Nightmare Fuel 2018, Day the Ninth - Fireflies

Day the Ninth. This time we'll do a more-or-less all dialog story, of the kind Terry Bison used to write sometimes.

Fireflies

The scene: late summer, far from the city. The flickering of fireflies still danced through the warm night air.

“I caught one!”

“Look at it. It keeps wriggling towards the light.”

“Yeah, they’re persistent, but pretty ugly.”

“I think it’s beautiful, even if it doesn’t have the right number of legs or the right number of eyes.”

“Can I keep it? I’ll put it in a jar and feed it every night, I promise.”

“Now, what did I say?”

“That keeping them is cruel.”

“And what happened to the last one?”

“…”

“well…?”

“I PROMISE I won’t let this one die. I promise!”

“Look at it. It isn’t even full-grown yet. Just give it a dream of something pleasant and let it go.”

Billy yawned, got up from the corner of the yard where he must have fallen asleep. He brushed some grass off his pants and headed inside, the memory of dancing lights fading from his mind. 

Image by Brian Luong 

https://www.instagram.com/artofbrianluong/

Nightmare Fuel 2018, Day the eighth - The Mirror

Eight stories in eight days. 

All caught up. We might try something different stylistically or thematically tomorrow, depending on the prompt. 

The Mirror

There is a world in which dwelled much ill in this world, much that gives despair. A world in which even dreams are too dear for most, in which few joys are open to most.

Few paths to joy save the pilgrimage to the mirror.

The mirror.

A crystal lake as clear as daylight, as still as a newborn robin, huddled in its nest.

Perhaps as fragile.

The mirror reflects the land around it perfectly, the trees, the sky, the ancient fortress built in times forgotten. For as long as that fortress stood, so too did the tales of the mirror. That the world we see through those stillclear waters is not a reflection of our world, but of its opposite.

A world in which the fortress, hear long abandoned, teams with life.

A world ruled by a lineage of successions of benevolent matriarchs. A world in which that famous travelling scientist had a beard.

A world other than this one.

Few go. It’s remote, it’s isolated, it is, to be honest, a bit underwhelming. You can’t see into this mirror world, merely gaze and know that it’s there.

For some, that is enough.

They return to their homes and their lives with a sense of acceptance, if not peace.

For some that is enough.

For others a glance into the mirror is not enough. Each year some take the pilgrimage, fill their pockets with stones, and step into the stillness of the mirror. What they find on the other side we’ll never know, but we can hope that they’ve found peace.

If you see them come to your world, wherever you are, show kindness to them.

Nightmare Fuel 2018, Day the Seventh

Seven days of this. This time I'm a day late because Sunday is a day for family (as well as long twitter chats about the world of commercial AV technology, but that's another topic). Perhaps I'll catch up soon.

Some Trees

The three dandelions grew less than a foot apart, in the ragged grass. The first had nine visible leaves. The second –

                      ---"Lucas! The ball!”

Lucas’s examination of the field was cut short by his father’s strident yell, above the voices of his coach, teammates, their parents. Not the coach’s parents. That would be silly. Lucas’s head jerked upward at the sound of their voices, only to see the ball sail past him, a blue-shirted opponent behind. He turned to follow a moment too late, helplessly watched from behind the fake, the shot, the goal.

Three to nothing.

“Heads UP Lucas! Stop watching the dandelions and start watching the game.”

He did put his head up, looked over the grass, through the goalposts to the woods behind. The first row of trees were dead. That’s what he always noticed; stick-figure trees, bare of leaves all year long. Trees like giant people with no clothes or faces or leaves.

Creepy trees that would eat the coach and the families and his dad.

Another kid had told Lucas that kids used to vanish into the woods, never to be seen again. Maybe the trees got them?

Maybe the trees were people, the vanished kids all grow up and watching the soccer game.

The ball didn’t come near Lucas again until his two mandatory quarters had been played and coach pulled him out. Improbably, they scored four goals in the second half to win it, 4-3.

Lucas watched the trees as coach gathered the team to the middle of the field to congratulate them on a hard-fought win, tell him he was proud of them. Were the trees closer?

Would they take him next, away from the false congratulations for a game he didn’t help win?

Lucas watched them draw closer as the coach slapped the backs and shook the hands of his teammates.

Nightmare Fuel 2018, day the sixth

Today is an experiment in process rather than style; this was written over the course of 35 minutes and 42 seconds on an exercise bike at the gym on my phone. 

I'm not sure if that made it make less sense or more; it is a different experience, and a change in the level of focus.

Too Few for a Coven

Three is too few for a coven.

You all  knew that.

Oh, three would have been fine were they mother and maiden and crone, but Jane wasn't quite a maiden anymore, Becky not much closer. They took pains to avoid motherhood, and even their mothers weren't crones. Not by far.

Still, Mary and you and Becky were all that they had, here in the bedroom community where Becky and Mary's dad slept after a day's work and Jane's mother did what single suburban mothers did.

She survived.

You are too few for a coven,  but they needed to be something. The three amigos and three musketeers are all men and boys, and they'd had enough of men and boys.

