want his momma dead.”
She got up, and left. Christine rolled the dice for Jake. Jake got a nine. She moved the blue token to thirteen, wondering what Jake would have been like as a teenager. And then she wept some more. She grabbed Mr. Brownbear off his little bed and hugged it until she passed out from the exhaustion of sobbing.
“Come back to me, Jakey! Oh God, please make this all just a dream!”
The only reply was the cold October wind moaning through the trees outside the window.
---
She didn’t take a jacket when she snuck out of the house at 1 am. Pam was asleep on the couch. The TV was blathering quietly to itself about a miracle mop that could wipe up a whole carton of spilled milk in one swipe. Christine walked past the happily smiling memory of her boy watching his favourite shows on that TV and went quietly out the front door, holding Mr. Brownbear’s hand. Pam shivered for a moment as the chilly night air billowed into the living room when the door opened, but she pulled the blanket closer to her chin and did not awaken. Christine was as silent as the night.
The walk to the park was cold and dark, but she had never been so unafraid. If any assailant lunged from the shadows to murder her, she would welcome it. Stab me, slice me, rip me up, she thought. Nothing you can do is worse than the pain I’m already in.
She got to the park and sat alone on a swing, holding Mr. Brownbear. The merry-go-round creaked, waving gently back and forth in the wind. The wind moaned through the trees. Leaves rustled, glowing yellow under the single street lamp that lit the playground from the street. Beyond was the woods where they’d found him. Beyond the woods was the cemetery where they’d buried him. Somewhere in the cemetery was his grave.
“Push me, Momma! Push me higher!”
“No more, baby. Momma’s too tired. Just kick your feet. You can do it.”
There’s no way a mop can clean an entire carton of milk in one swipe. That’s impossible. Almost as impossible as an entire body’s worth of blood simply vanishing…
She took Mr. Brownbear by the hand and walked with him into the woods. “Baby needs his bear,” she told herself. And she was completely unafraid.
---
Someone was standing on the path in the woods. She thought it was a branch at first, leaning way out from the bushes, but when she took a few more steps she saw it was a figure standing there. She just stopped and stared. An old tree moaned above her, its branches creaking and clicking in the wind. The figure, whoever it was, hadn’t seen her yet. It was facing into the woods, just staring. It was dressed in black, a mere silhouette in the near total darkness. She stood watching it, wondering if it would walk away into the night and let her pass. It did not. It just stared into the night, as though lost, confused. She waited, wondering if she should cut into the thicket, off the path, and try to go around.
An especially cold gust of wind blew through her, and she began to awaken from the trance she’d been in since she ‘d gotten up off her son’s bedroom floor and decided to come out here. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she wanted to wander into the cemetery at 1:30 in the morning just to lay a teddybear on a grave. Her son would still be there in the morning, wouldn’t he?
And then the figure on the path turned and looked in her direction. She saw the pale white of his face, like an unlit moon in the darkness. She saw two darker spots on its face where its eyes should have been. She couldn’t see its eyes though. His eyes, if they were there at all, appeared to be hiding in two caves set in the chalky white cliff of his face. She saw that he was a teenage boy. She saw that he was eating something, something dark and furry, with hind legs and a tail. He was eating it, and staring at her with caves instead of eyes. Her legs felt like jello, and her torso felt twisted around with fear. She backed up a step. Whoever this boy was, he didn’t seem to even see her. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking through her. And he was chewing. And then he lowered his hands and dropped the furry thing. It fell like a stone, thudding to the earth. In the dark, it looked like the boy had no mouth or jaw. The lower half of his face was as black as the clothing he wore. And then Christine realized that it was not that his jaw had been ripped away. It was merely covered in blood so dark in the night that it looked black. She backed up another step, but the figure did not step forward. He just stood, staring through her. Then she turned to flee but she stopped dead in her tracks before taking a single step. There was another figure behind her as well.
This second, smaller figure was much closer too. And he was walking, sort of limping toward her, on legs that didn’t seem to want to take the steps. When it tripped over a tree root, its arms didn’t fly out to break the fall. It just collapsed, smacking it’s face into the earth with a thud as dead as the furry thing the teenager had been eating. This second figure turned its face up from the earth and stared at her, and when it did, her mind finally released its grip on her last strand of sanity, like the bladder of a child who could hold the strain no longer and simply let it all go.
“Jakey?” she whispered. “Is that you, baby?”
The thing did not reply. It reached out little fingers toward her and started crawling across the cold damp earth, dragging a body that did not want to move except by massive effort of will. Christine fell to her knees and stretched out her hands toward him.
“Baby, is that you?”
His little tuxedo was ripped and dirty. He was missing one shoe. He still had the scarf on his neck, but it had come unraveled and dragged along behind him in the dirt. He made no sound at all. Not a moan. Not a whimper. Not even a gasp for breath. He just crawled across the dirt, coming toward her. She glanced back and saw the taller figure had vanished into the night. The path behind her was now clear. Then she looked back at the boy in the path in front of her. The dark caves that were his eyes were closer now and she could see that it really was Jakey. He was staring at her, crawling toward her. He did not blink. His jaw hung open in a surprised, pained expression and there were even clumps of dirt in his mouth. His hands were scraped and dirty, nearly black, as though he’d been digging in the earth. There were leaves in his hair.
She wanted to rush toward him. She wanted to grab him up and hold him. She wanted to kiss him, and cry and love him. But something felt wrong. It was her little Jake, but at the same time, it wasn’t. This was a crawling, dirty, staring, silent boy, a boy that looked like Jake, but Jake would have called out to her by now. Momma! Momma! Help me! I’m hurt! I missed you momma! I was so afraid! This thing made no sound at all. Not even breathing. The only noise in the night was the rustling of the leaves he crawled through, and the wind in the trees. Nevertheless, it looked like him, and it was moving. That was all the convincing her delirious mind needed. She held out the teddy to him from where she sat in the puddle of her dead sanity.
“Jakey! It’s momma, baby! I brought Mr. Brownbear!”
Jake didn’t even look at the bear. His eyes were unblinking in his gaze upon her. She sat, watching him come, and then he was there at her knees. She reached down and grabbed his hands. His hands were cold, as cold as the earth. And then she started crying again, realizing he really was dead. This cold crawling thing with leaves in his hair and unblinking eyes was Jake, but he was dead. He smelled of soil and sour meat, and she would have vomited if she’d had anything to eat that day. She would have gotten up to run, except that some horrified part of her brain had convinced her that this was somehow just a dream. It couldn’t be real. She’d watched them lower Jake into the ground.
And now the thing had crawled right up into her lap and collapsed, lying face up, still staring at her with unblinking eyes. Every motion had taken a massive effort of its will, and apparently it had no strength left. Her tears spilled off her cheeks and dripped onto his eyes. Still he did not blink. The tears merely rolled off his eyes and spilled down his cheeks as though they were his own. She stroked his cheek with her hand. It was cold as well. The flesh of his cheek she’d kissed so many times was as stiff as leather, as dead as the arm of their living room chair. A great wracking sob escaped her, a sob that was more of a long agonized scream than piteous weeping. She snatched him up and hugged him to her breast, crying out to the sky. “My baby! My baby!”
With a massive effort of his will, he slid his cold, dead hands up around the back of her neck and pulled himself up to her throat. Moments later her screaming ceased, and there was only the wind in the trees, and soft sucking sounds.
