fiction

Strange Short Story & Writing Prompt

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Prompt: On an outing with their caregiver, a nursing home resident recognizes a “Missing” poster for something/someone.

“But she looks familiar…” I said weakly. The sun was getting to me, as were the hours in the day.

Just like the days themselves.

“Geraldine, we spoke about this yesterday. At your age, everyone may look familiar. Your brain is doing things I can barely explain… We can’t expect you to understand.”

Her baleful blue eyes stared at me from far away, like birds on a wire you saw across a field just the other day, but can’t quite remember.

“You’re right.” I sighed. The wheelchair creaked loudly as she pushed me along on my afternoon walk. I pulled my felt tennis hat lower. The sun was hot, but the tears in my eyes were embarrassing. Even though Nurse Clawson took me down the side route behind the apartments, shaded by quiet trees and silent bushes, I felt like I was being watched by the windows around us.

I swear I had seen her somewhere before, but the Nurse is right. How could I argue? I forget who I am sometimes.

“Just around the next bend, Gerry.”

Birds flew from the concrete as we squeaked around a bend, leading to my ramp. The Nurse was handy and I remembered her throwing it together one day. The car was a bit warm while she was inside of Lowes, but the music that played was the soft golden oldies I loved. Crooning at me, Frank always comforted me. The music reminded me of quiet times. Happy times. A husband?

“A family…” I said quietly, as I bumped off the top of the ramp.

“What was that?” Nurse Clawson smiled at me.

“…Nothing. Just some memory that probably isn’t true.” I didn’t know anymore. I just knew that I would be able to get to watch the TV during dinner, and there may be some cute animals on Discovery Channel. The animals made me feel better somehow.

The microwave dinged as I sat in front of the blank TV. The blackness stared back at me, as did a woman whose face I had seen somewhere before.

I couldn’t tell where, but her face in the black TV, staring at me from a wheelchair, looked familiar somehow.

[WP] After exploring the galaxy for quite some time, humanity finally makes first contact. Turns out science fiction got it wrong: compared to the other races humans are advanced, logical, responsible, long lived pacifists and the galaxy is a massive clusterfuck.

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How they managed to become a space-faring civilization was a mystery. Glarkans were a blend of reptile and crustacean with a hefty helping of aggression. I had read the dossiers. I gulped as I stepped off the transport into the musty space station. The first human here. The second through 30th humans were my security detail.

The noise level was that of a souk. A normal one, not like that of Baghdad in the early 2000s.

“No bombs here. Yet.” Chuckling to myself to forget my nervousness. I ate way too much Indian food too.

What did I get myself into?

The noise level dropped as my detail fanned out, flanking my stroll onto their promenade. Strange beasts in the midst of arguments stopped and stared. They whispered. Clicked mandibles. Something not unlike a laugh. Shops closed their windows with a familiar urgency, as familiar as the feeling of rubbing my sidearm.

A large, obviously mature Glarkan towered into view. Ducking to get through a 12 foot doorway, he bellowed an alien laugh through drooping antennae. My detail flicked their safeties off and raised their rifles, and I hissed at them with a hand, palm down.

“Put those away!” I turned away, knowing they obeyed. The creature was already before us, and the others had vanished. Plates of organic armor were covered in scars and paint, clashing red and yellow and black. It crouched to speak, and we held out our translators to record it’s patterns of clicks and whistles. Similar to insect trills. A grunt thrown in for who knows what reason.

And we waited. It was impatient, and began stomping away the translators finally blooped at us.

“Be-gin. I wonder how you found us in this nebula. Are all of you so small? Why should we listen to you?” [[LAUGHING]] “What technology do you offer?”

I sent a mathematical algorithm in response to this first diplomatic exchange. They just managed to get space flight, so protocol dictates first contact. Easy diplomatic job for the practiced man.

“It’s a science.” I smiled inwardly. The being opened a data pad it had tucked somewhere between exoskeleton and hair. It’s 8 eyes flicked about slightly. The mandible mouth opened and closed, as if about to speak. But the response has to be careful.

“Congratulations for gaining a foothold into space. It is a major step for a civilization to get beyond their gravity well. You are now required to submit to Galactic Law. You are under the protection of the Consortium of Planets. We will be deploying a detachment of the Navy to protect you from possible pirate raids, and to prevent domestic disturbances.

We are also willing to share cultural information about our races, their poetry, art, history and characters. You may submit yours if you wish. Technology will be shared after a grace period of – 134,342 – of your home world’s solar days.

Failure to submit to the law will yield a disciplinary embargo of your planet. Our technology so outmatches yours, we do not need to take aggressive action. You will not be permitted to explore past your own solar system.”

It worked, as usual. I left vast amounts of data for them to peruse. Bylaws, and all the fun details of life within the Consortium. Taxes.

I kind of missed the days when they tried to fight back. But the only display that is needed is to steal their sun. A massive blockade of solar panels suffices to kill a world. Fairly nonviolent.

The large creature seemed to cower a bit. Then as it began to sign the line it shrieked and coiled up, appearing to pounce. The first squad shot their net grenades at the creature and the electricity has no effect on it.

The force pushed it back into the corridor and the smaller versions began to pile out of the closed up shops. Thunder of assault rifles echoed, and my earbuds muffled the sound to protect my hearing. With a thought I relayed to CENTCOM that shit had, indeed, hit the fan.

The high powered assault rifles tore into the creatures. They fell falling forward. Reaching.

The nets on the large one toggled to high heat mode as it regained its footing. Bright orange patchwork sizzled hungrily and brought screams from the alien.

