Once

I set out on a trip all by myself.

I didn’t have a map or a ticket I didn’t know where I was going.

But I went alone.

And I was alone.

For awhile.

Towards the end of the trip I heard someone coming towards me-

slowly.

And then I heard someone breathing

just around the corner from where I was was walking

all alone.

And then I stopped.

” Someone there? “

I asked.

No one answered.

” Hey!  Is someone there? ” I called a little louder.

The breathing stopped and the footsteps came towards me-

from around the corner and I closed my eyes tight and put one foot in front of the other and then I flew towards the breathing and the footsteps and the voices that cried out:

” What the hell was that? ” came the voice from behind me and then below me as I took to the darkness above ” What the Hell was that! “

Some things you just can’t make up.

Like this one:

It’s a cemetery called Hope.

a.m.m.

 

photo from:::Grave Experience

taken by:: Penny

Do you know what I found scary about this upcoming Youtube Clip?

It was written for kids.

                    

 

” What are you looking at Jingle? “  Milo Hungerford asked his wife.

Jingle was standing in front of their bathroom mirror with her hairbrush in her hand and she turned slowly towards him and said, ” I don’t know. “

He came up behind her and stared into glass and shook his head.

” That’s not right Jingle. “

She put her hand to her face and looked into the mirror again and when she turned back towards Milo she started to cry. ” Milo what’s happening to me? “

Milo  pulled Jingle to his chest and turned her away from the looking glass.

” Is it still there Milo? “

Milo held Jingle tighter and said, ” yes. “

” The one in the foyer- let’s try that one too. “

” Jingle- it won’t…” he started to say and then when he saw the look on her face he nodded. “okay, we’ll try that one too.”

Milo held his wife’s hand and they walked down the dark halls to the entrance to their home and together they looked into the mirror there and Jingle burst into tears and grabbed her face.

” Oh Milo- oh Milo what’s happening to me? ” she cried.

Milo looked into the mirror and there in the glass he saw his wife holding her hairbrush, her dark hair framing her face- all alone except for the darkness that was their home and he turned her gently towards him and said,

” I don’t know how it happened Jingle…but I think you’re alive. “

Amlet Kerr is a prisoner on a ship that is sailing along side the stars and not under them.

She is all alone- the last of her race in the entire Universe and shortly after the ship Amlet Kerr is sailing on docks Amlet Kerr who is now all alone in the Universe will be taken into a room and her chest will be cracked open and her heart and lungs and stomach will be removed and the top of her skull will be taken off and Amlet Kerr will be no more.

However, her impending death brings no satisfaction to anyone on the Ship- not even to the Captain of the  War Ship  because Amlet, a short dark woman with half of her face burned to the bone and her hair melted away by the chemical fire his ship let loose on Amlet’s world, the man whose own Mother created the living acid that acts- as the people on Amlet’s word would have learned had they not all been burned alive- just like an army of fire ants.

If you could call the state Amlet Kerr is now in ‘living.’

So the Captain glares at her and his crew avoids her because as far as they’re concerned Amlet Kerr who is still breathing and who still on occasions cries a little is already a corpse.

Knowing Amlet is pointless.

In their mind’s Amlet is as good as dead.

Only one thing separates her from the stacks of corpses they’re bringing back to their home for study and from the other corpses that are now turning to mold and dust on the charred planet that used to be Amlet’s home.

So when they dock Amlet will be carved up and put on slides and then the Scienctists on their world intend to find out what that difference is.

But not everyone on the ship is as practical as the Captain and his Crew.

The Science Officer on the Ship has been trying, since they found Amlet to overturn her death sentence so that he could at least study this woman, with only half of her face left on her skull and her ruined eye sunk back into her skull who lives and stares down into her hands folded in her lap.

She will not talk, but the Science Officer knows that doesn’t mean she’s not thinking.

And if she’s thinking maybe she knows why she lives and everyone else on her world as on the others they have visted is dead.

So everyday the Science Officer takes Amlet Kerr from her cell (tomb) as he thinks of it for short walks on the ship.

He takes her to the Observation Deck, to the Collectors Gardens, to the Labs and to the cargo hold where she spends many many hours going over the artificats they have collected.

And one day Amlet turns her head and says with a smile ” You’ve come all this way to rob graves? “

The  Science Officer steps back and then he realizes Amlet isn’t really smiling. Her head is turned and her teeth are exposed on the fleshless right hand side of her face. ” These are artifacts we found when we started our underground missions.” He tells Amlet.

” Those. ” Amlet says ” are not artifacts…those are coffins.”

” Artifacts. “

Amlet shrugs and she reaches out to touch one of the artifacts. She lays her hand on the dirty rotten pine box and with a little push her hand goes through the wood.

She holds her hand up to the light and stares at it for a very long time.

The Science Officer clears his throat and when he asks her name she tells him.

And when he starts to tell her what his name is she says, ” I don’t care what your name is. “

She turns around and with her one good eye she looks into both of his and says ” It doesn’t matter what your name is. Not to me.”

After that day the Science Officer leaves Amlet alone.

He doesn’t like the way she has taken to watching him and the crew members who stop by to make sure Amlet’s uneaten food is taken away and they wonder - all of them why she is alive.

And along with that they wonder if it matters if she’s going to die why don’t they just kill her now?

Because Amlet Kerr’s face is no longer exposed to the bone and her hair is beginning to grow back and she has taken to watching them even when they sleep.

None of them  are sure how she’s doing it…they just know because sometimes when they go by her Cell she will look up at them and say as they pass, ” I heard you dream last night. “

And after those little encounters the Crew and her Captain sleep fully armed and they slept with their lights on.

On the last day, as the Ship was docking,  Amlet Kerr was sitting in her Cell waiting to meet her Death in a lab billions of miles away from her ruined world the Science Officer opens the Cell door and he walks up to where Amlet is sitting and he asks, ” Why is this happening. “

Amlet looks up and touches her healed face and pushes loose strangs of her long dark hair behind her ears and says, ” It shouldn’t be. I’m a long way from home you know.” Amlet looks confused and says, ” A window. Can I see outside? “

He takes her out and as they make their way to the Observation Deck the Science Officer asks, “  First. Where were you from? “

He stops in front of what Amlet thinks is a window and he touches the screen and there is Amlet’s world-  burned and left in ruins with nothing on it now except for the Chemical Fire that will crawl all over until it consumes it’s way to the core of the planet.

She steps back and when she looks at him she is sad. ” Life there was always so fragile and it doesn’t last for long. This was over kill, trust me. They were near the end of it when you came. “

” They? ” he echoes.