Console, console, console. They all blathered at her incessantly about how they understood, how they would be there for her if there was anything she needed. But she heard the whispers too.
“Honestly! Who lets a five year old wander around alone in the woods?”
“It wasn’t the woods. It was a park.”
“He was found in the woods near the park. They think he was dragged there after he was… killed.”
“It gets dark early in October. He should have been home.”
“Shhhh. She’ll hear you.”
“He loved that park… The poor dear.”
She’d let him play in the park a little late, while she was preparing supper. She’d assumed he was with friends. All his friends had gone home though, leaving him there alone to ride the slide a few more times, to swing on the swings a little while longer, to climb, to run, to be alive.
By the time she’d gone out looking for him, it was after dark. The park was deserted. She’d felt sick with worry, but even then, she’d assumed he’d just gone over to a friend’s house. She tried all his friend’s houses though, and nobody knew where he was. Then she went back to the park, calling for him, and eventually screaming for him. Then she’d called the police.
Now she was at his funeral. Now they were going to bury her baby. She felt the screams rising again from deep inside her, but they were buried somehow. They had her on so many tranquilizers she could barely walk, and the screams were still rising from deep down inside her. The pain wasn’t gone. The pain hadn’t been killed. It had just been buried. She could still hear the screams, very deep down. The pain was a monster that would live forever.
Console, console, and more console. And then it was over. She was in a limousine again, driving to the cemetery, near the woods where he’d been found, near the park where he had loved to play. It seemed appropriate they whispered, that he be buried near the park he loved so much. But Christine couldn’t imagine he’d want to be anywhere near where the thing had got him. She kept this thought buried though, just like the screams.
The police never did find the thing that had gotten him. Some of them had even suggested he’d fallen and torn his throat open on a branch, or a jagged stone. Nobody had seen or heard anything. There were no footprints, fingerprints, defensive wounds, or DNA of any kind to suggest he’d been attacked by a human. There weren’t even any recent animal tracks, just the body of a boy with half his throat torn away. He’d bled to death, but they hadn’t found very much blood at the scene, which led them to believe that he was moved from where he’d been killed, possibly by an animal. The evidence just didn’t add up. The clothes weren’t muddied or scratched as they would have been if the boy had been dragged. It was almost as if something had torn his throat out, exactly where it had killed him, and then simply taken the blood away somewhere.
The police had vowed to get to the bottom of it. But Jake was still being lowered into the ground. What difference did it make who or what had killed him?
---
The screaming resumed later that afternoon, when the tranquilizers wore off. She refused to take any more of them. She didn’t like dodging the pain of her boy’s death. It felt wrong. It felt like betrayal. She would bear the pain of his death, just as she’d borne the pain of his birth. She would wait in agony, screaming as she allowed the pain to ravish through her soul, tearing pieces of it away as the minutes passed into hours. She re-lived every moment of his life, from the first time she’d held him, feeling him softly suckling at her breast, to the last time she’d kissed him goodnight, and everything in between. And she remembered every single time she’d ever scolded and screamed at him too, and the times she’d let him cry all alone because she was too busy to worry about every little issue he had. The what- ifs and if-onlys, stabbed at her like a sadistic mob, blaming her, accusing her, trying to murder her for her guilt, but somehow her soul refused to die. All she could do was lie there screaming, hating her own soul for not dying like it deserved to.
She woke on the floor of his bedroom, not even realizing she’d gone in there, or when she had fallen asleep. It was night now. The October wind moaned through the trees outside his window. His little nightlight glowed for no one. His fish swam aimlessly in the aquarium on the dresser beside his bed. A board game was set up but not played on the floor in the middle of the room—Chutes and Ladders. The blue token was on square four and the red one was on square one. One die was on a number one, and the other had rolled a three.
“Play with me, momma! It’s your turn!”
“I’m busy now, Jake. Why don’t you go play with your friends at the park instead?”
Christine picked up the dice and rolled a seven. She moved the red token to the seven square and then lay sobbing on the floor while she waited for Jake to take his turn. Then her sister Pam was there, trying to hug her, to console her again, trying to lead her from the room, but she refused.
“No! I will not leave this room! I will not! I will stay in here until the pain kills me! I need it to kill me!”
And then Pam was crying, and Christine didn’t know why. Pam had never had a son ripped from her soul. What could possibly be upsetting her?
“I won’t let this grief kill you, Chrissy. I loved Jakey too, and he wouldn’t want his momma dead.”
She got up, and left. Christine rolled the dice for Jake. Jake got a nine. She moved the blue token to thirteen, wondering what Jake would have been like as a teenager. And then she wept some more. She grabbed Mr. Brownbear off his little bed and hugged it until she passed out from the exhaustion of sobbing.
“Come back to me, Jakey! Oh God, please make this all just a dream!”
The only reply was the cold October wind moaning through the trees outside the window.
---
She didn’t take a jacket when she snuck out of the house at 1 am. Pam was asleep on the couch. The TV was blathering quietly to itself about a miracle mop that could wipe up a whole carton of spilled milk in one swipe. Christine walked past the happily smiling memory of her boy watching his favourite shows on that TV and went quietly out the front door, holding Mr. Brownbear’s hand. Pam shivered for a moment as the chilly night air billowed into the living room when the door opened, but she pulled the blanket closer to her chin and did not awaken. Christine was as silent as the night.
The walk to the park was cold and dark, but she had never been so unafraid. If any assailant lunged from the shadows to murder her, she would welcome it. Stab me, slice me, rip me up, she thought. Nothing you can do is worse than the pain I’m already in.
She got to the park and sat alone on a swing, holding Mr. Brownbear. The merry-go-round creaked, waving gently back and forth in the wind. The wind moaned through the trees. Leaves rustled, glowing yellow under the single street lamp that lit the playground from the street. Beyond was the woods where they’d found him. Beyond the woods was the cemetery where they’d buried him. Somewhere in the cemetery was his grave.
“Push me, Momma! Push me higher!”
“No more, baby. Momma’s too tired. Just kick your feet. You can do it.”
There’s no way a mop can clean an entire carton of milk in one swipe. That’s impossible. Almost as impossible as an entire body’s worth of blood simply vanishing…
She took Mr. Brownbear by the hand and walked with him into the woods. “Baby needs his bear,” she told herself. And she was completely unafraid.
---
Someone was standing on the path in the woods. She thought it was a branch at first, leaning way out from the bushes, but when she took a few more steps she saw it was a figure standing there. She just stopped and stared. An old tree moaned above her, its branches creaking and clicking in the wind. The figure, whoever it was, hadn’t seen her yet. It was facing into the woods, just staring. It was dressed in black, a mere silhouette in the near total darkness. She stood watching it, wondering if it would walk away into the night and let her pass. It did not. It just stared into the night, as though lost, confused. She waited, wondering if she should cut into the thicket, off the path, and try to go around.
An especially cold gust of wind blew through her, and she began to awaken from the trance she’d been in since she ‘d gotten up off her son’s bedroom floor and decided to come out here. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she wanted to wander into the cemetery at 1:30 in the morning just to lay a teddybear on a grave. Her son would still be there in the morning, wouldn’t he?