I stepped up to it as the last Glarkan died bleeding green blood and my men reloaded. I placed a stasis field around it. A fine specimen. I plugged into its field a computer program that matched the beings neural waves. So to implant suggestions into it. And time could be manipulated with the stasis field. A minute could be a hundred years of whispers in the darkness.

The blue shield vanished as I stuffed the device stuffed back into my pocket. The 8 eyes of the ancient creature shuddered and were followed by a low hum with a click.

An alien “OK”.

 

Impossible.  Something from another galaxy?  Their technology must be —

“Sir,” A Fleuon broke his train of thought. “We are detecting strange readings from our long-distance sensors.  Oscillating frequencies on radio and sub-space bands.  They seem to be working to mimic neural patterns.”

“What?” I whispered.  Suddenly a voice came from all around, echoing within the CIC.

“Please submit.  We do not wish to rule over another dead galaxy.”  The voice was deep, and resonated in such a way that shook his bones.

“Get the marines ready.  Make sure all torpedo tubes are loaded to bear, and get anything that is space-worthy into the launch bay.  Are communications down?”

“Yes, sir.” They all chimed in.

“Naturally.” I spat into the air.

Suddenly the Fleuons all convulsed violently, some sprayed out green fluid onto their consoles and shook so hard that their tentacles dented metal.  After several moments, they were all slumped over and dead.  I ran to the nearest, and felt that its normally soft body was now stiff.  Definitely dead.

The voice chided him. “We have destroyed your methods of control and communications by attacking the brain waves of those beings that run your ships.  Please do not make us alter the wavelengths of our weapons to your neural frequency.”

I collapsed in my chair, silent.  Alarms flashed on consoles.

“Prepare to be boarded.”

I was as ready as I ever would be.

 

tales of a travelling salesman final

Thanks for reading, friend!

Should I write more about this character?

In the meantime, read this story my grandmother told me.

Probably Just a Bug-Bite

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I was working late in a rural school, when the power went out. I was the night janitor, a job I had always enjoyed because of the relative solitude. I could sleep all day and relax for a bit before driving to work. I would bring my headphones and listen to some Silversun Pickups or Andrew Bird while I swept and mopped up the refuse from the day. Every day the halls were left filled with broken pencils and crumpled up papers with forgotten love scribbled inside. Sometimes I read the notes, and chuckled at their eager egos reaching for some strange ideal of romance. Sometimes I just sneaked a quick bowl and zoned out into my work and the music. Each day blended beautifully into the next. Rent was paid, snacks were bought, and small bits of my check I managed to save. I was content with my confident mediocrity.

Until the night the lights went out, I was enjoying the relaxing waves of soft rain on window panes.

The darkness washed down the hallway I was standing in like a splash of obsidian. It’s difficult to describe the feeling I had, but it was not a normal, healthy fear of the dark. I felt… Unnerved. I knew it wasn’t true, but I felt like I was being watched by the inky black that surrounded me and touched by the silence that swarmed and swirled.

I stood still for some time, expecting to hear the backup generators kick on or the clicking drone of emergency lights. But the only thing I heard was a loud metal clanging that shot down the hall and into my bones. Frozen. Reverberations shook my bones. Helpless. I stood as if locked in a dream. I felt like a child, confused. Silence finally began to echo and ring and ring and ring in my ears.

It must have been a dream. I must have fallen asleep. This must have been a dream, right? I don’t even believe myself as I begin to think of how to write this…

The lights finally kicked on as the sound ended, with a hum and a flicker. And I saw I wasn’t alone.

I caught a glimpse of a large hominid whirling away around a corner. Legs were too long, and the arms were longer. Slender. Pallid. Vein-y. I remember the veins. Thick and purple on a skinny frame. I could have sworn I saw them throb hungrily.

Next thing I knew, I was sitting in a chair in a classroom. I felt cold, and I shivered. I felt disoriented and my vision was blurry as a soft lightning flash illuminated the room with the slightest gleam. Slowly getting to my feet, my eyes noticed the room number posted on the board amidst reminders and notes. The room was in that hallway I was in, or that I thought I was in before…

I found my coworker after running outside into the breezy night rain and into another building. I must have looked wild, because he asked if I was OK. I wasn’t. I’m still not.

My partner said the lights never went out.

And it’s been two days, and I thought it was an exhaustion-induced hallucination because I hadn’t been sleeping recently. My dog has been constantly barking at the clouds and the squirrels that have moved into the roof of my home, constantly scratching and squealing.

But now I have a unusual dot where my bicep meets the forearm. Sight bruising, too. As if I had gotten stung or poked.

Now that I look closely, it’s starting to seem infected. The bruising is a dark hue, darker than even when I broke a bone as a child. And the veins are thicker around that dot. And my head… aches. Constant throbbing.

Maybe I should drive to the city hospital, an hour’s drive away. Those big-city doctors will know what this is.

Probably just a bug-bite, mixed with this fever and paranoia.

Yeah. That’s it. Still gonna go check and make sure.

Make sure it’s nothing serious.

[WP] There is a portal to an endless ocean, filled with monstrous beings. After repelling the initial ‘leaks’, humans explore this endless, sunless, sea.

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The Russian’s Sierra-Class submarine Pskov was the only craft of the joint operation to survive the initial onslaught from the other world. The rotting corpse of an impossibly large sea beast floated onto the shore of Chile, drawing large crowds of horrified onlookers. World leaders were scrambling to organize a barrier of some sort, a sort of control zone to prevent further creatures from coming through. Captain Rohkscov had no patience for the bureaucracy, however. He had just taken the liberty of attaching cameras all over his vessel, to allow for better perception in an entire world of water draped in darkness.

“Ensign. Any contacts on sonar?” The question came from a steel-gray beard.

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“An astronaut in orbit submits an Amazon Prime order (free two day shipping) as a joke, with the address set to the ISS. Amazon does not think this is a joke.”