” We. ” she says in a whisper and then she touches the place where she thinks she was from and when she turns back her face is a mask. ” It’s gone, the mountains where I came from are all gone.”

” You were from here… is that right” he points but Amlet’s hand is in the way and she won’t look at him and the Science Officer turns away and she stands there looking into the darkness that used to be her world- all alone.

The walk to the Observation Decks is short and silent and when they reach it he turns to Amlet and says this is my home…”

He points up towards the glass ceiling and Amlet can see a dark grey world covered with moutains and Oceans of ice…and circling the planet…

” You’re kidding me. ” she says with a laugh. ” Oh, you have to be kidding me! “

” Our world is roughly the same size as yours. Our Sun is further away of course and our Moons one or both are always present in our sky. Not like Earth of course. You only had one moon of course and it went through phases, did it not? “

Amlet doesn’t answer- she has questions of her own.

” Your Moons don’t go through Phases, they are full then? All of the time? “

” Yes. “

And Amlet Kerr, the last Human Being Alive, the only Werewolf that ever truly existed anywhere in the Universe  turned her face to the silver light shining down on the both of them

and Changed.

Once I saw a man wearing an expensive business suit and a man in clothes that were torn and dirty - digging a hole together next to the railroad tracks.

I couldn’t imagine under what circumstances these two could ever have met, talked and decided one morning to go out with shovels and start to dig as trains roared and hissed by them, as crows lined the barbed wire topped fence that they climbed-

just so that they could up digging side by side

next to the railroad tracks early one Monday Morning.

When I drove by eight hours later the men were gone and the shovel was resting right there next to the fence.

It was there two days later when I drove by and it was still there a week later and I started to wonder by the third week

about the man in the suit and the homeless man digging side by side next to the railroad tracks.

I went out one Sunday just after sunrise and stood next to the shovel, and then I actually touched the shovel and I wondered about those two men.

And I took the shovel in my hands and laughed and then I put it back and scaled the fence and dropped to the other side and when I did there was a man standing there.

He asked me what I was doing and I told him about the Well Dressed Man and the Not So Well Dressed Man digging through all that rock and hard packed earth.

” Crazy ” said the man.

” No kidding.” I agreed.

” So what do you suppose they were digging for? “

I laughed some more just to show that it didn’t really matter to me.

And then I turned back to the fence and grabbed at it and said, ” We’ll need another shovel “

Photograph(s) copyright Shaun O’Boyle

 

It was me and two of my friends and we were going into a room that’s hidden behind a false wall.

We were back there because I promised to show them a workroom I found after an earthquake hit Seattle in 2001 and after going into it that one time I never went back into it again.

Until today.

We took a flashlight and forced the door open and standing as close together as we could inside of that small doorway we looked inside.

It was the same as when I looked into it just over seven years ago- the same coffee cup was still on the little shelf right by the door-

the same cup in the same place where someone left it in the 1970’s.

And then I said, ” there’s a light switch here” …and I felt along the door frame and my friend reached over my shoulder and hit the switch and nothing happened.

” No here.” I said.

I hit the switch and a row of lights went on for few seconds and then went off and the little room was dark and my other friend said, ” Come on let’s go.”

I looked to where my friend was shining his light on the light switch.

From the pale stream of light from his flashlight you could see where the wires from the light switch had been corroded and completely pulled out of the wall.

And then the lights went out.

We backed up and out of the room and then my friend pulled the door shut and kicked it back into it’s frame. He tried to open it and it was jammed shut and my other friend said.

” We did NOT see that.”

But as we left the building the feeling I had the feeling that maybe we had let something out…and then tonight I saw this news article:

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption — except there are no volcanoes in the area.

Scientists don’t know exactly what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of molten rock rumbling away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said Robert Dziak, a geophysicist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University.

FULL STORY HERE

I don’t know why this bothers me…Seattle is a long ways from central Oregon…but it does.

A lot.

by anita marie moscoso

With a name like Mara Petgrave nothing you can ever do or say will ever shock or scare people. No one will ever expect you to wear anything else besides black and if every one of your six husbands died shortly after you were married and you walked into a big inheritance every single time-

No one would notice.

If your name was Mara Petgrave and you lived down the street from a family who just happened to mention one day that with your dark looks and dark eyes you could be mistaken for one of those Sideshow women that danced with snakes you might be moved to take up an Ax and dish out about 81 whacks and you may have gone for 40 more on top that.

But with a name like Mara Petgrave you might think that watching someone else dance at the end of a rope for what you had done was funny.

With a name like Mara Petgrave no one would ask why it was that you never seemed to age and why they never saw you laugh or cough or sneeze.

Or blink.

If your name was Mara Petgrave you could work with the dead in a Funeral Home and no one would ask why it was that on your first day of work you stood over a very messy corpse and then looked up and said, ” so, where’s a good place to grab some lunch? “

If your name was Mara Petgrave you might get bored with doing all these dark deeds and not once…. even for a minute get any sort of recognition for being the most Macabre Danseur in the field.

All because of that name of yours.

So if your name was Mara Petgrave you might change your name to say

….Anita Marie Moscoso

from the Vaults

  

Never get lost in the woods behind Riversleigh Manor- it wasn’t exactly a warning; it was more like a statement.

Never get lost behind the woods of Riversleigh Manor.

Juniper Pringle had heard those words her entire life- her Mother would say them to Juniper and her sisters before they left for school in the morning, her Father would say the same words when they went out to play in the evenings and Juniper Pringle would say them one day to her own kids.

One day as Juniper said them to her son Tennyson she really heard them and Tenny really listened and he asked, ” Why? “

And those words that rolled so easily from the tongue to the ear finally came together and Juniper said, ” The trees are alive. “

Tenny Pringle nodded as if what his Mother had just told him made all the sense in the world and as Tenny Pringle walked out of his Mother’s house and into the wood behind Riversleigh she knew that was the last she’d ever see of her son.

And she was right.

Juniper Pringle drove out to View Ridge a month after her son disappeared.

The Ridge is where Juniper went to a Mom and Pop Country store that still sold Soda Pop in glass bottles and that’s where she bought matches and gasoline- two can of gasoline to be exact.

Mrs. Country Store wished her a nice day and Juniper turned around and smiled and when Mr Country store saw that woman’s face he almost reached down for the gun he kept under his cash register and that awful feeling that woman gave him that afternoon never really left his bones.

 

All right, Juniper told herself as she walked away from an almost certain death  that morning- it wasn’t like people hadn’t been warning each other for years about the Woods.