And then the figure on the path turned and looked in her direction. She saw the pale white of his face, like an unlit moon in the darkness. She saw two darker spots on its face where its eyes should have been. She couldn’t see its eyes though. His eyes, if they were there at all, appeared to be hiding in two caves set in the chalky white cliff of his face. She saw that he was a teenage boy. She saw that he was eating something, something dark and furry, with hind legs and a tail. He was eating it, and staring at her with caves instead of eyes. Her legs felt like jello, and her torso felt twisted around with fear. She backed up a step. Whoever this boy was, he didn’t seem to even see her. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking through her. And he was chewing. And then he lowered his hands and dropped the furry thing. It fell like a stone, thudding to the earth. In the dark, it looked like the boy had no mouth or jaw. The lower half of his face was as black as the clothing he wore. And then Christine realized that it was not that his jaw had been ripped away. It was merely covered in blood so dark in the night that it looked black. She backed up another step, but the figure did not step forward. He just stood, staring through her. Then she turned to flee but she stopped dead in her tracks before taking a single step. There was another figure behind her as well.
This second, smaller figure was much closer too. And he was walking, sort of limping toward her, on legs that didn’t seem to want to take the steps. When it tripped over a tree root, its arms didn’t fly out to break the fall. It just collapsed, smacking it’s face into the earth with a thud as dead as the furry thing the teenager had been eating. This second figure turned its face up from the earth and stared at her, and when it did, her mind finally released its grip on her last strand of sanity, like the bladder of a child who could hold the strain no longer and simply let it all go.
“Jakey?” she whispered. “Is that you, baby?”
The thing did not reply. It reached out little fingers toward her and started crawling across the cold damp earth, dragging a body that did not want to move except by massive effort of will. Christine fell to her knees and stretched out her hands toward him.
“Baby, is that you?”
His little tuxedo was ripped and dirty. He was missing one shoe. He still had the scarf on his neck, but it had come unraveled and dragged along behind him in the dirt. He made no sound at all. Not a moan. Not a whimper. Not even a gasp for breath. He just crawled across the dirt, coming toward her. She glanced back and saw the taller figure had vanished into the night. The path behind her was now clear. Then she looked back at the boy in the path in front of her. The dark caves that were his eyes were closer now and she could see that it really was Jakey. He was staring at her, crawling toward her. He did not blink. His jaw hung open in a surprised, pained expression and there were even clumps of dirt in his mouth. His hands were scraped and dirty, nearly black, as though he’d been digging in the earth. There were leaves in his hair.
She wanted to rush toward him. She wanted to grab him up and hold him. She wanted to kiss him, and cry and love him. But something felt wrong. It was her little Jake, but at the same time, it wasn’t. This was a crawling, dirty, staring, silent boy, a boy that looked like Jake, but Jake would have called out to her by now. Momma! Momma! Help me! I’m hurt! I missed you momma! I was so afraid! This thing made no sound at all. Not even breathing. The only noise in the night was the rustling of the leaves he crawled through, and the wind in the trees. Nevertheless, it looked like him, and it was moving. That was all the convincing her delirious mind needed. She held out the teddy to him from where she sat in the puddle of her dead sanity.
“Jakey! It’s momma, baby! I brought Mr. Brownbear!”
Jake didn’t even look at the bear. His eyes were unblinking in his gaze upon her. She sat, watching him come, and then he was there at her knees. She reached down and grabbed his hands. His hands were cold, as cold as the earth. And then she started crying again, realizing he really was dead. This cold crawling thing with leaves in his hair and unblinking eyes was Jake, but he was dead. He smelled of soil and sour meat, and she would have vomited if she’d had anything to eat that day. She would have gotten up to run, except that some horrified part of her brain had convinced her that this was somehow just a dream. It couldn’t be real. She’d watched them lower Jake into the ground.
And now the thing had crawled right up into her lap and collapsed, lying face up, still staring at her with unblinking eyes. Every motion had taken a massive effort of its will, and apparently it had no strength left. Her tears spilled off her cheeks and dripped onto his eyes. Still he did not blink. The tears merely rolled off his eyes and spilled down his cheeks as though they were his own. She stroked his cheek with her hand. It was cold as well. The flesh of his cheek she’d kissed so many times was as stiff as leather, as dead as the arm of their living room chair. A great wracking sob escaped her, a sob that was more of a long agonized scream than piteous weeping. She snatched him up and hugged him to her breast, crying out to the sky. “My baby! My baby!”
With a massive effort of his will, he slid his cold, dead hands up around the back of her neck and pulled himself up to her throat. Moments later her screaming ceased, and there was only the wind in the trees, and soft sucking sounds.
The Journey Home
There once was a young girl named Jane. She lived in an orphanage in the woods, near a great mountain. She'd been there ever since she could remember, but they'd always told her that when she got old enough, she could begin the journey home.
"Where did I come from?"
"You came from the mountain."
And that was all they told her. She decided when it was time to journey home, she would head toward the mountain. The forest looked dark and scary though.
Finally her birthday came and it was time to go. She said goodbye to her friends at the orphanage and began her journey. At the edge of the field, where they used to play as children, there was a path leading into the woods. That's where she began with her little bag of belongings.
She stood for a long time staring into the woods. The path was long and rocky. It looked dangerous. But if she wanted to get home, she would have to go down it.
Finally she took her first step. The moment she did, a man appeared behind her. She hadn't even seen him approach. He sort of startled her.
"You going to the mountain?"
"Yes. My name is Jane. I live there. I have to go home."
"I can take you," the man said, "If you want me to. I know the way."
She looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if she should trust him. She didn't have any other option though, so she nodded at him and they started walking.
"Tell me about your mother and dad," the man said after a few minutes of silent walking.
"I hate them. They abandoned me in that orphanage. If I ever see them again, I'd like to punch them both in the face."
The man stopped. He picked up two rocks and gave them to her. They were fairly big rocks too. They filled her entire palms.
"What are these?" she asked him.
"You have to carry them. They represent your parents."
She looked at him like he was crazy, but the look in his eyes told her he was not joking. So she put the rocks into her backpack and they continued down the trail.
A while later she tripped over a tree root and fell to cursing and muttering to herself. "Stupid, ugly, twisted old tree!"
When she looked up the man was holding another rock out to her. "That's for the tree."
She took it and put it into her backpack. At least it was only three. She could handle three.
But as they walked she began talking about her life. She was bored with the long journey, and wanted to pass the time chatting. She talked about her childhood in the orphanage. She talked about her friends. She talked about the mean old ladies who made them do their chores and get to bed on time, never letting them have any fun. And each time she complained she was handed another rock. Soon she had twelve of them and the pack was getting quite heavy.
"Why do I have to carry all these stupid rocks for anyway?" she said after a while. "This is just making the journey harder. If I could just bring my clothes and the food, we'd get there in no time."
The man just looked at her and asked, "Are you complaining about the rocks now too?"
She quickly shook her head no, but he handed her a new rock anyway.
By the end of the first day, she was exhausted. She slept, oddly enough, like a rock all that night.
They woke up in the morning and had breakfast. She complained about sleeping outdoors on the cold hard ground. She complained about the lousy food. She complained about not being able to take a good bath.
"I thought you hated taking baths," the man said. "You were complaining yesterday about how the women at the orphanage forced you to take baths every day."
"Well now that I'm all tired out in the woods, I'm wishing for one."
The man handed her some new rocks, one for the cold hard ground, one for the lousy breakfast, and one for the lack of a bath.
"You mean I have to carry more stupid rocks!?"
"Yes, you do. One for everything you think is wrong with your life."