Especially Jane.

So a coven you'd be. The White Pines Conclave, named for the coniferous wood and not the abandoned 1950s mental hospital alongside it. The people of White Pines had an unspoken deal with the restless dead of many decades ago - each side would pretend the other didn't exist.

It went well.

The world works by unspoken bargains of this sort. You don't talk about the creepy ruins. Don't ask your neighbor how he can afford a new BMW all of a sudden. Don't ask the woman across the street why she's wearing so much make-up in a Sunday morning.

You don't ask what happened at homecoming.

You know, but you don't ask.

Instead you take your two best friends and call yourself a coven even though you aren't. You gather twigs and feathers and pretty rocks with magic powerz, even though your family is lapsed Catholics except your grandmother who still kept trying to get you to say the rosary, until the day she died.

You still keep her beads in your purse because she'd have wanted it, though they mean nothing to you.

You all know the irony of Mary being named for the Virgin, but you make that joke. You did once, and knew it was a mistake. Now you think it sometimes when meet her eyes as you say the name, in your secret space where the hospital washroom was, by the ancient stone washbasin.

Sometimes in this space you finger your grandmother's beads, think of the other Mary, who was a whore.

Beloved by Jesus.

You think all these things as you three sit in the stone space, once the home of those suffering hysteria were once sequestered.

Maybe someday you'll sacrifice a goat or a squirrel or a young virgin boy, summon a demon to this place, raze the sleepy little town to the ground, like they deserve.

Maybe someday.

For now, you're too few for a coven, but you'll be one anyway.

Nightmare Fuel 2018, Day the Fifth - A Winter Vacation

Day the Fifth. Let's head south, for a winter vacation.

No, it's not you; I think these are getting stranger as the month goes along. This is only day 5, so I'm not sure where we'll end up.

Winter Vacation

Inana came to the great terminal, at the port at the edge of the air.

She awaited her turn, approached the first of the guardians of the air,

Was asked to remove her shoes, her sparkling bejeweled belt and her jacket, crafted from the leather of an ancient and long extinct beast adorned with bright brass buttons.
.
The shoes and jacket were returned to her, but he belt buckle was sharp-edged, needed to be surrendered before she could ride to the skies.

She descended to the south, disembarked from another port, this one named for a sacred forest. She considered this a good omen.

She stepped into the oppressive heat, surrendering the jacket she'd reclaimed from the guardians in the north.

She traveled on, first by hired car (leaving her bag behind) then on foot.

Which each garment, each accoutrement she left behind she felt a bit weaker, a bit lighter, but certain she was on the right path. After all, she'd done this before. This was far from her first descent to a place too hot, too far, too much stinking of death and decay.

She left a single shoe behind in the grass, limped along a mile before discarding the other at the side of the road. She should have saved them for last, but the locals in places like this get strange around too much bared flesh.

Still, her clothes she discarded only blocks later as she neared the gates.

Of course there were gates.

These were faux-wrought iron, set in stucco towerettes with faux-tile roofs.

No sentry save an outdoor-rated dome camera and an RFID sensor.

No matter; there was form to such things. Inana removed the rest of her clothing, her body bared to the unblinking gaze of the camera as she slipped through the gates and into the community.

She strode past identical Spanish-style ranch homes,  shedding her skin at the base of a palm tree, leaving her bones piled up aside the next.


At last at her destination, she enters his home and settles in, alongside him, and waits.

That what this is for, after all.

Image by Hilary Truman

Perhaps when the waiting is over she'll recollect her bones
and her flesh
and her clothes
and that discarded shoe
and the jacket
and her favorite belt

and return North for the coming Spring.

After.

Nightmare Fuel 2018, Day the Fourth - Minutes from the Early October Meeting of the Coven

Day four. The days I don't commute are harder because I don't have the time on the train for writing.

Some days are dialog, some days stories, some days odd little experiments. This is that kind of day.

Minutes from the Early October Meeting of the Coven

Old Business

• Renew binding spells on current leadership
• Enjoin against the doing of harm
• Add to list of focus ingredients 
• Beer to enjoin against harm done through drunken debauchery
• A baby rattle to enjoin against harm done to children and other youth
• A coin to enjoin against continued theft of resources.

• Review the possibility of curses against current leadership
• Discussion -- will this make us "as bad as they are?"
• Redirect energies to healing?
• "Save what we love" vs "destroy what we hate"
• This is understood to be a quote from a movie. It still fits us
• To be revisited next full moon.

New Business

• Robes ordered - should be available before moonlit nights get too cold.
• Candles are traditional, but damage to the ceiling is getting out of hand. We need to do a better job of cleaning up after ourselves.

Nightmare Fuel 2018, Day the Third - Remembrance of Reconstruction

This one is nakedly topical, drawn heavily on current events for the last year. Also a ghost story, because October is the time for ghosts.

So... boo!

Remembrance of Reconstruction

You never fired a gun, barely held one. You remember that, barely.

Memories are always hazy,  from before your death. They all get tangled up by how the living look back at you, where you're memorialized, the passing of time.