It wasn’t like nothing bad had ever happened back they’re before; it wasn’t like someone from Bindweed walking into the woods and not walking out was something that happened ” Once Upon a time “

It happened all of the time…over and over again.

It’s just that sometimes- and it was simple…some  people just never learned.

Like the people right here in Bindweed-

They all knew how bad those Woods could be and what did they do?

Did they try to figure out why the trees were bad or what the woods wanted or exactly why they put up with those trees taking them one by one whenever they felt like it?

No.

Not once-

Juniper went into the woods and came out the other side…on the Bindweed side and when she came to the outskirts of her own home town she took her matches and her ax and her cans full of gasoline out of the back of her Jeep.

Later she wondered- as the trees in Bindweed lit up like torches- if the flames would spread into the Woods Behind Riversleigh-

She wondered at last.

 

 

Once I was sitting on a beach late at night when a man walked by me and said, “It’s  dark down there ” and as he walked away from me I realized he had been looking to his left as he spoke…and from his left I thought I heard an answer

only

nobody was to his left …

except for the Ocean.

All these years later I’m glad for one thing…that I never got a good look at his face.

Strange things happen at Sea…This true story is one of them.

Crewman’s disappearance during rescue in Alaska unexplained

Story Updated: Mar 29, 2008 at 10:02 AM PDT

By JEANNETTE J. LEE, Associated Press Writer

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - As the fishing vessel Alaska Ranger sank to the bottom of the Bering Sea, crewman Byron Carrillo and 1st Assistant Engineer James Madruga struggled to stay afloat in the rough and frigid waves.

With Carrillo drifting into hypothermic shock after nearly five hours, the arrival of a Coast Guard rescue helicopter was a blessing, Madruga said Friday. He told the rescue swimmer to “take Byron first” and watched the panicked crewman being loaded into a dangling basket.

But when he reached the helicopter himself, Carrillo was nowhere to be seen…

 ( full story HERE )

Hang Man’s tree

Sometimes on  my way to Whopperville ( that’s what I say when I’m working on a story…I’m heading out to Whopperville ) I’ve run across some true stories that haunt me-  they give me nightmares or creep me out for days.

At the moment I’m working on a story about a Hanging Tree and in my research I found out that the slang name for these trees were ” Dancing Trees “

I’ll let that visual sort of sink in there.

At first blush some of my friends with more refined literary tastes thought I was making a poetic gesture when I floated the first draft for this story out to them.

You can stop laughing now.

The image that came to my mind about Dancing Trees came to me one night and woke me from a dead sleep.

And there was nothing poetic about it.

I saw a group of people sitting under a large shady tree on a hot day  having a picnic. They were dressed in their best summer clothes and as they laughed softly and admired the beauty around them I knew they are blissfully ignorant to the fact that

…many years ago someone danced…

for their lives

right above t their heads

And when I looked up I could see…

they still were.

 

I found this article at BBC

It’s about a Hang Man’s Tree

That’s located in…

  Kings Mills, Wrexham Wales

Let The Danse Begin…

Last updated: 31 December 2007

Bernie Griffiths shares her experiences and spooky encounters at a local beauty spot known as ‘Biniki’ at Kings Mills, Wrexham, and the Hang Man’s tree.

 There is a mill by the river but to get to the really spooky part you have to walk under a bridge. It belongs to the National Trust. Anyway, by the bridge in Biniki there is a tree where events have occurred for centuries.

We normally go there during the summer months and sit on the side by what is called Hang Man’s tree for obvious reasons. There has always been a presence there and I can sense paranormal activity quite easily. That’s why everyone comes with me.

This one night though it got very scary indeed, so much so I told everybody to get up and make for the road. My niece, myself and my husband got across the bridge in time but as we turned to scream for the others they had been blocked off with what can only be described as a distorted shape of mist. It was just floating there and when they moved, it moved.

We screamed for them to run but it followed. They ran through the river but it didn’t cross. As we ran nearly a mile to get out of there it was on the other side of the river along side of us every inch of the way back to the mill where it stayed in the woods. Quite an experience.

I spoke to someone many weeks after that and I asked them when they were younger did they ever experience anything there. They described the same shape even though I had not mentioned it. We have been back there and it has happened a few more times at the same time around about 2.25am.

We have only ever managed to stay there once through the night. This is only one area that has activity. Coming back from there another night we couldn’t stay because it was getting a bit uneasy there. We started to walk back though and got out safe and sound.

However as we passed through the gates on the opposite side of the old mill me and my brother saw a man walking straight at us, we moved apart so he could pass between us. We said ‘hello’ to him but he ignored us.

Anyway we turned to make sure my husband was OK because he was straggling behind. As we turned the man just walked straight through him. I looked at my brother and he looked at me. My husband was oblivious to it all and said he saw no-one there. All I can say is there are many discssions about Biniki but you have to be there at the right time and the spirits seem to love being there when I am. 

King’s Mill Wrexham, Wales

LINK

LINK

Iowa county board gives initial OK for ghost hunters to investigate asylum built in 1855

By Associated Press

 

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - County officials have given their informal OK for ghost hunters to check out a one-time insane asylum to see if any spirits are lurking about.

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors took the initial action on the request from the Johnson County Historical Society, which gives tours of the 153-year-old building.

Brandon Cochran, museum operations assistant for the historical society, said there have never been reports of ghosts or bizarre happenings at the building and that bringing in a paranormal team is “kind of taking the pre-emptive approach.

He wants an Iowa-based paranormal investigative team to come in for one night. Cochran said he hopes they don’t find any paranormal activity and the investigation can put to rest any speculation.

A four-person Carroll Area Paranormal Team will use thermal imaging equipment and voice recording systems, Cochran said.

A date for an investigation wasn’t set and an agreement will have to be drafted releasing the county of any liability before the supervisors formally approve the request, Cochran said.

The remaining wing was built in 1855 and housed mentally ill patients who were deemed insane. It was a self-sufficient 160-acre site with residents growing corn, potatoes, wheat, hay and tobacco.

The building is now called Chatham Oaks, and houses people with physical and mental disabilities. Chatham Oaks officials said there wouldn’t be a problem with the paranormal team coming in as long as it didn’t disturb residents, said county facilities director Dave Kempf.

Just above the railroad tracks that lead into the town of Mount Prefontaine is a Gardener’s Shed.

The windows are caked with dried mud and pine needles and above the door of the Gardener’s Shed, which is not locked, is a sign that reads:

“Mr. Gooseberry’s Gardening Shed.”

That’s all the warning you’ll get to stay away.