"But my life is terrible! At this rate, I won't even make it to the mountain. The journey will kill me. I have a bad leg, and my back is itchy, and my hair is all over the place and I can barely see where I'm going! I hate this!"
"Are you finished?" the man asked her after a few moments.
"No! I'm sore! And I'm tired! And I think I'm getting sick! And these damn bugs are driving me crazy!!!"
"Are you finished now?"
"Yes! I'm finished now!"
"Well then, here's a rock for your bad leg, one for your itchy back, one for your messy hair, one for your sore feet, one for being tired and one for being sick. And here's a few small ones for all the bugs."
The girl sat down and started crying. "I don't want to carry all these rocks. I'm sorry."
The man said nothing. They sat for a long time quietly while she wept and felt sorry for herself.
"I should have stayed at the orphanage. At least those ladies were only doing what they thought was best for us. At least I had a bed to sleep in and could take a bath. And the food there was great compared to this."
Again the man sat quietly, listening to her talk. Finally she had nothing more to say.
"Do you have the rock I gave you when you complained about the orphanage ladies?"
"Of course I do!" she said, sneering resentfully.
"Show me."
She knew exactly which one it was. It was one of the bigger ones. She fished it out and held it in her hand.
"Let it go."
She looked at the rock for a long time, realizing she actually missed the orphanage she had hated for so long. She remembered all the things she'd learned there and all the happy times. Finally she turned her hand slightly and the rock rolled off, hitting the ground with a thud.
"Shall we continue?"
They got up and continued. The rocks felt heavier, especially with the new ones, but somehow they were a little less tiring. They walked all day in silence. By the end of the day, she was aching, sore, tired, itchy, sweaty, and miserable. But she kept quiet. She didn't want to have to carry any more stupid rocks.
They got up the next morning, ate a lousy breakfast and got ready to continue on. But before they did, the man handed her a new pile of rocks to carry.
"What!? What's this!?"
"Well these are for being aching, sore, tired, itchy, sweaty, and miserable yesterday. This is for the awful rest you had last night on the cold hard ground. This is for the lousy breakfast. And this is for not having a decent bath again."
"But I didn't complain about any of that stuff!"
"Yes you did."
She took them and put them in her pack, crying again.
"Why are you being so mean to me? Why are you making everything so much harder!?"
"I'm not being mean to you. I'm helping you. And I'm not making things harder for you. I'm making them easier for you."
"You're a liar. I hate you!"
"Shall we continue?" the man said, without reacting to her bitter comments.
"No! Just leave me alone! I'll find my own way!"
"You'll be hopelessly lost, girl."
"I don't care. At least I won't have to carry around a bunch of stupid rocks."
So the man walked away. The girl was all alone. She dumped out all her rocks and sat on the pile. "What now?" She muttered to herself. She was in a clearing and there were at least four different directions to go in. She didn't even know which way was the path back to the orphanage. So she sat there all day and did nothing. The night fell and she went to sleep in her sleeping bag, all alone. She'd made no progress at all that day, but at least she'd got some rest.
She rested all the next day too, feeling better and better with each hour. She was no closer to home, or to the orphanage, but at least she wasn't tired and sore.
Finally after the third day of rest, she had been resting longer than she'd even journeyed. She was getting bored out of her mind. She decided she'd better just continue toward home, now that she was rested up. But she didn't know which path to take.
She stood for the longest time staring down the trails. If she chose the wrong one, the journey would just take longer, making her more tired, and that would be worse than carrying a bunch of stupid rocks.
"Hello!?" she cried out, wondering if anybody else could show her the way.
"You called?" a voice said from behind her. It was the same man again.
"I wasn't calling you!"
"But I'm the only one who knows the way."
"I don't believe you."
"Well there are lots of people who could lead you to a lot of different places, but none of them would be your home. I'm the only one who knows the way to your home."
"But I have to carry a bunch of stupid rocks."
"Yes, whichever ones you choose to."
"But I haven't chosen any of these! You made me carry them!"
"I didn't make you carry anything. You took them on each time you complained."
"But you made me carry rocks even when I didn't complain, and they were even bigger ones!"
"The complaints of the heart are even worse than the ones you say out loud."
"Fine! Whatever! Can we just go!? Here! I'll pick up the biggest rock in the field and carry it along! This one is my complaint about YOU!"
"Now you're getting the idea," the man said calmly.
So she gathered all her rocks back into her pack, picked up the big two-handed stone and went trudging along behind the man on the path, feeling bitter, spiteful, and angry. Having rested for so long, she was now no longer used to the weight of the stones. The burden felt brand new again, and oh so heavy. She walked along crying.
They journed for three more days. Things slowly got easier. Not much easier, but at least it wasn't torture anymore. More rocks were added, though she never said a word all day over the three days. After three days she began correcting herself in her heart, every time she complained. Every complaint she made, she tried to see the bright side of the situation. The rocks were still added, but they were only half as big.
On the fourth day, they came across a young man lying on the side of the trail. He wasn't dead, but he was just lying there, crying. His bag of rocks was huge. He'd carried them this whole way and finally had fallen down, crushed by the weight of his own burdens.
"We have to help him!" Jane said.
"How exactly?" the man asked.
"I'll pick him up. I'll carry some of his rocks. I'm strong. I can do it."
"They're not your rocks to carry though. Even if you carried them in your pack, he would still feel the weight of them."
"We can't just leave him here!"
"If you want to help him, teach him to look on the bright side of things, to let go of his resentments and bitterness. Teach him to never give up, no matter what."
"How do I teach him that? I don't even know if I can do it myself."
"You've made it this far. You must know a few things."
So Jane stooped down beside him. She picked up one of his rocks and showed it to him. "Tell me about this rock? Why are you carrying it?"
"I hate my mother."
"How can you possibly hate your mother? You wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for her."
"I don't want to be alive. I hate life."
"Well, what about this rock?"
"I hate my father too."
Another big one. She put that one back in the pack and took another one a smaller one. "This?"
"I hate the damn crows. Caw! Caw! Caw! All day long. They drive me batty."
"But you can't do anything about it, even if you wanted to. Why carry around the irritation like this?"
"How do I let it go?"
"Just accept the crows as they are, neither good or bad. Just there."
"But their cawing will get to me eventually. I can't stand it."
"With all these other rocks to carry, you're really so upset about a cawing crow?"
"I never thought of it that way. It seems kind of petty by comparison."
"So can you just accept the crows as they are, neither good or bad?"
"Compared to my other problems, the crows don't even exist."
And he dropped the pebble. He didn't feel any lighter of course. It was just a pebble, but the two of them spent all day talking about his rocks until he'd dropped a good twenty stones. They were all small ones he'd dropped but they made a pretty good pile.
They went to sleep that night and the next day, she helped him up and they journeyed on together. They didn't talk much, and more stones were added here and there, but they made it pretty far.
Halfway through the day however, the young man collapsed again.
"Come on. Get up! You can do it!"
"I can't! I hate this journey! I hate everything! I give up!"
"Don't give up! Just let go of these stones! You can make it if you let them go! You're stronger than I am!"
But nothing she said would convince him. She tried everything, but he would not listen to her. He just laid there. Then after a while, she realized he was no longer breathing. His eyes were dead and cold. His mouth hung open in a grimace of pain. The rocks had crushed him as he lay there on the ground.
“You killed him! You and your damn rocks!”