You must have for a time posed as a soldier, because that's who you are, here in the hereafter. That's what people see when they look.

You don't remember anger from your life either, but you feel that. It's nearly the first thing you remember from the years after your death - a seething resentment. You feel spread out, losing your sense of space.

You're in a meadow.

At the edge of a forest.

Outside a courthouse.

In a public park.

You're many places. The further you stretch, the less you remember yourself. You lose your hometown, your first kiss, your job.

You forget your name.


You remember hatred, anger.

Grass grows short and scraggly around your markers, trees grow stunted. Autumn comes a bit earlier, spring a bit later. You are winter. You are death, or death's cousin.

Then, slowly, perhaps, the world changes. Your awareness of the courthouses and the parks and the town squares fade. Still you are hatred, you are bitter anger, but your world is shrinking.

Finally, there's nearly nothing more. Just a quiet, dark place near the edge of the cemetery, beneath an oak tree too old and too strong to care for your anger.

Finally, not even a memory remains.

Nightmare Fuel 2018, Day the Second - The Vigil

Day two. The round window felt reminiscent of an eye. That and the rude, unmade bed made me think of a sad, solitary watcher. Who was he watching? For what end? Come join us for the vigil.

The Vigil 

I never use the lamp.

I brought it up to the attic, of course,  for the possibility of reading. By day the great window gives enough light to read by and by night… well, we know the problems of lighting a lamp by night. It would mean that they could see in, that I couldn’t see out.

That you could see in, that I could not see you.

You don’t know to keep your lamps out. Don’t know or don’t care, it’s all the same. While your windows aren’t as grand as mine, they are broad enough and tall enough and covered only by the thinnest, gauziest of shades. Pinprick shades, some call them. Not enough to keep you safe, to keep your lamplight from spilling outside to where they can see you.

You likely don’t even think about them.

That’s OK. I do. And I watch.

It’s lonely, this vigil from the attic with no company save the empty bottle and the sounds of crickets. No company save for the lonely, hard men outside. The ones who walk with their eyes up, hoping to peek through those pinprick shades for a glance at the swell of your breasts, the curve of your hip, the delicate lines of your neck. From up here I see all of them.

If any tried anything, I’d be there in a flash.

You don’t know it, but you’re safe. I keep you safe, through the lonely, dark nights. In the daylight I leave, my attic bed unmade, my window gazing at yours, my home’s eye to your home’s eye, my home’s soul to yours.

In the night I return to my vigil. I never use the lamp. 

Nightmare Fuel 2018 - Day the First!

It's that time again! Daily Flash Fiction through the month of October, sometimes dark, sometimes creepy. The estimable Bliss Morgan as usual hosts it here, on the Google+ social network. Yes, Google+ is still a thing.

Here's my first, as I start getting into it. We'll see how many we get this year.

Like a Japanese Girl

"Draw me like one of your Japanese girls."

She knew it was a corny line, but knew his type. The kind of guy who insisted that he read manga, not comic books. The kind who went to Aikido class three days a week, who insisted he knew what "ki" is. The guy whose prize possession is that Yoshitako Amano book he got the author to sign. Yeah, that book by the mainstream western author.

That type of guy.

Image from Lustige Blätter,circa 1899

She also knew that, as easily mistaken for a white-bread suburban American as she was, she fit the type. Straight black hair. Fair skin. What else did he really need? She knew his type, she could smell desperation.  To be fair, she could fit quite a few types.

So he went home, studied his manga-not-comics, scoured the web for drawings.

On the first day, he came to her studio apartment. He drew her as a schoolgirl, starched white blouse, pleated skirt, maryjanes. Her hair playful bound in pigtails, a playful smile on her face. Smooth penstrokes, her face youthful and vulnerable. She shook her head. '

"I'm not that kind of Japanese girl," she giggled. She kissed his cheek, invited him back the next day.

So he went home, took the book of court photos from his bookcase and studied.

On the second day he came to her studio apartment. He drew her as a geisha, her kimono poorly tied with a too-long obi. He never did get the hang of drawing knots. Her eyes narrow, her hair done up high. His penstrokes were long and languid, with flourishes meant to hint at whatever design the kimono would have; he wasn't sure on that either. She shook her head,

"no, no, no. I'm not that kind of Japanese girl either. You get one more try." She sighed sadly, kissed him lightly on the lips, bade him return the next day.

So he went home, one more time. He studied reproduction woodblock prints of demons and devils.

On the third day he came to her studio apartment. He drew her as a monster, her nude body hidden behind a mound of skulls, her eyes a touch mad. His pen skipped across her face, barely outlining it, but lingering over the skulls. He drew her hair down, weaving between the mound of skulls like a river. She shook her head,

"I suppose I'm not a Japanese girl after all." she whispered as she lead him to her bed, silently. The next words she spoke - as if the time between hadn't passed at all - were barely a whisper, all breath and no voice, "but I am a monster."

Truth be told, he wasn't a meal worth savoring, but was a meal nonetheless. She briefly considered keeping his skull, but she had enough already.