Arnella Day, Julia Barnwell and Cynthia Stevens all rode the commuter train that ran through Mount Prefontaine.

They’d sit in the passenger car and drink their flavored Lattes and “Ooh” and “Ahhh” over each other’s shoes, and laugh way too loud at each other’s jokes, and of course they’d try to comment on the passing scenery, so that it would at least appear they cared about what went on outside of their world.

Then one day Cynthia pointed out the little green and white Shed that was built on the stone outcrop above the tracks.

She pointed the shed out because it occurred to her that you could only say so much about trees, and shoes, and makeup, and tell stories about the bottomless lake that the train crossed over, before people just tuned you out altogether, just so that they didn’t have to hear another one of your dull stories.

If there was anything Cynthia really hated it was being ignored.

So instead of talking about the Devilbit Lake, she decided to say something about the little shed and when she opened her mouth and spoke, she was as surprised as anyone else at what came out.

What she said was this: “I wonder if there are any dead bodies buried in there?” Cynthia looked up and around, and then she realized those words really did come out of her mouth, and she took a long drink of coffee to keep herself from saying anything more.

“I guess,” Arnella said, “you can’t really find any live ones buried there, right?”

Julia felt like she was standing next to herself, and watching as that someone who looked like her, and sounded like her said, “I guess there’s only one way to find out - I guess we should come back and see for ourselves.”

So they did.

The three of them met at the “Prefontaine Park and Ride” early the next Saturday morning, and they were all dressed in the newest word in day hike gear from “Lady Olympus Sportswear” at the Bellmark Mall, and each one of them had little backpacks that had those special pockets for your cell phones.

Arnella brought the camera and some Granola snacks and little bottles of water, which was good, because all the other two remembered to bring was their make-up and sunscreen.

That’s how their day started - it was bright and sunny and all was right with the world. They chatted about shoes, about what shows were on TV the night before, and how ugly the new guy in the accounting department was.

So, as the three women made their way up the trail, none of them really noticed how quiet it was all around them. There wasn’t a sound, not a bug, not a bird, you couldn’t even hear the cars drive by from the road that ran right in front of the trailhead.

It only took them twenty minutes to reach the hill and when they got up there, they looked down at the tracks their train passed over every single day, and they stood there and wondered if Devilbit Lake was really bottomless, and then they turned around and read the sign above the door that said:

“Mr. Gooseberry’s Gardening Shed.”

Arnella slowed down and then she nearly stopped walking and she asked her friends, “Why do you suppose there’s a Gardener’s Shed up here? I mean, look around, there isn’t a house to have a garden for - so what’s the deal with a Gardener’s Shed?”

Julia and Cynthia stopped at the door and turned back as Arnella kicked at the ground. “See, it’s all rock. You can’t plant anything up here.”

The three of them still didn’t notice the silence, or the cold that was creeping out from under the Shed’s door, and they only paused for a moment before Julia reached out and pushed the door open.

The smell that rushed out the door wasn’t bitter and dusty and old, it didn’t smell like earth or fertilizer.

All three of the women thought they could smell wet leaves and somewhere in there they picked up the faint scent of rubbing alcohol and antiseptics.

They could have turned back and headed down the trail, and after a short drive, they could have been at “The Floral Hills Mall”, drinking iced coffees.

But they didn’t.

They went in.

The Shed was humid and cold, and everything on the shelves, and leaning against the wall, was covered with a dark mold that looked spongy and soft.

Arnella went in first, and she started looking at the little jars on the shelves that lined the east wall and at the ones that were arranged neatly on the workbench - she couldn’t tell what kinds of plants and powders were inside dusty containers, but she understood what the little symbols drawn in ink on the labels meant.

“These are all poisons…what the Hell kind of Garden Shed is this?” She thought she was saying out loud: “There’s enough poison here to kill an entire city.”

Cynthia was looking at the shovels that were leaning in the corner of the Shed and she was thinking: “I wonder how it would feel to actually dig a grave.”

And Julia, who was standing next to Cynthia, wanted more then anything to reach for the pickaxe that was leaning against the shovel. She could actually feel how right it would be if she picked that axe up and swung.

Arnella felt the Shed get smaller and the air became more acrid and her skin started to crawl all over her muscles and bones and she left her camera, her backpack and her friends in that Shed.

They found her around the back of the Shed leaning over a ruined fence, vomiting onto the hard rocky ground.

“Why did we come up here?” Arnella asked her friends, “We don’t do hikes, we don’t camp, the closest we get to nature is the flower kiosks at the Mall. So why are we here?”

“It just seemed like the right thing to do today,” Julia said.

“Whatever, I’m going back in to get my stuff and then I’m leaving.”

Arnella went back into the Shed and as she crossed the threshold, she saw, just as clearly as she could see that shelf full of poisons, Julia and Cynthia wanting and planning the trip to this Shed. She could see the way they enjoyed their little stroll up here and she thought she could hear them out there laughing, right next to the place she had just vomited.

“They really hate me,” she said into the cold acrid darkness, and the darkness seemed to agree and the air seemed to warm just a little.

She went to the workbench and picked up her camera and put it inside of her backpack and when she turned around…

The shovel and the pickaxe were gone, they weren’t there, and she was sure that when she ran out, they were right there in the corner.

Arnella could see, clear as a day, the way Julia and Cynthia were drooling over them when they let her run out of the Shed sicker than a dog, all by herself.

And then, the image of her friends laughing at her turned to another image of them digging a hole just before the trail head, and Arnella was sure one thing.

She wasn’t going to be standing there with them, she wasn’t going to be digging or snickering - in fact, she was sure she wasn’t even going to be doing any breathing.

“Damn them…” she hissed into the warming darkness, “damn them both to Hell…”

Arnella went back to the work bench, unzipped her backpack and when she was done, she opened the Shed door with a bang, and called out: “Let’s go…”

Then, as she slammed the door after herself, the moldy dust fell away from the window by the shelf full of glass jars and there in the new light, leaning against the shelf, was a shovel, and a pickaxe, and a smooth clear round spot on the workbench where a jar used to be.

THE END

 

 Last night I went to a place

where people were learning to dance.

Some people were doing better then others- they moved in perfect time to music I couldn’t hear.

Their faces were set in hard grim lines appeared that appeared  with each perfect step they took.

And a few others were not dancing as well.

 They stumbled over the steps, they lost their places, but they tried to work their way back into the steps and I think it’s because at times they couldn’t hear the song they were supposed to be dancing too.

There was  person standing next to me said- a person whose face and voice I didn’t need to see or hear to recognize- and this person said ” that woman you know is having a hard time with this. “

” Why is she having a hard time? ” I asked.