“He did it to himself. You did everything you could, but he still wouldn’t let them go. He was proud and stubborn and bitter. He just gave up. Will you carry a stone for him now, mad at yourself? Mad at the journey? Mad at me?”
“Well I suppose I have to, don’t I?”
“No. Of course not. You can if you want to though.”
“I’ll carry a stone for him, just to remember him by. I’m proud and stubborn and bitter too, except that I’m never gonna give up. Ever!”
“As you say.”
So they continued on. The burdens were heavier now. She was tired. The rest stops were longer and it was harder to keep going when the breaks were over, but she knew if she rested too long, it would just get worse.
As the weeks went on, she found herself losing more and more stones. When she stopped to consider the stones each morning she realized that the things that had seemed so important long ago didn’t even matter anymore. The itchiness, the aches, the bugs—big deal. Why stress about that stuff when there were real problems in this journey? She dropped more and more stones until the only ones left were the major ones. She was upset about those ones and probably always would be. How could she ever let go of the wrongs done to her, the evil, the abuse? They were part of who she was it seemed, so she just accepted them.
She passed many people along the way, some had heavy burdens, some had only a few small rocks and pranced along the path like a child in the playground. Some even had small carts and wagons to carry their stones in so it was hardly a struggle for them at all, no matter how many stones they’d taken on.
“That’s not fair! How come they get to use carts and wagons, and the rest of us have to carry our burdens!?”
The man just shook his head, staring at one man’s wagon. “You don’t want one of those. You’re much better off.”
“I beg to differ.”
“He had money. He bought the wagon. You can too, if you wish.”
“I don’t have money. I can barely afford a decent back pack.”
“This woman over here convinced her father to carry her burdens along the way, and this beautiful woman used her charms to trick a man into carrying her load of stones.”
“I thought you said nobody can carry each other’s stones for them! The young man back there on the trail... you said I couldn’t...”
“I never said you couldn’t. I said it wouldn’t help him.”
“I don’t understand any of this. It just seems so cruel and unfair.”
“We’re not home yet,” the man replied.
And so they continued on. The road got rougher, but the burdens got lighter and lighter. Jane saw more and more people who had given up. She also saw some who had been carrying their burdens on wagons that had now broken down on them. The people stood crying angry tears, trying to gather up the massive amounts of stones they’d piled onto the wagons, but unable to carry them all, they could not continue on their journey.
“You gotta let go of some of those stones,” Jane called out to them. “It’s the only way you’ll make it home.”
“Shut up! I don’t need your help!”
Jane continued on. They did not.
The going got rougher still. The mountain was now looming ahead. The trail was steep and rocks were everywhere. There were also dozens more who had died along the way. Others were sitting next to those who had died, crying, refusing to go on without them. Others had broken down wagons. And still others were fighting with one another about who was to carry all the stones the rest of the way. One beautiful woman was all alone with a great pile of rocks she’d gotten a partner to carry for her. Her partner had given up on her and her burdens and had gone on without her. She was trying to wile passing men into helping her, but the journey was now too obviously difficult to go on with all her burdens.
Eventually there were no more wagons or carts at all. The trail had narrowed. The trail was rocky. Wagons and carts were impossible.
“Who will help me carry all these burdens? I’ll pay you! I’ll give you everything I own!” one man cried out.
“Sorry buddy, I got my own burdens to worry about. I don’t need your money anyway. I’m almost home,” a passer-by told him.
Jane wanted to help them all, but she knew she couldn’t. “Just let go of your burdens,” she told them as she passed. “Just let go of all of them until the pile is small enough to carry on your own.”
Some listened to her, and began taking stock of their loads. Others ignored her. Others shouted obscenities at her. There was a time when she would have gotten mad about such scathing rebukes, but she knew now that their words were meaningless. She would pick up no new stones resenting hollow insults from frustrated travellers.
“Please! Will you help me carry these up the mountain? I’m begging you!” one defeated looking lady said to her. “I can’t go on any more.”
“I could carry them, but that wouldn’t help you,” Jane told her. “You’ve just got to let them go. Just let them go.”
“But the cruel trail guide forces me to carry them. He gives me more and more each time I let old ones go. It’s so unfair.”
“Just do your best,” Jane said. “Come on, let a few more go.”
And so Jane continued. The road was steep, but the stones she’d carried along the way, had made her strong. She kept going, remembering every struggle she’d had, every trial, every misfortune along the way that had caused her to take on another stone. The struggles had made her stronger, and now she was nearly home.
At last she came to the foot of a great cliff. Here there was a whole city of people gathered around with their burdens of stones, some in back packs, some in bags, some in baskets. Some had found partners or friends to carry their stones all the way to the end. There were just a whole lot of people standing around, and Jane wondered if this was the end of the journey.
“This isn’t the end,” the man told her. “Home is up there, on top of the mountain.”
“So why don’t these people climb it?”
“You can’t make the climb until you’ve let go of every single last stone. The last climb is the hardest of all, and without letting go of every single last burden, nobody can make it.”
Jane felt the weight of her stones. They felt heavier now. She made her way to the base of the cliff, pushing through the city of people all weeping and fighting over their stones. She made it through and stood at the bottom of the cliff. Suddenly she understood. The cliff went straight up into the sky. There were handholds. There were footholds, but nothing to catch you if you slipped and fell. Some started to climb it with the last of their burdens in a back pack, but they quickly tired and had to climb back down. Still others had let go of all their burdens but were still tiring from the climb because they hadn’t had enough burdens along the way to strengthen them. Some however, were making the last climb, distant dots struggling up the cliff high in the sky.
“I’ll never make it,” Jane said.
“Not with these,” the man told her. “It’s time to decide if the resentments you hold are worth keeping you down here forever.”
“Of course not,” Jane replied. “I’ve made it this far, why would I quit now?”
“As you say,” he told her. “Let them all go then. Every single one of them.”
And so she did. It took her a few days, but she managed to go through each one and let them go. She said goodbye to her resentments, her bitterness, her ingratitude, everything in her life that she’d thought was a problem, everything in her life she had thought was holding her back, all the things she’d thought were so important along the way were falling to the ground in piles, one by one. The most important thing of all was the last climb into the sky. She realized that now.
“Goodbye, mom. Thank you for giving me life. Thank you for taking care of me, even when I was difficult. Goodbye, dad. Thank you for loving me, thank you for teaching me to be strong, and stubborn, and proud. Goodbye, sister. Thank you for fighting with me. Thank you for telling me how it is, instead of how I think it should be. Goodbye, brother. Thank you for shoving me in the dirt when I was little, teaching me not to get too big for my britches.”
And she tossed them all away until the only one stone remained, the one she’d picked up for the man who’d guided her the whole way. That one was the easiest of all to let go of.
“Thank you, kind sir, for making me pick up all these heavy stones along the way. I never would have made it this far without your help. I’d have been hopelessly lost along the way. I’d thought you were just punishing me, I’d thought you were just trying to make things harder, but truly you were simply preparing me for the end. You cared about me, and you knew the entire journey. Thank you, most of all.”
And so she let that last stone go. She was strong. She was completely free of all burdens. She walked up to the bottom of the cliff and began her last climb. It took all day. She nearly fell so many times, but her strength held true. Her muscles never tired. Her hands never wavered. She looked down at the city of folk she’d left behind. They seemed so far away now, them and their problems. She also saw the trail that had led up to the cliff, with all the broken down carts and weeping people, all the users, manipulators, and abusers who would never make it in the end. In the very far distance she saw the orphanage, and she saw a few new children starting out on their journey the same way she had, she saw them complaining, she saw them picking up stones, and she wished she could tell them to be grateful for each and every burden they were given.