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“Hey, Johnson. Are you sure you are ready for this?”

“Yes sir,” Johnson whispered to hide his trembling voice. “But are you sure this isn’t just a joke?”

“You’re lucky you’re the only one willing to do this, or I would fire you like I fired the other folks who asked. We have a reputation to uphold. Now buckle up, and good luck!” The shipping manager stepped away from the hatch and sealed it shut, as Johnson buckled up.

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Calcutta, 1946

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This is a story recounted to me by my Indian grandmother, who is now in her 80s. She lived in Calcutta through the late 1930s to 1947, when her family moved to England to escape the violence in the region. She was about 9, according to her memory. This period was just before the British Partition of the region based on religious population, where Pakistan and modern-day Bangladesh were created as a separate country for the Muslims, and India was made to be solely for Hindus and Sikhs. This action created the largest population exchange in human history. The story takes place on August 16th, 1946. A day that first was supposed to be known as Direct-Action Day, but became known as the Great Calcutta Killings. Within a short time, over 4,000 were left dead. Even more homeless after the fires died down. This event sparked several days of violence across India, with Hindus attacking Muslims, and Muslims attacking Hindus — the “Week of the Long Knives”.
My Grandmother’s family was upper-middle class, and their home stood tall and clean. They were able to hire housekeepers and pay them well enough to provide for their own families. She was raised Catholic, since the family was close with the British and wished to remain so, but the city itself was predominately Hindu and had a large Muslim population. The Direct-Action day was supposed to be a Muslim-organized peaceful protest to show defiance to the British rejection of the proposed 2-state solution, but quickly turned violent after the heat and fiery speeches turned the hearts of men darker than coal. There are conflicting reports on who started the violence, but both sides were guilty in participation of slaughter and ethnic-cleansing. Skirmishes lasted for days. Factories where Hindu workers lived were invaded and the walls coated in blood and gristle. Homes where Muslims lived were chained up and burned to the ground.
What she remembers is being on the roof of their home with her sisters, taking the day off because of the planned protest scaring her family into isolation. They had a milkman, whose name she could not remember, coming down an alley delivering his goods as usual. He was a young Muslim man, probably no more than 18 years old. Door to door he went about his rounds, and as he drew closer they waved to him. He smiled and waved back as several Sikh men appeared from the shadows and stabbed him with their knives and sliced with their kirpans, each taking their turn thrusting the young man between his ribs, back, and eyes as his screams turned to gurgling noises and silence. They continued their stabbing even after he was dead until they were exhausted and blood filled the alley. The sisters were frozen in horror on the rooftops, as one of the men noticed them and spoke:
“Sorry to have let this filthy Muslim get so close to you, friends!” They dragged the man’s corpse and shoved him down a nearby manhole and left cheering to themselves. About this time, smoke could be seen from the downtown area, as fires were being set to businesses and homes. 

Her and her sisters finally broke from their shock and ran inside, horrified. Luckily their father had the foresight to prepare for this. A detachment of British guards had been sent to their home to protect the family, and all day they remained inside. Screams and crashes mixed with crazed laughter and chanting echoed outside in the city, and crept through their windows. They were inside all day, mortified of what was happening outside.
As night fell, the violence subsided slightly. Every night she would go outside to look at the stars before bed, and out of habit she snuck away from her parents and sisters to go to the roof again. Smoke made the stars blurry this night, and fires burned creating strange shadows that flickered and danced to the music of chaos. She heard the awful sound of metal scraping against concrete, and ducked down behind the low wall that ran along the border of the roof. With the curiosity inherent to a child, she peeked over the wall to look down into the alley where their acquaintance was brutally murdered earlier. The manhole was being pushed aside from below, and when the creaking stopped there was a terrible silence for a moment. A man, clothed in shockingly white robes, came from within the man-hole. He climbed out, and looked around for a while. She recognized the young man from earlier, the milk-man.
“Impossible” she told me. “It was impossible for him to have survived that attack. And his robes were so white and clean, even coming from the sewers of Calcutta! But that was when he looked at me. I felt cold, but not the type of cold from an icy wind from the North. This cold came from my heart — no — my soul! I felt frost inside of myself, and I could not help but cry. I felt so scared and alone then, in that moment. And then he nodded to me, and began to walk away. Something was off, and I couldn’t figure out what! And then I looked closer. His feet appeared beneath his robes as he moved slowly away. They were twisted backward, completely opposite of a human’s feet. He walked toe-to-heel, as we walk heel-to-toe. My father always told me of bhoots, mostly as stories used to entertain us. But now, I have seen one. I rubbed my eyes to clear my vision of tears to get a better look. But he was gone. The silence was broken again and more screams came from up the alley. A woman’s scream, and men’s laughter. I ran back inside to be scolded by my Father. I never told anyone in my family this, for fear they would think I was crazy. But the next day we left the city under British escort, and my sisters protested as they complained about leaving their friends alone. But me, I just wanted to get away from that alley. From that angry, lost soul.”

 

tales of a travelling salesman final

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My Late Uncle Clive (3)

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Click here for Part 2

 

 

I have to type quickly.  Time is of the essence.

The morning after the firebombing of my house, we went to the college again to try and find more clues.  I kept the hidden note my uncle mentioned a secret.  It was a hot day, and the AC in my truck doesn’t exactly work at 100 percent.  By the time we arrived, we both had rings of sweat under our arms and on our backs.  The heat was oppressive, and made me feel almost lethargic.  Max the dog was to stay at the hotel all day, and watch National Geographic.  Lucky dog.

