The doors of the coach swished open. A girl, of about six or seven, climbed up the steps. She clutched a teddy bear to her chest, and her trembling fingers picked at the brown fur. She nodded to the driver and he gave the child a cursory nod in reply. The doors swished closed. The coach rolled away from the stop.
Charles peered out of the window at the dark. A pale hand waved at them as the coach moved away, and then the woman pulled a yellow mackintosh tight to her thin form and shuddered. The light from the bus stop leant her an ethereal glow, and she looked as lost and confused as he felt. As the bus trundled along, the image of the woman replayed in his mind as if he had trapped her ghost there.
Though the coach was empty except for Charles and the driver, the child sat next to him. Perhaps she feels safer seated with an adult, he thought. Her silent presence made him feel uneasy. Pick, pick, picking at the teddy bear's fur, she looked up at him.
The sight of her hollowed out eye sockets pushed a scream up his throat. It erupted as a whimper.
Her touch was cold as she grabbed hold of his hand. Her voice echoed within his skull, and sent a tingle travelling down his spine. “You get off at the next stop.”
It was only when he was about to say it wasn't his stop, that he realised he didn't remember boarding the coach or where he was going. Panic budded in his chest.
Her smile stretched back to reveal skeletal gums. “We know. We deleted those memories. It helps prevent madness. We lose too many to the dark and if you thought about it you wouldn't want to stay here.”
He looked back out at the night-shadowed world and carried the image of the woman in yellow with him.
“Alicia.” The woman's name fell as mist on the window, and then trailed away as if he had never known it. “I think I just remembered where I'm going.”
His spine stiffened as a skeletal hand scratched at the window. This was all a hallucination - the child, the woman he thought he knew, the empty coach, everything. He was at home, with his feet propped up on the coffee table, his wife in the kitchen and his daughter… He looked down at the child.
“Papa, you're only remembering where you've been.”
He pulled the teddy bear away from her and revealed the gun shot wound that had torn open her chest. A groan trembled against the metal walls of the coach and returned to slap him in the face. Someone murdered his daughter. Someone stole her away and he was too late to save her. Despair threw its cloak over his shoulders and pulled him off the seat. His hands clutched the seat in front and he pressed his face into its hard back, wanting to suffocate the year old memory.
“This is your stop.”
Charles looked down at the wet back of the chair and wondered why he was kneeling on the dirty floor. He looked out of the window, but it offered only reflection.
“There's nothing out there.”
“I know. It's easiest if you allow yourself to just fall. At some point, you'll forget and accept and let go. You've already forgotten me and yet it is my memory that drove you here. I'm sorry,” she grabbed the teddy bear and concealed her wound, “they won't let you stay.”
The coach screeched to a halt. As the door hissed open, the driver turned around in his seat. They were both waiting for him to get off. Charles clung to the velour of his seat as if he intended to stay in it forever.
“Please let go. I have to go back for Momma.”
Commentary:
This is one of those stories that you submit once and then decided it's all wrong. I don't think it's clear enough what is happening (the Editor who rejected it would agree) and the injured child would be off-putting to a lot of readers. It's life was short--one month from conception to submission to rejection--and I had to brush three months worth of dust off it.
In the Dark, Alone and Hungry
Labels: Dead Story
Stinking wet with brown decay, I crawled from my earth-womb—the mound of composting leaves tucked behind McHenry’s lumberyard. Deep in those liquid shadows I drew my first breath. The black air cooled my skin. My arms stretched with ropey sinews and lurched toward the sky.
The hunger was with me from birth, haunting me from the time those boys built me with their words—from the time they conjured me from their imaginations. Something empty inside me wanted warm and wet things to grab and smash and smear. Their words lurked inside me, waiting and remembering. I listened as I huddled in the black air. They hurried away, crunching the pavement with little feet. I scrambled from my muddy home, streaked and black-brown, and hunched against a gnarled oak. They scurried away from the dark place, little voices as loud echoes. They walked and talked and imagined while I listened and waited.
I learned their names: Lonnie and Jack. One then the other. When they walked past the lumberyard, I smelled their breath, heard their hearts squeezing inside their chests. Then later, huddled together in their homes, far from my lonesome place, the boys would whisper secrets about the darkness near McHenry’s Lumberyard. I listened and heard the distant echoes of their voices. The sky warmed and brightened, and I crawled back into the womb to wait.
Sometimes I waited in the black air, and neither came. I sulked and wove into the high weeds. The hunger seeped while I waited, dripping like midnight rain. Then one would come as a whisper, walking past the lumberyard, little feet ticking on the asphalt. The tiny feet snapped faster against the ground, and my lungs expanded, drinking the good, black air. With a glance, the boy ran—scampered away from the night place, the inky shadow, the dark. My iron breath gave chase.
I wanted to touch them. Possess them. The hunger burned.
Their words came as echoes, and I changed. In the blue moonlight I watched my thick knuckles stretch and twist, my grey hands flattened. My feet blown fat, twisted, becoming some awful yellow things with scales and curved talons. They took my face, left a hole, a blank cavernous mouth, a black gaping nothing. My thick skin grew scales like my feet, awful hard scales green like tree moss.
Sometimes they walked alone. One walked past and I crawled on my belly, new talons scraping the ground, tearing at the grass. The boys always left a taste, a sweet trail of salty fear that I lapped, always hungry for more. Those wisps of fear were never enough. Never enough.
I followed the boys, sometimes slinking low and serpentine, sometimes quiet, cat-like with padded paws on the roofs of sheds and in trees. They fed me, tempted with little spurts of fear, always running, always slipping under the hot lamps and into the full, welcoming houses.