” Some people just learn this faster then others.”

We watched the dancers who were moving to music we couldn’t hear and I said, ” What happens when they don’t learn as fast as others? “

The person standing next to me pointed to the woman and few others  and said, ” we mark them- it helps. ”

There were three white lines over their chests now.

And it did help.

Now they moved back and forth in perfect time with those line etched onto their black clothes over their hearts and with each step they took I think the music got just a little louder.

” I know this Dance. ” I said ” I know this danse! “

And then I yelled, ” I know this dance and you have to stop! Can you hear me? You have to stop.”

I saw the woman I know and a few others fall into perfect step with the others and they couldn’t hear me- even though I was screaming.

In that place where I saw people learning to dance I don’t think they can really hear anything.

Not anymore.

 

Towns and Cities can disappear and die just like people. 

Some small towns disappear because the main highway is moved and that brings on death just as surely as if you sever an artery in you arm or leg or neck.

And some small towns disappear from the world because they want to.

Just like people.

First Down Turn disappeared from road signs and then it disappeared from road maps.

At some point most of the phone lines that fed into Down Turn fell against trees and into ditches with the storms that always hit the Olympics during the Winter and Spring. When the last set of lines came down in 1979 no one from the outside world noticed because by then Down Turn had all but disappeared from the rest of the world.

You’d think that the people living in Down Turn must have planned their escape from the world, that it must have taken them years to figure out how to erase the tracks they left as they moved in and out of Down Turn when they went to work or for drives or on vacations.

Nothing that grand happened in Down Turn.

The town just faded away bit by bit- just like a photograph encased in a frame with a dusty sheet of glass hanging on a wall that takes the sun for hours at a time.

If you lived in Down Turn you wouldn’t have noticed that you were cut off from the rest of the Universe or the main highway which was less then three miles away, after awhile you couldn’t hear the trucks or cars going by when the traffic was heavy anymore.

Nobody noticed.

Emalee Cupid was just like her neighbors and friends and co-workers. She was just like the people who came into the town’s library looking for ’stories’.

She didn’t question why in over 20 years no children had been born or why no one ever changed their hairstyle or clothing style or had even bought a new car.

Emalee Cupid lived along and worked alone and now that the rest of life seemed to mirror the life she had resigned herself too all she felt was…

calm.

One day, it was probably sometime during the start of the week Emalee was fixing the spine on a Stephen King book and she wondered why no one seemed to be writing new books anymore.

The thought was a whisper but it was loud enough to make her wince and that’s when she turned the book in her hands over and saw that the title which should have read

” Salem’s Lot ” now read ” Alems Ot”

” That’s not right. ” she whispered to herself and she slid her thumb over the title thinking there MUST have been something covering the letters.

But there was nothing there- unless you counted the blank spot where the ” S ” and the ” L ” should have been.

Emalee looked around the library hoping that no one else was there to see her mistake.

How on Earth could she have not noticed that the cover of a book that she- the town librarian- had received to stock herself when it first came out had a huge problem like a type error on it’s cover?

She dreaded what she knew she had to do next.

She opened the book and as she flipped from page to page she saw that here and there the page numbers were missing, that words were misspelled and that in some places even the pen and ink pictures that were under the Chapter numbers were only partially visible.

Emalee went to the door and locked it and in a panic she went from book to book, magazine to magazine and found the same exact problem.

So just after lunch Emalee closed the Library and decided she had better talk to somebody- anybody about this awful thing she had let happen in her own library.

For years she must have been buying defective books with the towns money.

There was no hiding this- she had better talk to the person who hired her and that was the Mayor.

Down Turn’s Mayor was Mr Ferndale- the Mayor also owned the little General Store with the post office in the back and he also owned the garage and gas station just across the street.

His Offices were above the Gas Station and that’s where he was the day Emalee Cupid came in with her four defective books and two atlases with entire countries missing from the colored plates inside.

Mayor Ferndale was on the phone and he smiled as he motioned to Emalee to wait.

It didn’t seem right to Emalee to watch him so she went to the window and that’s when she saw the stop sign on the corner.

It was red- like it should be- only the words STOP were…

” What can I do for you Miss Cupid? ” the Mayor asked.

Emalee pointed out the window and found the words she need were …gone.

” Yes. They’ve been missing for a few days now, but really, I think we all know what to do at a four way corner, don’t you? Besides, it’s not like there’s a lot of traffic out there nowadays.”

Emalee walked to his desk and put the books down. ” The words. ” she whispered ” The words are missing. “

” Yes, it’s been happening all over the place. Mrs Carlyle at the Pharmacy is having quite a time adjusting but she’ll make do.”

” This isn’t right. ” she told Mayor Ferndale, you can’t just make do when words start to disappear.”

” Some of us don’t have a problem with it Miss Cupid. Some of us don’t like the clutter that’s made it’s way into our town and into our lives. And words- they’re nasty beasts. Those little monsters suck the very air out of your lungs before you have a chance to scream ” no “ and the racket they make as they tunnel their way into your brain.

It’s deafening. Deafening and messy.

 Really Miss Cupid- think about it, don’t things seem much more quiet  and orderly now?”

” No it isn’t.” Emalee went to his desk and snatched the books up and held them to her chest.Don’t you get it Mr. Ferndale? Those words aren’t clutter, they’re ideas, they’re dreams, they’re voices and if you take them away.”

” What. ” Mayor Fernadale asked

Emalee turned her full attention to the Mayor, she looked him straight in the eyes and when she did she saw the faintest outline of the bookshelf he was sitting in front of looking back at her.

” You take us away too.” she said to the faint outline of Mayor Ferndale.

” It’s for the best Emalee Cupid. You’ll see, it’s all for the best.”

A little Valentine from my Vaults.

Stay Tuned

New Stories are on their way!

“ My Ex-Wife took everything from me ” Corrin Ails said to no one in particular as he waited in line for the doors to the Village Place Mall to open.

“She took my home and my record collection and she even took my old photo album. 

All that I had in there were pictures of me with my pets and dressed up at Halloween and I think there was one of me a holding a Brady Bunch lunchbox when I was 9 . Oh, and there were about four pictures of me on my first bike.

She told me I was an ugly kid. So what did she want with my childhood pictures?” 

The woman standing in front of Corrin turned around and told him “ I cut my wedding dress up and used it to scrub the kitchen floor the day I found out my ex-husband was getting remarried. I made that dress. Then I mailed it to his new wife. She slapped me with a restraining order and now I have to take anger managment classes. People do weird things when the realize a relationship is truly over.”