We both arrived to see the smiling secretary again, who greeted us.  In a sing-song voice she told us that no one had gone into the office of my late Uncle Clive.  Relieved, we walked in silence down the large hallway, and opened the wooden door to see a ransacked room.  Papers thrown everywhere, priceless looking artifacts were tossed to the ground.  Someone was looking for something.  Luckily nothing seemed destroyed.  I noticed something that was mentioned in my uncle’s notes: a strange bas-relief of some inconceivable language, like the one from before, and a more detailed picture of the odd creature from before.  It was a queer caricature of an octopus / man with bat-like wings, towering over impossible architecture that my mind struggled to perceive.  The strange angles and geometry captivated me, and the color of it was an unknown, black-green blend of strange stone.  Trent had to shout to catch my attention, at which I whirled around.

“Hey ____, are you listening?  I said I found something odd.”

I walked over, carefully avoiding important looking papers and set the etching onto the table.

“What is it?”

“Well I noticed that nothing is missing, it is obviously not a robbery.  These artifacts were left alone.  But I also noticed that there is no forced entry.  Extremely odd.  I’m going to go review the cameras in the hallway.”  He quickly left me alone in the cluttered office, dust spiraling around me lazily in the scattered sun.

Perfect.  I could get a chance to look for the secret note, and it would be discrete.  I began to look around the room.

“Something that holds the whole world in it”, I muttered to myself over and over.  A globe?  Surprisingly there was no globe.  I looked in an atlas, and then another.  Time was passing quickly as each of my ideas went to no avail.  Not in the encyclopedia.  Not in the dictionary.  I was becoming frustrated and I bumped into the computer tower that stuck slightly out from under his desk, knocking it over.

The side panel came ajar, and a the corner of an envelope peeked out from within.  I laughed to myself because I never would have figured that out.  I was surprised that my uncle knew enough about computers and the internet to create that small mystery.

I propped the chair back up, sat in it, and reached for that really sweet letter opener — the golden tentacle.  To my dismay, only pencils and pens sat in the container.  I looked under the table, on the floor, frantically picking up papers and tossing them aside.  It was nowhere to be found.  Why would someone have stolen just that?  There were plenty of other (and more expensive) artifacts and tokens in the room.  Strange.

I sat down again in the chair and as it squeaked I opened the letter to read:

“Dear (Redacted),

I knew you would find this.  I have a terrible secret.  It’s simpler to show you rather than try to explain it.  Go to the painting opposite my desk, which is probably where you are sitting and reading this now.  Move it to the side.  They are overconfident, and won’t expect outsiders to find their way in.  

Make your way down on the first of September, at 11 PM.  Hide in an alcove, and keep your mouth shut and your ears open.  Bring a camera, no flash.  Night vision.  Detective Trent may have contacted you by now, and if not, he is the creepy guy who might be following you around.  He really is an odd one.  

Please forgive me.  I know what they… or what WE were doing was wrong.  But I want to help put an end to this.  Maybe then my soul can find respite.  

I’m sorry.  

Your Uncle Clive” 

Immediately I stood and went to the picture, an old timey work of an ancient sea monster attacking an old ship.  I went to move it, and it didn’t budge and I strained against it as Trent walked back into the room.

“What are you doing?” He asked quickly, and I asked in a strained voice for him to help.  Finally with his help, the painting suddenly flipped open, revealing a door raised from the ground, and a staircase that flipped down like the stairs of an attic.  A secret passage!  But, the door was locked.  Two sets of keyholes made it apparent that we could not get in without alerting whomever frequented it.

“Well, this explains the lack of forced entry.  I’ll bet it is other staff members who are using this…”

“I found what was stolen!” Blurting out and cutting him off, I quickly sketched the molluscan blade.  His face turned pale as a sheet as he pulled an old drawing from his wallet.  It was a scan of an old primary document, covered in wrinkles and tears of time.  The same tentacle knife was there, staring at me.  I felt strange again, somehow mesmerized by its shapes.  My eyes flicked over Trent’s shoulder to the bas-relief.  I swear then I heard whispers in my mind, and I must have lost track of time because Trent shook my shoulders.

“Hey!  I said this was found with that cult in Louisiana!  Could it be the same one here?”

I stared at the picture he gave me in silence.  The similarity was undeniable.  We decided that we would come back on the first of September, and hide somewhere in the room and wait for those who may use that tunnel to come back and use it, then somehow follow them in.  Maybe break in.  Trent and I gathered what important papers and documents we could find so that we could go back to the motel and see if anything important could be found.  What was interesting was what happened to me that night.

The whispers were definitely real.  Trent had passed out, and Max had too.  So I sat alone in my twin bed and I was going over some of the same documents again when I glanced at the wrapped up stone etching of the strange creature and the writing.  I felt like I was being drawn to it, like an obsession.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day, and now I couldn’t resist looking at it again!  It was really amazing and horrible at the same time.  The ancient, elder god of some forgotten tribe perhaps.  The artwork was fascinating, and before I knew it I was holding it, touching the curves and the lines.  Trying to understand the impossible architecture of the city the being towered over.  Before I realized it, I had been listening to whispers for the entire time, and as I became aware of their hushed syllables and clicking tongues they disappeared.  I looked around, but there was nothing but peaceful sleep and scattered papers.

I have to get some sleep, because last night I did not.  I must have stayed up for 7 hours just looking at the thing.  Before I knew it, as I traced the exquisite lines of the relief, the sun had risen and Max was ready to be fed.  So was I.  Time flies when you are having fun.

 

Click here for the final entry.

 

My Late Uncle Clive (2)

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Click here for Part 1

 

 

I’ve lived alone since the kids have grown up, and my wife left me soon after that. We stayed together to raise the family, but she never really loved me. I don’t resent her for anything at all, so lets move along as I correct myself. I don’t live alone, not really.