I paced and waited, growing tired as they grew older. The hunger faded when they stopped coming; I weakened—lost the burning ache. I slipped into the womb even at night, sucked the black air after me, and drank its ink. I slept without dreams.
Ten years in the dark womb I slept before waking to the old smells. Fear danced on the night air. The hunger seized me, shook my limbs, and forced my body from that long hibernation. My sinews stretched again, and my fingers snatched at the brown decay.
A cowering boy walked near the darkness of McHenry’s Lumberyard. A small, pale shadow boy. I rose through the ripe decay, returned to the night, the darkness, and the hunger. I bled into the black air. He walked quickly, the thick fear trailing behind. I crept, growing claws again, the long, scrabbling claws granted by Lonnie and Jack. I sucked the cool breeze into my midnight mouth, and the boy heard my breath. He froze.
The hunger burned then, fierce, alive, and maddening.
That little boy was so fragile, so small. I left him torn, dripping, broken in the darkness, sprayed across the shadows in front of McHenry’s Lumberyard. When he died, the hunger throbbed, not sated, but burning, and I crawled weakly back to the sweet earth, the reeking decay, and thick mud. I waited, alone and hungry.
They came the next day. First one, and then dozens of pounding feet, startled voices, and small snatches of sweet fear—just enough to rouse an appetite. I tasted Jack and Lonnie again, the faded taste of my fathers. They knew. They shook with knowing.
They banished me, slaying the shadows with streetlamps, cutting down my trees, and poisoning the black air with light. I found a new darkness, a shadowed, lonesome place that wants nightmare quietness. I will wait in the shadows.
Commentary:
This was originally slated for publication in Grim Graffiti, but the market folded before it went to press.
In retrospect, the story is a bit overwritten. First person monster tales rarely hit the mark, and I think this one strayed a bit. I'm glad it is a dead story.
The hunger was with me from birth, haunting me from the time those boys built me with their words—from the time they conjured me from their imaginations. Something empty inside me wanted warm and wet things to grab and smash and smear. Their words lurked inside me, waiting and remembering. I listened as I huddled in the black air. They hurried away, crunching the pavement with little feet. I scrambled from my muddy home, streaked and black-brown, and hunched against a gnarled oak. They scurried away from the dark place, little voices as loud echoes. They walked and talked and imagined while I listened and waited.
I learned their names: Lonnie and Jack. One then the other. When they walked past the lumberyard, I smelled their breath, heard their hearts squeezing inside their chests. Then later, huddled together in their homes, far from my lonesome place, the boys would whisper secrets about the darkness near McHenry’s Lumberyard. I listened and heard the distant echoes of their voices. The sky warmed and brightened, and I crawled back into the womb to wait.
Sometimes I waited in the black air, and neither came. I sulked and wove into the high weeds. The hunger seeped while I waited, dripping like midnight rain. Then one would come as a whisper, walking past the lumberyard, little feet ticking on the asphalt. The tiny feet snapped faster against the ground, and my lungs expanded, drinking the good, black air. With a glance, the boy ran—scampered away from the night place, the inky shadow, the dark. My iron breath gave chase.
I wanted to touch them. Possess them. The hunger burned.
Their words came as echoes, and I changed. In the blue moonlight I watched my thick knuckles stretch and twist, my grey hands flattened. My feet blown fat, twisted, becoming some awful yellow things with scales and curved talons. They took my face, left a hole, a blank cavernous mouth, a black gaping nothing. My thick skin grew scales like my feet, awful hard scales green like tree moss.
Sometimes they walked alone. One walked past and I crawled on my belly, new talons scraping the ground, tearing at the grass. The boys always left a taste, a sweet trail of salty fear that I lapped, always hungry for more. Those wisps of fear were never enough. Never enough.
I followed the boys, sometimes slinking low and serpentine, sometimes quiet, cat-like with padded paws on the roofs of sheds and in trees. They fed me, tempted with little spurts of fear, always running, always slipping under the hot lamps and into the full, welcoming houses.
I paced and waited, growing tired as they grew older. The hunger faded when they stopped coming; I weakened—lost the burning ache. I slipped into the womb even at night, sucked the black air after me, and drank its ink. I slept without dreams.
Ten years in the dark womb I slept before waking to the old smells. Fear danced on the night air. The hunger seized me, shook my limbs, and forced my body from that long hibernation. My sinews stretched again, and my fingers snatched at the brown decay.
A cowering boy walked near the darkness of McHenry’s Lumberyard. A small, pale shadow boy. I rose through the ripe decay, returned to the night, the darkness, and the hunger. I bled into the black air. He walked quickly, the thick fear trailing behind. I crept, growing claws again, the long, scrabbling claws granted by Lonnie and Jack. I sucked the cool breeze into my midnight mouth, and the boy heard my breath. He froze.
The hunger burned then, fierce, alive, and maddening.
That little boy was so fragile, so small. I left him torn, dripping, broken in the darkness, sprayed across the shadows in front of McHenry’s Lumberyard. When he died, the hunger throbbed, not sated, but burning, and I crawled weakly back to the sweet earth, the reeking decay, and thick mud. I waited, alone and hungry.
They came the next day. First one, and then dozens of pounding feet, startled voices, and small snatches of sweet fear—just enough to rouse an appetite. I tasted Jack and Lonnie again, the faded taste of my fathers. They knew. They shook with knowing.
They banished me, slaying the shadows with streetlamps, cutting down my trees, and poisoning the black air with light. I found a new darkness, a shadowed, lonesome place that wants nightmare quietness. I will wait in the shadows.
__________
Commentary:
This was originally slated for publication in Grim Graffiti, but the market folded before it went to press.
In retrospect, the story is a bit overwritten. First person monster tales rarely hit the mark, and I think this one strayed a bit. I'm glad it is a dead story.
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