In every town there are many roads that lead

to places like

schools and churches and homes and stores.

In every town those many roads

can twist and curve and end just as suddenly as they began

with names and numbers to mark their place on maps in books and printed within hastily folded booklets lost under car-seats and in stuffed into backpacks and glove compartments and desk drawers.

And if you are curious

and would really like to know

you could

ask someone like me how many roads lead

to haunted houses

and neglected cemeteries

and corners where someone looked up into a strange face and wondered if they were going home for the last time

and someone like me

will tell you

with the sunset falling in their eyes

that

there is only one road

that goes to these places

Only One.

When I was a kid I was fasinated by stories about Head Hunters.

My favorite was one about an Island where the trees were so thick that the sunlight never reached the ground and the people that lived there were so firece that Soldiers and Pirates to this day leave the Island off their maps and if they sail by it for any reason they make sure everyone is awake when they do.

Now in this particular story I learned the important part in taking your head was the Hunt- it was very important that you never see the Hunter coming, that you never see your body falling away from you, it was important you never realize you were dead.

After a month of prepartions ( you never do realize you’re dead ) the Head Hunter would  take your shrunken head and hang it from a tree that is grown especially for this sort of thing.

For a little while if anyone walked under your freshly shrunken head they would be abe able to see hear your nightmare or dream people walking around under the trees lost and calling for their dreamer so they could go home again.

Eventually the person who took your head could wake you up and your dream people when they wanted to- it was like turning a radio off and on.

The Head Hunter, when he or she got bored with you, could use your dreams to find other heads and it was bad news for you if one of those Head Hunters found you because it was only a matter of time before you ended up on that Island under those trees where the sun never reached the ground.

Like I said, it’s just a story that I learned when I was about six years old from my Grandfather.

” What did the Head Hunters want from those heads? ” I asked once.

” They wanted what was inside of them. ” he said.

” Their brains? ” I asked.

” No, what was inside their brains…their stories. “

I considered this and then asked, ” so if you have lots of stories? ” I asked with my hand up near my neck.

My Grandfather looked very serious and said, “ the Head Hunters have lots of stories too- if you are brave enough to go and take them. “

In case you’re curious

I am

anita marie moscoso

This is Sylvester.

Guess what we talk about.

Okay.

I’ll tell you.

I’ve been visiting Sylvester at Ye Olde Curiousity Shop in Seattle on Alaska Way  since I was about five years old ( I’m almost 44 now ).

Sylvester knows all about me:

When I decided to become a magician at age 8, I told Sylvester. When I started to write a year later I told him about that too, when I got my license to drive guess who I visited first…

and when I become a Mortician guess who heard all about it.

Now asI write my short stories, as I work on my book it has not gone unnoticed that I visit Sylvester a lot more then I ever have before.

And we still talk.

I do it because I still think he listens.

I know I do.

a.m.

Sylvester at the Shop HERE

Science and Sylvester HERE

Visit Ye Olde Curiosity Shop HERE

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop Ghost Tours HERE

In a glass case, on a shelf in a jar, is all that remains

of a woman named

Tansy Arvensis.

How is it that Tansy

- you might ask-

who once performed as

a Fire Breather, a Sword Swallower and Trapeze Artist for a Traveling Circus ended up in a jar on a shelf in a museum?

- In addition -

you might wonder

how is it that all that is left of Tansy is a head in jar with a single horn sprouting from the side of her head?

And you may question

why is it that Tansy’s eyes are sometimes closed and sometimes opened and sometimes her mouth is twisted in rage and her neat white teeth and her dark red lips are pushed up against the glass and at other times she is facing the wall?

How would someone like me

-you might wonder-

an unremarkable woman, living an unremarkable life in an unremarkable town called Mountlake Terrace ever have known a person like Tansy?

and

how is it that this unremarkable woman came to know what happened to Tansy

on that night Tansy lost her head?

What a silly question.