” She burned that album on my front lawn ” Corrin Ails went on “then the fire spread and burned my house down and she even killed me dog with rat poison. She used him to start the fire.”

” No way. ” the man standing in back of Corrin said.

” ‘fraid so- three fire fighters died trying to put that thing out. “

” I heard about that, ” the woman said  have they caught her yet? “

” No. “

” I’d like to catch her ” the Man in front of Corrin said, ” I’d like to catch her in the headlights of my car if you get what I mean.”

The Woman in front of Corrin said ” she sounds like a bad woman.”

“ Her family used to call her Tiny Tina Dahl…just like that. It was her nickname…and no one seemed to care that it sounded like some freaky Special Edition collector’s toy you get for buying something really big and expensive. Tiny Tina Dahl…she’s so sweet and great with poisons and fire. Get your free Tiny Tina Dahl with your next purchase.”

There was a chorus of snickers and Corrin went on. ” Tiny Tina Dahl would take anything she could get her hands on…your house, your clothes, your money the Twinkies you keep hidden in your desk drawer at work for munchie attacks.”

” Wow, she wasn’t bad she was just evil. ” someone further down the line said.

” Yeah ” Corrin said “ she was pretty good at taking things…she even stole my heart and  she left me with nothing.”

” You seem like a nice enough guy ” the Woman said ” you’ll find someone new. You certainly won’t find anybody WORSE.”

Corrin reached for the top button on his shirt and said as faint as a dieing man’s last breath, ” You don’t get it  she stole my heart and left with me nothing “

A.C.S

otherwise known as

Alien Crime Syndicate.

My Collection of The Macabre:

Visit

The

Anatomical Museums

( click the pic)

a Macabre ‘toon

When Your Done With The Toon

visit:

Blogg Bits

by

Rob Manuel

 

amm

a strange history of Rainbow Beach

Pt 5

from the

Soul Food Cafe Project

Enchanteur Tour

 There’s hand painted tin sign hanging behind the Soda Fountain at Nixie’s in Rainbow Beach.

It says

! Drink Nixie’s Root Beer !

“soothing to the nerves, vitalizing to the blood, and refreshing to the brain”

and in fine print under that:

Nixie’s….Everything you need for Health’s Sake

That’s where people from The Bow went when something ailed them…and somethings never change.

Not matter how somethings may appear.

 The night Alona Darelyn walked into Rainbow Beach she headed straight for Nixie’s.

She didn’t slow down to look at the house she grew up in, she didn’t wonder where everyone was. 

Instead she walked down the middle of the street she had roller skated down as a child, she crossed over another street she rode her bike on as a teenager and right there in front of Nixie’s where she got her first traffic ticket she put her bags down on the faded blue bus stop bench and she told herself she was home.

And that it was time to go into Nixie’s to find a cure for what ailed her.

Nixie’s was empty of course- the soda fountain was gone, the cases that once held the penny candies was gone, the lighting fixtures where gone- everything was gone.

Nixie’s had been stripped to the bone.

But that didn’t really matter because the thing that made Nixie’s the place to go to find a cure for what ailed you was always there- if you knew where to look.

And of course Alona did.

It was down on the floor, just in front of the place where the Soda Fountain once stood, a dusty circle of tiles colored blue and green and red.

Alona looked down and tried to scoot the mess off the tiles with her foot and when that didn’t work she sighed.

She went to the back of the store, where Miss Nixie, whose father was the town’s pharmacist back in the late 30’s and early 1940’s  used to make and tonics and medicines.

When Alona walked by the radio on Mr Nixie’s desk it clicked on and buried in the static was a song about what a little Moonlight could do. Alona put her finger to her lips and said, ” shhh ” and the radio clicked off.

And then she started to open doors.

She opened one door which turned out to be a closet that held four white coats hanging from wooden hangers and the second opened up into a little washroom .

Alona  found a bucket under the sink and then she turned on the faucets and grimaced as the bucket started to fill with thick rusty water. When the smell from what was coming from the tap hit her nose and started to make her eyes water she turned her head and looked out the door back into Mr Nixie’s workroom

 Through the door on those very shelves is where Miss Nixie was supposed to have collected the powders and liquids that she mixed into the Soda Water behind the fountain.

That was the soda water she spent all day Friday and into Friday evening mixing into the drinks of everyone who stopped by before and after the movies and she used it to mix into even more drinks for everyone who was either on their way to or coming home from the Friday Dance at the Palace By The Sea Dance Hall on the Pier.

By midnight, over 200 people were dead and Miss Nixie was nowhere to be found.

But what Miss Nixie started that night in her Soda Fountain didn’t stop with the deaths that night- for some reason people took it into their heads to try to finish off the people who drank from the fountain and didn’t die.

For instance- people like Alona’s Grandparents.

Though right now that was water under the bridge as far as Alona was concerned and with that she turned the bucket upside down and the water hit the floor.

Only it didn’t pool or spread the way it should have.

Instead it ran around the tiles and then then it was gone.

” More. ” something whispered from under Alona’s feet.

Alona kneeled down and smoothed the still dusty floor with her hands. ” No.”

” Give you anything….”

Alona kneeled and brought her face to the floor and her lips touched the mold and rot and she said, ” You’re going to anyway Miss Nixie.”

Alona looked up and in a dark corner was a spinner rack with rusted claws that held a neat row of postcards.

They weren’t dusty and moldy like everything else in Nixie’s.

They were brand new.

Each was a light green card with simple block letters that read:

Admit One For Free

To See

The Newest Addition To

The Clawson Museum of Anatomy

For One Thin Dime Extra

see

our amazing collection of

Curiosities and Monstrosities

Pathological Cases

collected from far and wide.

One Night Only

Alona took the card back to the tiles she let it drop to the floor.

” You didn’t.”

 The dust rolled away from the tiles at Alona’s feet and the rough outline of a woman’s face was looking up at her.

” I did. “

” I’m going to find Kanden, Miss Nixie…”

” I don’t doubt that Alona Darelyn.” Miss Nixie chuckled

” And then I’m coming back here.”

” Of course you are.” Miss Nixie’s laugh bounced off the walls and shook the floor.

” And of course you know that when I do the moon will be full…and by morning, Miss Nixie, I will be too.”

The dust and mold reached up from the floor towards Alona’s throat and then it fell back down again and covered the tiles on the floor.

” It’s a date then.” Alona said.

Alona reached down and picked the card up from the floor and then she folded it and put it in her back pocket.

When she left Nixie’s Fountain the radio in the backroom switched back on and the Spinner rack in the dark corner turned slowly for a few minutes.