She turned back and finished her climb.
At the top she met the man who had guided her the whole way, only this time he wasn’t dressed in plain peasant’s clothes. He was dressed like a king, in shining robes. She climbed over the edge of the cliff and stood up.
“You made it!” he said.
“How did you get up here?” she asked him.
“I live here,” he said.
“Then who was that down there, guiding me?”
“It was me. Strange, don’t you think?”
“Very strange.”
“Here. This is for you.”
He gave her a beautiful flowing robe, just like the one he wore. It was soft and shining as a cloud. She took off her peasant’s clothing and put the robe on.
“Welcome home, princess Jane,” the man said to her. He gave her a long hug and she realized he was her father. Then she hugged him even harder. They walked into the city on the mountain top and lived happily ever after.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Spooked
The wind whistles through the cracks in the window frame. It sounds sort of like hissing sometimes, and other times, it sounds like a soft moan of breath from a dying soul. The light from the street spills in, casting shadows on the walls: grey rectangles with snowflakes falling through them, and the claw-like fingers of the tree that shivers back and forth. And the snow taps at the window panes like tiny, scratching fingers. The room is cold.
So she gets up to try to shut the window better. She walks up slowly, feeling the icy air against her legs. Her nightgown does not cover enough.
The house is silent. Her footsteps don’t make a sound, not even whispers across the floor. There is only the wind and the scratching of the cold dead snow against the glass. She can see her breath in the room.
She walks up to the window, feeling around the frame for any drafts whispering in. There are several. It’s an old window. The house has shifted since they put it here, and the rectangles are nearly parallelograms. But the glass has not shattered.
She tugs upward on the window, hoping to open it all the way and give it a good firm slam down into place. It groans a bit and slides up half an inch. She tugs some more but now it’s stuck. And now the winds and snow are blowing in.
And she sees a figure in the night, floating in the air in front of the tree. She thinks it is the tree at first, just shadows playing tricks on her, and she leans in to look harder. There’s definitely a figure in the tree. She stares, almost hypnotized, trying to decide if she’s imagining it. And then the figure, a man in grey, blinks. She has leapt into bed before his eyes have opened again. The covers are up to her chin. She is panting with fright. The frosty air catches her breath and turns it to tiny puffing clouds of icy wind.
But now the window is open a bit and the room is getting colder by the minute. She lies there in the dark, peering out at the window sill, watching the snowflakes billow in, making a little pile. She’s waiting for cold dead fingers to wrap around the bottom of the window and heave it upward.
Nothing happens. There’s only wind and snow. She tries to convince herself she’d only imagined it. It was only a shadow, a trick of light, a certain billowing of the snowfall outside that looked like a face in the night. Yes, that’s all it was. She must close the window. It’s now freezing in her room.
So she slides the blanket off of herself and swings her legs off the bed again. She takes one, two, three steps toward the window and stops. One more step and she’ll be able to see the tree outside again, but she doesn’t want to. She must close the window though.
She leans forward and peeks out. There he is again, still standing in mid air, still floating twenty feet above the ground. The tree’s clawing branches wave back and forth through him, like a magician trying to prove there is no trick. He blinks again, not just a figment of her imagination, but something alive, something staring at her. And in a flash, she’s back under the covers again, this time completely covered, eyes and all. Minutes pass. Maybe twenty before she can hide no longer. She’s running out of air underneath there and she has to pull the cover away from her face to catch a quick snatch of breath.
The snow is still billowing in under the window. No cold dead fingers heaving it upward though.
Now she must close it, not because of the bitter cold but because she’s terrified the figure might come billowing in with the snow, scared he might wrap his icy hands around her throat and steal her soul away, leaving a cold dead-eyed corpse no longer warming the sheets.
She gets up and runs to the window. She can still see him out there, but she ignores him. She heaves with all her might. The window groans and slides upward with a dull wooden grinding sound. Then it thumps into the top of its frame, wide open. The cold winds are tossing her nightgown around now, vigorously, like a flapping flag, mercilessly chilling the flesh underneath. And the icy snow is pelting her skin instead of the glass. She’s yanking hard, downward, but the window doesn’t budge. She bangs on the frame, but it doesn’t loosen. And finally she opens her eyes to see if the floating figure is approaching.
He isn’t. He’s gone. There’s only the tree and the cold blowing snow.
She grabs the window handle and heaves with all her might, lifting her feet right off the floor to add all her weight to the downward pull. Finally the window gives and comes crashing down with a bang that shakes the whole room. She tumbles backward onto her bottom on the floor. The windy whistling has silenced. The window is properly closed now. She scrambles to her knees and peers over the window sill, out into the night. The figure is floating there again. But now he’s closer. He’s approaching. She scrambles backward, still staring, he comes another step closer. His arms are out-stretched now, reaching.
She leaps into her bed and yanks the covers over her head, panting like she’d just run a mile. Her heart is pounding but it does nothing to warm her. Even the sheets feel cold as snow now.
But there was something, she thinks to herself, something wrong somehow. She can’t quite put her finger on it. The feeling gnawing at her guts won’t let go. Something was wrong with the figure in the window.
And then she realizes why she did not see him in the tree when the window was fully open. She didn’t see him because she wasn’t looking at a ghost outside in the night. She was looking at the reflection of a shadowy figure standing in the room behind her.
She sucks in breath, ready to scream what may be her very last scream, and she peeks out from under the blanket.
…
They find her the next morning, half buried in the snow, beneath the tree, about ten feet away from the house. She’s surrounded by jagged triangles of shattered glass. Her body is face down, but her head is turned right around backward. Her eyes are staring, as though seeing something that isn’t there. The coroner and the sheriff can’t decide if she was thrown from the window or if she dove through it on her own. There is no sign of a struggle though, so they eventually chalk it up as a suicide. But why?
“Something must have spooked this girl good.”
They close her terrified looking eyes and cover her with a sheet.
So she gets up to try to shut the window better. She walks up slowly, feeling the icy air against her legs. Her nightgown does not cover enough.
The house is silent. Her footsteps don’t make a sound, not even whispers across the floor. There is only the wind and the scratching of the cold dead snow against the glass. She can see her breath in the room.
She walks up to the window, feeling around the frame for any drafts whispering in. There are several. It’s an old window. The house has shifted since they put it here, and the rectangles are nearly parallelograms. But the glass has not shattered.
She tugs upward on the window, hoping to open it all the way and give it a good firm slam down into place. It groans a bit and slides up half an inch. She tugs some more but now it’s stuck. And now the winds and snow are blowing in.
And she sees a figure in the night, floating in the air in front of the tree. She thinks it is the tree at first, just shadows playing tricks on her, and she leans in to look harder. There’s definitely a figure in the tree. She stares, almost hypnotized, trying to decide if she’s imagining it. And then the figure, a man in grey, blinks. She has leapt into bed before his eyes have opened again. The covers are up to her chin. She is panting with fright. The frosty air catches her breath and turns it to tiny puffing clouds of icy wind.
But now the window is open a bit and the room is getting colder by the minute. She lies there in the dark, peering out at the window sill, watching the snowflakes billow in, making a little pile. She’s waiting for cold dead fingers to wrap around the bottom of the window and heave it upward.