 

My dog Max was a big ol’ Golden Retriever, and in his prime he was rambunctious and would bark at everything. But as time went by, he became more reserved. Some people follow the same pattern. I’m just glad he didn’t follow the terrible pattern that is senility. Max was my best friend, and he always managed to find his way up to my lap no matter how tired he was.

 

I got home, and I was greeted by the familiar thumping of his tail on the hardwood floor of the hall. I flipped lights on and kicked my shoes off and scooped all the old boxes of take-out off of the kitchen table and into the trash. I threw down the old manuscripts and papers, and took some fresher take-out from the fridge to sate my growling stomach.

 

Max found his way in with me, and sat eagerly by his feeding frenzy area. His tail was uncontrollable as I poured fresh food into his bowl. We ate together in silence as I looked at these strange documents. The night was steadily growing darker, but I forgot to turn on the lights and my eyes adjusted without my knowing. They were too fascinating to peel myself away from. There was something about the strange, completely foreign symbols. They were unlike anything I had ever seen before. Pictographs and dashes and curls all blended together into some forgotten story.
Some of the scrolls were something similar to ancient Sumerian. But they were also not quite like what Google searches spat back to me. There were flourishes here and there, and odd pictures blended in between some of the lines. The text spiraled around some of these eldritch images. One in particular caught my eye. Some strange octopus, turned upside down but with angry eyes carved right ways up in the head of it. The tentacles held different items: A cross, a strange “Y” with two dashes in the botttom, and knives. I stared at the image for longer than I thought, because Max’s whine broke my concentration. He stared at me with keen interest and tilted his head. I took another bite of my food and it was already cold! Time was passing by with unusual expediency.
The night had fallen completely by this point, and to see I had my face pressed up all the way to the papers. I didn’t even notice! I stood and flipped some lights on to continue, but then I heard Max begin to bark at the front of the house. Extremely out of character for him, the barking was persistent and growing louder. He never barked at anything anymore, not even the mailman. But something had grabbed his attention with an eerie tenacity. A loud knocking broke the silence from the front door, and Max’s barks turned to growls. No one ever visited me, not even my kids. And at this hour?
I grabbed the bat that was by the front door and looked carefully into the peephole. On my front step was that strange man from before, his brown hair was carefully combed in a modest pompadour, and he was wearing a dark coat. He looked nervously over his shoulder and reached up again to knock when I popped the door open a crack. My eye was the only thing he could see when I asked:

 

“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I… Haven’t been honest with you, sir.”
“Well anyone could have figured that out, buddy. You’re not a good liar.” He chuckled and reached into his back pocket, at which I slammed the door shut thinking he was going for a gun.
“WAIT! I’m a detective! I was getting my badge!” he shouted with frustration. I carefully peeped out the peeper, and sure enough there was a gold shield there, held up next to his sheepish grin.
I opened the door again, this time unlatching the various locks all of the way so that I could let him in.
“Well, why didn’t you just start with that yesterday? Would have been much easier for both of us. Plus I thought you were some creepy and stuck up asshole.” He laughed at that as he stepped inside, hanging up his coat.
“I get that all the time. There’s a lot to tell you.”
I cleared the manuscripts off of the table hurriedly, putting a pot of water on to boil for a french-press brew. All the while trying to think about why a cop would be interested in my late uncle.
“I’m just going to dive right into it, sir. I’ve noticed a pattern in some recent cases, as well as some cold cases going back… quite some time.” He produced a file from thin air, it seemed.
“Oh, by the way. My name is Detective Jackson, call me Trent. I’m sorry for yesterday. I’ve had to be extremely cautious. I’ve been receiving death threats for my work, which is unusual, because I thought only I knew about it. Even my boss doesn’t know I’m here right now. I’ve kind of become obsessed. But hear me out.”
“Sure. I have nothing else to do, and I haven’t had company in years. Plus I like stories!” I smiled and he gave a thin smile back.
“Women have been disappearing from this town for hundreds of years. But people always assumed they were runaways, or something along those lines. Because there was no discernible pattern or similarity. Until I took the time to do all this work. Every 4 years, a young woman vanishes. She is always between 16 – 25, and according to the reports that are complete, they have no real close friends, and their family is broken. Fathers or mothers gone or addicted to drugs, you know. Very sad situations.” He spread the thick file out on the table this whole time, laying out photographs from recent years, and ending with one from a very long time ago. The type of photograph from when folks never smiled. Her hair and eyes were as black as the underside of the clouds outside that wandered through the night.
“People always assumed that because of their home situations, and their ages, that they simply ran away, or killed themselves. No one had ever been found, and so without a body they remain a missing-persons case. Never able to warrant a full on homicide investigation. There were never any witnesses to the disappearance, it was like they just walked out their homes one day and never returned. But this is where it gets weird. All of these disappearances began when the college was founded. I’ve even found old primary documents from colonial eras about some disappearances, but those were assumed to be Indian kidnappings or the like.”
The sound of my phone timer exploded into the kitchen, and scared us both. He actually stood completely upright and drew his gun, which he now awkwardly put back into his holster. The coffee was ready.
“But I have made a map of the disappearances, and they all are within 30 miles of the college. I had been researching strange disappearances like this, and apparently there was something similar going on in Louisiana a long time ago, and it had to do with some strange cult that required human sacrifice. Throats were cut, then burned, or simply just burned alive. Really horrific stuff. But your Uncle intrigued me because some of the records from that case had strange manuscripts remarkably similar to what he was working with when I went to canvass the staff at the college. He said that he wanted to meet me, that he had something to tell me that would blow a hole in this case but… He died within 48 hours of talking to me. That is how I know something is seriously amiss here. Of course there were the death threa — ”