And then it stopped.

a strange history of Rainbow Beach

Pt 4

from the

Soul Food Cafe Project

Enchanteur Tour

On the night Alona Darelyn walked into Rainbow Beach the sign at the Starlight Drive Inn just outside of town started to glow.

One might think that the sunlight hit the sign just right and gave the illusion that the bulbs had flashed on and then off and then back on again- and one could say that  it could have just been the lengthening shadows that looked like cars and people moving around the parking lot and concession stand and if you really put some effort into the thought you could tell yourself that the hissing an crackling sounds you were hearing weren’t coming from the rusty speakers on rusted metal poles…

of which there were still a few left in the Drive Inn’s weed filled lot.

But the truth is every night after Sunset the lights go on at the Starlight and you really can smell the faintest hint of popcorn and pizza. You can  hear phantom tires drive over phantom pavement. Towards the back of the Drive Inn if you stand  where the bigger cars and trucks and vans used to park you will see a wood paneled station wagon with a seven year old boy sitting in the back seat by himself pulls up along side another wood paneled station wagon with an eight year old girl in the backseat.

The little girl  has black hair and black eyes and when she sees the little boy in the next car she waves and throws herself over the front seat and starts pointing to the screen and more specifically to the swing sets and Monkey bars under it.

The little boy sees the Mother shake her head and the little girl oozes back down onto the the back seat and disappears from sight.

A few minutes later he sees her feet- clad in giant pink rabbit slippers start to dance upside down in the window.

“ That girl  lives next door to us. ” the little boy who was Kanden says to his Mother.

” You actually met someone today? After two months of living here you actually left the house and  talked to somebody? “

” No.” Kanden says ” I heard her Mom yell her name when she fell off the roof…”

” What?” his parents shouted.

” The roof, I saw her. She climbed out her window and I think she was trying to get to the room next to her’s but she fell.”

Kanden’s parents turned around and looked at the upside down rabbits dancing in the window and then back at Kanden.

Kanden took a breath because Kanden only ever said about two dozen words a week and the thing is- he wasn’t used to talking. ” It was okay though. She landed in the Rosemary Bushes.”

” Uh- huh” his parents said together.

Anyway…when her Mom came outside I heard her yell, ” Alona Darelyn for the love of God how many times have I told you to use the stairs like a normal person.

So I guess that’s her name.”

Kanden looked over to the car and the rabbits, free of the little girl’s feet, were having their fuzzy faces mashed into the passenger window.

Kanden forced himself to look up into the front seat because he had to get something taken care of right now…something very important.

Something that had to be resolved before the show started.

Kanden asked his Father. ” There aren’t any Oompa- Loompas in this movie, is there?

” No. There are no Oompa Loompas.” Kanden’s Mother told him.

” Ar you sure?” he asked.

” Positive.”

” Because I hate Oompa Loompas.”

” We know.” they said together.

” I still have nightmares about them.” the little boy said ruefully.

His parents didn’t answer.

” So is this isn’t a scary movie, right?”

” It’s about a boy and horse.” Kanden’s Mother said quietly.

” It’s Oompa Loompa free Kanden. Do you want any popcorn?” his father asked and before Kanden could answer he was out of the car and walking towards the concession stand with his hands jammed into his pockets and his head down.

Kanden slid down into his seat and his mother asked if he wanted to take his seat belt off now and Kanden shook his head. “The car might roll” he whispered and his mother started to rub her eyes and then she leaned her head against the window and sighed.

Kanden’s father came back and he didn’t even look at him as he handed Kanden his popcorn and Kanden- who didn’t like popcorn but guessed he’d better stop talking for awhile kept his mouth closed.

The movie was about a boy and a horse and Kanden, who liked horses but didn’t like sitting in the dark looked over into the next car and the little girl was looking right at him.

She held one of her rabbit slippers up and pointed at it.

And then she pointed at the back of her father’s head.

Kanden thew his hands against his window and whispered, ” No!”

” It’s not that bad Kanden, look at him that boy fell off his horse and he’s getting back on- did you see that? ” his mother asked.

The little girl nodded and she was laughing.

” Don’t do it.” Kanden said a little more loudly.

” If he doesn’t get back on Kanden- he’ll be afraid to ride for the rest of his life.”

Kanden looked into the front seat and then he said, ” sorry.”

His parent’s looked at each other and Kanden didn’t need light to know that his parents may have been looking at each other but that they were really looking at him.

The little girl waved again and this time she pointed to her eyes.

She rolled them up into her head and then she peeled her lids up.

” Yuck.” Kanden said, but he kept watching and when she pulled her lids down and looked at him again…her eyes almost looked orange.

” Oh Wow.”

” I’ll say Son. ” his Dad agreed, that was pretty brave of that boy wasn’t it?”

” Sure.”

The little girl pointed to her teeth and then she covered her mouth with her small brown hand and when she took it away..her teeth were much brighter and pointier then they had been before.

” Oh boy.” Kanden yodeled.

Kanden’s Dad turned around and he was actually smiling at him.

” You know son, if you like horses this much we can see about riding lessons- I mean, you won’t get on a bike with training wheels- hell son if you like horses this much- damn son- I’m impressed.”

Alona pointed to her ears and Kanden could see that they were pointed at the top now and almost reached to the top of her head.

” I am too! “

Kanden’s parents were talking about the stables just outside of Rainbow Beach and Kanden’s Mom was sure they gave lessons there and then from the Little Girl’s car they could hear her Mother yell, ” Damn it Alona stop showing off and watch the movie or we’re leaving right now!”

They heard a little girl yell back ” Alright! ” and when Kanden looked back over to the car he saw not one but three sets of dark orange eyes glowing in the dark.

And they were looking straight at him.

Then Kanden did something he had never really done before.

He smiled.

There’s one thing I just can’t admit to people I know- I actually like some of Woody Allen’s films. I don’t know why, because I shouldn’t like them. 

My brain isn’t wired to like movies with brittle shrill characters who couldn’t find their own back sides if you gave them a map, a book called “Backside finding for Dummies” and a Backside Finding Search and Rescue team to help them out.

 I like movies with Pirates and Ghosts and Demonic kids that stuff babies into wine caskets and Mad Scientists that drip honey on people while they sleep and then turn bugs loose to devour the victim alive.

That’s me, that’s what I’m all about, and though I won’t cop to liking “Hannah and Her Sisters” I will say without a moments hesitation and lots of enthusiasm that one of my favorite movies of all time is Donovan’s Brain.

I like it for the ending.