You should really be asking why is it that an unremarkable woman living an unremarkable life in an unremarkable town

isn’t the one

whose head is in a jar. 

If you were to go

through these Halls

alone

and if you could walk under these empty eyes

as they watched your every move

all by yourself

Somewhere in this place

Where death stands in every corner

and waits along the walls

you would find Rosalia Lombardo

who has been here since

1920

and it will occur to you

as you looked down into her glass topped coffin,

that it is still 1920 for Rosalia

and

She will always be two years old in this place….

 forever.

Note below from Famous Embalmings

Rosalia Lombardo, who died at age two on 6 December 1920 and was one of the last corpses to make it to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo, Sicily before the local authorities banned the practice. Nicknamed the ‘Sleeping Beauty’, Rosalia’s body is still perfectly intact. Embalmed by a certain Alfredo Salafia.

More on the

Capuchin catacombs of Palermo

below

:::  KING’S CAPUCHINS’ CATACOMBS OF PALERMO ITALY:::

One afternoon I didn’t have anything to do so I went to this cemetery and watched a grave digger dig a grave on top of a hill.

This brand of grave digging wasn’t being done horror movie style. This was a guy on a backhoe listening to a Walkman as he worked.

When he was done there was a hole in the ground waiting for somebody who was having a hell of a bad day to be lowered into it.

After he left I watched the tent go up and I saw the chairs being arranged and then the flowers were brought out from a van and these Funeral Directors fussed over each vase and when they were done it did look pretty amazing.

I mean, it takes skill to beautify a hole in the ground.

When the service began there was a little breeze and by the end of the service the wind was howling and the tent was lifted up a few times but it didn’t blow away.

Then after the family left the business of lowering the coffin into the ground was done and the grave was filled in and the grave flowers were carefully placed around the spot where the headstone would go.

When it was finished and just as the gates of the cemetery were shut the cemetery workers- including a couple of the funeral directors came up to the little hill and they started to take the tent down.

They took the canvas and laid it flat on the ground and stood along the edges.

Someone separated from the group and cruised around the top of the hill. I saw that person check the driveway up to the grave site and when they got back I heard someone say ” let’s do it. “

They lifted the canvas up with a snap and at the next big blast of wind they tossed the canvas up and it lifted them a few inches off the ground.

They laughed and did it a few more times and at one point there was a discussion about a higher place in the cemetery where they could get airborne but that was voted down because it was getting dark.

To this day I remember that storm and those people because in this place of somber ritual, a ritual designed to separate us from an unbearable reality so that we can move forward…somewhere in all of that death and decay

the Human Remains.

One night

in my neighbor’s front yard

I saw a man digging  a hole just up off of the sidewalk

by the orange glow of a streetlight

which kept flashing off and on with a buzz and a hum and a click.

I asked the man if he was burying something.

Buzz. Hum. Click.

Maybe it was one of Mrs Figueroa’s many black cats which were always running around in the street in the middle of the night.

Was it one of her cats I asked.

Buzz. Hum. Click.

They were all fine he told me.

Maybe he was helping to move around one of Mrs Figueroa’s many rose bushes that dotted her fence line. Maybe Mrs. Figueroa wanted one of her white rose bushes right under her living room window where she could see it when she opened her curtains in the morning.

Is that what he was doing, moving flowers around? I asked.

Buzz. Hum. Click.

No.

So- come one- what gives I ask, what are you burying here in the dark under a streetlight that won’t stay on.

I’m not burying anything he told me.

Buzz. Hum. Click

I’m digging something up.

Click.

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! “

Under the caption it was noted that Little Hope Cemetery

is not located next to a Church.

I’m sure there’s a reason for it.

One that would make a good story

for late night reading.

a.m.

I found this Picture at the following site:::

Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky

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.

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

By JEANNETTE J. LEE, Associated Press Writer

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…

Hang Man’s tree

Last updated: 31 December 2007

 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.

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