 

 

Max began barking again, furiously. He had barked more this night than in the last few years all together. I stood and looked for him in the front, and saw he was foaming at the mouth and barking like a wild animal. His eyes were crazed and my heart was pounding as suddenly the window shattered inward, and the room burst into flames. The curtains caught fire and the fire spread over pictures on the wall and an old couch as Max bolted from the living room and into the kitchen, barking and barking and barking. Trent stood and had his gun drawn just as another Molotov cocktail burst into the opposite end of the house. The heat filled the air as flames began to cover everything.
“Save the manuscripts!” I shouted at him, as I grabbed an old family picture of mine. From a time when we were happy. With the picture in one hand, I scooped the massive retriever under my other arm, and followed Detective Jackson as he kicked down the back door and covered the flames there with a blanket he had found. We tumbled out into the dewy grass and stood in the night, watching the flickering flames spike up high into the sky. Tires squealed out front as the culprits got away. No time for even a glance.
“Well, I guess we should go to…. well my place isn’t safe either.” He looked at me, then the ground. Within an hour we awkwardly were checking into a hotel together. He passed out in one of the twin beds, and I sat in the other, typing this. I will update soon.

 

Something is afoot.

Click here for the next part!

The Stone

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Day 1

Never kept a journal before, decided to start because my Grandfather died, the man who raised me. He died on the old farm that his Grandfather bought all those years ago. Our family broke and tended to this land for generations, growing all manner of crops. But now that Grandfather is gone, its all mine now. No problem really, its what I’ve been bred for. Plus there’s plenty of help from the farmhands. But there was one responsibility that had been hidden from me, out on the far corner of our property. The one small barn that was a fraction the size of the main ones, hardly more than a tool shed. I was never allowed in there. Not until I found his note, with the key.

Life after life, we pass this down. A duty passed from father to son.

Go to that shed, you will learn how.

I thought it was the weirdest damn thing I ever read. And I’ve read a lot for a farmer. So I thought I would go out to the shed and see what all this fuss was about. I was never really curious about it, to be honest. The building was just an old run down-looking thing with some old wood rotting away. Sitting in the middle of a field you would have to walk across to get to it. Not a pleasant walk either because that sun gets hot. But I went out anyway, taking the pupper along with me. But when we got closer to it, the old coot started acting strange. Barking like mad, that dog refused to cross the field to the hut. So I sent him on back and kept going. Dog never spooked easy, but who knows what dogs think about anyway.
But one really strange thing was the squirrels. There were 3 sitting outside of the building and facing it, un-moving. I thought they were dead because they were so still! Normal squirrels would be long gone by the time I walked up. But they just sat like they were frozen solid. I shouted and they turned and looked at me, and for a long time too. And I looked back at them real awkward-like. Then suddenly they went their way, scurrying about all normal. Strange as hell. Kind of got a chill from that but I brushed it off and opened the door.
The place was mostly empty, but there was a big ol’ rock sitting in the middle. That’s all. No grass around it either, just a dirt floor. Dark as night in there, the odd place actually was sealed up pretty tight i guess. No light came in. But… there was something about that stone. It was sleek, once I took a good look at it. Real nice to look at. Real pleasing to the eye, something about the smoothness of it. It was black. A deep black. I got this really weird feeling that came over me as I looked at it, and I started looking around, looking for how I was gonna learn how to take care of this damn thing. For what do do with it. But there was nothing else in that place. Nothing but that sweet-looking rock. Pointless thing though, no idea why they would keep it here. But it was so nice to look at! Maybe it was some sort of family shrine. It was light before I went in there, but it was dark outside somehow, I must have lost track of time. So I came back in to write this. That’s why I felt like I needed to write this down for someone, because there was something wrong with how time passed in there. Better get to bed, gotta do a literal ton of work tomorrow.

 

Day 4

 

I keep going out to keep the dirt in the shed the way it is, picking up any weeds that might have sprouted up and taking the rake to it so the dirt looks real nice around that stone. I don’t know what I am supposed to do out here, but for my Grandfather I would do anything. I felt compelled to just keep things nice like the way I found them. I mean that thing really demanded my attention. His tombstone is on the other end of the property, but there is something about this place that makes me feel closer to him, and my late father. I know they all took care of this place and kept it the way it was, so I must too. Besides, it was nice and cool in there, the air slightly drafty somehow despite it being shut up in the dark. Even the lantern I used never seemed to get warm. I cleaned the door as much as I could on the inside, and the walls too.

I polished the rock for the first time yesterday, and it was extremely satisfying to wipe the soft cloth over its smooth surface. Even bought some nice cloth to use for it, out of respect I guess. It deserves more than just an old rag. It deserves more. I made it shine, even in that dark! Every once in a while I see some squirrels trying to get in to see it, so I shoo’d them away as usual. Weird little critters. Last night I couldn’t sleep though, I kept thinking about those curves on that strange stone, that altar! There was something about polishing it that was amazingly satisfying, like scratching an itch that you cant get to without exhausting effort. I could not shake the thought that I missed a spot! I tossed and turned, could not get comfortable to save my damn life. Frustrating really. My folks always raised me to be thorough, and my Grammy always told me “if you do a job, do it right!” So naturally I got up in the moonlight, threw my boots on, and got on out there to clean it. Man its a sight to behold, this night it seemed even darker than black, like it was swallowing light around it. Thats how good I polished it. Can almost feel it thanking me. Feels warm sometimes too. THe more attention it gets the better it looks so I have to make sure to keep checking on it to keep it all nice for my family. Maybe one day my kids can take care of it too. When I was done, it was morning. So I came in and decided to just eat and stay up and get the days work done.