At the ending of the movie the brain escapes from it’s tank and flies around the lab, chasing the mad scientist and his friends. The best part is Donovan’s spinal cord is still attached to the brain and the spinal cord is whipping around the place just like the creature in ” Alien ” would end up doing with it’s tail over 20 years later.

All kidding aside, I liked Donovan’s Brain because somebody had a story and they told it and exactly the way they wanted to tell it. They didn’t pretend it was anything other then a story about a killer brain that could fly.

That’s real story telling and that kind of story telling takes guts.

I keep that in mind when I write my own stories. 

Donovan’s Brain-  food for thought.

Here’s a neat toy I enjoyed as a child and if you come to my blog on a regular basis I’m guessing you did too! 

PS thanks to Imogen for sending this clip to me

a strange history of Rainbow Beach

Pt 3

from the

Soul Food Cafe Project

Enchanteur Tour

Years ago out on Kilgoar Road- the only road that leads to Rainbow Beach- the story about the tragedy and the strange history of Kilgoar Cemetery is woven into the bark of a tree.

That’s the tree where Gaddelin and Watson found the sign announcing that the “Borden’s Circus Of The Curious” would be coming to town for a special engagement.

The boys, who were 12 and 14 at the time, were amazed that anyone let alone an entire Circus would come to a little nowhere town like Rainbow Beach.

Amazed but not surprised because odd things were always happening at The Bow.

For instance odd things like those signs- they were all handwritten and they started turning up in strange places all over town.

They were turning up inside of library books, underneath canned goods at Brody’s Grocery Store, inside of linen closets and floating down  the old logging roads people stopped using in favor of the new highways that had gone in a couple of years before- that would have been back in 1926.

Watson had collected dozens of them and when he had a nice little stack he took them to school and started to put them in desks and he folded them up and put them inside of jackets and in the the Teacher’s desk

” What are you doing? ” Gaddelin asked- he had walked into the coat room and thought he saw Watson taking something out of Wendy O’Hara’s coat pocket.

Then Gaddelin saw the folded square of paper sticking out of Wendy’s coat pocket and he went over and pushed it in.

He asked his brother again, ” what are you doing Watson? “

And Watson shrugged and said, ” I don’t know. “

Curious, Gaddelin thought and then he let the thought go.

For a little while.

The Circus finally came to town.

Both Gaddelin and Watson felt a little foolish that they were part of the “Circus Flier Scheme” because the ” Borden Circus of  The Curious ” was like all of the other Circuses that made their way around and through those small logging towns in the Cascades.

There were rides, and lions and bears. There was a carousel and a Ferris wheel and a tents that you had pay extra to get into.

The Sideshow was exceptional both boys decided because you didn’t have to pay extra to see it.  The Conjoined Twins were walking around eating popcorn and playing ring toss like regular paying customers, there was a man who was over 7 feet tall that took in the Magic Act headlined by a woman called ” The Amazing Benandanti”  with about 40 residents from various towns in the County. Plus the Circus’  Little People were waiting in lines for the rides with everyone else.

Finally Gaddelin asked the woman who told Fortunes ( she was waiting in line for the Carousel ) ” Ma’am, what’s so Curious about this Circus ?”

The Fortune Teller held her hand out and said, ” My name is Saterlee Chapel.”

Watson reached out to take Saterlee’s hand and instead of shaking it Saterlee turned it over and glanced at it and smiled.

” I can see into the future…can’t see into the past.” Saterlee looked up and shook her head ” That has kept me back from being an honest to goodness headliner.”

” Uh-Huh” both boys said.

” Well, when we were down in Seattle I was working with my crystal ball when suddenly I see a burning wheel and a hundred hearses driving into an empty cemetery.

Now, what do you suppose that means? “

Both boys shrugged and Saterlee Chapel Shrugged too and when the Carousel came to a stop she said, ” Curious isn’t it? “

And both boys agreed.

They watched Saterlee choose a place for herself on the Carousel and when the music started they both turned and walked away and as they did they both decided while they were here they might as well have some fun.

Watson Kilgoar reached into his pocket for some money and instead of pulling out a handful of change he pulled out a handful of  little squares of tightly folded paper

Watson showed them to his brother.

In his hand were the fliers.

Gaddelin  Kilgoar  reached into his pocket and pulled out a little box of matches.

Then they stood by the Ferris Wheel for a very long time and watched it turn far into the evening.

Finally they got on.

You could see the flames for miles.

this is from my journal…if anything it’ll give you some insight to the ‘map’ I follow when I write my stories here at the Bridge.

amm

When I was a kid, I lived on a neat street.

The kids were neat and the parents were neat and all the kids were in Scout Troops or took swimming lessons at the pool.

They all went on camping trips and had barbeques during the summer and during the winter they all went skiing.

Except for me, of course.

When we first moved to this neat street my parents used to try and force me to play with the neighbor kids and I wouldn’t- I said they were Zombies and that I was pretty sure they’d eaten the last kid who lived in our house.

I remember the way my Dad looked at me the first time I said that. He just shook his head and I’m not sure but I think it was weeks before he said another word to me.

I was nine at the time- so I could be off on that by a bit. 

The problem was I wasn’t a neat kid, I was that weird little kid that didn’t have any friends and never got invited to parties and I got kicked out of Blue Birds because I forgot to bring the treats when it was my turn to do treat day.

Actually the Blue Bird Leader’s daughter kicked me out- I didn’t care because they never got treats that day-, which still makes me laugh when I think about it.

I may have been a weird kid, but I wasn’t a dumb kid and I made it a point to never be with any of these kids alone- or with their parents who smiled too much.

In fact, I used to have nightmares about those kids and their parents and in my dreams they were running me down with their station wagons.I still have those dreams.

Over the years I ran into some of these kids- I drove one to their final resting place in a hearse, a friend of mine arrested one for molesting his children and another is in prison for killing her stepson.

After I kept hearing these stories I decided to take a drive down that Neat Street.

I saw the Neat Parents- they were puttering around their lawns or checking their mail or talking to their neighbors (just like the old days, it’s true some things never change) and I was horrified at how they all looked so worn out and old and tired and I realized those weren’t the Neat Parents-

I was looking at the Neat Kids. 

I slammed my brakes on and pulled visor down and looked in my vanity mirror and checked my face. I don’t know what I was looking for, but it was awhile before I felt calm enough to drive away.

From the backseat I could hear that nine year old Anita who used to be say,

“ Told you, they’re Zombies. Now let’s go home.”

And that’s exactly what I did.

This is from a writing project I’m doing at

The Soul Food Cafe

enjoy!

PT 2