Nothing happens. There’s only wind and snow. She tries to convince herself she’d only imagined it. It was only a shadow, a trick of light, a certain billowing of the snowfall outside that looked like a face in the night. Yes, that’s all it was. She must close the window. It’s now freezing in her room.
So she slides the blanket off of herself and swings her legs off the bed again. She takes one, two, three steps toward the window and stops. One more step and she’ll be able to see the tree outside again, but she doesn’t want to. She must close the window though.
She leans forward and peeks out. There he is again, still standing in mid air, still floating twenty feet above the ground. The tree’s clawing branches wave back and forth through him, like a magician trying to prove there is no trick. He blinks again, not just a figment of her imagination, but something alive, something staring at her. And in a flash, she’s back under the covers again, this time completely covered, eyes and all. Minutes pass. Maybe twenty before she can hide no longer. She’s running out of air underneath there and she has to pull the cover away from her face to catch a quick snatch of breath.
The snow is still billowing in under the window. No cold dead fingers heaving it upward though.
Now she must close it, not because of the bitter cold but because she’s terrified the figure might come billowing in with the snow, scared he might wrap his icy hands around her throat and steal her soul away, leaving a cold dead-eyed corpse no longer warming the sheets.
She gets up and runs to the window. She can still see him out there, but she ignores him. She heaves with all her might. The window groans and slides upward with a dull wooden grinding sound. Then it thumps into the top of its frame, wide open. The cold winds are tossing her nightgown around now, vigorously, like a flapping flag, mercilessly chilling the flesh underneath. And the icy snow is pelting her skin instead of the glass. She’s yanking hard, downward, but the window doesn’t budge. She bangs on the frame, but it doesn’t loosen. And finally she opens her eyes to see if the floating figure is approaching.
He isn’t. He’s gone. There’s only the tree and the cold blowing snow.
She grabs the window handle and heaves with all her might, lifting her feet right off the floor to add all her weight to the downward pull. Finally the window gives and comes crashing down with a bang that shakes the whole room. She tumbles backward onto her bottom on the floor. The windy whistling has silenced. The window is properly closed now. She scrambles to her knees and peers over the window sill, out into the night. The figure is floating there again. But now he’s closer. He’s approaching. She scrambles backward, still staring, he comes another step closer. His arms are out-stretched now, reaching.
She leaps into her bed and yanks the covers over her head, panting like she’d just run a mile. Her heart is pounding but it does nothing to warm her. Even the sheets feel cold as snow now.
But there was something, she thinks to herself, something wrong somehow. She can’t quite put her finger on it. The feeling gnawing at her guts won’t let go. Something was wrong with the figure in the window.
And then she realizes why she did not see him in the tree when the window was fully open. She didn’t see him because she wasn’t looking at a ghost outside in the night. She was looking at the reflection of a shadowy figure standing in the room behind her.
She sucks in breath, ready to scream what may be her very last scream, and she peeks out from under the blanket.
…
They find her the next morning, half buried in the snow, beneath the tree, about ten feet away from the house. She’s surrounded by jagged triangles of shattered glass. Her body is face down, but her head is turned right around backward. Her eyes are staring, as though seeing something that isn’t there. The coroner and the sheriff can’t decide if she was thrown from the window or if she dove through it on her own. There is no sign of a struggle though, so they eventually chalk it up as a suicide. But why?
“Something must have spooked this girl good.”
They close her terrified looking eyes and cover her with a sheet.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
CROWFEATHER
- I -
Todd sat on top of the sloped lid of a backlane garbage bin with his knees clutched tightly together, his elbows tucked into his sides, and a book in his upturned palms. He was hunched, leaning into the read, peering through his oversized glasses, almost unblinking. One eyebrow was slightly raised, his brow furrowed, concentrating. A tuft of hair hung down across his forhead, like a claw, pointing at his left eye. His eyes scanned the page, with robot-like precision. Now and then his eyes would shift side to side, as though watching for someone. No one came though, except Maggie, and he didn't even notice her approach.
"Whatcha you doin up there?"
"Reading."
"No. I mean why you up there?"
Todd didn't answer, but he did slip a bit, sliding downward on the slope, quickly righting himself and wriggling back up near the peak.
Maggie just stared, standing there with a grimmace on her face, wrinkling her nose at him. She crumpled a section of her dress in a fist, and then smoothed it out again.
"Lookit I got!" she said.
Todd looked. It was a stick, with a string tied to the end, and on the end was a bone-shaped rock.
"So? What is it?"
"I'nt know. A thing. It's neat."
She wiggled the stick and the stone danced.
"Cool, huh?"
"I guess."
"I can make you one."
"Nah."
Todd pushed his glasses back up his nose, and looked back at the page he was reading.
"Why you up there anyway? Readin?"
He flicked his eyes down at her, and then back onto his page, ignoring her question.
"There's benches in the park. Why'nt you read there?" She pointed with her stick at the fence across the lane, behind which an expanse of wood and grass grew.
Todd turned a page, humming a bit to himself. Maggie crumpled her dress in a fist again, and then smoothed it out.
"I can make you one of these if you want. They're neat. You just need some string and a rock. There's-"
"Shh!" Todd said, suddenly harsh. "They're coming!"
Maggie looked at him, and then down the lane to where his eyes were. There was no one there. She looked at him again, wanting to deride him for his silliness. What's wrong with your eyes? or You're seeing things! or some such jab. But the fear in his eyes killed those thoughts like a juke box with its cord yanked from the wall. She looked again and saw nothing, and fear bubbled up into her tummy as well.
Todd's book dropped from his hands as he sat for a moment in a daze. It slid off the garbage bin lid and fluttered onto the ground like a wounded bird. The Legend of Crowfeather. Todd slid down after it, landed on his feet, adjusted his glasses, and flashed his gaze back up the lane. Then he snatched up his book in one and, grabbed Maggie's hand in the other and dragged her as fast as he could into the park.
"We have to hide!"
"Why? Who's comin?"
Todd pulled her to a copse of trees and they ducked inside, panting from the burst of running, and crouching down into hiding.
He whispered, "I like your stick thing. It's a really neat stick thing."
Maggie did not reply. She looked at it and gave it to him. He took it and wound it up as fast as he could until the stone was hard against the layer of string on the end of the stick. He shoved it in his back pocket, and turned back to looking at the gate they'd run through coming into the park.
"I'm Todd," still whispering, not looking at her.
"Maggie."
She scanned the bushes, the fence, the lane beyond. Nothing.
"You scared, Maggie?"
"H'yeah."
And she didn't even know why. But when Todd suddenly paled, tensed up, began shaking, and dropped to the dirt, struggling to get more hidden, tears started from her eyes.
"Don't be scared, Maggie. They won't hurt you."
A scruffy-haired blonde kid on a blue bike went by. Just a kid on a bike. He didn't even stop. But Todd didn't even seem to notice him.
"Who, Todd? Who's there?"
Now she was shaking too.
Todd looked back at her as she lie on the earth beside him, her cheek pressed into his hip. His eyes terrified her. They told her beyond doubt that though she couldn't see anyone, there was definitely someone there.
"Them," Todd said.
"I wan' go home," crying now.
"Don't move."
"I'nt see anyone."
"Don't... move... They're right... over... there..."