Day 11

 

Something weird was happening, and I just noticed it today. THeres dirt all around the shed now, a perfect circle going about 10 feet away from the structure itself. Some sort of wood rot spreading to the plants, or some science stuff. Should go away soon enough. But while it was thhere, I defcided to start just raking it again like I do to the inside, gotta keep the ground fresh! Makes it look amazing, the smooth cuts into the earth. THe patterns.s. Dream about them sometimes too. I feel like I need to rake in a certain way and I do, and it looks strange but… right somehow. But that rock is just getting nicer and nicer. I wish I could share it with the world, but somethign tells me to keep it a secret. For now. Sometimes when I am out there polishing it, I hear some squirrels outside trying to get into it, I feel like they know that theres something interesting in here. THey go away though. But I keep polishing. Sometimes I stay out there all day, and just hire another fellow to help the guys down in the fields. My responsibiliy is here now, just like my Grandfather’s was. But I never noticed him coming out here to take care of it like this. Maybe he did it at night, when we all slept. He never liked wasting time. I(‘m sure he knew this Stone needs attention, and as much as it can get. Whenever I am away from the Stone, I feel like it is calling out to me, telling me to come take care of it to make sure no dust settles on it. I have to go to it, even when I am at the store getting goods, I feel drawn back to it.

 

Day 20

Whispers.

 

 
I hear them sometimes when i am away from it, but always when I am around it. Comforting me. I feel like it is my Grandfather and those before me, but I cant quite hear them. Whenever I polish the Stone they are the loudest but only slightly above a whisper. They do not come from the Stone, but from the air it seems. From the constant draft in that place, swirling. It’s soothing to me, like I’m back sitting on the porch with Grandfather. And I do not feel that hollow pain when I am there. I cannot understand what they sa y but something tells me that I must keep cleaning. I must keep the stone pristine so that I can hear more and understand itwhat they are trying to tell me. I must. I h a v e to. There something for me to know, something that only I can discover, It needs me to take care of it it needs me to listen and be ther for it so thats why I decided to hire another full time manager to take my place. Sure it hits the budget a bit but we can take it besides I have to take care of this old thing out here in the field. Only I can. I dont know why but the whispers are not scary to me, I can hear them now tickling me, almost makes me want to giggle. Wait, The Stone. More whispers?, calling at their dependable friend. it is time again, it needs some more loving. It needs to be darker.

 

Day 25

 

So clean, so tended to. Like an impeccable zen garden. But this morning was amiss. I must ha dve left the door open, becaduse I could see it open from far off whispering to me telling me to take care of it. I look inside and among the whispers and the dirt surrounding the Stone was a circle of squirrels all looking up at the Stone like little minuature druids, identical each other all frozen stand still like statues worshipping maybe.. or perhaps the stone opened the door because it wanted more attention. It was stronger now. Good. I shoo’d them off, but with that they only backed up a bit enough for me to clean so it was enough I listened to the whispers well and they let me take care of that beautiful black smooth Stone throbbing with darkness. I felt a hum from within almost like a purr I swear thats how good I clean it. Ill keep cleaning until it purrs again because that felt so good and so satisfying like when a kitten purrs and you want to hold it closer because its s o sooothing and nice and comforting to me like it fills a hole that I never knew that I had. The hole my Gr an d father left perhaps. the dirt outside was bigger now so it took almost constant care but I dont mind I have the time I have the guts to take care of all this. The tree nearest to it died so it could make room for more dirt. Pulled it out with my truck to make room for more dirt. Sent all the men home, no t hi ng to tend to no more. Combed it over the spot real nice so it looks like nothing was ever there, nothing but the pattern, zig-zagged into squares. Hope Grandfather is proud of me they never got it to be like this to make such sounds and emit such feelings. How did I never know this art was here? doesnt matter I know its here now and I will tend to it, alone. Gotta keep it safe from others, who knows what other people would think?: what would it want if others saw it and didnt want to admire and respect it? ? why would they do that I have no clue but no risk will be taken. No one can see it but me. And the squirrels too they know they understand what the rock is. I know what it is. It is so old, and so lonely. It needs more and more care forever, and its ok I will always be here.

 

Day 46

 

It Rumbles each day now, and the dirts swell and fill the farm!! I had other workers destroy the fields and raze the trees and leave nothjing but the topsoil! Perfectly tilled like a giant zen garden Glorious in the light, the Great Rock now stands open without that stupid barn around it. No idea why they kept it there, the old fools. How could they not know that it needed to be f re e? Something weird about keeping it hid? it NEEDS to be free it yearns to be free and it needs all the room it can to grow. It needs the dirt. It rumbles each day now, echoing into the home. It wants me to get rid of the house too. No matter. I will live by it with a tent and a small mess. The whispers are constant, comforting me god I love them. Its amazingly Black, that Great Rock. Even with the sun on it there is no issue with it being darker than dark. It absorbs the light around it with ease and on a s u per sunny day the light diffuses by it making shadows leap into the sky sometimes, jabs back at the sky vibrating around it waves of shadows emanating off in such a beautfiul way. GOd theres nothing like it why did my folks keep somethign so awe-inspiring hidden? The squirrels even come in numbers around it, surrounding friends who had died in solemn reverence to their Elder. I keep polishing it and making sure that there is no dust on it. Not one grain. It ne e ds to breathe. The earth rumbles and I know it is connected to this stone, this ancient thing, and that the earth knows that I tend to this place. This paradise. An old responsibility I have, that I will always do. The rumblings grow so loud now!! Amazing. It knows I am wasting time with this journal. THe earth shakes!! Its beautiful and horrifying and humbling and I am its servant, it needs me to grow stronger.

 

The Day

 

The Ground rumbles with anxiety, I can see the trees on hills offf in the distance quivering with the reverberations from the grouund. I think I am mad, because the landscape is qu iveringd and waving like waves on an ocean sometime, I kept polishing and the rumbling gets so LOUDthat it fills the air, the birds in flew off long ago, and up and high in the sky circling, all of them, a cloud. But there was no sound of life but the life within the land here that i have nutured and cared for this primeval being I know now that It was my duty my destiny to care for and be here for the Stone of the world, the Stone that stuck from the earth that shakes every minute now of every day. I cannot stay much longer I think or I could be swallowed up byh the planet

 

The squirrels have all died, their skeletons sucked up by the dirt they died on, disappearing into the dust, i cleaned it more, but the rumbling has become so violent that I couldnot stay so crying i left, I could not become like those tiny rodents so loyal to the forgotten One here in this place.

I walked to my truck and drove it off onto another hill where I could see this event and now that I was farther away I know that I have done something.. unnatural.. and wwrong. The whispers were loud enough that I could hear that they were Words that should not be spoken, Words forbidden by time and forgotten on purpose. They were gleeful now… As I watch the earth buckle and pulse, something rising up out of the ground where my family farm once stood pulling itself out and I want to keep typing but id ont think I can anymore there’s some darkness coming from the planet, a massive pulsing earthen hell pushing its way from the crust and breaking free from the plates where it had been kept a secret. I see it’s hand, the size of a hill. I know I will die.. I’m sorry. I have ruined it all, and I was not smart enough to stop myself. The whispers are laughing now, softly in my mind. Taunting. They know that the ancient One has finally been freed, some primordial Titan that ancient magicks had sealed away or ancient tribes buried in the dirt or God or the gods themselves had pushed back down into the crust. It should have stayed forgotten.

Its free now, dear God. It sees me. Im sorr

barn

Scratching (2)

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Click HERE for Part 1

I heard something heavy on the roof, crawling above us.   I went outside to get a look at the thing, and I peered into the shadows above my house, trembling.  An overwhelming sensation of being watched came upon me, stifling my breathing.  I gazed upon nothing.  But that feeling of being quietly observed made me sick to my stomach.  There was nothing on the house… Not anymore.

I quickly went back inside.  Bolted that door tight again.  Moved the couch back in front of it.  I wasn’t going to risk going outside again, not after what I did.  Not after what happened.  There was something primal about our interaction, like a story that had been told too many times already over the course of history,  Us versus them.  I can’t explain it, but there is a hostility innate to the interaction between us.  Like homo sapiens forcing homo erectus into extinction.  Who would have thought my high school biology class would become useful to me?
After the roof scare, we decided to take all of the animals and just go into the bedroom for the night, since the doors were locked and blocked.  My wife took a pill to help her get some rest since she is a schoolteacher, and she can’t miss work since tests are coming up for the kiddos.  I stayed awake, clutching my Mossberg.  I felt pretty confident that all of the barriers that I made in the shed should keep the creatures in the ground.  But as I sat there in the darkness, I found myself thinking of their eyes, glittering in the dark looking up at me.
None of the descriptions you folks suggested really looked like what I saw.  The rake’s hands are much too big for this.  These things had more… dexterity.  Nimble fingers.  And the eyes were not dark, at least not with a light shining at them.  Seems more like some forgotten link between us and the primordial soup.
My thoughts were a whirlwind as sleeplessness began to catch up to me in a wild delirium.  The faintest brush of a wind in the bushes made my heart flutter, and my muscles tense.  And that FEELING!  The one of being watched.  Even the walls of my home seemingly could not keep those prying humanoid eyes from whispering into my mind.  The darkness itself seemed to hold them.  The shadowy corner, black in the room.  For all I could tell, there was something crouching in my room now —
Scratching began anew.

 

The location made me feel a new fear.  The walls!! The WALLS!! I have heard rats in walls before in apartments I lived in during my youth.  Light scratches and tiny scuttles.  This, was completely different.  It must be Them.  Scraaaaaaatch scratch. Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch.  Long, subtle scratches.  Like dragging long nailed fingers lightly over drywall.  I could picture the creature, skinny enough to slip into the frame of my home, grey skin pallid in the dusty darkness.  I loaded my shotgun with buckshot.  There was no question in my mind now, that there was something there.  And it was the thing that I saw.  There are no coincidences on a moonless night like that one.  There were no cute mice in my wall.  I knew.  I could not bring myself to pump shells into the walls, lest it let the creature spill into the bedroom.  Luckily my wife was out cold, but the dog was whining and growling again — like before.  I sat on the edge of my bed, feet hanging over the side to the ground, cradling my shotgun at the origins of the hellish sounds.
When the scratching first stopped, I went out into the living room to see the other side of the wall, to make sure it was within the thin frame and it hadn’t gotten into the home itself.  Surely, it was where I suspected.  But this gave me more scares.  The angles that strange body would have to twist into to get to where it is now are wholly unnatural.  It took all my strength left to not vomit, thinking of the disgusting being covered in dirt that had lived so close to me for so long.  And then I noticed that the cat had come out with me, and was at the window looking out intently at something.  I slowly walked over and I swear I caught a glimpse of a face peeking into my home.  A face not devoid of reasoning.  A face looking for something, someone.  Me.  As I got closer it was nothing but reflections and shadows…
I waited all night for something more.  But the scratching would stop, I would begin to drift off to sleep and then they would begin anew.  Toying with me.  As if it could sense my sleepiness and was playing with my mind.  Psychological warfare.  It is now almost 8 am, and the scratching has been gone since just before the sun rose.  They must be nocturnal.

I sure hope so.
I am going to take a quick nap, then go out into the shed.
If my hands will stop shaking.

 

Click HERE for Part 3