His whispering voice cracked with a whimper. He shut his eyes tight and breathed deeply, as though wishing. Maggie lifted her face, looked past him, out the bushes, and saw... nobody. Trees, grass, sky, but no people. Only tall prairie grasses in an endless stretch of field where entire neighbourhoods of houses had stood only seconds before. The fence was gone. The telephone poles with their drooping wires... gone.
But before she had a chance to wonder where the heck they suddenly were, she saw them. Them! A small band of aboriginal warriors, with war paint, weapons, and cold, cruel grimmaces on their faces. They stalked through the prairie grasses, not a stones throw from where the children lay in hiding.
"They're looking for him," Todd whispered, his sound drowned out beneath the wind in the tall grasses.
"Who?" Maggie asked.
Todd turned the book toward her, showing her the cover, and tapped it twice.
"Crowfeather."
And suddenly Maggie's vision blurred and everything went black.
- II -
Men were talking in a language Maggie didn't understand, their voices hushed, almost to a whisper, but amplified by the tension they felt. One spoke, giving orders. Another muttered a comment and was hushed. A third asked a question nobody answered. And they came forward.
Maggie lifted her eyes from the earth where she'd pressed them into her hands, trying to hide from the blurry terror. Todd was still lying there, his chin on his forearm, peering out of the thicket the two were hiding in. Maggie looked at the book he held in his hand, by his hip. The cover, beneath the title, showed a fierce yet young-looking aboriginal man crouched in waist-high grasses, staring intently off into the distance at some unseen foe. Maggie looked up but didn't see him anywhere. Apparently, neither did the band of warriors now on the hunt for him in the grass up ahead.
Maggie shook Todd's leg. He looked back at her, his eyes wild with panic.
"Where are we?" she asked him, whispering. "We're not at the park no more. How'd we get here?"
Todd looked away up at the dread warriors. Maggie shook his leg again, but he shoved her hand off of him and pointed.
Maggie looked, and just in time too. There was a whizzing sound, a thump, and one of the warriors, the one in the rear of the formation, suddenly grunted, grimmaced, turned and fell with an arrow in his back. The others barely noticed at first, but when he fell, he fell into the man in front of him. Then they all turned and suddenly were greatly alarmed, suddenly scanning the fields for movement, a shift of a shadow even. They saw nothing though. Neither did Todd. Neither did Maggie. Only swaying grasses on an endless prairie.
"Got him," Todd whispered. "That's one."
For a moment, Maggie thought it was Todd who'd fired the arrow. But he was simply counting. Maggie counted too, in her mind. Five left.
They closed into a circle, their backs to the centre, scanning frantically, muttering, some whimpering. Other hushed them. Finally one called out some unknown phrase, a taunt perhaps, or a challenge to reveal himself. His voice drifted across the empty plain and did not echo back. It disappeared into the wind.
The warrior began to yell something else, but -whizzzz-thump!- and another man fell, this time, from the other side of the circle. The warrior's challenge, threat, whatever it was, collapsed into a surprised whimper as his fellow fell. Someone stretched his bow and fired an arrow blindly into the empty grasses in the direction the latest attack had come. He was scolded, smacked in the arm for wasting a shot. His hands shook as he nocked another.
"Two," Todd said.
There were four left. Maggie tugged on Todd's shirt, urgently. Todd looked back at her, not raising his head. The neat little stick thing she had made swung its stone loose as he twisted to face her. The bone-rock danced beside her face, spinning a bit on its string.
"Who's shootin 'em, Todd?"
A cold emotionless whisper, "Crowfeather. They killed his brother, his mom, and his wife."
"They shount'a. That's bad."
"I think they know that now."
Whiz! Thump! Then only three remained.
The circle tightened. The men ducked low in the grass. Their panicked murmers tripping over one another. Another blind arrow flew, this time straight up into the sky, accidentally, as a shaking hand slipped. It sailed through the air in a tall arc and landed point down in the dirt, pinning Todd's shirt to the earth. Maggie gasped. A warrior spun toward them, his eyes glazed with terror and anger, glaring into the thicket. He pulled back an arrow, not really seeing anything, and was about to let it fly.
Whizzz-thunk! He fell with an agonized, gurgling growl, the arrow on his bow released, but sailed upward, above the trees where the children lay, and landed harmlessly into the distant ocean of grass.
The last two men, back to back, their voices weeping with terror, scanned the field, crying out, trying to sound brave but failing. For them, there was no north or south, no east or west, no sun, no wind. There was only death, hiding somewhere in the grass, and all they could do was wait for the next arrow to fly.
There was no next arrow. A crow cawed in the tree above the children. The warriors jumped at the sound, their faces spun toward it, and they-
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-crunch! The second last man stumbled backward with a hatchet in his chest. He grabbed at it helplessly, but it was in him to the very handle. He weakened, whimpered, and fell, muttering half a prayer to the sky before disappearing into the golden grass.
"Five."
"I'nt like this, Todd. I'm scared."
"He won't hurt you. He can't even hold his bow. Look."
The last of the six warriors staggered, stumbled over a fallen brother, got back up again and hollered in apparent grief, no longer trying to hide. He stood, tossed his bow away with a shaking hand and raised his palms to the sky. He cried out, surrender it sounded like, but got no response. Only wind. Then, like a sprouting tree, Crowfeather rose silently from the grasses behind him, clutching a knife. Both Maggie and Todd stared unblinking, mouths agape. Neither spoke. They could barely even shudder.
Crowfeather grabbed the man hard, pressed the blade to his throat, and yanked him backward, holding him fast against his own body. The man squawked out some plea for his life, half of one anyway, but Crowfeather shushed him and he fell silent immediately. Crowfeather muttered something into his ear, something cold and terrifying. The warrior moaned, helpless, gasping as though each breath would be his last. Maggie shut her eyes, expecting death. Death did not come, no sound of it anyway. Only a whimper, a restrained cry from the last remaining warrior. When maggie opened her eyes again, she saw his hair had turned white with fear. Tears flowed from his eyes.
Crowfeather spoke again, undiscerned by the children, and released the man. He tripped over another body, got up and ran, screaming like a terrified child, a fleeing animal. He ran until he disappeared from sight. Crowfeather sheathed his knife and watched him go, silent, unangry, unshaken. The wind whipped his hair. The sun shimmered on his face. Suddenly a breath of breeze caught his locks in a certain flutter and Maggie and Todd saw the cover of the book pass by like a fleeting snapshot in time, as he stared off into the distance at some unseen foe. Then he crouched, and moved off into the plains without a sound.
"He let one go," Maggie said, her voice trembling with fear and awe. "Why'nt he kill'd all 'em?"
"There has to be one survivor, to tell the tale, or there is no legend."
"Wha'd he say to that last man?"
Todd stared with blank eyes, off into the field, and then closed his eyes, remembering.
"I am Crowfeather. I move unseen, like the wind. You shall live today, but if you return, any of you, you will lie dead like these, food for crows."
Maggie shivered.
"How'd you know that, Todd, what he said?"
He held the book out toward her once again, laying it on the earth before her, tapping twice on the cover.
"It's in the book."
Maggie looked down at it, and finally understood that they were in a story.
When she looked up again, she saw drooping powerlines, and an airplane humming slowly across the sky. They were home again.
Todd moved to get up, but his shirt was stuck fast to the ground by an arrow. He grinned at her. Maggie sat up and wiggled it free, releasing him, and together they left the park.
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